If there is a single, uncontested will, and there is only one beneficiary, such as a sole surviving spouse or child, why should an estate have to go through the probate process? What benefits, if any, does that process provide and to who? If you were a probate judge, how would you decide what a decedent meant in hard-to-interpret cases? For example, where the testator had one brother named David and one close cousin named Frank, what would you do when the testator leaves his collection of rare automobiles in his will to his "beloved brother Frank"?