Georgia Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

An English legal system

Georgia's law came from England. The first colonists landed at Savannah in 1733 under a charter the Crown had granted the Trustees the year before; the colony had no legislature of its own until it became a royal colony about 1752. When Georgia joined the independent states it kept English law deliberately, by statute: an act of February 1784 declared the acts in force in the province on 14 May 1776 to be of full force, so far as they were not contrary to the constitution and form of government now established in the State, "and also the common laws of England, and such of the statute laws as were usually in force in the said province."¹ Georgia's own first code carried the same rule in its opening pages.

Georgia was a common-law state for the whole of this period. Husband and wife each held property under the common-law rules set out below.

A common law rewritten by statute — and codified early

The General Assembly replaced common-law rules with statutes over time, and Georgia was a national pioneer in codification. These dates are useful anchors, because each marks a change you will see in the records:

• 1777 — the first state Constitution abolished primogeniture (the eldest son taking the whole of his father's land) and entail (a settlement tying land to a fixed line of heirs so that no owner could sell it away). A person's estate was divided among all the children.²
• 1784 — English common law formally received.¹
• 1863 — the Code of Georgia took effect. Drafted by Thomas R. R. Cobb, David Irwin, and Richard Clark, it was the first comprehensive code of an American state, gathering the whole civil, criminal, and procedural law into one volume.³
• 1866 — a married woman was given her own separate estate.⁴
• Later codes followed at intervals: 1868, 1873, 1882, the code of 1895, the code of 1910, and the Code of 1933.

For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one

Full legal age in Georgia was 21, and the code says it in one line: the age of legal majority in this State is 21 years, and until that age all persons are minors.⁵ Majority was 21 for both sexes, without variation, through 1950.

A minor's legal capacity

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the minor's power to dispose of it:

• A deed made by a minor was voidable — it stood unless the minor repudiated it, which he could do after coming of age, and a minor who took property and then, on reaching majority, kept it or enjoyed its benefits ratified the deal and was bound.⁶
• A minor's contract could likewise be avoided, except a contract for necessaries, and a minor who by permission carried on a trade or business as an adult was bound by the contracts of that business.⁷

At 14 a minor could choose their own guardian, subject to the court's approval.⁸ A guardianship record in which the child does the choosing is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year. Guardianship ended at 21.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

Into the mid-nineteenth century the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14 and a girl at 12. When the Code of Georgia took effect in 1863 it set the marrying ages by statute: to be able to contract marriage a person had to be of sound mind, a male at least 17 and a female at least 14.⁹

Georgia treated the age of the parties as a question of capacity: once a party was old enough to contract a marriage, the fact that he or she was still a minor left the marriage good.¹⁰

Parental consent turned on a lower line, and it applied to girls. The ordinary — the judge of the county court that handled probate and marriage licenses, and the office Georgia used where other states used a probate judge or surrogate — was to inquire into the ages of applicants for a license, and where the female was under 18 he granted the license only on the written consent of a parent or guardian.¹¹ A Georgia marriage of a girl under 18 should therefore have a parent's written consent in the license file.

A marriage stood on the contract, not the ceremony

Georgia recognized common-law marriage for the whole of this period. The code set out what a valid marriage required: parties able to contract, an actual contract, and consummation according to law.¹² A couple who could marry, agreed in the present to be husband and wife, and lived together as such were married. A separate section of the same code directed that a marriage be preceded by a license or by the publication of bans in church on three Sabbaths. The Supreme Court had already held, three years before the Code, that where no statute declares a marriage void for want of the prescribed form, a marriage deliberately entered into by parties able to contract is valid even though a license was never taken out, and that construction governed for the rest of this period.¹³ For the researcher this is the central Georgia fact: a couple with no marriage license may still have been legally married, and the proof the law itself accepted — cohabitation, reputation in the community, and the birth of children — is the proof to look for.

Where a couple did take out a license, the record it left is the license and the officiant's return: the minister or judicial officer who performed the marriage endorsed it on the license and returned it to be recorded by the court that then held marriage jurisdiction. Some early counties used marriage bonds instead.

