I don’t know what the legal position was on the Isle of Man at that time when a couple make a joint will, one of them dies, and the survivor makes a new will. That is what we seem to have here, but to make your scheme work, Averil, we would have to say the following.

Despite the lack of subsequent reference to distinct halves of Gob-ny-Scoute, in fact the two halves did not come together in the period we are looking at. The half that John L and Margaret Kelvie settled on their son Daniel in their joint lifetime stayed with him. Either his brother John released him from his obligation to pass it over on their mother’s death, or after nearly thirty years everyone had forgotten that that was what was supposed to happen. Daniel then left that half to his son John (1770), and it was that John who belatedly married Isabel Camaish.

As for the other half, which had also been intended for Daniel’s brother John, that half passed not under the earlier joint will but under the document of January 1798. That had the effect of passing the whole of Margaret Creetch als Looney als Kelvie’s estate to her youngest son, Ewan, one half immediately on 7th January, and the other half when she died, later the same year (by October, which did not leave Margaret enough time to become dissatisfied with Ewan). Then when Ewan died, in 1850, his half of GnS passed to his son George, which explains how he came to have it when Wood’s Atlas was compiled, in 1867, without having to invoke the rather dubious theory of land of inheritance.

Constance Radcliffe was misled by the joint will of John L and Margaret Kelvie into thinking that GnS passed to their son John, and that he was therefore the one that married Isabel Camaish.

We would have to say all that. Is that what you are saying?

There are three possible further pieces of evidence that could bear that out, that we have not yet seen, as follows.

Wood’s Atlas refers to George Looney’s Intack no. 96, (Gobneskeate) Maughold 96t 12 2 13 (your posting 20/8/2011, 11:25 am). Does the Atlas have any other intack nearby also called Gobneskeate, or something like it?

Does Daniel Looney’s 1826 will pass his GnS to his son John?

Did Ewan Looney leave a will around 1850 passing his GnS to his son George?

I don’t know if anyone is able to lay their hands on those documents.