The other rangers
Rangers, North Carolina style It popped up in a volume of Rutherford County, North Carolina, court minutes. The County Court of Rutherford County held an election for an office The Legal Genealogist had never associated with North Carolina. The office of County...Power beyond the grave
The value of a document’s every word Reader J. Paul Hawthorne came across some language in a late 19th century will, and wondered if he was reading it right. On the 29th of April 1879, Elisha Myers of Butler County, Alabama, executed a will leaving everything to...Obeying the rule
… the one against perpetuities So… the eagle-eyed genealogists out there surely noticed that quirk in the legal story. The one about the dust-up between the Disney Corporation and the State of Florida. Where Disney did an end-run around a new governing...The meaning of that word
What invalid means in military parlance Reader Carol Bickel was stumped: “I cannot find a good definition for the meaning of ‘Invalid’ on the jacket of a military record.” And what it means here is a really good question, isn’t it? Because The Legal Genealogist...Awaiting the widow’s thirds
Reasons why dower might be delayed John Hassett died in 1868, leaving four children (two sons and two daughters) by an earlier marriage, a widow Ellen and two sons by Ellen. In 1869, Ellen married again, to James Creigh. And in August of 1880 she asked the court in...Snippet: About those shares…
The language of the law. Part Latin, part Greek, part law French, even part Anglo-Saxon. And all confusing. It’s winter camp for genealogists this week as the virtual Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy is underway. Which means I’m up to my eyeballs in...Releasing the land
About that lease and release… You’ll see it all over the land records of colonial America. In one document, person A leases the land to person B. And in another, often a day or two later, and sometimes even on the same day, person A releases the land to...Legal alphabet soup
The language of the law. Part Latin, part Greek, part law French, even part Anglo-Saxon. And all confusing. It was published in a Missouri newspaper in early August 1876. The kind of report The Legal Genealogist just loves to see. Under the heading “Probate Court...A deadly proximate cause
Immediate, ultimate, proximate Reader Trudie Davis-Long was puzzled by some of the terminology found in death certificates she’s seen. In some cases, the word used to described the cause of death was “ultimate.” In others, “proximate” (on some forms,...Subscribe by Email
