The final consequence of reorganising my PC collections was that it made me review my Will. Being over 10 years old, it was out of date; and, furthermore, I thought it important to reflect the new PC structure in the bequests relating to digital collections.
The general advice that I’ve read about writing a Will is that all bequests should be included in full detail in the document itself. It is feasible to refer out to another document but this must be in existence at the time, and must be the same version at the time the will is executed. Amendments can be made to a Will using a so-called Codicil, and this mechanism would presumably enable a new version of an exterior document to be specified. However, Codicils must be witnessed in the same way that a Will itself is witnessed, so this is not a quick and easy process. [I should make it clear at this point, that I have not taken professional advice on this, and my interpretation of any of these points could be wrong.]
When I drew up my first Will ten years ago, I realised that, while the bequests relating to items in my collections could be relatively specific, an Executor might still have trouble identifying them in my study. So, I elected to provide an Additional Document and referred to it in the following very general terms, “My Executor may be guided in the location and distribution of these items by the document “Paul’s Stuff” stored as an Excel electronic file in the “XXX” folder in my laptop.”
Having looked again at the guidance, and considered the bequests I had made previously, I decided that I would take the same approach again – mainly because the collections are not particularly valuable, and because I think such a document would be helpful to the Executor. This time, I already had the format and contents of the previous version of the Additional Document to work from; as well as the newly reorganised PC structure. So, first I revamped the Additional Document by considering all the collections in the order that they appear in my laptop files; then, from this updated spreadsheet, I derived the actual bequest statements that would go into the will itself.
My Additional Document has the following fields:
Ref No: a reference number in two parts – a main category number and sub numbers for each of the elements it contains, for example, 14.3
Type: This field provides the owner’s suggestion of how the items might be valued by those who are inheriting them, and can be any one of the following:
- Family Information: Of little value to anybody outside the family
- Family Heirloom: Keep until the family wants to realise its value or to dispose of it
- Temporary value: May have some immediate use and then has no value
- Has value: Somebody, somewhere, may want this
- No value: Can be thrown away
Description: This is either the name of the general Category of an item (for example, ‘Photos’); or a description of the item concerned (for example, ‘The family photo collection which contains photos and family videos from the 1870s to the present day’)
Location: This contains clear details of the location of BOTH the Physical objects concerned AND the digital objects concerned even if some of the digital objects simply replicate the physical objects or vice-versa.
Preferred Destination: The person (or organisation) to whom this item is being bequeathed.
Alternative destination: A suggested alternative person (or organisation) who could be given the opportunity to have the item IF the Preferred Destination person (or organisation) says they don’t want it.
Note that I parcel together both the Physical and Digital versions of a particular object; this has the practical implication that a bequest always includes both versions unless explicitly specified otherwise. I believe that without such an approach there could be complications in unravelling what happens to digital equivalents.
While the use of an Additional Document has undoubtedly helped me update my Will, there is no guarantee that it will help if my collections change. It will accommodate small changes in the contents of collections which are referred to in more general terms such as ‘stamp collection’. However, if the bequests in the Will itself become in any way inaccurate, either the Will has to be rewritten or a Codicil produced. A new version of the Additional Document will not be sufficient to officially change a bequest. However, if there is no dispute among the recipients (and I expect that to be the case for these collection items, most of which have relatively little value and which family members have expressed no interest in) such an Additional Document might be all an Executor needs to distribute the deceased’s belongings. All such considerations need to be taken into account when creating a Will’s bequest texts.
Wills are not the only circumstance in which some documentation of collection contents is required. If you want to take out insurance you may need to provide details of the items concerned; and likewise, if you need to make an insurance claim. If you are burgled, the police will require a full description of what has been taken. In both cases, the indexes I have set up will be a good start: information can be extracted from index documents, or from screenshots of folder or file names. For the latter, the information itself can be copied from folder or file names by using the Windows ‘Copy as Path’ function, and then edited in a text document or spreadsheet. The digital photos or scans of physical objects in the collection are even better descriptors. In fact, in this reorganisation of my collections, I find that it is these two things – indexes and digital versions of the objects – that have been driving the structure: in the folder for each collection, I have tried to provide an index of some sort and a sub-folder containing the digital objects. In this way, it is either clear that one or both of those things is available, or that one or both are missing; and in the latter case it begs the question ‘why not provide the missing material’. All this is helpful to the cause of having information available for insurance company or police, should you require it.