Restrictions on marriage

Marriage within the prohibited degrees of kinship (too closely related) was void, as was a bigamous marriage while a first spouse lived.

Race was a hard bar. Marriage between a white person and a person of color was void and was made a crime, and by the last decades of this period the statute defined a "white person" as one with no ascertainable trace of Negro or other non-white ancestry — the "one-drop" rule.¹⁴

Two rules under the Code turned on race and bear directly on what was written down. Enslaved people had no legal capacity to contract a marriage, so a civil marriage record for an enslaved couple was never created; the Code recognized their unions — the contubernial relation — only so far as to keep families together in public sales where that was possible, and in criminal trials where it mattered to justice.¹⁵ Free people of color could marry, and the Code let them marry without a license and without publication of bans, so a marriage between two free people of color before emancipation may leave no county record at all.¹⁵

Enslaved people and people of color

After emancipation the law recognized the families slavery had denied. The code, carrying the acts of 1865–66, declared that every colored child born before 9 March 1866 was the legitimate child of its mother, and the legitimate child of its colored father as well where the child was born in wedlock or where the parents were living together as husband and wife.¹⁶ This opened inheritance from the father to children born in slavery. The companion acts of 1866 recognized the marriages of formerly enslaved couples then living together and set a time within which the fact was to be recorded, so a couple who had been enslaved may appear in a county cohabitation or marriage record made in 1866 or shortly after.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

The right to acquire, hold, and convey land belonged to every free man, of any race. Once a person of color was free, he held the right on the same terms, subject to the registration and white-guardian requirements the slave code imposed. Property in the hands of an enslaved man belonged in law to the enslaver. A foreign-born man's right turned on citizenship, broadening as the naturalization and alien-property rules relaxed.

Which women could own land

For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married. A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. A woman transacting freely in the deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed. A married woman's position changed sharply in 1866, so the two periods are set out separately below.

Married women before 1866

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture — the common-law rule that merged a wife's legal identity into her husband's. Her husband controlled her property: her real estate came under his management, he took its rents and profits, and her personal property vested in him.¹⁷ A wealthy family arranged around this by placing property in a trust for the wife's "sole and separate use," a private arrangement that anticipated the separate estate the statute would later provide.

Married women from 1866

The Married Woman's Property Act of 1866 gave the wife title to and control of her own separate property: what she brought to the marriage or acquired during it remained her separate estate.⁴ The rule carried forward through every later code. A wife dealing with property in her own name after 1866 is doing something the earlier law would not have allowed, and that change of capacity is itself a dating clue.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

This is one of the most useful facts in Georgia land research, and it works differently from many states. Georgia dower — a widow's life interest in one-third of her late husband's land, meaning the use of that third for the rest of her life rather than ownership of it — attached to the land the husband was seized and possessed of at the time of his death. A man was seized of land when he held it as owner, so the dower right reached the land still in his hands when he died.¹⁸ A buyer therefore needed no release from the wife, and a Georgia husband conveyed his own land by his signature alone. Georgia settled a deed by the maker's signature and the witnesses' attestation, without the privy examination — the separate, private interview of a wife by an official — that other states required. A Georgia deed carrying the husband's signature alone is the normal form.

A wife's name appears on a Georgia deed chiefly when the land was hers — taken by inheritance, gift, or her own purchase — in which case she conveyed it herself, joining with her husband before 1866 and acting in her own name after. A Georgia widower took his wife's land only as her heir, on the ordinary rules of descent; the life estate that the common law called curtesy formed no part of Georgia law.¹⁸

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did. Conveying it was the constraint: a minor's deed was voidable and could be disaffirmed after majority.⁶ In practice a minor's land was managed by a guardian, and any sale went through the court, which leaves a petition and an order in the guardianship file. Own at any age; convey freely at 21.

