Additional Information in this posting: ------ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 09:28:28 EDT Subject: Re: [NCGuilford] Legal Ages Laws on this subject varied from state to state, as it was state law and not federal law that set the limits. The information given out by Helen Leary at a recent NCGS regional conference about NC legal ages is as follows (hopefully the Rootsweb filters won't make gobbly-gook out of this; if they do, then e-mail me directly, and I'll reply with the information): Taxable Ages: 1715-1777 16+ 1777-1784 there were various experients with the limits, e.g.: 1779 21+ (with a value of less than 400 pounds) 1782 21+ unless married 1784-1801 21+ and until the age of 60 1801-1817 ages 21-50 1817-1970 ages 21-45 The following citations are from Helen Leary's book, North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History. I would highly recommend purchasing it for anyone researching in NC records. You can order it through any good genealogy book dealer. "Although a man could buy or be granted land before he was 21, but he could not sell it in his own name until the age of 21." (p. 43) "A single woman or a widow could buy land and, if twenty-one or over, sell it herself, but before 1868 a married woman normally could not - all the land a wife owned before marriage or inherited during it came under her husband's control. The 1868 North Carolina Constitution recognized the rights of married women to own separate property, and more liberal laws in this regard were passed thereafter. Even during the colonial period, however, a married woman who had been declared "feme sole" by a court or the legislature (e.g., when separated from her husband) could buy land and sell it in her own name." (p.43) "Between 1784 and 1868 NC law proivded that a widow's dower right extended only to lifetime possession of a third of the real estate her husband owned when he died. This is unlike the dower laws of colonial NC and those of other states, which provided that the wife had a one-third dower interest in all lands her husband owned at any time during the marriage - her "dower release" was needed for him to convey clear title to any of it. This difference must be kept in mind; until the colonial system was reinstated in 1868 (effective in 1869) the appearance of the wife's name or signature on a deed, or a statement appended to it that she had expressed her agreement to the sale, normally indicates that 1) the land had come into the family through her (usually by inheritance) and her release was needed to clear the title; or 2) the grantors or the grantees were recent immigrants from a state or country where the colonial form of dower was still in effect and habit sparked the release; or 3) the lady was not the seller's wife, she was his mother, releasing her dower right of possession to a third of the tract being sold (i.e., it had been her husband's before his death)." (p. 43) Children age 14 and older could choose their own guardian but remained minors until the age of 21. (page 189) If you want to read more about these subjects and others, do buy the book. It is relatively inexpensive (about $45) for 626 pages of wonderful information and advice, and worth every penny when working in NC records. Katherine D. Benbow ______________________________