In the year 1840, in the state of South Carolina, a man named E.B. Bronson claimed to have been properly elected an Ordinary in that jurisdiction. But M.W. Hunter, who had held the office before Bronson’s election, refused to give it up, saying he was entitled to serve for life as long as he did the job well or, in legal lingo, during “good behavior.”¹

An Ordinary, in South Carolina at the time, was a judicial officer in what was called the Court of the Ordinary. It was the forerunner to the Probate Court, created by the South Carolina Constitution of 1868.² He was a “judicial officer, … clothed by statute with powers in regard to wills, probate, administration, guardianship, etc.”³

As might be expected, a lawsuit ensued to determine who was entitled to the office — the man who said he couldn’t be turned out of office (Hunter) or the man who said he’d been elected (Bronson). Since there had been a statute passed in 1833 limiting the term of the Ordinary to four years and a state constitutional amendment before that allowing the Legislature to determine terms of office, the outcome was pretty much a slam dunk: the job was Bronson’s.⁴

So why was the case called State ex rel. Bronson v. Hunter, and not just Bronson v. Hunter? This type of case name shows up a lot in the legal cases genealogists look at in trying to figure out what our ancestors were up to. So what’s with this ex rel. stuff in the name of a legal case anyway?

“Ex rel.” in a case name is the abbreviation for the Latin phrase “ex relatione”. It translates as upon “relation or information” and it’s usually used this way:

Legal proceedings which are instituted by the attorney general (or other proper person) in the name and behalf of the state, but on the information and at the instigation of an individual who has a private interest in the matter, are said to be taken “on the relation” (ex relatione) of such person, who is called the “relator.” Such a cause is usually entitled thus: “State ex rel. Doe v. Roe.”⁵

Here, of course, it was Bronson who was the person with the private interest in the matter — he wanted to go to work in the job to which he’d been elected. So he was the relator: “The person upon whose complaint, or at whose instance, an information or writ of quo warranto is filed, and who is quasi the plaintiff in the proceeding.”⁶

Sigh… don’t you love it when one definition makes you have to go look up something else just to understand what it means? So what’s a “quo warranto”? It’s a special kind of legal action for exactly the situation that Bronson found himself in. Talk about a narrow little legal pigeon-hole — it was “a civil remedy … now usually employed for trying the title to a corporate or other franchise, or to a public or corporate office.”⁷

So in this particular case, it was State ex rel. Bronson v. Hunter because the action was brought by the State at Bronson’s request to determine who was the real Ordinary after Bronson’s election.

There’s one other fairly common use of the phrase ex relatione in old court reports: you’ll see it when the reporter writing up the account of the case (not a newspaper reporter, mind you, but the court reporter) wasn’t there personally but, instead, was writing it up based on what he was told by someone else who was there.⁸

The Legal Genealogist usually leaves general genealogy-related news to the sites and blogs that tend to do that far better, but there is awfully good news today for all us — genealogists and “just plain folks” alike — that as a resident of the greater New York area I just can’t resist mentioning.

Liberty Island is definitely going to reopen on the Fourth of July.

For those not in the New York area, Liberty Island — where the Statue of Liberty sits in New York Harbor — was horribly damaged last fall in Hurricane Sandy.

Liberty Island post storm (Image: National Park Service)

The storm surge in the October 29th hurricane put more than 75% of the island underwater and caused extensive damage to the passenger and auxiliary docks to the island. It uprooted most of the brick pathways, and it devastated the power system: the utilities, backup generator and power lines were totally destroyed.

There was no damage to the statue itself. It’s a remarkable tribute to the design work of Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel that the iron framework installed 126 years ago to hold the statue in place did just that.

But the upshot of all that damage was that Liberty Island has been shut down, with not a single visitor allowed on the island, since the 29th of October.

But on the Fourth of July that changes. And you can even buy ferry tickets now — assuming they’re not all sold out! — from the National Park Service’s ferry concessionaire, Statue Cruises.

