The spendthrift
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? He was, the record shows, some 74 or 75 years old, living with his son Jeremiah. He had some money coming to him from a mortgage on some property in New York, and had a few hundred dollars in cash of his own. And, the record makes it...Legal serendipity
Cue the eerie music! The Legal Genealogist first encountered William W. Montgomery in the statute books of the United States. When I lecture to genealogy groups in different parts of the United States, I make a concerted effort to tailor the presentation — at...Popularizing the statutes
Help in finding the laws Okay, The Legal Genealogist has a quick quiz for you: How do most genealogists refer to the law that allowed settlers to get federal land if they filed some paperwork and then lived on the land for a period of time? How about the statute under...The tax sale
Following the clues in the land records The land, the federal land records show, was originally earned by the soldiers. George Gordon, Private, Captain Hotchkiss’ Company, Massachusetts Militia, War of 1812. He was the warrant holder on 160 acres of land —...Personal property: none
The exemption There was, the widow carefully reported to the probate judge, no personal property at all left by her late husband. Land, yes. The east one-half of the northwest quarter of Section 21, Township 3 South, Range 16 West, in Tillman County, Oklahoma, valued...Labor Day genealogy
A day for research Hard to believe it is Labor Day already! Where has 2014 gone? Kids back in school, days growing shorter… fall is right around the corner. As genealogists, we may all appreciate Labor Day as a day off from work, a day when we can do a little...Happy birthday, NPS!
98 years of National Parks It is a most unprepossessing piece of legislation, the act that appears in volume 39 of the U.S. Statutes at Large. It begins, mundanely, by noting that it was “enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of...Another kind of inmate
Pennsylvania’s colonial inmates So earlier this week The Legal Genealogist set off to explore the use of the term “inmate” in U.S. census records. The blog post began: “When is an inmate not an inmate? Or, more accurately, when is an inmate not the kind of...The church and the law
Setting the boundaries There was no question just what the law was intended to do. Although initially settled by a combination of Protestants and Catholics under the control of a Catholic lord,1 the Province of Maryland was headed in a very different direction in...Subscribe by Email
