RIP Irene Triplett
Last Civil War-era pensioner dies in North Carolina It's the end of an era. It has been 155 years since Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. A century and a half since the guns fell silent in that bloodiest war on...
Nothing to say
Nothing that can be said This space has been dark almost all week. The Legal Genealogist has nothing to say that can be said. There are more than 102,800 men, women and children dead in America from COVID-19 -- almost a third of the 365,500 deaths in the world to...
Memorial Day 2020
Honoring those who gave their all Today is Memorial Day here in the United States — the official holiday on which we honor those who gave all for the cause of American freedom. It's time set aside for us all -- The Legal Genealogist included -- to pause and to honor...
The enigma of a cousin, part 2
All that isn't known of a lifetime, part 2 (Continued from part 1, here, because of a technical issue with the original posting) We know from a lot of sources that Mattie married John Berens. Her father John's obituary in 1951 listed “a daughter, Mrs. Johnny Berens of...
The enigma of a cousin, part 1
Note: Because of an issue in the HTML rendering of this post on some (but not all) devices and browsers, this post is being reposted, in two parts... apologies to those who got the whole thing correctly -- and here's hoping for those who need it in two parts to keep...
The enigma of a cousin
NOTE: On some browsers in some operating systems, this post doesn't render properly. If you're having a problem, please read the two part version, with part 1 here and part 2 here... and my apologies. I simply can't find the error that's causing the problem... Sigh......
Just peachy…
Historic Georgia laws Reader Gay Solomon has one of those questions for The Legal Genealogist: where do we find the laws? “An unmarried man died in Georgia in 1832,” she writes. “His estate (personal property--no real) was evenly divided amongst his siblings (some in...
Giving it away
The law and ethics of donating family materials Two reader questions have just hit The Legal Genealogist's emailbox presenting opposite sides of the issue when it comes to donating family materials and photos to libraries, archives or other repositories. Reader Sharon...
Free webinar: DNA ethics
All day Monday Note: this was supposed to post yesterday. Apologies for the late notice! Legacy Family Tree Webinars is continuing its one-free-webinar-a-day program through the month of May and tomorrow, Monday, May 18th (sigh: today, now, Monday, May 18th), the...
The butterfly effect
A death in 1793 It's called the butterfly effect. It's the notion that events are connected in a profound and unpredictable manner, and that small changes at the start can lead to vastly different outcomes. So, for example, as small an act as a butterfly flapping its...
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