Tickets cost $17 for adults, $14 for seniors 62 and older, and $9 for children 4-12. Access to the crown costs an additional $3. Children under 4 are free. For ticket information and reservations, you can call 201-604-2800 or go to www.StatueCruises.com.

Access to the crown is the best part of this, because that had been shut down for a year before the hurricane for needed upgrades to the fire system (alarms, exits, etc.) — and had only been open for one day when Sandy came visiting. Access to the crown requires advance reservations — and they’re undoubtedly going to go fast, so… a word to the wise. For more information and restrictions on crown access, see the National Park Service’s Crown Reservation Guidelines.

Ellis Island will have limited access this summer as well, but there isn’t even a hint yet as to when the Immigrant Museum may reopen. That building sustained massive damage in the hurricane, and the federal sequester sure isn’t helping with the planning for getting things done.

I’m very anxious to get out to Ellis Island to see how the Immigrant Wall of Honor fared. I know some panels were knocked loose, and my father and grandparents are honored there… I want to touch their names on that wall and know that their panel is still there.

Liberty and the Fourth of July. I can’t wait.

Note: The Legal Genealogist doesn’t make a practice of reprinting earlier posts. But the horror of yesterday’s news out of Moore, Oklahoma, has my cousin Thelma so front-and-center for me, and her story so much in my mind, that I simply feel I have no choice but to remind myself, and anyone who reads on, that there is not always an unhappy ending to the storms of spring. (Reprinted from May 2012.)

Thelma, 1919

She never had a birthday party until she was an adult. Way too many meals were cornbread and milk. Dresses were made from flour sacks, and she owned exactly two at a time: one for school and one for church. Shoes were resoled as often as they could be to make them last.

Electricity didn’t make it out to the farm until long after she was married and had moved away, running water was an unheard-of luxury, and her prize possession was a kerosene lamp of cut glass that she could use to read by. She learned to drive at the age of 10, she substituted for a fourth grade teacher for an entire week when she was only a high school freshman herself, and she has seen and endured more than most people in her nearly 93 years of life.

But the only thing my cousin Thelma was ever truly afraid of — what she remains afraid of even today — was the storms of spring.

Thelma was born in Tillman County, Oklahoma, in June 1919. Oklahoma had only been a state for a little more than 11 years, and that part of Oklahoma had been among the very last of the Indian lands to be opened to white settlers. Thelma’s grandparents — my 2nd great grandmother and her second husband — had settled there after the turn of the century, and her father farmed out near Hollister.

The land there is flat — so flat that the family could see the marvel of electric lights in Electra, across the state line in Texas; only the curvature of the earth prevented them from seeing more. And so flat that nothing, literally nothing, stood between them and the storms of spring.

The stories are chilling: the storm cellar dug deep into the earth away from the house, with benches on one side and a small opening on the side away from the door so that if the door ended up covered by debris, they could escape through the opening. Sitting out on the porch on spring nights with her mother, watching the sky and listening for the telltale sounds of the wind. The time the tornado took the shed and the barn roof. The time the lightning brought down the chimney, sending bricks crashing down inches from her brothers’ heads as they slept. The ball of lightning rolling across the floor of her bedroom and hitting her with a jolt, leaving her stunned.

The time her second grade class was hurried across the street into her own grandmother’s storm cellar because there wasn’t enough room in the school shelters for all the children. The wet towels they had to use to breathe through as the dust rolled through town. Waking up in the morning with gritty dust on the chenille bedspreads and in everyone’s mouths. Wondering sometimes if they were going to wake up at all.

Thelma smiles today as she relates that she was determined not to marry a boy from Oklahoma. She wanted so badly to move away from the storms of spring. When she met Bill Dibble of Indiana, it was love at first sight, and storms — well, whoever heard of storms in Indiana, she thought. And then came the day here in tiny Ohio County, Indiana, when she tucked her newborn daughter and herself into whatever cover she could find as the tornado took off the roof of her house. And then came the 3rd of April 1974 when massive tornadoes — one F4 and one F5 — ripped through the county, leaving 64 people injured.

