Definition
Those persons who, by operation of law, would inherit from a decedent in the absence of a will. The term appears most often in wills, deeds, and statutes of distribution, where its precise legal meaning has been the subject of considerable judicial interpretation.
Because "natural heirs" is not a term of rigid technical art in the way that "heirs of the body" or "heirs at law" are, courts have assigned it varying meanings depending on context:
1. In statutes of distribution: Courts have sometimes construed "natural heirs" to mean legitimate heirs — those entitled to take under the applicable intestacy scheme. Under this reading, the class may extend beyond blood relatives to include adopted children, on the theory that adoption creates a legal relationship equivalent to natural kinship for purposes of inheritance.
2. In wills and executory devises: Courts have treated "natural heirs" as carrying the same legal import as "heirs of the body" — limiting the class to lineal descendants of the named person, excluding collateral relatives and persons related only by marriage or adoption.
The tension between these two interpretations is the central problem the term presents to researchers and courts alike.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Natural" in ordinary English suggests that which exists in or is derived from nature, as opposed to that which is artificial, legal, or constructed.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Natural" was used to describe children born outside of marriage ("natural children"), as well as things occurring in the ordinary course of nature, without legal or artificial intervention.
The gap between common and legal meaning is significant. A lay reader encountering "natural heirs" in a will might understand it simply as "blood relatives" or "biological family." But courts interpreting the same phrase in a legal instrument have ranged from limiting it to lineal descendants only (heirs of the body) to expanding it to include adopted children (legitimate heirs under statute). Neither reading is intuitively obvious from the ordinary sense of the word "natural."
Common Confusion
NATURAL HEIRS vs. HEIRS AT LAW: "Heirs at law" is a technical term meaning those who would take real property under the applicable intestacy statute. "Natural heirs" is not synonymous — in some jurisdictions and contexts it is narrower (lineal descendants only), in others it may be broader (including adopted children treated as legitimate heirs). Do not treat these as interchangeable.
NATURAL HEIRS vs. HEIRS OF THE BODY: "Heirs of the body" is a term of art with well-settled meaning — lineal descendants only, excluding collateral relations. Courts have sometimes read "natural heirs" as equivalent, but this equivalence is context-dependent and not automatic. The Bouvier construction (will / executory devise context) supports the equivalence; the Black's construction (statute of distributions context) does not.
NATURAL CHILDREN vs. NATURAL HEIRS: "Natural children" historically referred to illegitimate children — those born outside of marriage. "Natural heirs" does not carry that meaning. A "natural child" in the older sense was often excluded from the class of "natural heirs" under strict interpretations, while modern statutes in most jurisdictions have eliminated this distinction for purposes of intestate succession.
Why It Matters in Research
The interpretive instability of "natural heirs" is the researcher's primary challenge. The phrase appears with regularity in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century wills, deeds of gift, and trust instruments, but courts construing those instruments did not apply a uniform rule. The operative question in any given document is: did the drafter use "natural heirs" to mean all lawful intestate successors, or only lineal descendants?
Context controls. Researchers examining a will should look to whether the instrument uses the phrase in connection with an executory devise or remainder interest — the setting in which Bouvier's "heirs of the body" equivalence is most likely to apply. Researchers examining a statute or decree of distribution should apply the Black's framing, under which adopted children may qualify.
Historical sources are inconsistent on the adoption question. Nineteenth-century dictionaries and courts generally assumed "natural heirs" excluded adopted children, because adoption was either uncommon or legally limited. As adoption statutes matured in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, courts increasingly found that adopted children could qualify as "natural heirs" under distribution statutes — a shift the older dictionaries do not reflect. Any research touching instruments drafted before roughly 1920 should account for this gap.
Corpus researchers should also note that "natural heirs" sometimes appears in contrast to "legal heirs" in older instruments — a pairing that suggests the drafter meant something distinct by each, though courts have not agreed on what that distinction is.
This term connects directly to escheat doctrine: the question of whether a decedent left "natural heirs" was often determinative of whether property escheated to the state. When no qualifying natural heir could be identified, the state's claim arose.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Bouvier's agree that "natural heirs" resists a single fixed meaning and must be interpreted by reference to the legal instrument or statute in which it appears. Beyond that common ground, the two sources pull in different directions.
Black's anchors the term in the distribution context and points toward a reading expansive enough to include adopted children — legitimacy, not biology, is the operative criterion. The citation to 9 American Law Register (O.S.) 747 signals that this was a contested interpretive question being worked out in mid-nineteenth-century American legal practice.
Bouvier's anchors the term in the testamentary context and draws the equivalence to "heirs of the body" — a narrower, lineage-based reading. The Connecticut authority cited (19 Conn. 112) reflects the common-law preference, in the devise context, for reading ambiguous heir-designations as limited to blood descendants.
Neither source addresses the modern intestacy context, where most jurisdictions now treat adopted children as equivalent to biological children for all inheritance purposes. Researchers relying on either dictionary for contemporary questions should supplement with current statutory authority.
Jurisdictional Note
Modern intestacy statutes in most U.S. jurisdictions have largely dissolved the practical significance of "natural heirs" as a distinct category by placing adopted children on equal footing with biological children. However, the phrase continues to appear in older instruments still being administered, and courts in some states have preserved historical distinctions when construing pre-reform documents. Research into instruments drafted before the mid-twentieth century should check the applicable jurisdiction's adoption and inheritance statutes as they stood at the time of execution.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Escheat — When Property Passes to the State for Lack of Heirs (The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia): Directly relevant. The determination of who qualifies as a "natural heir" was historically the threshold question in escheat proceedings.