Second Life Book Club over Val Greenwood's "The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy'. chapters 21 Courts and chapter 22, Property Rights of Women as a Consideration.

1. Court Records
Property Rights of Women
as a Consideration

2. Court Records – Ch. 21
Court Records – Records of actions on civil
matters.
– Criminal (public) & Civil (private)
– Note: Non-adversary proceedings, such as name
changes, naturalizations, adoptions, etc. also have
significant genealogical importance!
– Every writ, affidavit, complaint, answer, summons,
subpoena, judgment, injunction, petition, motion,
deposition, pleading, sentence, order, decree & all
proceedings & testimony of every case are
detailed in the courts’ records & filed in
systematic order.

3. American Court System
• State courts vs federal courts
– Limited value to genealogists, most records they will
be concerned with are usually on a state level.
• Law vs equity-(justice)
– Law: recover monetary damages for injuries to
himself, his property, his pocketbook, or his
reputation.
– Equity: compel someone to do something or stop
doing something (injunction)
• Trial courts (original jurisdiction) vs appellate
courts (case goes on appeal from the decision of
the trial court.

4. Records & Access
• A civil docket entry is a short statement giving
an abbreviated account of an important act of
the court in the conduct of a case.
• Usually indexed
• Goal – provide access to the actual court case
files.
• Other dockets – trial dockets, execution
dockets & judgment dockets

5. Divorce Records
• Contain genealogical information
– Any children would be listed with names & ages
– Birth dates of the parties involved
– Date & place of marriage
– Date & grounds for the divorce
– Normally indexed and open to the public
– Exceptions, New York only open to the parties
involved.

6. Citizenship & Naturalization Matters
• Naturalization – granting of citizenship rights
to aliens as if they were native-born.
• 14th Amendment – guaranteed national
citizenship & extended to all born or
naturalized in US, subject to its jurisdiction.
• Located - National Archives Field Branches
• Terms – Declaration of intention,
Naturalization petitions, Naturalization
depositions, oath of allegiance

7. Property Rights of Women as a
Consideration – Ch. 22
• Once a woman married, there is little trace of
her in records – women had no significant
status apart from their husbands.
• Single women had same property rights as
men (no political rights)
• Common law of unity was strong, even when
laws were changed, most clung to this old
common law principal.

8. – Real Estate Conveyances
• Prevented husband from selling real property without
his wife’s consent
• Some required husband & wife’s signatures
– Laws relating to inheritance
• The Widow
• The Widower
• Woman who inherits property from someone other
than her husband