She is still afraid of the storms of spring. A sudden cloud cover, a greenish tint to the sky, a rumble of wind will raise the hairs on her neck here just as they did in Oklahoma all those years ago. But, she says, she’s still very glad she didn’t fall for any of those Oklahoma boys. She had 47 years of a happy and fulfilling marriage to Bill (who died in 1996), and has two daughters, three granddaughters, three great grandchildren and generations of schoolchildren who still revere her in a town that has adopted her as surely as if she’d been born here.

For all that, Thelma says now, Indiana’s storms of spring seem a small price to pay. And as I drive away on the first leg of my trip home, I surely see no reason to disagree.

On the ground floor of a building on a street called Sand Point Way is a real genealogical treasure. And if you live anywhere in the Pacific Northwest or have ancestors from there, it’s one you really should know about.

It’s called the Seattle Genealogical Society. A vibrant organization of active genealogists where you can feel the enthusiasm whenever you’re around them.

And it has a library to die for.

Talk about a winning combination!

The Legal Genealogist had the great pleasure of being the speaker at the SGS Spring Seminar this past Saturday where the huge gymnasium of an old school house was filled with people wanting to learn more about genealogy and the law.

And yesterday, the SGS Research Library was the scene for a workshop on using circumstantial, or indirect, evidence to link a woman married before the 1850 census to her family where there was no birth, marriage or death record. It’s a tribute to the commitment of this group to methodology and standards that the workshop was sold out and had a waiting list.

But after seeing the library and talking to some of the members and the volunteers, that commitment and that enthusiasm didn’t surprise me at all.

This is an organization that could serve as a model for a lot of genealogical societies. And its library is at its heart.

First and foremost, it’s open long hours — some 30 hours a week — staffed entirely by volunteers. There are state archives that don’t offer that much research time. That allows for lots of activities — a Canadian Interest group, an Irish Interest group, a German Interest group and more. Some of the interest groups are big enough that they won’t fit in the library meeting space! And SGS is open to sponsoring more and new ones if members just ask.

Second, it’s the scene for classes for beginners and more advanced researchers. SGS offers classes in basic computer skills for genealogists, beginning genealogy and more. One program SGS has that I wish existed where I live: a break-down-the-brick-wall meeting where people help each other brainstorm their genealogical problems.

Third, it has simply amazing resources. From its website comes this description of its key components:

     • Library Books and Periodicals: The SGS book collection complements the resources of The Seattle Public Library’s genealogy collection and close liaison is maintained with SPL. Information is not limited to Washington State; significant resources are available for all states, Canada, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, and other international regions.

     • Computer Resources: Computer workstations are available for members to access the SGS collection of computer databases and CD-ROMs. There is wireless Internet access for those who bring their own portable computers. Printing and copying is 15¢ per page, or documents may be saved or scanned to a USB flash drive. … SGS holds a collection of over 200 CD-ROMs with compilations source materials covering both US and international locations, including a special King County, WA, Index to Court Records 1880-1980, compiled by SGS volunteers.

     • Washington State Collections: The library holds a wealth of genealogical information relating to Seattle and Washington state. Resources include:

• Published books, periodicals, and archive collections
• Family Records of Washington Pioneers
• Vertical files of various Washington families
• Rare books relating to the Pacific Northwest
• Seattle City Directories from 1890 to 1990
• Directories for other cities in Washington

     • Microfilm and Microfiche: The SGS microform collection includes the Washington State Death Index 1907-1989, the 1895 Minnesota State Census, assorted national and state census rolls and miscellaneous other donated materials. Microfilm and microfiche readers are available to view the collections.

     • The George F. Kent Collection of New Jersey: The Kent Collection comprises 122 volumes of materials plus a 28-drawer card file. The Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey is the backbone of this collection, with a multi-volume index added by SGS. The card file contains thousands of cards indexing cemeteries, church records, deed abstracts, marriage records, military records and family information.

