Dear List, Are there any legal scholars among you? I am admitted to the practice of law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and used to dealing with 17th and 18th Pennsylvania legal documents. Although I went to law school in New York State, I do not speak New York legalese fluently and I have even less of an understanding of New York legal history. So I am in need of some help. My questions are: 1. Once a patent had been granted for land in Albany County in 1684 and a portion of that land hand been occupied by the Patentees, Why would that patent need to be reconfirmed and apparently reissued to the same Patentees in 1708? 2. In 1743, why did the proprietors of the Saratoga Patent (descendants of the original patentees) have to petition the legislature for permission to subdivide the undeveloped lands within the Saratoga Patent, which the aforementioned proprietors held as tenants in common? 3. Why did the 1750-survey of John R. Bleecker, which subdivided the Saratoga Patent need legislative approval before it was implemented? Can you give me the titles of any good treatises on New York legal history? Reading Plucknett's Concise History of the Common Law and Ladner on Conveyanicng in Pennsylvania only gets me so far. Van Der Linden's Institutes of the Laws of Holland and Van Leeuwen's Commentaries on the Roman Dutch Law have not shed any light on the conveyancing peculiarities that I have described above. The other thing that I am quizzical about is - why on February 2, 1796, did the heirs of Killian De Ridder, deceased, have to petition the New York State legislature, praying the legislature to pass a law to enable them to divide the estate of Killian De Ridder, which lies in different counties, in a manner from that preferred by the statute for the partition of lands? What was the method preferred by the statute? Thank you for your help, Leslie Potter Glen Mills, PA