That silly scilicet
Unimportant legal lingo As many times as The Legal Genealogist has said we need to read every single solitary word in our legal documents, there’s a simple truth that shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s not all important stuff. Some legal lingo is pure...The age to witness
Georgia in the early 19th century Reader Jennifer Kraus is on the hunt for clues. “I’ve been working on finding different ways to estimate DOBs for my ancestors in the absence of a record (e.g., bible, or church) that lists an actual date,” she writes....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...Subscribe by Email