     • Surname Vertical Files: The library holds Surname Files contributed by SGS members. Information in these files includes newspaper clippings, handwritten notes, and short typescripts. Surname Notebooks contain Family Group Sheets submitted by Seattle Genealogical Society members over the last 75 years.

     • Family Histories: The Family History collection includes periodicals, published volumes, typescripts and binders of family materials, cataloged by primary surname.

Dues for SGS are only $40 a year, and the SGS Bulletin — its magazine — and the SGS Newsletter are worth that all by themselves.

What a treasure in the Pacific Northwest.

Reader Ida French is having trouble figuring out how third-party utilities like Gedmatch.com can help in using autosomal test results, and particularly those from AncestryDNA. She writes:

I am still having a hard time understanding how exactly this will help. I have uploaded my raw data from Ancestry to Gedmatch and played around with the tools but don’t understand how this can direct me any better to a match than what Ancestry has given us with our DNA matches. One of my matches is on Chromosome 4, 8.5cm and 1,592 snp. We also match on other chromosomes. My question is where do I go from here?

The bottom line here is that what Gedmatch provides, and Ancestry doesn’t, is the ability to see exactly where in your DNA you and another person match.

Let me give you an example. I can look at my own DNA and that of a cousin of mine who has also tested. At Gedmatch, we show this match-up on chromosomes 11 and 12 (among others):

I happen to know exactly in our family lines this cousin and I match, and that he and I have no lines in common other than one set of third great grandparents.

That much, you may say, you can get from AncestryDNA and its shaky-leaf hint system.

But by knowing exactly where in our DNA this cousin and I match, where I can go from here is to look for others who match me and my cousin in the same place in our DNA.

This process of adding others into your match-list mix allows you to share genealogical information with more people who are likely descended from the same common ancestors.

Once you and any DNA cousin have identified a segment as having come from one set of common ancestors, then you know that anyone else in the future who matches you in that same place is also likely to be a cousin in that line.

The problem with Ancestry, of course, is that the tree of the person you match there may be just plain flat out wrong. There is no other information given there except the tree to see if it’s likely to be true or not.

Let me give you an example. One of my own shaky-leaf hints on AncestryDNA is with a woman whose tree says she is a descendant of my Baker family through a fourth great granduncle Henry Baker and then through Henry’s daughter Nancy who, her tree says, married one Jesse Smith and lived and died in Tennessee.

One hitch here. Henry Baker’s daughter Nancy married Robert Wakefield in North Carolina, and she and Robert remained there, married to each other and recorded in census and court records, until they died and were buried there in NC. No Smith and no Tennessee even remotely in Nancy’s history.

If that match and I had both uploaded our information to Gedmatch, or if we had both tested with a company that provides analytical tools, we could see where in our DNA we match — rather than where in faulty online trees. And if either of us had mapped that segment to a particular line, we’d be able to avoid the time wasted in chasing that non-Baker rabbit down into a genealogical black hole.

Alternatively, had I mapped that shared segment to my Baker ancestors, we’d know to spend more time seeing where in the Baker family that match really belongs, since her descent isn’t in any supposed Smith-Baker marriage.

The downside of Gedmatch, or any third party utility, of course, is that not all those who test uploads their DNA data to the utility site. That means you can only compare your results to those who have uploaded there. But at least when you do compare it, you’re comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges, rather than one possibly faulty tree to another possibly faulty tree.

Yesterday would have been his 96th birthday. Tall, slim, even stately in his bearing, he occupied a special place in The Legal Genealogist‘s family history… and he is missed.

Frederick M. Gottlieb

By 1920, Fred’s father Morris had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and the family moved to New Mexico where the climate was expected to be better. In 1920, when Fred was not yet three, they were in Gallup, in McKinley County.² In 1930, the family was in Albuquerque.³

His parents were far better off — better jobs and many fewer kids — than my grandparents and Fred’s and his sisters’ outgrown clothes were always packed up and shipped off to my grandparents. Though I suspect Fred’s hand-me-downs were intended for one or more of my uncles, it was always my mother who snagged his clothes and made them over into the best things she wore as a child.

