by Judy G. Russell | Nov 11, 2023 | General, Statutes |
Honoring those who served In the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 — one hundred and five years ago today — the guns fell silent. On the battlefields of Europe, where war had raged for more than four years, and throughout the world, those...
by Judy G. Russell | Sep 4, 2023 | Resources, Statutes |
Mapping our labor ancestors It’s the first Monday in September. Hard to believe, as always, that the summer is speeding to an end, kids are back in school, sunrises are later and sunsets earlier. And that it’s the first holiday of the fall season here in...
by Judy G. Russell | Aug 7, 2023 | Legal definitions, Statutes |
Rangers, North Carolina style It popped up in a volume of Rutherford County, North Carolina, court minutes. The County Court of Rutherford County held an election for an office The Legal Genealogist had never associated with North Carolina. The office of County...
by Judy G. Russell | Mar 21, 2023 | Legal definitions, Statutes |
What invalid means in military parlance Reader Carol Bickel was stumped: “I cannot find a good definition for the meaning of ‘Invalid’ on the jacket of a military record.” And what it means here is a really good question, isn’t it? Because The Legal Genealogist...
by Judy G. Russell | Feb 20, 2023 | General, Statutes |
Not Presidents’ Day at all It’s the third Monday in February in the United States — and you know what that means. CNN has a headline today: “Here’s what’s open and closed on Presidents Day 2023.”1 Fox News has a “Presidents Day quiz! How well do you...
by Judy G. Russell | Jan 13, 2023 | Legal definitions, Statutes |
About that lease and release… You’ll see it all over the land records of colonial America. In one document, person A leases the land to person B. And in another, often a day or two later, and sometimes even on the same day, person A releases the land to...
by Judy G. Russell | Jan 11, 2023 | Statutes |
… no different than kids those days … The reader’s tone was a little smug… and a little uncertain. John T. had read about the six-year-old in Virginia in custody for shooting a teacher and sounded a typical “kids these days” note. “At least our...
by Judy G. Russell | Dec 24, 2022 | Statutes |
It wasn’t always a holiday Here in the holiday season of 2022 — another crazy pandemic-impacted year — The Legal Genealogist is trying again to hang on to as many holiday traditions as possible. Which, given the latest surge in the latest variant...
by Judy G. Russell | Sep 5, 2022 | General, Statutes |
First Monday in September The Cleveland Public Library. The University of California at Berkeley. The University of Kentucky. The University of Montana. The University of Texas at Arlington. Columbia University. The Meyer Library of Missouri State University. The...
by Judy G. Russell | May 12, 2022 | Legal definitions, Methodology, Statutes |
Remember the mantra! Okay, fans of The Legal Genealogist, here’s your pop quiz for today. What’s the mantra around these parts? Yep, you know it. You can probably recite it in your sleep: If we want to understand the records, we have to understand the law...