Judith Cates & Judith Cates 
Family and Inheritance [PDF ebook] 

Two sociologists and a lawyer examine here the attitudes of both survivors and attorney on various problems surrounding inheritance-from will-making through estate settlement. Within a legal frame of reference, this book is a study of what happens within a family at death-and why. The authors use the "inheritance unit" as the basis for looking at the functions of inheritance in intergenerational family continuity and the general patterns of family relationship.