Definition
"Tels" does not appear to be an established legal term of art with independent doctrinal meaning. The source material retrieved under this heading is a fragment from Rapalje & Lawrence's law dictionary describing the interpretation of the word "heirs" in devises and bequests — a distinct and substantive topic — rather than a definition of "tels" as a legal concept. The entry appears to be a cataloging or retrieval error in the source index.
In ordinary English, "tels" is simply the plural of "tel," a term from archaeology and geography referring to a mound formed by the accumulated debris of ancient settlements (common in the Near East). It carries no established legal meaning in any jurisdiction surveyed by the historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus.
Common Confusion
Do not conflate this entry with the substantive legal material it inadvertently contains. The discussion of "heirs" in devises — when the word means children, when it means technical heirs-at-law, and how courts in different states resolved the ambiguity — belongs to the entry on HEIRS and its related cross-references. Researchers who encounter this fragment and assume "tels" is a legal shorthand or term of art from equity or property law will find no corroborating authority.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "TELS" as a heading in Rapalje & Lawrence should treat it with caution. The text associated with this entry in the corpus actually addresses the construction of the word "heirs" in wills and devises — specifically the distinction between "heirs" meaning lineal descendants or children versus its technical legal meaning as heir-at-law, and the further distinction between heirs claiming by devise and those claiming by contract inter vivos. This is a well-developed area of 19th-century American property law and equity, with significant variation across jurisdictions including New York, Alabama, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Tennessee, and Ohio.
If your research goal is the construction of "heirs" in testamentary instruments, the content mistakenly indexed here is substantively useful — but it should be located and cited through the correct headword (HEIRS) rather than through this entry. Do not build a research thread around "TELS" as a legal concept; no such doctrine exists.
Historical Dictionary Support
The fragment attributed to this entry in Rapalje & Lawrence is plainly a displaced portion of a longer entry on HEIRS, covering the interpretive question of when a testamentary gift "to heirs" passes to children as a class versus to the technical heir-at-law, and when it arises by devise as opposed to by contractual arrangement between living parties. These are canonical 19th-century disputes in American wills and estates law. The cited reporters — Hun (New York), Bush (Kentucky), Pickering (Massachusetts), Barbour (New York), Humphreys (Tennessee), and the English Law Journal and Term Reports — are consistent with the period and subject matter.
No historical dictionary in the Law Mind corpus defines "tels" as a term of legal art. Webster's 1913 does not assign legal significance to the word. The mismatch between the headword and the retrieved content is a corpus indexing artifact, not a reflection of an obscure legal usage.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Heirs — Construction in Wills and Devises; Estates and Future Interests.