The Legal Genealogist

Coming up: September-October 2026

Judy G. Russell — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 01:55:04 +0000

Upcoming presentations

Rabbit! Rabbit! Rabbit! Well, at least that’s what we all should have said if this had been posted on time! (Can we say “tech issues,” boys and girls? I knew we could…)

So, seriously, no, The Legal Genealogist doesn’t expect that to buy good luck for the month, but hey… you never know, right? And with as fast and furious as things are happening in 2026, well, let’s just say it can’t hurt.

Just yesterday we were hoping for a few warm days to start the spring and summer seasons, and now we’re heading directly into fall. Kids back in school, people even seriously starting to talk about the holidays… two-thirds of the way now through the year.

So… what’s up next? Lots, and as always you’re welcome to come along for the ride as much as possible.

September 2026

• Monday-Friday 31 August-4 September: The last of the 2026 full-week institutes, the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records, takes place at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. A seat in this comprehensive overview of federal records and researching in the federal archival repositories is one of the most hotly-sought-after items in genealogy. I’m honored to be presenting on Making a Federal Case Out of It and Busted, bankrupt, Banged Up: The Stories in Federal Court Records, both on Friday, 4 September. For info on trying to secure a slot for 2027, check out the Gen-Fed website.

• Thursday, 10 September, 6 p.m. EDT: The Virginia Beach Genealogical Society is hosting the presentation The Ethical Genealogist in a hybrid format at the Virginia Beach Central Library and via Zoom. Non-members can check the website for a link to register or email a Zoom link request to meetings@vbgsva.net.

• Monday, 14 September, 1:30 p.m. EDT: The Genealogy Society at Flat Rock (NC) will host the presentation Courting America: Using Court Records for Genealogy. I’m presenting virtually, but the meeting is in person at the Flat Rock Village Hall. It’s free to members and $10 to non-members. For more information about the society and membership, check out the society website.

• Thursday, 17 September, 11 a.m. EDT: My two sessions in the Researching New York: Resources and Strategies course at IGHR, both focusing on New York court records, will be offered on this third once-a-week session for this multi-week course. If this kind of institute course interests you, keep an eye on the IGHR website for future offerings.

• Thursday, 17 September, 7 p.m. EDT: The Avon Lake (Ohio) Public Library is hosting the virtual presentation Making a Federal Case Out of It. For more information and to register, see the library’s event page.

• Friday-Saturday, 18-19 September: The North Carolina Genealogical Society is holding its 2026 Fall Conference at the McKimmon Center in Raleigh, NC in person and virtually. I’m honored to be keynoting the conference with the presentation Fairs, Felons and Fake News: Early North Carolina Laws and I’ll give three more talks as well: “Don’t Forget the Ladies” – A Genealogist’s Guide to Women and the Law; DNA and the Golden Rule: The Law and Ethics of Genetic Genealogy; and Landing The Ancestors: Using Lands Records in Genealogy. I’m just one of an amazing group of 25 experts speaking live or streamed (or both). For more information and to register, check out the conference website.

• Friday, 18 September, 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT: In between sessions of the NCGS conference, the Bainbridge Island Genealogical Society will host the virtual workshop When Worlds Collide: Resolving Conflicting Evidence. Seats are limited and preference will go to BIGS members, so watch for registration information on For more information and to register, see the society’s event page.

• Wednesday, 23 September, 7 p.m. EDT: The Virginia Genealogical Society is hosting a series of online discussions called Barbara’s Book Club, focusing on the fabulous content of the new VGS publication by Barbara Vines Little, A Researcher’s Guide to Virginia’s Historical Records. I’m moderating the discussion on Chapters 9 and 10, which examine the Colonial Land Office and The Northern Neck/Fairfax Proprietary. For more information, check out the event page and click on this link to register.

• Saturday, 26 September, 1 p.m. EDT: The Pennsylvania Chapter, Palatines to America is hosting its virtual Annual Meeting and Fall Webinar, where I’ll be presenting Putting Those Records to Work and The Legal History of Title Origins in Pennsylvania. For more information, see the event page and register at this link.

October 2026

• Saturday, 3 October, 3 p.m. BST/10 a.m. EDT: The Devon Family History Society, Exeter, England, is hosting its virtual Annual General Meeting and Webinar, where I’ll be presenting The Robot Genealogist: Separating Fact from Fiction in AI-Assisted Research. For more information, see the event page and sign up for the socie4ty mail list at at this link.

