You have correctly mentioned one of the many variations that appeared in SOME colonies/states - where the 'home place' or principle place of residence was at various times distinguished from investment or speculative real property purchased during marriage by the husband. The decisions varied widely over the 17th-, 18th- and 19th-centuries in the struggle by the law to see to the well-being of widows who had been neglected in the wills of deceased husbands. The whole subject of the "widows' portions" or "widows' thirds" has been the subject of many treatises and articles in the law of estates and of real property. No generalization is worth a damn in this matter (or most others, for that matter). Finally, another feature of the law that the careful researcher should watch for was that some early states/colonies provided that a widow should receive the income (not ownership) in 1/3 of all the property, real or personal, of the husband throughout her widowhood. I think that the law of real estate and estates for that colony or state MUST be checked in any complicated research problem involving land. ----- Original Message ----- From: <CASHKILBY@aol.com> To: <martee@citlink.net>; <VA-SOUTHSIDE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 9:36 PM Subject: Re: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] Re: Land Ownership in Tennessee | | In a message dated 4/22/01 12:05:35 PM, martee@citlink.net writes: | | << So, NO signature on a deed | | of the wife almost without exception means | | there was NO wife at the date of the deed. >> | | I must take exception to this, but also ask a question. I have many | situations where a wife did not relinquish her dower in a property though by | other records I know she was alive. These cases seem to involve land either | patented by the husband but which was not their primary farm, or land he had | purchased prior to his marriage. Was the wife's dower excluded to certain | properties such as the home plantation or land acquired after the marriage? | Or did wives just fail to relinquish dowers at times, or otherwise the | relinquishments were not recorded? | | Craig Kilby