Witnessing a deed

A deed to land in Georgia had to be in writing, signed by the maker, and attested — signed as a witness — by at least two witnesses. It was then recorded with the clerk of the superior court, which is what made it good against later purchasers.¹⁹ Who could witness was a question of competency, not of a fixed age: a witness had to understand an oath and be able to relate what he saw. In practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear years later to prove the deed.

Enslaved people, free people of color, and Native land

Property in the hands of an enslaved person belonged in law to the enslaver. Free people of color could own land, and did so subject to registration requirements and to the rule that a free person of color have a white guardian; those disabilities fell during Reconstruction, when freed people became citizens with the full right to inherit, buy, hold, and convey property.

Between 1805 and 1833 the state distributed most of its land by lottery — eight lotteries in all — parceling out land taken from the Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee nations to eligible drawers. The enabling act for each lottery set who could draw, generally free white men, with special draws for widows, orphans, and veterans.²⁰ Because eligibility turned on those categories, a lottery record fixes a person's residence and household status in the year of the draw, and sometimes his service.

Inheritance

An intestate estate: the widow and children

A person who died intestate died without leaving a will, and the law divided the estate for them. Georgia abolished primogeniture and entail in the Constitution of 1777 — among the first states to do so — and provided that an intestate's estate be divided among the children, with the widow taking a child's share or her dower at her option.² Land and personal property descended together under one set of rules, and children inherited equally whatever their sex or birth order.

Before the Code, the widow's share came from the distribution acts of 1789 and 1804: she took a child's part out of the personal estate, or her dower in the land at her election, and where there were no children she took half the estate, the other half going to the next of kin.²¹ The Code of 1861 replaced that with the scheme Georgia kept for the rest of this period, turning on the number of children:²²

So under the Code a widow with two children took a third, a widow with four took a fifth, and a widow with six still took a fifth. Where she elected dower instead, her interest in the land was the life interest and nothing more. A husband or widow who was under 21 and entitled to a share took it without the intervention of a guardian.²² Getting the widow's share right can make or break a family reconstruction built from an estate division.

The widow's year's support

From the Act of 1838 a Georgia widow and the couple's minor children were entitled, as a matter of right, to a year's support — an amount set apart from the estate for their maintenance, preferred before all other debts.²³ Under the later law the amount was never to be less than $100, and where the whole estate did not exceed $500 the appraisers set the entire estate apart for the family. Year's support is a distinctively Georgian institution and a genealogist's gift: the petition and the appraisers' return name the widow and the minor children, describe the property, and are filed with the estate papers. Where a husband's will made provision in place of it, the widow could elect — taking under the will, or setting it aside to take the year's support and dower — and her choice, or its absence, appears in the file.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A minor inherited immediately, but a guardian managed the inheritance under the court's supervision: the guardian gave bond, made annual returns, and handed the estate over when the ward came of age. That final settlement at 21 is one of the most valuable documents in Georgia genealogy, because it dates the ward's majority, and so approximates a birth year, and often reveals a female ward's married surname. Guardianships were granted and settled by the court that held probate — the court of ordinary and, between 1798 and 1852, the inferior court — and the file sits with that court's records for the county.

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property, so where a child inherited nothing, often no guardianship record was made. As in other Southern states, an "orphan" in Georgia records usually means a child whose father has died — the mother could be living. A father could name a guardian for his children by will; a widowed mother could name a testamentary guardian for children who had none, as to their persons and as to property they inherited from her.⁸ At 14 the ward could choose a guardian, subject to the court's approval.⁸

Children born outside marriage

At common law such a child inherited from no one, taking property only by gift or purchase. Georgia extended inheritance first from the mother, whose estate the child could take, and then from the father once the child was legitimated — by the subsequent marriage of the parents, by a private act of the legislature, or by a petition to the court by the father, on which the child took the father's surname. Bastardy proceedings, brought to compel a reputed father to support the child, generate their own records and name the father.

