by Judy G. Russell | May 12, 2022 | Legal definitions, Methodology, Statutes |
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...
by Judy G. Russell | May 10, 2022 | Methodology, My family, Statutes |
Was she really that young? A reader wasn’t quite convinced it wasn’t a typo. He’d read the post about The Legal Genealogist’s maternal line, and was struck by one fact. “I see your 2nd great grandmother gave birth to your great grandmother when...
by Judy G. Russell | Mar 30, 2022 | Methodology, Resources, Statutes |
Official typos It’s right there, in one of the most important laws ever passed by the early Virginia state legislature. Just nine years after the Fifth Virginia Convention proclaimed that Virginia was a free and independent state,1 and just four years after the...
by Judy G. Russell | Mar 10, 2022 | Primary Law, Statutes |
Oh, the stories to be told… The Legal Genealogist has always loved the traditional Scottish prayer: From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!1 And since we started the week in a beastly...
by Judy G. Russell | Mar 9, 2022 | Primary Law, Statutes |
Why not the earlier law? As so often happens, about a nanosecond after The Legal Genealogist posts about a topic, somebody pops in with a question that the original post probably should have mentioned — or at least might have if there wasn’t a realistic...
by Judy G. Russell | Feb 20, 2022 | DNA, Statutes |
The privacy fight rages on Laws proposed on opposite sides of the country take opposite approaches to law enforcement access to genealogical DNA testing databases. The different proposals point out how genealogical consumers — and even genealogical testing...
by Judy G. Russell | Feb 8, 2022 | Methodology, Statutes |
Repeating the mantra Those who’ve heard The Legal Genealogist speak about the law and genealogy have heard the mantra. Those who’ve followed this blog for any length of time have read the mantra. Feel free to chant along with me out loud: If we want to...
by Judy G. Russell | Dec 24, 2021 | General, Statutes |
It wasn’t always a holiday Here in the holiday season or 2021 — another crazy pandemic-impacted year, The Legal Genealogist is trying again to hang on to as many holiday traditions as possible. Which, given the latest surge in the latest two variants,...
by Judy G. Russell | Dec 20, 2021 | Resources, Statutes |
New York City’s Marine Court Reader Nancy Spencer had a question that sent The Legal Genealogist scrambling for the law books. “My g-g grandfather was a policeman at the Marine court at Castle Garden,” she wrote. “Where would the record for his position be...
by Judy G. Russell | Dec 13, 2021 | Resources, Statutes |
Pennsylvania law online It’s a gift that keeps on giving: the guides to online state law resources at The Advancing Genealogist. And now Keystone State researchers can find the bulk of Pennsylvania’s historic law resources online in one place, thanks to...