If your great grandmother lost custody of her children in the early to mid 1800's and you do not understand why, never fear. I'm here to clarify something that you may not understand about this particular record set. Just today, someone posted a request on a facebook group looking for help in identifying a woman (no last name) to a man (no first name). So I went online out of curiosity to see what I could find out. Of course, the first thing I did was look to see what other people had already found out about this couple in user entered trees. I took a look at the documents they had attached to see if they confirmed who, what, where, and when. Check.. all was good. But then I clicked on a "story" note about how Mrs A's first husband died so the courts took her children away from her until such time that second husband came along and "rescued" her, to which her children were then promptly returned to her. They stated that documents show this - but there were no attached documents found in my (very brief) search. No. Now, no one who had this story posted had the actual documents that they said confirmed these papers. The documents would be Court & Probate Records, Orphan's Court Records or Wills & Estate Records to name a few - depending on what county and what time period the first husband would have died. In this case, I'm going to assume that "Orphan's Court Records" were those they were referring to base purely on what this story contained as an explanation and not by actually researching and seeing these. This made me think about writing this information for you. What you need to understand is that though they were referred to as Orphan's Court records, they really encompassed all the records that would have come through the probate judge's desk including wills and estates, land sales, administration bonds and so much more. Women were not lawfully allowed to control property. This "property" includes their finances as well as land and goods AND their children. A court appointed guardian and an administrator would have been assigned to the estate of the deceased husband. The admin would have control of the financial and day to day running of the household - though he would not have been actually living in the home. The widow would have to receive an allowance on a monthly basis and if an emergency arose, she'd have to ask for extra money for this. A guardian would oversee the general care of the children. They made decisions on if the children would be attending school, paying their expenses including turning in receipts to the admin for payment or reimbursement, purchasing needed items and they had legal control over their portion of whatever financial benefits they were to have from the deceased father's estate with approval from the admin. The widows often retained the children in their home and did take care of them as normal. But for all intensive purposes she had no say in financial matters pertaining to their property. With that said - I've yet to find these documents for Mrs A. So I don't know 100% that this is the case for her. After having been researching through these records for more than 20+ years, I'm fairly certain that whomever wrote this note, likely placed their 21st century values and language meanings into the documents and translations that they were seeing or reading. They did appoint guardians. Today, having a guardian means you no longer have a parent. However, back in the time that this would have been mid 1800s, it had a whole other meaning that we sometimes forget about. Know your record set history. Get to know what years they referred to Guardianships and what years they became Probate & Court records instead of Orphan's court records. It was not the same in every county and state, so knowing your research area will be key to understanding. Also, be cautious placing your current language skills on 19th century terms. Language evolves daily. I bet you could name 10 words today that didn't mean the same thing from the 1980s as they do today. My advice to those of you who are out there researching and looking at other users hand written and abstracted information about what they see and read is to take a look at the documents yourself and see if you can place what they are saying in some sort of context. Keeping in mind that what we say and do today is nothing like how our ancestors lived or spoke. Now get out there and Enjoy your Last few Adventures In Genealogy of 2018!!
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AuthorMichele is an obsessed mother of 4 residing in North Alabama. Hobbies include long walks in the woods, on the beach and in strange cemeteries and libraries. Genealogy friends need only apply. Categories
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