The Newtown bee., 1905-05-19

filed any solvent list of claims. This
must be filed in every solvent estate in
order to protect the person administer
ing the estate, the heirs and purchasers
from subsequent claims.
There has been no aScertainment of
heirs by the Court except in isolated
cases although it is required by statute
and it's absence leaves an estate wholly
unsettled.
The same may be said of the order
of distribution in an estate, an order
which is conspicuous by it's absence in
these records.
Again it is exceptional to find any
sworn return by an administrator or
Courts order to sell the personality.
In a recent volume, mo. 25,) having
printed blanks for the recording of
bonds, the form in the book does not
correspond with the form usually
signed by the parties, and it is seldom
that the form in the book has been
corrected so as to make a true record.
y Your committee questions whether
the judges signature is necessary on
both the order book order of notice
and on a separate document in the
files. We have frequently found such
signature in the book where it was
Alo01uS AAOAA OuC uACo3 ouu I'D tc pdcocu
1T as q mere informality where the
book did not purport to be a record of
an existing document.
Aside from these "routine errors"
all of which are exceedingly serious,
save possibly the last, we may roughly
tabulate the other errors as follows:
THIRTY-THREE MISSING DOCUMENTS.
This inclNdes cases where a document
is recorded but the original is not
found in the files, or where q docu-
ment is filed as new matter when it be-
longs to an old estate and is complete
ly separated from the other documents
in that estate.
ANALOGOUS TO THIS ARE SEVEN CON-
FUsIONs,
Where documents belonging to two
separate estates of similar names are
so mixed together in the files that one
or the other Is as completely lost to a
searcher as If the document were not
in the Office at all.
THERE ARE ONE HUNDRED AND TWO
MISSING BONDS.
In most of these cases there has
been no bond filed, in a few the dOcu-
mentS purpOrting to be bonds are so
fatally defective that they are no pro-
lection whatsoever to heirs or credi-
tors. 1t is safe to say that tens of
thousands of dollars are to-day un-ac-
counted for as appears of record, and
by reason of this negligence heirs at
law, legatees and creditors are wholly
unprotected. If each bond were but
in the nominal sum of two hundred
dollars this risk has been at least twen-
ty thousand dollars, and in many
cases there should have been large
bonds required. AS to the mere cleri-
Cal work of recording documents we
find there has been
NO RECORD MADE OF FOUR HUNDRED
AND THIRTY.
Many of those are on file and not re-
corded, in many cases an original docu-
| ment is not signed by anybody and
amounts to no more than A blank
sheet OF paper, many of the cases are
instances in which the Court is re-
quired by law to take some action, and
there is no record of any such action
ever having been taken. In addition
we find that in 81 estates there have
been no original orders whatsoever of
record. That is to say that in these
81 cases absolutely all of the routine
| orders are missing and the supposed
executor, administrator or trustee was
acting wholly without authority and
at his own peril. In addition to this
there are documents purporting to be
connected with 80 other estates where
the Court took no action.
| Here the documents have not been
so much as endorsed to show that they
have been filed and received for record,
or in few instances a few documents
have heen filed and recorded and then
all action has abruptly ceased.
| THERE ARE NO CERTIFICATES OF DEATE
IN ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINE
ESTATES
In which there was real estate, and
where the statute requires that Ger
tificate shall be filed with the towr
clerk. While this is not strictly a
duty laid upon the Court of Probate II
is customary in every such Court tt
keep blanks for these certificates and
see that they are properly filled out
and filed. The heirs Of these 139 de
ceased persons have a flaw in theil
titles which might readily prevent 6
mortgage or sale of the lands. In ad
dition to failures to record, there arr
entered on the books
s1XTY-EIGHT FALSE RECORDS.