Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in New York

Re: What does the phrase THOSE OF mean

Their issue (children)

Re: What does the phrase THOSE OF mean

This is an archiac reference to "their issue". The term "issue" means decendants, starting with children, then grandchildren, etc. It might have been intended to mean that if either of John Doe or Mary Smith should predecease the maker of the Will, their "issue" succeed to the parents share, with their respective descendants in living order of descendancy taking the share of John and/or Mary. However, an additional interpretation, based upon how it is written, could be that each of the named persons and their living issue all participate, in equal shares, if living at the maker's death. So if John has 2 children and 3 grandchildren, and Mary has 1 child and 2 grandchildren all, the distribution will be shared over the 10 people provided for, although 8 are not named, but are represented by the words "those of", before the modifier "in equal shares". This then means you start with John and Mary, then add "those of" (usually interpreted to mean lineal descendants) to get the total number of people to get equal shares.