Extracted From:
  A LAW DICTIONARY ..., SIXTH EDITION, 1856
  by John Bouvier, CHILDS & PETERSON, PHILADELPHIA

INTESTACY. The state or condition of dying without a will. 

INTESTABLE. One who cannot lawfully make a testament.
  2. An infant, an insane person, or one civilly dead, cannot make a will, for
want of capacity or understanding; a married woman cannot make such a will
without some special authority, because she is under the power of her husband.
They are all intestable. 

INTESTATE. One who, having lawful power to make a will, has made none, or one
which is defective in form. In that case, he is said to die intestate, and his
estate descends to his heir at law. See Testate. 
  2. This term comes from the Latin intestatus. Formerly, it was used in France
indiscriminately with de confess; that is, without confession. It was regarded
as a crime, on account of the omission of the deceased person to give something
to the church, and was punished by privation of burial in consecrated ground.
This omission, according to Fournel, Hist. des Avocats, vol. 1, p. 116, could be
repaired by making an ampliative testament in the name of the deceased. See
Vely, tom. 6, page 145; Henrion De Pansey, Authorite Judiciare, 129 and note.
Also, 3 Mod. Rep. 59, 60, for the Law of Intestacy in England.

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