Becoming unAmerican
When the law said “no you don’t” One hundred and five (corrected) years ago tomorrow, a young couple married in Tarrant County, Texas. The bride: Maud Lillian Cottrell. Born 26 January 1890 to Martin Gilbert and Martha (Johnson) Cottrell and, thus, older sister...Finding Maryland law
One-stop-shopping for the law of the Old Line State The Legal Genealogist is off today, heading south for the Fall Seminar of the Maryland Genealogical Society… but not — for once — to an airport. No, this afternoon I’ll be behind the wheel,...Garden State laws of yore
Finding New Jersey law Reader Bonnie Brown is in luck. Reading a great post by my friend and colleague Amy Johnson Crow (here), she has a lead on connecting her line to a Revolutionary War patriot. One hitch: she needs to know the laws of descent at the time and in...The laws Down East
Look elsewhere for the answer Reader Noel Ferre found himself perplexed. “I found a court record, Maine 1695,which states only ‘Abraham Preble, married contrary to law,’” he wrote. “What would the law have been at that time?” A great question, because it reminds us...Revisiting the issue: photos in cemeteries
When the law (or rule) steps in The issue has just come up again in Canada: the idea that there should be advance permission required before photographs are allowed in cemeteries. This time, it’s the City of Waterloo, Ontario, and it’s just adopted a bylaw...What doth it profit a man…
Profits and the tax codes So The Legal Genealogist was talking about taxes yesterday, in the Legacy Family Tree webinar “A Taxing Matter: Using Tax Lists in Genealogy,” and one term seemed to give some folks some problems. The term: profits. And the problem was that...The laws of time and place
Look for the codes It’s one of the most common questions The Legal Genealogist gets: What were the laws of a particular place at a particular time? Now I’m sure this question has nothing to do with the fact that it’s my mantra, repeated over and over...A matter of consent
The consenting adults Reader Cathy Holcombe was puzzled by a marriage record. It looked like it might be a marriage bond. But it didn’t have the language of a typical marriage bond. Yet it had something most marriage bonds have: signatures of other people. So...Family feuds, Kiwi-style
Dueling administrators Oh, the tales the court records tell… And it doesn’t really matters whose court records or where or why… there is always a story to be told. For some reason, The Legal Genealogist ended up poking around in records of the New...Subscribe by Email