• Wednesdays, October 7 and October 14, 7 p.m. EDT: The Family History Academy is hosting Genealogy’s Secret Weapon: Tax Records from Whiskey to Watches. — a virtual two-part course that I’m so excited about. Think about it: even when our ancestors left behind nothing but footprints in places where they lived, the tax people found ’em — and created records about them. We’re going to look at records from all over — not just the US, but Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom too. For more information and to register, see the FHA course website.

• Thursday, 15 October, 7:00 p.m. EDT: The Ford’s Colony (VA) Genealogy Club is hosting the virtual presentation Where There Is–or Isn’t–a Will. For more information, see the society’s meeting schedule page.

• Wednesday, 21 October, 6:00 p.m. CDT/7 p.m. EDT: The St. Louis County Library is hosting the virtual presentation From 1619 to Juneteenth: Slavery and the Law Before the Civil War. For more information, see the library’s events calendar page.

Come on out and join us, if you can, for one or more of these events and note, in some cases, that registration will be free or at a reduced cost to members of the host society — and some are limited to members only… There are some reaaaaaaally good reasons for joining genealogical societies… Just sayin’…

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: September-October 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 2 Sep 2026).

Coming up: August-September 2026

Judy G. Russell — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:46:58 +0000

Upcoming presentations

Excuse me?

Where exactly did July go?

It seems like yesterday was just July 1, and now it’s August 1 already.

Part of that is because of the busy institute schedule in July, for sure, and if you’re already missing the institute experience, be aware that there are courses offered once a week starting in August or later from both the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) with seats open. At IGHR, registration for Researching New York: Resources and Strategies (once-a-week course held Thursdays, September 3 through October 29) remains open until August 8 and for Core Course Two –Intermediate Genealogy and Historical Studies (once-a-week course held Thursdays, October 15 through November 12) registration runs through September 15. SLIG is offering seven fall once-a-week courses and information is on the institute website.

So… what’s up next for The Legal Genealogist? Lots, and as always you’re welcome to come along for the ride as much as possible.

August 2026

• Thursday-Sunday, 6-9 August: The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania holds its four-day virtual Pennsylvania Genealogy Event (PaGE). It’s a unique format, with access to 32 presentations by 24 experts provided for two weeks before the event itself, live interactive Q&A sessions during the four days of the event, gathering sessions for attendee discussions led by a moderator, and 90-day replay access to the lectures and the Q&A sessions. Topics cover just about every aspect of Pennsylvania research, from indentured servitude to migration to church records. I’ll be presenting In That Case: Using Published Pennsylvania Court Cases (live Q&A Sunday, 9 August, at 10:30 a.m. EDT) and Courting Pennsylvania: The Courts of the Keystone State (live Q&A Sunday, 9 August, at 11:15 a.m. EDT). For more information and to register, see the PaGE 2026 page.

• Sunday-Friday, 16-21 August: The Utah State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution is hosting its in-person DAR/FSL Week in Salt Lake City, open to DAR members and other genealogists from around the country who want to learn more about genealogical research while taking advantage of the facilities of the world-renowned FamilySearch Library. Experts from the Library will be joined by individual presenters during the week. My own topics are: Where There Is – or Isn’t – a Will; Courting America: Using Court Records for Genealogy; “Don’t Forget the Ladies” – A Genealogist’s Guide to Women and the Law; Dower and Dowry: Women, Property, & Legal Records; NARA Mythbusters: Your Family IS in the Archives; and No Vitals? No Problem! – Building a Family through Circumstantial Evidence (A Family for Isabella). Registration is closed, but keep tabs on the event Facebook page for possible last-minute slots due to cancellations. Note that this program won’t be offered in 2027 because of hotel availability (the Salt Lake Temple Open House will take every available room for months in 2027!).

September 2026

• Thursday, 17 September, 11 a.m. EDT: My two sessions in the Researching New York: Resources and Strategies course at IGHR, both focusing on New York court records, will be offered on this third once-a-week session for this multi-week course. See the course page for more information and to register — but note registration is only through August 8.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: August-September 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 2 Aug 2026).

