A matter of local law
Remember the mantra! Okay, fans of The Legal Genealogist, here’s your pop quiz for today. What’s the mantra around these parts? Yep, you know it. You can probably recite it in your sleep: If we want to understand the records, we have to understand the law...Snippet: those -ix endings!
Bring on the ladies… There it is. Right there in the document open on The Legal Genealogist’s desk. Evelyn, handling the estate. Or Shirley, leaving a will. So… is Evelyn the deceased’s daughter, perhaps? Maybe a sister? Is Shirley a single...The clues in official bonds
About the best FAN Club evidence ever… Reader Diane George ran into an issue that many genealogists encounter when looking at records of our ancestors. She’d come across an 1895 Wisconsin newspaper article that noted that C. G. Crosse and J. E. Morton of...Indentures indeed
Not just for servants or apprentices A Vermont librarian was a little confused by a word used to describe a donated record. Patti Houghton Arrison, librarian at the Weathersfield, Vermont, Historical Society, was delighted to have the record: an 1857 document...On the high seas
Citizenship for those born at sea Reader Douglas Burnett got to thinking after reading about the question of the impact marrying into one of the tribes had on a woman’s U.S. citizenship last week. “Your Friday Blog1 got me wondering about ‘what if’ cases,” he...Bailing out
…of a different stripe… The case was heard in the December 1800 term of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania — and it’s exactly the kind of thing a genealogist hopes to find. George Keppele and Henry Zantzinger had been business partners in...Prove it!
Not a physical act! It came up again just last week, in a legal document from the late 1700s in New York State that a fellow genealogist needed help understanding. It’s a phrase often seen in court pleadings from years ago — and one that’s not used...No ordinary court
No matter what the name is… It was July of 1848, and Robert Smith had been given a special charge by the court in Gilmer County, Georgia. By law, he had to give bond in the amount of $200. In other words, he had to make a promise that he would do the job right,...Just the facts
… of whatever flavor… Reader David came across the reference in an 1877 court case he was trying to figure out. And it made no sense to him whatsoever. “The court,” he wrote, “appears to be drawing a distinction between facts and facts. And I don’t...Subscribe by Email