Children of enslaved couples

One rule is the key to African American inheritance research in Georgia, and it is set out under Marriage above: the code declared every colored child born before 9 March 1866 legitimate as to the mother, and as to the colored father where the child was born in wedlock or the parents lived together as husband and wife.¹⁶ The relationship could be proved by cohabitation and reputation, so a claim to a father's estate rested on testimony rather than on any document made during slavery.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

Before 1863 no Georgia statute fixed an age for making a will, and the rule turned on the kind of property. A minor could bequeath personal property, and such a will was good; but a minor's will could not carry land. Where a minor died leaving a will, his land went to his heirs at law all the same, and the Supreme Court held in 1856 that neither the minor's will nor a later order of court could divest those heirs of it.²⁴ Only a free person could make a will at all.

The Code set one age for both kinds of property, and set it low: infants under 14 years of age are considered wanting in that discretion necessary to make a will.²⁴ From 1863 a person of 14 or older, of sound mind, could dispose of real and personal property alike — a genuine Georgia peculiarity, far below the age of majority. Expect, and do not discount, a valid Georgia will made by a teenager. For a minor who died before 1863, though, look for an intestate division of the land whatever the will said, because the will could not reach it.

A will, other than a rare oral (nuncupative) will, had to be in writing, signed by the testator, and attested and subscribed in the testator's presence by three or more competent witnesses.²⁵ A gift to a subscribing witness failed — the witness stayed competent, but the legacy or devise to him, the gift of land or goods the will made, was void; a husband, though, could witness a will that gave a legacy to his wife, the interest going only to his credit.²⁵ A Georgia will in the testator's own handwriting took effect on the same terms as any other, with the same three witnesses.

An executor had to be able to qualify. A minor could be named executor and qualified on coming of age, unless the testator expressly directed otherwise, so where a named executor was under 21 the court put a competent adult in charge until he came of age.²⁶ A married woman could serve as executrix or administratrix — the woman's forms of the words — the executrix named in a will, the administratrix appointed by the court where there was none.²⁶ Where the court appointed an administrator it issued letters of administration, the document naming that person and authorizing them to settle the estate.

Taxation

What was taxed

Two taxes on individuals leave usable records across the period: the property tax, on land and other property, which before 1865 reached enslaved people, taxed as property of the enslaver; and the poll tax, also called a head or capitation tax, a flat tax laid on a person rather than on property. County tax digests — the annual lists of who was taxed and on what — are among the richest Georgia sources, and because the poll tax reached men who owned nothing, the digests work as census substitutes for the years between the federal censuses. Georgia's colonial tax records are almost entirely lost; the county digests begin in the 1780s.

The poll tax and who was a poll

A poll was an adult man, and the poll tax appears in the county digests from 1785. The tax act approved 12 December 1804 laid thirty-one and a quarter cents on every free white male of twenty-one and upwards, the same sum on every male free negro, mulatto, and mustizo, and the same again on each enslaved person under sixty, which the enslaver paid.²⁷ From the tax year 1826 a free white man of sixty and upwards was exempt, an exemption re-enacted in 1842 — which is why an established taxpayer can drop off the digest while still living in the county. By 1850 the charge on a white man had fallen to twenty-five cents a year, laid on male citizens between twenty-one and sixty, while a free person of color between eighteen and fifty paid five dollars, twenty times as much; where such a person had no property to levy on, the collector could hire him out for the amount due.²⁷ An inferior court could remit the tax of an indigent or infirm person. Women were not polls, so a woman appears in a digest only as the owner of taxable property, which usually means she was single or widowed. Formerly enslaved men became liable for the poll tax in 1866.

Under the code in force in the last decades of this period the poll tax fell on every inhabitant between the ages of 21 and 60, at $1 a year, for the support of the schools; it was not demanded of women or of blind persons, so in practice it fell on men aged 21 to 60.²⁸ The state constitution held the tax to educational purposes and capped it at one dollar. From 1877 the constitution tied the tax to voter registration — no one could register to vote without having paid it, and the arrears accumulated from the year a man turned 21 — which turned it into a tool of disfranchisement that fell on poor men of every race and, especially, on Black citizens.²⁸ Georgia abolished the poll tax effective 5 February 1945.²⁸

