
Some General Topics
Introduction: Common Law, Equity, & Statutes - a brief summary of the law of our ancestors
Legal Age - how old did a person have to be to take certain actions?
Orphans & Guardians The responsibility and selection of guardians
Women & the Law - The rights of single women, and which rights they lost when they married
Colonial Legal Terminology - Some terms often found in old court records
Things You Should Know About Deeds - methods of land transfer used in the colonies
Wills, Probate, Succession, and Inheritance
Succession & Primogeniture - Laws of succession and inheritance
Entail - A common practice in the southern colonies often ignored by family researchers.
Adoption & Inheritance - Inheritance by orphans and illegitimate children
Parish Records
Headrights
An Analysis of Surry County Headrights 1673-1692 - Including lag time between importation and patents
An Analysis of Lower Norfolk County Headrights 1637-1652 - Ditto
Tithables
Names and Naming Practices
Naming Patterns of Children - in the 17th and 18th century southern colonies
The Rise of Middle Names - how and when your ancestors acquired middle names
Interpreting Colonial Records - some legal and other helpful hints
(with an emphasis on the southern colonies)
This website contains most of the research I have collected on families and individuals, not all of them in my own family tree. Each "Family File" on the left consists of several detailed research papers, complete with footnoted references. These are predominantly families of the southern colonies and the southern states.
Many of these family files are quite lengthy. Altogether there are nearly 2,000 printed pages on the site, including several downloadable e-books. In fact, I think the two "Filing Cabinet" sites comprise one of the largest personal genealogical facilities on the internet.
This website is an extension to and replacement of Bob's Genealogy Filing Cabinet I. Family file collections are being expanded and relocated to this site, which will eventually become the only "filing cabinet". A number of family files remain on the original site for the time being.
The purpose of this site is to publish my work and to make it available to others. I have been helped enormously over the years by people who shared their information with me, so it only seems fair to do the same myself. Feel free to use whatever you find for your personal genealogy efforts. However, please do not publish anything you find here without permission. See About This Website for more details.
All of the reports here are in a constant state of flux. I continue to work on all these lines, and update each of these reports on a more or less regular basis. Please help by contributing corrections, additions, and comments.