 For more than 200 years after his death, Shakespeare's birthplace was occupied by the descendants of his recently widowed sister, Joan Hart.Under the terms of Shakespeare's will, the ownership of the whole property (the inn and Joan Hart's cottage) passed to his elder daughter, Susanna; and then on her death in 1649, to her only child, Elizabeth.Elizabeth died in 1670, bequeathing it to Thomas Hart, the descendant of Shakespeare's sister, Joan, whose family had continued as tenants of the cottage after her death in 1646.