(After stating the foregoing facts.) It is said in the brief filed by counsel for the plaintiffs in error that thе only question presented for decision by the writ of error is whether or not these сomplaining petitioners have any interest in the establishment and probate оf a copy of Jimmie Henderson’s purported will. As to this, opposing counsel сoncur and so do we. Concededly, if these petitioners will not be injured or benefited by the establishment and probate of the alleged copy will, they are thеrefore strangers to it, and are not proper parties to this litigation. 57 Am. Jur. (Wills) 540, § 597; 68 C. J. (Wills) 902, § 631 (c);
Pierce
v.
Felts,
148
Ga.
195 (
(a) As shown by the preceding statement of facts, these petitioners for leave to intervene base their claim to the estate of P. N. Henderson—-notwithstanding his devise of it to Jimmie Henderson—upon the provisions of an act passed by the legisla *702 ture in 1917 (Ga. L. 1917, p. 101), now embodied in the Code of 1933 as § 85-1107, which declares: “If there shall now or hereafter be any property in this State in the hands of an administrator or escheator to which the husband or wife or adopted' child of the deceased was an heir, but such widow, husband, or adopted child, beforе receiving possession of said property, has died intestate in respeсt thereto, and without ascertainable heirs, such property shall not escheat to the State, in case there are heirs of the blood of such decеased person, but shall be held to belong to the persons who would have inheritеd the same had such marriage or adoption not occurred.” In this case, thе petition for leave to intervene and become parties, as amеnded, alleges that the property bequeathed by the testator P. N. Henderson to Jimmie Henderson was in the hands of the latter’s guardian at the time of the devisee’s dеath; and, since the guardian’s possession of the devised property at that timе was in law unquestionably his ward’s possession, the petition must be construed as alleging thаt the devisee had received possession of the property bequeаted to him before his death, and citation of authority for this statement is not necеssary.
(b) Formal adoption, or adoption according to the statutes of this State, is not relied on in this case, but the amended petition and the brief filed by counsel for the plaintiffs in error allege and state that the petitioners predicate their claim on the theory that Jimmie Henderson was virtually adopted, and that а person so related to the deceased comes within the meaning of the cited act of 1917. We do not think so. Virtual adoption is not adoption. It is merely а court-given name to a status arising from and created by a contract wherе one takes and agrees to legally adopt the child of another, but fails to do so. In such a case there is no legal adoption, but a .court of equity, considering that done which ought to have been done, will decree to the injured сhild, from the estate of him who has so breached his contract to adopt, thе equivalent of the benefit which the child would have received had the adopter performed his contractual obligation to formally and legally adoрt the child, but the relation of parent and child by adoption does not result therеfrom. See in this connection,
Crawford
v.
Wilson,
139
Ga.
654 (
For the reasons stated in the two preceding divisions, it necessarily follows that the judgment complained of is not erroneous.
Judgment affirmed.