During the 1930s, Fred’s father Morris owned a trading post on the Laguna Indian reservation and that’s where Fred learned to play polo. He was recorded on his own in Magdalena village, Socorro County, New Mexico, on the 1940 census, as a retail clerk.⁴

Fred attended college for a year but on 2 April 1941 enlisted in the United States Army.⁵ He served throughout World War II in the U.S. Army Air Corp as a flight instructor.⁶

He married, first, Margaret M. Robinson in January 1948 at Santa Fe, New Mexico,⁷ and the timing of that marriage is the backdrop for one of the best of my family’s stories.

My own parents were married in Colorado only a few days after Fred’s wedding. About 10 days before my parents were married, my mother telegraphed her cousin Fred in Santa Fe and asked him to walk her down the aisle. Fred telegraphed back on January 14th: “Am getting married January 22nd but will arrange honeymoon so I can ditch her long enuf to escort you. Fred.”⁸

Years later, after Fred and I tracked each other down researching our family history, Fred gave me the rest of the story in an email:

“Did your mother ever tell you what a hard time I had trying to give her away in marriage? We left Santa Fe after our own marriage for the Broadmoor hotel in Colo. Springs but ran into a heavy snow storm. Didn’t get to the hotel until after midnight and then had to get up early to drive on up to Golden. The roads were quite slick and in my rush, I slid into a sign post and smashed the fender on my father’s new Buick which I had borrowed for the trip! Geez! The sacrifices I make for the women in my life!”⁹

Fred owned a Mayflower moving franchise in Santa Fe and was the owner of Moore’s Generator Exchange in Albuquerque. After Margaret’s death in a car accident, he married Beatrice Bassett Roach, who served as New Mexico Secretary of State from 1951 to 1954. Between them they raised three children and enjoyed seven grandchildren.¹⁰

As with so many others in my extended family whom I hadn’t met, I had long wanted to meet Fred. I enjoyed our email exchanges and letters back and forth, but I wanted to meet him face to face.

And there was something — some intangible than was more than just Fred’s advancing years — that made me feel it was imperative in 2004 to just pack up and go. I went out to New Mexico and had an absolutely glorious time not just with Fred and his wife Bea but with his nephew, my second cousin Dick Moore and Dick’s wife Julie.

I’m so glad I went. Just a few months later, Fred was gone — a sudden unexpected illness had sapped his strength and stolen him away. He died 9 January 2005¹¹ and his cremated ashes were buried in the Santa Fe National Cemetery with military honors.¹²

He was my Mom’s special cousin. He became my special friend. And I miss him.

The Legal Genealogist has her feet off the ground. Literally and figuratively.

Literally, because I’m winging my way across the country en route to Seattle for this weekend’s 90th anniversary spring seminar of the Seattle Genealogicial Society.

And figuratively, because I’m winging my way across the country en route to Seattle for this weekend’s 90th anniversary spring seminar of the Seattle Genealogicial Society.

Tomorrow, Saturday, May 18, I’m so very honored to be the speaker at this anniversary celebration, presenting:

    • How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists

    • Where There Is — and Isn’t — a Will

    • “Don’t Forget the Ladies” — a Genealogist’s Guide to Women and the Law

    • Using Court Records to Tell the Stories of Our Ancestors’ Lives

Then on Sunday, May 19, it’s a sold-out advanced workshop on Building a Family Using Circumstantial Evidence.

If you’re in the neighborhood tomorrow, come join us. Walk-ins are welcome at Fairview Christian School, 844 NE 78th St., Seattle, with the festivities kicking off at 9 a.m.

Hope to see you there!

One hundred and forty five years ago today, it was Judgment Day in the United States Senate. And the odds were against the man on trial.

