Sometimes family and estate planning begins before the family is complete, particularly in an age where people (generally) are waiting until later to have children. In that case there could be grandchildren named in a will and others not, who are all in the same family. The reason may simply be that the children who were left out were not born when the will was made and it is too late to remake it. Fortunately, most states now have laws that are designed to remedy this situation.

Generally children are protected if they are left out, because they are considered to be overlooked as opposed to specifically disinherited. Some states protect spouses and grandchildren under the theory that they have been omitted rather than excluded. But, states have a couple different ways of handling omitted relatives. Many states assume that if the testator (the will maker) had a chance or had not forgotten to do so, that they would have included the omitted relative. This is important because the suggestion is that naming the individual would have been the testator