Michel Estate

Shoyer, J.,

Ever since the decision of Burr v. Sim, 4 Wharton 149, in 1839, it has *771been the rule in Pennsylvania that an unexplained absence of seven years will establish, not only the fact, but also the time of death. In the words of Chief Justice Gibson, writing for our Supreme Court, page 170:

“But the presumption of death, as a limitation of the presumption of life, must be taken to run exclusively from the termination of the prescribed period; so that the person must be taken to have then been dead and not before. . . . Thus the presumption of life continues till it is displaced by a more…