There were 27 states then represented in the Senate — the former Confederate States weren’t yet voting again — and a two-thirds vote was needed. Just 36 Senators had to vote yes, and Andrew Johnson would have been removed as President of the United States.

The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Salmon Chase, had presided over Johnson’s trial in the Senate and it fell to him to poll the members when, on this day, 145 years ago, the first and decisive vote was taken on the most likely of the 11 articles of impeachment to succeed.¹

It all came down in the end to one man, Senator Edmund Gibson Ross of Kansas. He was born in Ashlasnd, Ohio, 7 December 1826, raised in Ohio and apprenticed there as a printer. He moved to Wisconsin in 1849 and to Kansas in 1856.²

Most of his career was spent in the newspaper business. He’d worked with the Milwaukee Sentinel, published the Topeka Tribune, founded the Kansas State Record, and edited the Kansas Tribune. A Civil War veteran, he was appointed to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by the death of Sen. James Lane in 1866.³

He was defeated when he ran for a full term in 1870, defeated as a candidate for Kansas Governor in 1880 and held only one additional political job in his life — he was appointed Governor of the Territory of New Mexico in 1885 and serrved for four years.⁴

Like so many members of the Senate, Ross had been widely lobbied by both sides in the impeachment fight. But no-one knew for certain how he would vote when the time came. Historian David Dewitt was there when Ross was called upon to cast that key vote:

Thirty-six votes are needed, and with this one vote the grand consummation is attained, Johnson is out and Wade in his place. It is a singular fact that not one of the actors in that high scene was sure in his own mind how his one senator was going to vote, except, perhaps, himself. “Mr. Senator Ross, how say you?” the voice of the Chief Justice rings out over the solemn silence. “Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?” The Chief Justice bends forward, intense anxiety furrowing his brow. The seated associates of the senator on his feet fix upon him their united gaze. The representatives of the people of the United States watch every movement of his features. The whole audience listens for the coming answer as it would have listened for the crack of doom. And the answer comes, full, distinct, definite, unhesitating and unmistakable. The words ‘Not Guilty’ sweep over the assembly, and, as one man, the hearers fling themselves back into their seats; the strain snaps; the contest ends; impeachment is blown into the air.⁵

Exciting historical times, for sure, and part and parcel of what we as genealogists want — and need — to consider in our family histories. Our job isn’t just to record the names and dates and places, but the stories of our people and their times. The BCG Standards Manual calls on us to consider “the data’s background context…, including … the literature, laws, regulations, customs, and history of the area, time period, population group, and government or military jurisdiction.”⁶

Consider, if you will, the people touched by this one event, this one day, in the United States Senate.

Clearly, those whose family line intersects that of Andrew Johnson already have this pivotal historical event in their family histories (or they should!). But then there are the 54 Senators who cast votes whose family lines may join with ours in one way or another:

     • To convict: Anthony (RI), Cameron (PA), Cattell (NJ), Chandler (MI), Cole (CA), Conkling (NY), Conness (CA), Corbett (OR), Cragin (NH), Drake (MO), Edmunds (VT), Ferry (CT), Frelinghuysen (NJ), Harlan (IA), Howard (MI), Howe (WI), Morgan (NY), Morrill (ME), Morrill (VT), Morton (IN), Nye (NV), Patterson (NH), Pomeroy (KS), Ramsey (MN), Sherman (OH), Sprague (RI), Stewart (NV), Sumner (MA), Thayer (NE), Tipton (NE), Wade (OH), Willey (WV), Williams (OR), Wilson (MA), Yates (IL).⁷

     • To acquit: Bayard (DE), Buckalew (PA), Davis (KY), Dixon (CT), Doolittle (WI), Fessenden (ME), Fowler (TN), Grimes (IA), Henderson (MO), Hendricks (IN), Johnson (MD), McCreery (KY), Norton (MN), Patterson (TN), Ross (KS), Saulsbury (DE), Trumbull (IL), Van Winkle (WV), Vickers (MD).⁸

Add to those Chief Justice Salmon Chase, and all of the members of the House of Representatives who had voted for — or against — the articles of impeachment on which Johnson was tried.

