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...Indians not taxed
Excluding and including the Indian There is a curious phrase in the Constitution of the United States. It appears in Article I, section 2, and it appears again in the 14th Amendment. In Article I, the Constitution provides that Representatives and direct taxes shall...New Jersey’s laws
Historical laws in one place In anticipation of tomorrow’s Genealogy and the Law day — the annual seminar of the Genealogical Society of Bergen County in Mahwah — The Legal Genealogist has been poking around the old law books again. This time, New...The aging of Oregon
How old was he…? So many times, in genealogy, our ability to construct an argument that this person is related to that person in just this way depends on figuring out just how old somebody was at the time of a specific event. And we often don’t have direct...Reprise: Oregon Constitution
The Beaver State (Note: In honor of, and to get ready for, The Legal Genealogist‘s trip to the Genealogical Forum of Oregon, this weekend, here’s a reprise of this 2012 post about Oregon’s constitution!) It was 1848 when it became a territory; nearly...Subscribe by Email
