Happy birthday, Homestead Act!
Signed into law 157 years ago today He was a Union soldier home on furlough, so the story goes. And he was determined not to lose his chance under a new law due to take effect on the first of January 1863. Due to report back to his unit in St. Louis, he prevailed on...GEDmatch reverses course
Law enforcement matching now opt-in only Informed consent is the essential underpinning of ethical DNA testing and results-sharing. All persons who test have the right to make their own individual choices about testing and about the uses to which their DNA results...Finding Margaret’s mother, part 2
The possible grandmother So The Legal Genealogist is off to put paid to one particular genealogical question this year: who was the mother of Margaret (Battles) Shew? Margaret is my 3rd great grandmother. My line comes down from Margaret’s daughter Martha...Rest in peace, dear friend
Oh, to be in Delaware… There are times, like today, when The Legal Genealogist looks forward to a destination just like a little kid getting ready for a trip to Disney World. I’ve never been to the Wisconsin Historical Society, and today I will fix that...Withdrawing a recommendation
GEDmatch can no longer be trusted The Legal Genealogist’s love for the third-party DNA tools site GEDmatch has always been clear. Just in the last year, I’ve written about its cool tool to create superkits1 and the switchover from the old platform to the...Referencing legal Wisconsin
Badger State laws It has a long and rich history. Originally part of the original Northwest Territory, between 1788 and 1800, and then part of Indiana Territory from 1800 to 1809, Illinois Territory from 1809 to 1818, Michigan Territory from 1818 to 1836 before...That legal demise
A suggestion of death The issue of death seems to The Legal Genealogist to be pretty much a black and white issue. Either you’re dead or you’re not. But the way that can be referenced in a legal document can be … well … downright odd, and...Happy mtDNA Day!
Mother’s Day 2019 It is and will forever remain one of The Legal Genealogist’s favorite photographs. Six women — a mother and five daughters — who all share my mitochondrial line. From left to right, my aunt Marianne, my aunt Trisha, my...And the letter L today is for…
A major loss The alphabet soup series here at The Legal Genealogist generally focuses on oddball terms that appear in legal documents and are often misunderstood by genealogists. But today’s entry, for the letter L, has to be a little different. It could be for...Subscribe by Email
