On the night of September 2, 1666, a fire broke out in a bakehouse on Pudding Lane in the City of London. Over the next four days, the fire that became known as the Great Fire of London burned through roughly 373 acres of the city, destroying 13,200 houses, 87 churches including St. Paul’s Cathedral, and dozens of other buildings. An estimated 70,000 of London’s 80,000 inhabitants were left homeless. The population scattered — to the fields outside the city walls, to surrounding villages, to other parts of England. Many did not return. Courts that had been responsible for managing the legal affairs of those missing persons — their estates, their debts, their property — found themselves in an impossible position. How do you administer the estate of someone whose fate is unknown?

The English Parliament’s answer was the Cestui Que Vie Act of 1666. The Act created a legal presumption: any person who had been absent from England for seven years or more without the court having evidence that they were still alive would be presumed legally dead. Their estate would pass to their heirs as if they had died. If the person subsequently appeared and proved they were alive, they could reclaim their estate — but until they made that reclamation, the Crown and the courts held the estate in trust.