Definition
A term of conveyancing and succession law signifying that property is directed, transferred, or allocated to a specified person or class of persons. When used in a will, deed, or statute, "go to" operates as words of transfer or limitation, indicating the destination of property upon a triggering event — typically death, the satisfaction of a condition, or the conclusion of a prior estate.
In its most common legal usage: to say that property "shall go to" a named beneficiary means the property is to vest in, descend to, or be given over to that person. The phrase functions as shorthand for a range of more technical dispositive expressions and appears frequently in older testamentary and conveyancing instruments.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To attend an event or place; to support or tend toward a position; used imperatively to urge action or express surprise.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To move toward; to proceed; to pass or travel in a direction.
The gap here is significant for researchers reading historical legal instruments. In ordinary speech, "go to" is directional and physical. In legal instruments — particularly wills and deeds — "go to" is dispositive: it does not describe movement but rather the legal transfer or vesting of an interest. A clause reading "the residue shall go to my eldest son" creates or confirms a legal entitlement; it is not a description of where property physically travels. Misreading the phrase as merely descriptive rather than operative can cause researchers to underestimate its legal force in a document.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "go to" in historical instruments should treat it as a term of art with operative legal weight, not as casual phrasing. The phrase appears across centuries of wills, statutes of descent, and conveyancing documents, and its legal meaning has remained relatively stable — always signifying the vesting or transfer of property — even as the surrounding doctrinal landscape changed considerably.
Several research traps apply:
First, historical statutes of descent and distribution are filled with "go to" constructions. Jurisdictions varied in how they defined the class of persons to whom property would "go" absent a will, and statutory language using this phrase must be read against the applicable intestacy rules of the specific jurisdiction and period.
Second, in testamentary instruments, "go to" can be ambiguous as to whether an absolute fee or a limited interest was intended. Courts historically struggled to determine whether "go to X" created a fee simple or merely a life estate, particularly when followed by over-clauses ("and then to Y"). The phrase alone does not resolve the nature of the interest conveyed.
Third, the phrase appears in conditional bequests and executory limitations, where the precise trigger for property "going to" a beneficiary may control vesting. Researchers tracing chain of title or succession disputes should note the conditions precedent or subsequent attached to any "go to" clause.
Fourth, in equity and trust instruments, "go to" sometimes describes equitable rather than legal title, and distinguishing which is intended requires reading the full instrument and surrounding context.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's (via Anderson) defines the phrase briefly: "May mean to be given to, to descend to." This entry is characteristic of Bouvier's treatment of operative words of conveyancing — terse acknowledgment that the phrase carries legal force, with the substance left to context and surrounding doctrine.
The brevity is notable. Bouvier does not attempt a comprehensive treatment, and historical legal dictionaries generally treat "go to" as a subsidiary phrase rather than a freestanding term of art. This means researchers relying solely on dictionary definitions will underestimate how frequently the phrase appears in operative legal documents and how much interpretive work courts invested in construing it.
Anderson's gloss — "given to, descend to" — helpfully captures the dual function: the phrase appears both in voluntary conveyances (given to) and in intestate succession or statutory distribution (descend to). These are conceptually distinct operations, and researchers should note which context is operative when reading a source document.
Jurisdictional Note
Because "go to" appears most frequently in wills and intestacy statutes, its practical meaning varies by jurisdiction and period depending on local rules of construction and descent. Courts in different states applied different presumptions about whether the phrase created a fee or a lesser estate, and early American statutes diverged significantly from one another and from English common law in defining the persons to whom property would "go" by operation of law.