Warding off trouble
Detroit’s city wards Reader David Reed is looking for help in locating specific Michigan death certificates from the late 1800s. It seems that David has found that the certificates he needs were recorded and so are now organized by the wards in Wayne County,...Straying far afield
Check the ads! They appear, with regularity, in the advertising columns of some of the nation’s oldest newspapers. In one column in a February 1792 newspaper published in Lexington, Kentucky, the focus was on cows: • “Taken up by the subscriber (James...An intentional quirk
Pepperell’s purposeful oddity Those who research in Massachusetts records are used to seeing it. Prior to a marriage in that colony and Commonwealth, the parties had to give advance public notice of their intention to marry either in their churches or by posting...Baby talk
Infants under the law In reviewing the ways to research Missouri laws yesterday, or indeed the laws of any jurisdiction we’re trying to review, The Legal Genealogist mentioned the need to be “fairly inventive … in using search terms” when trying to find...Show Me Laws
Statutes in the Show Me State Reader Melissa Weaver loved reading earlier this week about the widows’ appraisements in Pennsylvania under a statute adopted there in 1851. But, she said, her research problems weren’t focused on Pennsylvania. She really...The Act of 14 April
The widow’s appraisal One cow worth $10.00. Three dollars worth of bacon. A spinning wheel valued at 25 cents. A rifle worth $7.50. A chest valued at 25 cents. Four beds worth $15.00. A clock valued at 50 cents. Eight chairs and two tables and one bureau and one...Guarding the pension
Why not Mom? Reader Sharon G. Whitney simply couldn’t wrap her head around what the Delaware County, Indiana, Circuit Court thought it was doing in 1890. That was the year, she reported, that the United States Bureau of Pensions finally got around to awarding a...A city’s job description
The concerns of 1855 So your ancestor was a mayor or a town council member. A local official of some kind around the middle of the 19th century. Ever wonder just what it was that he — or the town or the city — was supposed to do? What the authority was?...Oh, those rogues…
New Hampshire’s bad boys (and girls) You can tell an awful lot about people and what they were thinking — what they believed, what they aspired to — by reading the laws of the time. That’s the one thing The Legal Genealogist really hopes every...Subscribe by Email