July 4, 2026

Judy G. Russell — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 12:28:25 +0000

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,

WHEN in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

WE hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

HE has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

HE has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

HE has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

HE has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

HE has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

HE has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

HE has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

HE has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

HE has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

HE has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

HE has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

FOR Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

FOR depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

FOR suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

HE has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

HE is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

HE has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

HE has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

IN every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

NOR have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “July 4, 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 4 July 2026).

Coming up: July-August 2026

Judy G. Russell — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:50:57 +0000

Upcoming presentations

It’s the halfway mark.

Seriously.

Half of 2026 is gone already, in the blink of an eye.

It’s hot, humid and even downright sultry in much of the United States as we continue full speed in the summer institute season and more — things like methodology workshops, a special free copyright presentation sponsored by NYG&B and… and… and…

So… here’s what’s coming up:

July 2026

• Tuesday-Thursday, 7-9 July: The Midwest African American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI) holds its courses in a virtual format, and I’ll be teaching in two of the tracks: Track 1A, Fundamental Methods and Strategies for Genealogical Research; and Track 1B, Methods and Strategies for Slavery Era Research. For more information on all tracks, and to keep an eye out for 2027 courses, see the MAAGI website.

• Thursday, 9 July, 7 p.m. EDT: The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society is hosting the hybrid (virtual or in-person) presentation Borrowed, Shared, Preserved: Copyright for Genealogists as part of its Preserving Your New York Story series. You can attend in person at the NYG&B headquarters, 36 West 44th Street, Suite 711, New York City, or online (I’ll be online myself). For more information and to register — required, but free, see the event page.

• Saturday, 11 July, 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT): The Orange County California Genealogical Society is hosting the virtual members-only workshop No Vitals? No Problem – Building a Family through Circumstantial Evidence. For more information, see the Meetings & Events page and to join, see the membership page.

• Monday-Friday, 13-17 July: The GRIP Genealogy Institute holds its second session of the summer in person on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. I’m actually taking a course myself that week, but will be teaching for others in two courses: Surrogates and Substitutes – the 1890 US Census Exemplar coordinated by Cecelia McFadden and Kate Townsend; and Skill-Building Practicum for Genealogical Research Success coordinated by Sunny Jane Morton. For more information on the GRIP Genealogy Institute, fall courses still open and announcements for 2027 as they are made, head over to the the GRIP website.

• Monday-Friday, 27-31 July: The Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) holds its weeklong immersive session in a virtual format. There are six courses offered during this week, including the course I coordinate, Advanced Methodology and Evidence Analysis. Other courses are offered in a once-a-week format, with three of those upcoming later in the year. For more information about all courses, see the 2026 courses page at the IGHR website, and use this link to register for future courses.

August 2026

• Thursday-Sunday, 6-9 August: The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania holds its four-day virtual Pennsylvania Genealogy Event (PaGE). It’s a unique format, with access to 32 presentations by 24 experts provided for two weeks before the event itself, live interactive Q&A sessions during the four days of the event, gathering sessions for attendee discussions led by a moderator, and 90-day replay access to the lectures and the Q&A sessions. Topics cover just about every aspect of Pennsylvania research, from indentured servitude to migration to church records. I’ll be presenting In That Case: Using Published Pennsylvania Court Cases and Courting Pennsylvania: The Courts of the Keystone State. For more information and to register, see the PaGE 2026 page.

• Sunday-Friday, 16-21 August: The Utah State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution is hosting its in-person DAR/FSL Week in Salt Lake City, open to DAR members and other genealogists from around the country who want to learn more about genealogical research while taking advantage of the facilities of the world-renowned FamilySearch Library. Experts from the Library will be joined by individual presenters during the week. My own topics are: Where There Is – or Isn’t – a Will; Courting America: Using Court Records for Genealogy; “Don’t Forget the Ladies” – A Genealogist’s Guide to Women and the Law; Dower and Dowry: Women, Property, & Legal Records; NARA Mythbusters: Your Family IS in the Archives; and No Vitals? No Problem! – Building a Family through Circumstantial Evidence (A Family for Isabella). DAR members can get more information at the event Facebook page. Everyone can register at the registration link, and hotel info is here. Note that this program won’t be offered in 2027 because of hotel availability (the Salt Lake Temple Open House will take every available room for months in 2027!).

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: July-August 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 1 July 2026).

For Juneteenth 2026, the letters

Judy G. Russell — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:23:38 +0000

Powerful history

The Legal Genealogist has said this before.