Taxable ages at a glance

Courts

Jury service

A juror was an adult man of 21 or over. Under the judiciary act that governed before the Code, the clerk of each court revised the jury lists every year in the judge's presence, setting out in separate columns the men most able, discreet, and qualified to serve as grand jurors, and the trial juries were drawn from those lists.²⁹ The Code carried the same idea forward: the county's jury commissioners selected upright and intelligent men from the tax digest, so the working qualification was an adult man who paid taxes, and that rule ran from the original Code of 1863 into the Code of 1933.³⁰ Drawing jurors from the tax digest was the mechanism by which poor men, and after 1900 Black men in particular, were kept off the panels. The constitution required the selection of the most experienced, intelligent, and upright men as grand jurors and intelligent, upright men as traverse jurors — the trial jurors who hear a case and give the verdict, as distinct from the grand jurors who decide whether to charge — and that word was read literally, which kept women off Georgia juries.

Criminal responsibility

The common-law ages governed criminal responsibility for most of the period:

• Under 7 — a child could not commit a crime.
• 7 to 14 — presumed incapable of wrong, a presumption the State could rebut by proving the child understood the wrongfulness of the act.
• 14 and over — full criminal responsibility.

From 1915 the larger counties gained juvenile courts, which changed how young offenders were handled. The act creating them gave a juvenile court in each county of 60,000 or more original and exclusive jurisdiction over every child under sixteen who was delinquent or neglected, and provided that such an adjudication was neither a crime nor a conviction; the court could, in its discretion, send a delinquent child to be tried under the criminal law instead.³¹ The practical effect for the researcher is that after 1915, in a county that had a juvenile court, a child under sixteen may have a juvenile-court file rather than an ordinary criminal case — and those files are typically closed.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate what happened. The trial judge examined a young child personally before allowing the testimony, and a very young child's uncorroborated word carried little weight — a question of weight, not of competency.

Women as witnesses and jurors

Women were competent witnesses throughout the period, subject to the common-law limits on a spouse testifying for or against the other. Jury service was open to men, and a Georgia jury that decided an ancestor's case in this period was composed of men. Women became eligible for Georgia juries in 1953.³⁰

People of color as witnesses and jurors

Under slavery and until Reconstruction, a person of color could give evidence in a case among other people of color: the code made free persons of color competent witnesses, if otherwise unobjectionable, and Negroes competent for or against each other, and a master competent for or against his slave.³² The federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Constitution of 1868 then gave people of color full competence to testify against anyone. On juries, Black men became legally eligible after 1868, though the taxpaying qualification and, after 1877, the poll-tax-and-registration system were used to keep them off in practice for generations.

(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)

Sources & Where to Verify

Every rule above is tagged with the law it rests on. The lists below show where to read those laws in full, and the reference works consulted, so anything here can be checked against the original sources.

