My friends - It is that time of the year again when families are gathering for the holiday season. I want to take this opportunity to wish all of our subscribers, on all of my lists, a very happy holiday experience and to encourage all to be safe if traveling is in your plans. If we revisit the 19th century, travel of any distance for Christmas, or any other holiday, was virtually impossible if long distances(which were perhaps 100 miles or more then)were involved. After the arrival of train travel, those with money enough could move to other places by that route, if the route passed to, or close by their destination. Recently, I have had a few inquiries about law dictionaries. Every dedicated genealogist should have a law dictionary in his/her resources. One resource that is online is the 1856 Bouvier's Law Dictionary (http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvier.htm), which is valuable for *some* of the ancient terms(as they are known)which do not appear in current law dictionaries, and there are others, such as Nolo's. The gold standard, however, is Black's Law Dictionary, published by West Law. It is now in its 8th edition. I would suggest, though, that if you are in the market for a law dictionary, that you peruse the used book dealer sites(www.alibris.com , www.abebooks.com , and others)to see if a 4th edition of Black's can be found. After the 4th edition, Black's abandoned the listings of ancient law terms, which we, as genealogists see very often in our work in deeds, wills and other documents, especially as we go further back into the colonial period. I have a very well thumbed 4th edition of Black's that I use very often in my own in-house resources. Shortly after the first of the year, I will have a poll question for our JP List subscribers, so stay tuned. Here are a couple of little puzzlers to think about over the coming weekend, if time permits. Is anyone familiar with the 19th century term "keeping batch"? And what quantity is a "turn" of corn? I'll be back next week with the definitions of the two terms. Happy Holidays! -B ====================================================================