Family heirlooms

Much more difficult will be furniture and silver, Limoge plates, baccarat crystal, etc. What on earth will they do with them? The Louis 15th suite my grandmother embroidered in silk and wool with 17C figures? Unless they keep this house as a holiday home- it will just have to go. One of those days, we will just have to have this conversation - or just leave them to it!

I have decided that my jewellery - and there isn't a lot - will go to my daughter, with one piece to my d-i-l that I know will suit her but DD wouldn't wear anyway. DH has very little to leave to our son except his medals, a very good wristwatch and a pair of special gold cuff links that I had made for him on our 40th anniversary. The thing is that I would like my son, in his turn, to pass the cufflinks on to our only grandson - DDs child. DS has no children of his own but he has two stepsons. I would like the links to stay in the family, but is it fair, or reasonable, to ask my son to do this? Once they are his, I suppose he should be able to do what he likes with them.

I have a pendant that came from my great aunt. I never met her as she died the year I was born. It was presented to her for best attendance at school. It is silver with a gold shield, and her initials are engraved on it. She had the same initials as me. (I was named after her). I only have one DD and one DGD so anything of value including the pendant will go to them.

Why worry about what will happen to your belongings after you are gone, you will not be around to know about it?

Unless there is a very good reason to spell everything out - and I do realise that, sadly, that in some families, parent and child or sibling problems make it necessary to say who gets what - just leave it to your descendants to sort it out for themselves.

I suspect mine will get rid of a lot of things I hold dear and cling like leaches to items that I hold of no account but they treasure.

We worry because some things are only ours in trust from our parents and grandparents. I have my mother-in-law's mother's wedding china and the silver teapot set she was given when she left teaching to marry, and the Dunfermline-woven linen she received in wedding presents. I am the family genealogist and I have all the old photographs and memorabilia, and the stories that belong to each one. I don't want all of that to go to a charity shop and be dispersed.

or worse, in a skip. Some of the books I have for instance, are very rare and precious, and it would be tragic if they were destroyed or burnt.

I love my DS and DD dearly but I am not blinkered to the fact that they won't want most of our stuff, jewellery or not. I have some jewellery from my mother and some bits of my own which are in their little cases and I have added notes to say who should have what. For instance, my wedding and engagement rings from my ex I want to go to my DiL but my mother's rings are for my DD - she has already had my grandmother's engagement ring. When my mother died we found she had got rid of all her memorabilia except for a thin file of photos and such-like labelled 'memories'. It was sad but we appreciated her thoughtfulness. I'm going to do the same for my children and chuck out the junk rather than leave them to deal with it. I still have my very first pair of nylon stockings, for goodness sake. I doubt the kids would thank me for them!

granjura - I'm glad I don't have valuables like yours to worry about! Why not donate the valuable books to a university library or your own local library?

I am the same NotTooOld absolutely nothing of value in either of our families, I don't think any of my family got engaged before me,they just got married and although I have a nice engagement ring I have very little jewellery apart from that. As for heirlooms.....

NotTooOld- yes of course- I need to sort things out and make sure all antique valuable books are put in a special space and discuss with daughters. As they live in UK, we never find the time when they are here and we do so many things, visits, grandkids, etc.

That is the point I am making, many of us have items in our houses that are of deep sentimental value to us and attached to family stories, but stories are best put down in written form and whatever our children may promise us in life, they can do what they like with it after we are gone and we will know nothing about it.

However much we may want to we cannot make our descendents keep things that are precious to us that they have no use for, nowhere to put and will be, as far as they are concerned, millstones around their necks if any attempt is made through wills and the like to force them to keep them.

If you have items of value that that your children may not realise are such, tell them and advise them to get specialist dealers in to value them and recommend how they should be disposed of.

I am fortunate, most of the family have an interest in antiques, well, old stuff anyway, and trade regularly on ebay, so I am pretty sure that DD will make sure that all we possess is kept, sold, where possible; freegled or sent to a charity shop and very little will be tipped.

Anyway, whatever is done with our posessions we have little or no control over what happens once we are dead, and won't know anyway, so why worry?

DD2 has an app that she uses in conjunction with her house and conternts insurance. She can add photographs and descriptions of things. She has been on at me to use it to list the contents of my house and all the stories and references and "provenance" (as the antiques shows call it) I really must get cracking before I am too gaga to get it all down.

You can a attach a 'List of Wishes' to your will; your heirs do not have to stick to it but it could be a guidance.

Reminder to self: must type a 'List of Wishes'

I went around the house with my laptop, room by room and listed what was in it and took photographs of the room to cover everything in it and individual photos of some items.

I did it slowly over a couple of months. Once I had the base database adding and subtracting is very easy and if I see items for sale similar to mine I note the price and when and where.

Yes, we have a list of wishes ( it's not legally binding) with our wills, but I think most people would honour our wishes.Not going to worry about it though,items will either be wanted or sold or somehow got rid of, but it hardly matters in the great scheme of things.