Select Page

History too

The Legal Genealogist is thoroughly embarrassed. Yesterday’s blog lamenting our newly-acquired headaches in finding federal court records due to the relocation of some records to a different National Archives repository missed part of the issue. Yes, as the blog...

Mapping San Diego

Revisiting county boundaries The Legal Genealogist is heading off to Carlsbad, California, tomorrow on the last long-distance road trip of the year, for a a day of fun with a return visit to the North San Diego County Genealogical Society and its 2019 Fall Seminar at...

In gold or silver coin

About those lawbooks… What exactly did Elizabeth Wright do for a living around 1867? You won’t find the answer in the 1850 census, even though you can find her in the 1850 census of St. Louis, Missouri. She was recorded as 38 years old, born in Scotland,...

Mapping San Mateo

Just where would that ancestor have lived? So… an ancestor died in San Mateo County, California, on 1 January 1886. His obituary kindly informs us that he had lived in the same house for exactly 40 years, having moved in on 1 January 1846. Here’s the...

Centennial State laws

Colorado statutes from 1861 It was part of Spain, France — no, Spain — no, France — both Spain and France, the United States and Mexico and Texas, and then just the United States. At least some part of its land at one time or another had been in the Louisiana,...

Keystone statutes

A source for early Pennsylvania laws What does it tell us about the kinds of things our earliest ancestors in colonial Pennsylvania were concerned about when the first 10 laws enacted by the Province of Pennsylvania in 1682 were: • Concerning liberty of conscience •...

A matter of rank

The brevet rank in military law Reader GR Gordon is struggling to understand the use of “Brevet” military ranks by several men from a maternal grandfather’s home town in upstate New York, who were members of the Company H, 5th New York Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, in...