Historical Documents

Explore historical estate planning documents and learn how past practices shaped modern trust and will creation. Discover the evolution of family wealth prot...

How have estate planning documents changed over the past 100 years?

Estate planning documents have evolved dramatically from simple handwritten wills to comprehensive digital trust packages. Modern documents include detailed tax planning provisions that didn't exist before the federal estate tax, standardized execution requirements across states, and digital asset provisions for online accounts. Today's trusts also include more sophisticated privacy protections and can be updated more easily than historical documents that required complete rewrites.