Specifically, four years ago, when this film first came out.¹

What I said then is still the truth today: Ancestry is often the company genealogists love to hate.

Along with every other subscriber, I have to admit that — sigh — it’s expensive.

It’s often unresponsive to concerns.

It makes changes to things that don’t need to be changed and doesn’t fix things that do need to be changed.

And did I mention expensive?

Yeah, all that.

And then…

It takes the lead on a project like this one. Four years ago, it released the film A Dream Delivered:
The Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson in advance of Juneteenth,² in partnership with Paramount:

It’s just as powerful today, on Juneteenth 2026, as it was four years ago.

Watch it.

Just watch it.³

Wow.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “For Juneteenth 2026, the letters,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/ : posted 19 June 2026).

SOURCES

Judy G. Russell, “For Juneteenth, the letters,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 17 June 2022 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 19 June 2026). ↩
See generally Wikipedia (https://www.wikipedia.com), “Juneteenth,” rev. 19 June 2026. ↩
Click on the film name if the link from the image doesn’t show or doesn’t work. ↩

Coming up: June-July 2026

Judy G. Russell — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 20:29:37 +0000

Upcoming presentations

Sumer is icumin in!

Yep, it’s almost summer in the northern hemisphere as June rolls into 2026. The National Genealogical Society conference has wrapped up and it’s time to head into the summer institute season and more.

There are lots of things coming up that, as always, The Legal Genealogist invites you to come along on, and above all else — remember, it’s the summer institute season. And there’s a virtual course coming up fast that’s a particular favorite of mine: the course I coordinate for the GRIP Genealogy Institute. Running June 22-26, it’s Women and Children First!: Research Methods for the Hidden Half of the Family.

I’m really proud of the stellar faculty for this course — Blaine T. Bettinger, Catherine Becker Wiest Desmarais, Alec Ferretti; Michael S. Ramage, Richard G. Sayre and Ari Wilkins join me in examining all the ways to find and document the women of our families—mothers, sisters, wives—and the children they bore and raised. From the obvious topics of school and work records to the way these family members were disguised behind tick marks in the census, from clues hidden away in manuscript collections to the clues hidden away in our very genetic code, the resources and skills highlighted by this course will answer the question of why we should—and how we can—research women and children first and help us recreate our family trees far beyond the father-to-son-to-son bloodlines of genealogy past.

It’s a fun course, it’s an important course, and it’s a course where — every single time it’s offered — students make breakthroughs in their research that give them amazing insights into their own families.

For more information, see the course page at the GRIP website, and use this link to register for virtual courses.

And of course there’s more coming up:

June 2026

• Saturday, 13 June, 11 a.m. EDT: The Hudson County (NJ) Genealogical & Historical Society is hosting the virtual members-only presentation Doing Time – Prison Records as Genealogy Resources. Members get log-in info for all members-only webinars automatically, but there’s still time to join! See the society membership page.

• Monday, 15 June, 7 p.m. EDT: The North Hills (PA) Genealogists are hosting the presentation From Blackstone to the Statutes at Large – How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists in a hybrid setting (I’ll be virtual, but you can be there virtually or in person!). For more information and to register for either format, see the Meetings & Events page.

• Monday-Friday, 22-26 June: As explained above, the GRIP Genealogy Institute holds its first session of the summer in a virtual format, and my course, Women and Children First!: Research Methods for the Hidden Half of the Family, will be part of that week. For more information, see the course page at the GRIP website, and use this link to register for virtual courses.

July 2026

• Tuesday-Thursday, 7-9 July: The Midwest African American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI) holds its courses in a virtual format, and I’ll be teaching in two of the tracks: Track 1A, Fundamental Methods and Strategies for Genealogical Research; and Track 1B, Methods and Strategies for Slavery Era Research. For more information on all tracks, see the MAAGI tracks page, and use this link to register.

• Monday-Friday, 13-17 July: The GRIP Genealogy Institute holds its second session of the summer in person on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. I’m actually taking a course myself that week, but will be teaching for others in two courses: Surrogates and Substitutes – the 1890 US Census Exemplar coordinated by Cecelia McFadden and Kate Townsend; and Skill-Building Practicum for Genealogical Research Success coordinated by Sunny Jane Morton. For more information on all the in-person courses and how to register, see the courses page at the GRIP website, and use this link to register for virtual courses.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: June-July 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 1 June 2026).

