PRIMOGENITURE CONCERNS REAL PROPERTY The old English Law of Primogeniture concerns the inheritance of "real property" only, such as land, buildings, etc. Under this law, the eldest living son (the "heir at law") inherited all the real property of the father if the father died intestate, i. e., without a will. If a will had been made, then the will's stipulations would govern. Since primogeniture was such a well known and standard procedure in the English speaking world, no specific mention of this transfer of title to the deceased's real property would usually be made in the court records concerning the estate. As a general rule, after the American Revolution, most states abolished both entail and primogeniture. In Virginia (VA) the entail was abolished in 1776; however, primogeniture was not eliminated in VA until 1785. The VA law, unlike the NC law of 1784, provided for equal sharing of real property among all the heirs - both male and female. In April 1784, the NC Legislature, in lieu of primogeniture, substituted a scheme where, in the case of intestate death, the father's real property would be shared among all the deceased's male children. The female children were completely left out of the sharing. In South Carolina (SC), primogeniture was not abolished until 19 February 1791, with an effective date of 01 May 1791. ENTAIL This is the name given to the legal status of a landed estate when its ownership is restricted through inheritance to biological descendants of the original grantee in order to maintain its size. Originally practiced in New York and the South, entail was abolished, along with primogeniture (inheritance by only the eldest son), throughout the United States before 1800. The practice of protecting large estates through restrictions on inheritance was brought from England, but owing to the vast abundance of available rich land in America, workers and tenants could obtain their own land, and large holdings became less profitable. Also, descendants of landowners could turn to the challenge of earning even greater wealth through their own efforts, and inheritance of large holdings was no longer the major path to wealth. Abolition of entail and primogeniture was part of a general reform movement that included the grant to married women of the right to control their own property and the disestablishment of churches. PRIMOGENITURE This form of land transfer was a holdover from medieval times that affected American colonization and ended in the wave of reforms that swept the newly created United States in the wake of the Revolution. In Britain, under primogeniture, a family's land was inherited entirely by the oldest male child, a system that served to keep estates intact and perpetuate the aristocracy. As a result, often lacking land or the means to buy it, many younger British sons turned to careers in the military or clergy, or sought marriage with the daughter of a wealthy family. Another alternative was to leave England for the New World, and this possibility attracted many settlers to what became the thirteen colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. They brought the institution of primogeniture with them, but it began to fade as colonization continued, for, unlike Great Britain, America offered enough land to go around, and it was more easily acquired. The principle of primogeniture was followed only when a landowner died without a will. The American Revolution ended the practice. During and after the war, the new states abolished such feudal holdovers as entail (which also kept land within a family) and quitrents (a tax paid to the land grantor). Primogeniture met a similar fate: Georgia was the first to end it in 1777, and the other states followed suit.