Tarheel dower
Researching dower in North Carolina Reader Marcia is puzzled. “I have been doing family history in North Carolina and dealing with Dower and other goodies,” she writes. “When she got the land as a dower right did the widow own it outright?” Great question, because a...Doing as he was told
Thank you, Phoebe King Ensminger Burn It was 100 years ago today that Harry T. Burn did what he was told. He listened to his mama. And the result of doing that simple thing was historic in every sense of that word. It was precisely 100 years ago today that Harry T....Linking the Alabama Constitutions
The woes of web writers Years ago, The Legal Genealogist carefully researched and wrote up a long piece on the six — count ’em — six constitutions that Alabama has had in its closing-in-on-200 years of history. Yep. Alabama celebrates its...Constituting Massachusetts
Legal research in the Bay State Researching the way Massachusetts was created as a matter of law through its chartering documents is really easy, isn’t it? After all, The Legal Genealogist is quite sure that Massachusetts has only ever had one Constitution,...Inequality at Equality
The town with the incongruous name There’s no getting around it. The town of Equality in Gallatin County, Illinois, was anything but in early Illinois history. Because for years, there was slavery in one little corner of Illinois — the little corner near...Constituting Michigan
That first state charter The Legal Genealogist is on the road again. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, to be precise, for tomorrow’s Got Ancestors?! 2017 seminar of the Western Michigan Genealogical Society. We’re going to have a lot of fun tomorrow at the Grand...Revisiting the women and early California law
Protecting California’s women With The Legal Genealogist heading back to California at the end of this week for the all-day seminar of the California Genealogical Society in Berkeley Saturday, it’s time to revisit a set of records that tend to be...California’s original state charter
Setting the stage for statehood It is an extraordinary document, this record of early California. One of only two such documents in the history of that western state. And extraordinary in its own right. It is the Constitution of 1849.1 Yes, The Legal Genealogist is...Looking back on the law
Yesterday’s laws inform today’s debates The Legal Genealogist didn’t mean to pick on Montana yesterday in focusing on the fact that anti-immigrant sentiment is nothing new in American politics. The point of yesterday’s blog was simply that...Subscribe by Email
