113 Ga. 791 | Ga. | 1901
A paper purporting to be the last will and testament of Mattie Adams, deceased, was offered for probate by T. H.
A case peculiarly in point is that of Wise v. Winn, 59 Miss. 590. One Charles Wise, who had lived in Mississippi for forty years and whose antecedents were entirely unknown, died intestate. His supposed heirs at law proved that they were the children of one Thomas Wise, of a named town in Amelia county, Ya.; that their father had a younger brother Charles, who left that State forty years previously, and that nothing had been heard of him since. They then sought to introduce the testimony of two witnesses to the effect that Charles Wise, whose estate was in question, had told them that he had a brother Thomas, who lived in the town above mentioned, and that he himself had lived there. The court held that these declarations were admissible. Judge Chalmers, who delivered the opinion in that case, discusses the question so clearly and so forcibly that we can not attempt to better express our views in regard thereto than by quoting and adopting as our own the following admirable presentation by him of the law on the subject: “The general rule undoubtedly is, that before hearsay declarations in matters of pedigree can be introduced in evidence, some proof dehors the declarations must be made that the declarant was in fact a member of the family about which he was speaking. It was unanimously so ruled by all the judges in the Banbury Peerage Case, 2 Selwyn N. P. 764, where the petitioner sought to introduce in evidence the statements and depositions contained in a chaneery litigation conducted more than one hundred and fifty years before, in which an ancestor of the petitioner styled himself, and was styled by those who professed to belong to the family, the legitimate son of A. B. It was held that such statements were not admissible, though upon a question of pedigree, until it could be shown by proof aliunde that those making these statements actually were members of the family as to which the claim was preferred. The same doctrine is announced in Monkton v. Attorney General, 2 Russ. &
Judgment affirmed.