---------- > From: R. Sheldon <rpshel@frontiernet.net> > To: nagonan@mcleodusa.net > Subject: Re: [IABENTON-L] Re: great research tip > Date: Thursday, June 25, 1998 4:50 PM > > This is in regard to the great research tip about the signature of witnesses on old deeds. This tip would have helped me crashed so many of my brick walls I had to follow up on it and am sharing my conclusions. I have checked with a couple experienced researchers and a retired Virginia lawyer and law book editor and am sorry to report they have never heard of a convention of the witnesses being related to the grantors of a deed, nor is it mentioned in the "Source" guide to researchers. My experience as notary and legal secretary was that witnesses were needed to verify the person who signed the document was the person he/she claimed to be and nothing more. > > We also agree that if such a practice existed it was regional custom and not a law. It could be something the recorders of my adopted home state might do and it could be the writer hit a group of deeds in which that was the case. The key word in the item that sent up red flags was "always". > > > Pat Sheldon > Lakeville MN > > P.S. And by the way another fallacy to dash, the state laws of Minnesota were written by transplanted New Englanders, Germans and Irish long before the Scandinavians arrived and the first group still outnumber the last group. They (Scandinavians) receive entirely too much credit (blame?) in the media for MN customs. > > >