A start point…
… for American legal research There’s not a day that goes by without the question coming in to The Legal Genealogist. “How do I find out what the law was in (insert name of some American state)?” And, just about every time, the answer begins the same way....Attention law geeks!
… and law-geek wannabes… If there’s anything The Legal Genealogist believes wholeheartedly, it’s that there’s no such thing as too much legal education, particularly legal education that genealogists can use. And an ongoing series of...All that foolin’ around…
All those cases about… Okay, The Legal Genealogist has come to the conclusion that people are simply obsessed. And they always have been. With… Um… Well… Is there a delicate way to say with sex? Sigh… I guess not. But judging from the...Labor Day 2021
First Monday in September No matter how fast or slow any particular summer seems to be, it always seems to catch The Legal Genealogist by surprise. It’s the first Monday in September. Here in the United States, today is the first holiday of the fall: Be it...North of the line
Recording the enslaved in the North The year was 1782, the place Windsor County, Vermont. And an eight-year-old boy named Anthony faced a fearful fate. Eight years old. Enslaved. And sold away from his parents. Yes, The Legal Genealogist hastens to note, slavery north...Those interrogatories…
Standard Southern Claims Commission questions Any researcher who works with Southern Claims Commission files knows the occasional frustration of seeing a detailed report setting out the claimant’s answers to what are obviously very specific questions…...New portal for Freedmen’s Bureau records
Ancestry launches indexed record set There’s no way to overstate the value of the records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands — an agency that became known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. It’s a record set that extends far beyond its name to just about...Those snippets
Word-picture postcards of a life They are among the most precious gifts a genealogist can ever receive. Those snippets that help breathe life into the names and dates and places of our research. In late August 1908, The Legal Genealogist’s great grandfather...That long switchover
From pounds and pence to dollars and cents Reader David Watson poses a terrific question: “The US government established the U.S. dollar as the unit of currency in 1792,” he writes. “Nevertheless, I’ve seen marriage bonds where the bond is expressed in ‘pounds’ well...Subscribe by Email
