A petition to determine heirship or beneficiary status and entitlement to distribution of a portion of a probate estate under Prob. Code 11700 is an entirely elective procedure. A right to distribution is otherwise settled by the probate court’s final order approving distribution of the estate. Moreover, in a proceeding on a petition under section 11700, the court determines only the rights of those claiming directly from the estate, not rights of those to whom heirs or beneficiaries of the estate have transferred their interest. Thus, the probate court’s decree finding two brothers to be the sole heirs of an estate did not preclude one of the brothers from thereafter claiming the entire estate for himself under an assignment of his brother’s interest–an assignment the brother executed in the mistaken belief that the heir hunter organization that alerted the brothers to the unclaimed estate was a scam.