Memorial Day 2026

Judy G. Russell — Mon, 25 May 2026 08:50:24 +0000

Remembering the fallen

It is Memorial Day here in the United States — the official holiday and the end of the three-day weekend during which we honor those who gave all for the cause of American freedom.

It was added to the federal holiday calendar in 1888 as Decoration Day¹ and moved to the Monday holiday calendar along with Labor Day, Columbus Day and Veterans Day in 1968.²

It is a time set aside for us all to honor the men and women who died in the service of this country in order that we might live free.

And The Legal Genealogist will never spend this day without pausing to remember the booksends of our family’s losses.

One in the Revolutionary War.

One in World War II.

Richard Baker was just 23 years old when he died, that cold December day in 1776. Unmarried. Leaving no descendants. He was born 23 December 1753, most likely in Culpeper County, Virginia.³ As far as we’ve been able to determine, he was the 10th of 13 children born to Thomas and Dorothy (Davenport) Baker of Virginia.⁴

He was serving with his older brother, my fourth great grandfather David Baker, in the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line when Washington crossed the Delaware just after dark on Christmas Day 1776. They were headed to what is known today as the Battle of Trenton.

One of Washington’s aides, believed to have been Col. John Fitzgerald, recorded the conditions faced by those troops that day: “It is fearfully cold and raw and a snowstorm setting in. The wind is northeast and beats in the faces of the men. It will be a terrible night for the soldiers who have no shoes. Some of them have tied old rags around their feet; others are barefoot, but I have not heard a man complain. They are ready to suffer any hardship and die rather than give up their liberty.”⁵

Washington wanted to attack just after daybreak but the crossing took longer than expected. By 6:00 A.M., the storm not abating, the conditions were miserable. One commander sent word that the men’s muskets would not fire due to being exposed to the elements. Washington sent word back to rely on the bayonet: “I am resolved to take Trenton.” ⁶ And, somehow, Washington and his troops succeeded in taking Trenton, and they did so at a small cost to his small force.

But part of that cost was paid by Richard.

There aren’t any details of his death. Just a poignant and quiet statement by his brother David many years later when David applied for a pension: “In a few days after we joined the main army the battle of White Plains was fought. We retreated & recrossed the Deleware The next Battle was at Trenton the 26th of Decemb – I was guarding the Baggage during the battle & had a Brother by the name of Richard killd in that action.”⁷

Some 167 years later, another family member gave his all. My mother’s cousin, Philip Cottrell — her uncle John’s only son — died in a plane crash as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II. He was appointed to the Naval Academy in 1941, but — like many enrolled in the nation’s service academies — had opted out of the classroom and into active duty. He wanted to fly — and he earned both his wings and a second lieutenant’s commission at Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1943.⁸

He was assigned to a training squadron at the Mojave Marine Corps Air Station — a station which saw four pilots killed in training accidents between the 13th of August and the 7th of September in 1943. And the first to die in those terrible weeks… Philip Cottrell.⁹

His roommate told a local newspaper: “The squadron had gone up about 2:30 p.m. to get in a couple hours of target practice. Phil was piloting the tow plane. When he attempted to let out the long target sleeve, it became entangled and wouldn’t unfold. Having no target to shoot at, the squadron decided to go back to the base. Phil was to pull in the ‘sleeve’ and follow them in. Apparently, the target was blown up against the side of the engine as Phil was hauling it toward the cockpit, and it became ignited. His plane afire, Lt. Cottrell had no choice but to jump. It is believed the fuselage of the plane struck him on the head as he leaped. He never pulled the ripcord.”¹⁰

Each of them gave his life for the freedom that all of his kin — and all of us Americans — enjoy today.

And today, on this Memorial Day 2026, we express our thanks.

To Richard. To Philip.

And to all who have given their all that we might live free.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Memorial Day 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 25 May 2026).

