It is also not unusual for a Will to have "pour-over" provisions, distributing the rest and residue (net estate remaining after payment of claims and expenses) to a trust that may have been created during the testator's lifetime.  

Also possible that the Will itself establishes the Family Trust - and nothing unusual about that either.

There are good reasons to leave money in trust, some of them are tax considerations, some have to do with the age, maturity and other family circumstances that make leaving funds outright an invitation to disaster.

Wills and estate proceedings are generally a matter of public record; trusts, not usually.

You can disinherit any family member except a spouse, who generally has the right to claim his or her statutory share of the estate - the share that would have come to the spouse had there been no Will.

Of course, other family members, who feel they have been wronged, can file a caveat against the Will, seeking to have it thrown out - but that can be exceedingly difficult to succeed at, especially if there are prior Wills - because knocking out the current Will just moves the prior Will into its place - successfully getting all prior Wills thrown out is not just difficult, it is very expensive.  The person seeking to have a Will thrown out must pay the cost of that action - but the cost of defending the Will is borne by the estate, so it is not unusual for an estate to be drained by these caveats, with no one ending up with much of anything.  I was involved in one of those about 10 years ago, and it was not just ugly, completely tearing apart a family, but when it was all over, there was almost nothing left.

Liz was dissed I tell ya! Dissed!

All right, you folks are not where I am on the humor of this.