Then add the managers from the House who presented the case against Johnson in the Senate, including John A. Bingham of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. And the Presidebntial defense team, including “former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis; William Evarts, a prominent Republican lawyer; and Henry Stanbery, a former Attorney General in Johnson’s cabinet.”⁹

Add all the people who worked for the Congress or at the White House, the pages, the clerks. Add those who came to Washington to watch part of the trial. Add those who followed the events in the newspapers. Add, in fact, everyone alive and paying attention to national news — or even affected by it — in 1868.

History and events like these add so much to what we know, and hope to understand, about our ancestors.

They had names like Lon and Ray and Tennison and Dollins. They came from New York and Texas and Oklahoma and Nevada. They were single or divorced, educated or not so much, and they all had one thing in common.

They wanted to serve their country in time of war.

And they did. Officially. Starting 71 years ago today.

They were among the first enlistees of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), given official military status as of 15 May 1942, when President Roosevelt signed into law the first federal statute enabling women to serve officially in noncombat positions.

The bill enabling creation of the WAAC was first introduced in 1941 by Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts.¹ She was the daughter of a United States Senator and wife of a Congressman who ran to fill her husband’s unexpired seat when he died in 1925 in the middle of his term of office. She became the first female member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts.²

The bill creating the WAAC passed the Congress on 14 May 1942 and was signed the next day.³ It provided

That the President is hereby authorized to establish and organize in such units as he may from time to time determine to be necessary a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps for noncombatant service with the Army of the United States for the purpose of making available to the national defense when needed the knowledge, skill, and special training of the women of this Nation. The total number of women enrolled or appointed in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps shall not exceed the number authorized from time to time by the President, and in no event shall exceed one hundred fifty thousand.⁴

An electronic database of Army enlistments — including WAAC enlistments — is in the National Archives.⁵ It’s also available on Ancestry.com. While many of the original military records perished in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, most of the enlistment data is readily available.

And there you will find them.

Women like Mary W. Lon, born in 1911, a resident of Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, single, shown as a stenographer or typist in civilian life with four years of college, who enlisted at New York City on 18 May 1942.⁶

Like Pearl E. Ray, born in 1909, a resident of Washoe County, Nevada, divorced, a clerk with three years of high school, who signed up in San Francisco on 25 May 1942.⁷

Like Clara H. Tennison, born in 1915, a resident of Payne County, Oklahoma, single, a teacher with four years of college, who enlisted 30 May 1942 in San Antonio, Texas.⁸

Like Dorothy D. Dollins, born in 1918, a resident of Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, single, three years of high school, who signed up at Oklahoma City on 30 May 1942.⁹

You can even find the enlistment record of Oveta C. Hobby, born in 1899, a lawyer from Washington D.C., who enlisted the very first day the WAAC bill was law¹⁰ — and who was the very first commanding officer of the new WAAC, sworn in on 16 May 1942.¹¹

The first training center for the WAAC began operating in July 1942 at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with 125 enlisted women and 440 officer candidates as trainees. African-American women served in both the enlisted and officer ranks, in segregated units. From all walks of life, women aged 21 to 45 volunteered in numbers exceeding all expectations. ¹²

Initially, the WAAC wasn’t formally part of the Army: “The corps shall not be a part of the Army, but it shall be the only women’s organization authorized to serve with the Army, exclusive of the Army Nurse Corps.”¹³ If WAACs were sent overseas, they didn’t get the overseas pay the men got, and if they were killed, there was no death benefit to their parents, spouses or children.¹⁴

But in 1943, Rep. Rogers introduced more legislation to integrate what then was designated the Women’s Army Corps into the Army itself. Signed into law on 1 July 1943, the law provided “That there is hereby established in the Army of the United States, for the period of the present war and for six months thereafter or for such shorter period as the Congress by concurrent resolution or the President by proclamation shall prescribe, a component to be known as the ‘Women’s Army Corps’.”¹⁵ Oveta Hobby became its first director as well, sworn in with the rank of Colonel on 5 July 1943.¹⁶

Women in the military.¹⁷ Officially. And it began 71 years ago today.