SOURCES

Image: Emanuel Leutze, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” Metropolitan Museum of Art
Image: Gerry Metzler, “Vought F4U Corsair,” CC BY-SA 2.0

“An act making May thirtieth a holiday in the District of Columbia,” 25 Stat. 353 (23 Feb 1888). ↩
“An Act To provide for uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays, and for other purposes,” 82 Stat. 250 (28 June 1968). Veteran’s Day was moved back to the 11th of November in 1975. “An Act To redesignate November 11 of each year as Veterans Day and to make such day a legal public holiday,” 89 Stat. 479 (18 Sep 1975). ↩
John Scott Davenport, “Five-Generations Identified from the Pamunkey Family Patriarch, Namely Davis Davenport of King William County,” PDF, p. 27, in The Pamunkey Davenport Papers: The Saga of the Virginia Davenports Who Had Their Beginnings in or near Pamunkey Neck, CD-ROM (Charles Town, W.Va.: Pamunkey Davenport Family Association, 2009). ↩
Ibid. ↩
George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, Rebels & Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It (1957; reprint, New York : Da Capo Press, 1987), 211. ↩
Alan Axelrod, Profiles in Audacity: Great Decisions And How They Were Made (New York : Sterling Pub. Co., 2006), 218-219. ↩
Affidavit of Soldier, 26 September 1832; Dorothy Baker, widow’s pension application no. W.1802, for service of David Baker (Corp., Capt. Thornton’s Co., 3rd Va. Reg.); Revolutionary War Pensions and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, microfilm publication M804, 2670 rolls (Washington, D.C. : National Archives and Records Service, 1974); digital images, Fold3 (https://www.Fold3.com : accessed 28 Apr 2012), David Baker file, p. 4. ↩
Crystal Bachman, “In Memory of Marine Lieutenant Philip Ellsworth Cottrell,” South Dakota WWII Memorial via Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/ : accessed 25 May 2026). ↩
See “Accidents Occuring 1940 – Prior,” Aircraft Wrecks in Southern California via Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/ : accessed 25 May 2026). ↩
Bachman, “In Memory of Marine Lieutenant Philip Ellsworth Cottrell.” ↩

AI meets TOS

Judy G. Russell — Tue, 12 May 2026 16:53:55 +0000

MyHeritage adds and Ancestry clarifies AI limits

Yep, it’s terms-of-service season at the genealogy websites, and this year — not surprisingly — there’s a clear showdown going on between major content providers on one side and the agents of artificial intelligence on the other.

And yep it’s absolutely going to impact our individual research and research methodologies as well — even if we can’t quite be sure just how just yet.

Sigh…

So… to put this into context, remember that terms of service (TOS) — or terms and conditions or terms of use or whatever this happens to be called at a particular website — are the limits somebody who owns something you want to see or copy or use puts on whether or not he’ll let you see or copy or use it. These are limits that are different from copyright protection, since the law says what is and isn’t copyrighted and you can own a thing without owning the copyright. So this isn’t copyright law; it’s contract law — you and whoever owns the thing you want to see or copy or use reach a deal. Yes, it’s a take-it-or-leave type of deal, but the law says — sigh — that’s perfectly okay. You either accept the terms, or you don’t use that website.¹

First up in this year’s AI-limiting terms for genealogy was MyHeritage, which updated its terms and conditions last month, adding this language:

Restrictions on AI Harvesting and Interaction: The use of AI agents, bots, automated systems, or any other artificial intelligence technology (“AI Tools”) to access, scrape, crawl, harvest, or collect data from the Website or Service (including but not limited to family trees, historical records, photographs, and DNA results) is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, you may not use AI Tools to interact with the Website’s features, automated workflows, or messaging systems. You are expressly forbidden from using any content, data, or information from the Website or Service to train, develop, improve, or operate any artificial intelligence model, machine learning system, large language model (LLM), or similar technology.²

Prohibition on AI Proxies and Gateway Accounts: You must not facilitate access to your MyHeritage account by any AI Tool or third-party automated interface. This includes, without limitation, arranging for an AI Tool to access the Service to provide a derivative service, search function, or data summary for yourself, other users, or any other third party. Using your account as a “gateway” to provide AI-based insights to non-subscribers is a material breach of these Terms, intended to protect the proprietary nature of our database and the subscription-based access model of the Service. Any use of the Service that bypasses our subscription requirements or facilitates unauthorized access to our database via AI-mediated tools is a material breach of these Terms and will result in the immediate termination of your account and potential legal action.³

Then it added to its general license language (“You are hereby granted a license to use the Service and the Website solely for personal use”) some limits that had not been there before. That section now reads: “You are hereby granted a license to use the Service and the Website solely for personal, non-commercial, and human use…”⁴

It’s clear these terms bar users from handing over their log-in credentials to an AI agent. It isn’t clear, at least not yet, what limits MyHeritage might try to enforce if a user personally gathers information from the website content and uploads it to an AI platform — nor is it entirely clear how MyHeritage intends to limit use of its web content by professional genealogists working for clients.

