I\u2019m reaching out to my fellow genealogists for some help with deed language.\u00a0 As you may know from previous blog posts, I\u2019m fairly new to land records.\u00a0 Most of my immediate ancestors were urban folk who rented homes in Chicago, so land records were not a priority for me.\u00a0 But as I continue researching the line that\u2019s been in the United States since colonial times, land records are essential to my research.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve begun my land research in Michigan, where my ancestors initially purchased land, in Oakland County, from the government in the early 1820s.\u00a0 Of the deeds I\u2019ve pulled so far, they contain the standard \u201cboilerplate\u201d information about the transaction.\u00a0 They are then signed by the grantor(s), with witnesses listed.\u00a0 But it seems that the ones where the wife is also a grantor, there is additional language recorded by a Justice of the Peace.\u00a0 This is what I am having a hard time figuring out, what exactly this language means.\u00a0 Following is an example of the language in question, that follows the signatures of the deed:<\/p>\n
Territory of Michigan}
\nOakland County} ss:\u00a0 Be it remembered that on this seventh day of March A.D. 1831 before the subscriber a Justice of the Peace in and for the county aforesaid Came Robert Parks and Polly his wife to me personally knowing to be the persons within described and who executed the within deed and severally acknowledges that they executed it for the uses and purposes therein mentioned\u2014And the said Polly being by one examined separate and apart from her husband acknowledges that she executed the within deed freely and voluntarily without any threats fear or compulsion of her said husband or any other person.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe portion in red is the part I don\u2019t fully understand.\u00a0 Why was it necessary to do this, and what exactly does it mean?\u00a0 Any help would be greatly appreciated!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m reaching out to my fellow genealogists for some help with deed language.\u00a0 As you may know from previous blog posts, I\u2019m fairly new to land records.\u00a0 Most of my immediate ancestors were urban folk who rented homes in Chicago, so land records were not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genblog","cat-25-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3HcLI-bH","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}