There is curious language in a deed The Legal Genealogist stumbled across doing the usual late-night-poke-around-in-the-records that has become almost a routine.

The grantee in the deed was one James K. P. Newman. On the 14th of March 1882, he acquired 60 acres of land in Scioto County, Ohio, for $90. It’s a perfectly ordinary deed in many respects — with the usual metes and bounds description of the land and the grant to “have and to hold said premises with the appurtenances unto the said James K. P. Newman his heirs and assigns forever” that’s the usual legal boilerplate.¹

What’s curious about it is the language at the beginning of the deed: “in pursuance of an act of the Congress of the United States approved February 18 AD 1871. Entitled an act to cede to the State of Ohio the unsold lands in the Virginia Military District … and also in pursuance of an act of the general assembly of the State of Ohio. which was passed and which took effect on April Third AD 1873. …”²

And, of course, the identity of the grantor — shown in the deed as “the board of Trustees of the Ohio State University.”³

So what’s this all about? Turns out you can find language like that, referencing different federal acts and different state statutes, from many different colleges, all over the United States. And it’s all because of something called the Morrill Acts.

In the dark days of the Civil War, Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont continued to look forward to a time when the light of education could shine throughout the land.

Morrill had been the sponsor of a bill in 1857 to give federal land to the states, from the sale of which public colleges teaching industrial and agricultural subjects could be funded. The bill had passed in 1859 but was vetoed by President Buchanan.⁴

This concept of education suited to the working class — differing from the scientific and liberal arts focus of the private colleges and religious emphasis of sectarian colleges — was surprisingly radical. One of its proponents, Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Illinois, had had his home burned to the ground in the controversy.⁵

Morrill didn’t accept the defeat of 1859, and reintroduced his bill in the Congress facing the reality of the Civil War with one critical change that secured its passage: in addition to teaching agricultural and industrial subjects, the colleges funded by the law would have to teach military tactics.⁶

The act became law on 2 July 1862.⁷ It gave the states 30,000 acres for each Senator and representative in Congress, so the more populated states at the time benefited more from the law.⁸ And it provided:

That all moneys derived from the sale of the lands … shall be invested …; and that the moneys so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, … to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, … in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.⁹

And so began what are known as the land-grant colleges — and the deeds those grants caused. In Ohio, the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was established in 1870 under the 1862 federal act. It had just 24 students when it opened its doors in the fall of 1873, and graduated its first six students in 1878 — the same year that it changed its name to The Ohio State University.¹⁰

The 1871 federal act referenced in the Newman deed of 1882 gave Ohio all the unsold lands in what had been the Virginia military district¹¹ — some 4.2 million acres of land in Ohio that Virginia had reserved in order to give bounty land to Revolutionary War veterans.¹² The state law then provided that the title to said lands is hereby vested in the trustees of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, for the benefit of said college.¹³

So the land being sold by the University by way of that deed was Virginia Military District land, ceded to Ohio by the federal government, titled to the University by the state, and the proceeds were then put into the endowment fund that, even today, supports OSU and its educational mission.

And whenever you see language like that — and a grantor that’s an educational institution — take a look at the Land-Grant Act for the explanation of how that transaction came to be … and why.

By the way, as you can imagine, the 1862 act did exclude the Confederate States — “No State while in a condition of rebellion or insurrection against the government of the United States shall be entitled to the benefit of this act.”¹⁴ But they were brought into the land grant fold by the act of 1890, which required admission of students without regard to race but permitted the establishment of separate institutions “for white and colored students.”¹⁵

That law led to the founding of many of today’s historically black colleges and universities. But that’s a post for another day…