Ancestry joined in with a terms-and-conditions update today, updating its limits on AI-based agents. Previously, it barred “use of any artificial intelligence, bots, crawlers, spiders, data-miners, scrapers or other tools that facilitate rapid and bulk data collection.” ⁵ That section now provides that users may not “access, acquire, copy, or monitor any portion of the Services by any manual, automated, or programmatic method that exceeds the intended standard human use of the Services; or to use any data or content from the Services to train, develop, or fine-tune any machine learning model, algorithm, or artificial intelligence system.”⁶

Once again, how much use will be considered manual acquisition of content remains to be seen.

Two other notable changes were made in the Ancestry TOS, not AI-related but worth paying attention to. First, after last year’s brouhaha about whether a ban on using Ancestry for use in any judicial proceeding — which had genealogists who work in probate cases concerns, the terms were amended to limit the ban to using Ancestry’s DNA service “in any criminal judicial proceeding.”⁷ At the same time, Ancestry’s Privacy Statement was amended to bar not just law enforcement use of the service to investigate crimes or to identify human remains but use by “anyone working on their behalf.”⁸

And, second, Ancestry has expressly provided for a method for users to designate someone to gain control of their account as a future beneficiary. The provision reads:

Legacy Accounts and Named Beneficiaries. To help preserve your family history, you can designate a “Legacy Contact” in your Account Settings to receive access to your account if you can’t use it anymore. If a transfer request is made, we will verify the Legacy Contact’s identity and require proof of the qualifying event (such as a death certificate) before granting access. Upon verification, we will share your account access and Personal Information with your designated contact. They will then assume ownership of the account.⁹

To access that feature, users can go to their profile, choose Account Settings from the dropdown menu, then scroll down to Legacy Contact and enter a name and email.

There are of course a whole host of other relatively minor language changes in the terms — mostly to accommodate changes in the laws in countries around the world. But these spring 2026 changes suggest that the big battle in the future will be between content providers like the genealogy websites and content acquisition systems driven by AI that we as individuals want to use to assist with and streamline our research methodologies.

Fasten your seatbelts.

It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Image generated by Google Gemini, 12 May 2026, in response to this user’s prompt.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “AI meets TOS,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/ : posted 12 May 2026).

SOURCES

See generally Judy G. Russell, “A terms of use intro,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 29 Apr 2015 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 11 May 2026). ↩
“Your use of the Website or Service,” MyHeritage – Terms and Conditions, updated 16 April 2026, MyHeritage (https://www.myheritage.com/ : accessed 12 May 2026). ↩
Ibid. ↩
Ibid., “Limited Use License,” emphasis added. ↩
“1.3 Use of the Services,” 2025 version, Ancestry Terms and Conditions, effective 18 Aug 2025, via Wayback Machine, Internet Archive, (https://web.archive.org/ : accessed 12 May 2026). ↩
“1.3 Use of the Services,” Ancestry Terms and Conditions, updated 12 May 2026, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 12 May 2026). ↩
Ibid., “1.4.2 Your Use of DNA Services,” emphasis added. ↩
“7. What Information Do We Share, When Do We Share It and Who Are the Recipients?,” Ancestry Privacy Statement, updated 12 May 2026, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 12 May 2026). ↩
Ibid. ↩

A Mother’s Day caution

Judy G. Russell — Sun, 10 May 2026 13:49:07 +0000

Happy Mother’s Day 2026

It is Mother’s Day here in the United States, and The Legal Genealogist is thinking once more about the pluses and minuses of testing every available older member of the family if we want to incorporate DNA — and particularly mtDNA — into our genealogical research.

Mitochondrial DNA — mtDNA for short — is the kind of DNA we all inherit from our mothers, but that only the daughters pass down to the next generation. Testing our mtDNA gives us a way to look back at our direct maternal line — our mother’s mother’s mother’s mother.¹ It’s particularly valuable in answering specific research questions, such as which of two wives is the mother of a particular child.²

Looking at this image of my own maternal line, I’m struck by the fact that — going forward — there won’t be many representatives of these women available to test.

My own mother had seven children — four boys and three girls. Not one of her daughters has a daughter who has a daughter. From an mtDNA perspective, that line has ended.

