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The widow’s share
And the question of the children In the middle of the 18th century, a young man from Germany named Jacob Snyder (probably Schneider originally) came to America to make his fortune. Family researchers...
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The dying declaration
Nuncupative wills in Mississippi It’s to a different kind of will that The Legal Genealogist calls attention this morning: not the usual written form that we hope to see with our ancestors carefully...
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Being transported
What that meant, what it means By the time you read these words of The Legal Genealogist, it will be sometime Monday, February 8th, in my home country of the United States. But it will already be...
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Educable children
Mississippi laws and lists There’s very little that’s as useful genealogically as a school census. Putting children together into a household, particularly in a non-regular-census year, can be the clue...
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Amercing the crime
The language of the law It may come as a bit of a surprise that our ancestors couldn’t be convicted of the crime of assault in early Alabama. Assault, by definition, is an “unlawful attempt or offer,...
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The -gated succession
The language of the law. Part Latin, part Anglo-Saxon, all confusing. For someone trained in the common law — inherited from the British tradition, working in the records of the civil law is like...
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The laws of relationship
Forbidden marriages The date, according to the records, was Thursday, the 25th of April 1799. The place: the village of Hollis, in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. The celebrant: one Eli Smith, a...
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Getting when they gave up
The records of renunciation It is a strong word, the word renounce. To the ordinary dictionary, it means “to give up, refuse, or resign usually by formal declaration (renounce his errors).”1 To the...
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Liening tower of Iowa
The language of the law. Part Latin, part Anglo-Saxon, all confusing. In the December 1865 term of the District Court for Poweshiek County, Iowa, Job Cushman sued George W. Chambers and Eliza Jane...
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Mayhap a different mayhem
The meaning of a word It’s a powerful word. A fascinating word. To a law geek like The Legal Genealogist, a lovely word. And it’s a word, I suspect, most of us misuse just a wee bit on those occasions...
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