Famous sayings by the elderly through the ages: “Life was simpler in the past;” “In the good old days …” “If it was good enough for us, it's good enough for you.”

The rules of inheritance were also simpler in the past. A man and a woman had a child, the child was their heir, and was entitled to inherit from each of them. If a woman became pregnant and the father-to-be died, the fetus, born live, was the father-to-be's heir, and was entitled to inherit from him.

Life has become more complicated in recent years as advances have been made with respect to artificial insemination, and storing eggs and sperm for future use. In earlier years, you knew when a man's sperm caused conception with an egg of a live female, in that female. Now that is not always the case. Eggs can be fertilized by a sperm years after the eggs and the sperm were stored by those men and women. This certainly complicates estate planning and administration.