Ten of the children of my grandmother Opal lived to adulthood — five boys and five girls. In total, those five girls bore 11 girls, granddaughters to my grandmother. But those 11 granddaughters only produced three great granddaughters who, in turn, have produced only two second great granddaughters. Of my grandmother’s five potential female-descended lines, three have ended.

My great grandmother, Eula, only had the one daughter, my grandmother Opal. Her other three children were boys.

And it doesn’t get any better when we go back to my second great grandmother, Martha Louise, who had eight children, including three more daughters, after Eula. Tracing those daughters down to today, there is one — one! — direct female line descendant that we know of.

And Martha Louise herself was an only daughter.

Think about that for a minute.

With all the generations from Martha Louise on down, and all the female children born in those generations, we’re down to just a handful of potential candidates for the mtDNA line going forward.³

Test that older generation.

Do it now.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “A Mother’s Day caution,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/ : posted 10 May 2026).

SOURCES

See ISOGG Wiki (https://www.isogg.org/wiki), “Mitochondrial DNA tests,” rev. 4 May 2026. ↩
See Judy G. Russell, “Finding Margaret’s mother: the end,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 31 Jan 2021 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 10 May 2026). ↩
Yes, we’ve tested representatives of that line already. Thank heavens. ↩

Coming up: May-June 2026

Judy G. Russell — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:39:06 +0000

Upcoming presentations

Mayday!

Well, at least May Day.

The first of May 2026 already.

And lots of things coming up that, as always, The Legal Genealogist invites you to come along on.

First and foremost, we headed towards the start of the summer institute season. Whether virtually (GRIP in June, IGHR in August) or in person (GRIP in July), there’s likely a course that’s tailor-made for you.

And one that’s come up virtually in June that I’m particularly fond of is the course I coordinate for the GRIP Genealogy Institute. Running June 22-26, it’s Women and Children First!: Research Methods for the Hidden Half of the Family.

I’ll be joined by a stellar faculty — Blaine T. Bettinger, Catherine Becker Wiest Desmarais, Alec Ferretti; Michael S. Ramage, Richard G. Sayre and Ari Wilkins — as we examine all the ways to find and document the women of our families—mothers, sisters, wives—and the children they bore and raised. From the obvious topics of school and work records to the way these family members were disguised behind tick marks in the census, from clues hidden away in manuscript collections to the clues hidden away in our very genetic code, the resources and skills highlighted by this course will answer the question of why we should—and how we can—research women and children first and help us recreate our family trees far beyond the father-to-son-to-son bloodlines of genealogy past.

For more information, see the course page at the GRIP website, and use this link to register for virtual courses.

And of course there’s more coming up:

May 2026

• Saturday-Sunday, 2-3 May: The Genealogical Society of Nova Scotia is hosting its 2026 Virtual Conference with a terrific line-up of speakers covering a wide variety of topics ranging from AI to genealogical methodology. I’m honored to be included, presenting Dowered or Bound Out: Records of Widows and Orphans at 1:45 p.m. AT (12:45 p.m. ET) on Saturday. For more information about this event and to register, see the the conference website.

• Wednesday-Saturday, 27-30 May: The National Genealogical Society is hosting its 48th annual Family History Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This year, as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, the theme of America at 250 will focus on understanding the nation’s past and preserving its records for the future. I’ll be presenting twice: on Friday, 29 May, at 9:30 a.m., on Twenty-Eight Volumes of Gold: U.S. Territorial Papers; and on Saturday, 30 May, at 11 a.m., on Occupants, Owners or Nations: Native Rights to Land. For more information about this event — which does include a virtual option for access to session recordings, see the the conference website.

June 2026

• Saturday, 13 June, 11 a.m. EDT: The Hudson County (NJ) Genealogical & Historical Society is hosting the virtual presentation Doing Time – Prison Records as Genealogy Resources. For more information about this Members-Only event (and to join!), keep an eye on the Upcoming Society Events page.

• Monday, 15 June, ~~11 a.m.~~ 7 p.m. EDT: The North Hills (PA) Genealogists are hosting the presentation From Blackstone to the Statutes at Large – How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists in a hybrid setting (I’ll be virtual, but you can be there virtually or in person!). For more information and to register for either format, see the Meetings & Events page.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Coming up: May-June 2026,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 1 May 2026).