What does the maiden name of your great-grandmother have to do with wealth transfer?

Hello, my name is Ron Blue, and often when I am speaking I’ll ask the audience, “How many of you know the maiden name of one of your great-grandmothers?” Typically, I get no more than maybe 10% of an audience that knows one of the maiden names of a great-grandmother.

Now, why is that important? Well, when you think about it, I now have eleven grandchildren, soon to be twelve. They are going to have children, and I know my grandchildren pretty well. I spend a lot of time with them on family vacations and reunions. I spend time with them at the holidays. They are going to have children. The interesting thing is that those will be my great-grandchildren. When I would ask a great-grandchild of mine, “Do you know Judy Blue’s maiden name?” chances are almost none of them will know it.

That’s important because when you think about leaving wealth multi-generationally, you are going to perhaps be leaving wealth to people that don’t even know where you came from, they don’t know where you grew up, they don’t know anything about you. This is evidenced by the fact that they do not even know the maiden name of their great-grandmother.

Knowing the maiden name of your great grandmother is symbolic, it’s indicative of thinking through: where am I going to leave my wealth, and do they know where it came from?.

Click here for the July 17, 2009 Blog Entry