Constitutions

• Constitution of Georgia, 1777. Art. LI (primogeniture and entail abolished; the intestate estate divided among the children; the widow's option of a child's share or dower). Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ga02.asp (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Constitutions of Georgia, 1789, 1798, 1861, 1865, 1868, 1877, and 1945. The capitation-tax, elector, and grand- and traverse-jury clauses. Digital Library of Georgia. https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlgb_gb0369/fulltext.text (accessed 25 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Cobb, Thomas R. R., comp. A Digest of the Statute Laws of the State of Georgia, in Force Prior to the Session of the General Assembly of 1851. 2 vols. Athens, Ga.: Christy, Kelsea & Burke, 1851. The pre-code compilation: the distribution acts of 1789 and 1804 governing the widow's share, the year's-support act of 1838, and the act of 27 December 1845 giving a widowed mother the guardianship of her children (vol. 1, p. 335); the general tax acts, with the poll rates and exemptions, are in vol. 2 under "Tax." Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/digestofstatutel01stat; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/digestofstatutel02stat (accessed 25 July 2026).
• The Code of Georgia of 1933, Adopted March 24, 1933, Effective January 1, 1935. Atlanta: The Harrison Company, 1935. The code in force in the last decades covered here: Title 74 (parent and child; majority, § 74-104), Title 53 (husband and wife; marriage, §§ 53-101, 53-102, 53-104, 53-207, 53-402; separate estate, § 53-502), Title 31 (dower, § 31-101), Title 113 (wills, descent, and administration; will age, § 113-203; formalities, § 113-301; witness-legatee, § 113-304; executors, §§ 113-1201, 113-1204; descent, § 113-903; year's support, §§ 113-1002, 113-1007), Title 49 (guardian and ward, §§ 49-103 to 49-105), Title 29 (deeds, §§ 29-101, 29-106), Title 59 (juries, § 59-201), and Title 92 (taxation; poll tax, § 92-108). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/codeofgeorgiaof100prep (accessed 25 July 2026).
• The Code of the State of Georgia. Atlanta, Ga.: J. H. Seals, 1861. Prepared by Richard H. Clark, Thomas R. R. Cobb, and David Irwin; in force 1 January 1863. The essential nineteenth-century volume and the first comprehensive code of an American state; carries the reception of the common law (Preliminary Provisions), marriage (§§ 1653–1654), dower, wills, executors, guardianship, evidence, and the provisions on slaves and free persons of color. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/codeofstateofgeo00geor (accessed 25 July 2026).
• The Code of the State of Georgia. 2d ed., revised, corrected, and annotated by David Irwin, George N. Lester, and W. B. Hill. Macon, Ga.: J. W. Burke & Co., 1873. For tracing a rule between the Code of 1861 and the later codes. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/codeofstateofgeo00prep (accessed 25 July 2026).
• The Code of the State of Georgia, Adopted August 15, 1910. Vol. 1. Atlanta, Ga.: Foote & Davies Company, 1911. Prepared by John L. Hopkins. The section numbers given in parentheses in the notes are this code's. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/codeofstateofgeov1prep (accessed 25 July 2026).
• The Code of the State of Georgia, Adopted December 15, 1895. Vol. 1. Atlanta, Ga.: The Foote & Davies Company, 1896. Prepared by John L. Hopkins, Clifford Anderson, and Joseph R. Lamar. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/codeofstateofgeo01prep (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Marbury, Horatio, and William H. Crawford, comps. Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia, from Its Settlement as a British Province in 1755 to the Session of the General Assembly in 1800, Inclusive. Savannah: Seymour, Woolhopter, 1802. All the laws in force from the settlement of the province in 1755 to the session of 1800, arranged alphabetically by title. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/digestoflawsofst1802stat (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Official Code of Georgia Annotated. Reception of the common law (§ 1-1-10); wills, dower and curtesy, and year's support (Title 53). The history line printed after each section is the roadmap back through the earlier codes. UniCourt. https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r84/gov.ga.ocga.title.01.html and https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ga/transforms/ga/ocga/r85/gov.ga.ocga.title.53.html (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Park, Orville A., comp. Park's Annotated Code of the State of Georgia, 1914. Atlanta: The Harrison Company, 1914. Embracing the Code of 1910 with amendments; the annotations are the fastest route to the case law under each section. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/parksannotatedc00skilgoog (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Prince, Oliver H., comp. A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia. Milledgeville, Ga.: Grantland & Orme, 1822; 2d ed., Athens, Ga.: the author, 1837. Digital images. Internet Archive. 1822, https://archive.org/details/digestoflawsofst1822stat; 1837, https://archive.org/details/digestoflawsofst1837stat (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Watkins, Robert, and George Watkins, comps. A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia, from Its First Establishment as a British Province down to the Year 1798, Inclusive. Philadelphia: R. Aitken, 1800. Carries the act of February 1784 receiving the common law of England at p. 290, nos. 287–288, and the early wills provisions. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/digestoflawsofst1800stat (accessed 25 July 2026).

Session Laws

• Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, 1865–66, pp. 239–240, and 1866, pp. 156–157. Legitimation of the children of formerly enslaved parents, and recognition of the marriages of formerly enslaved couples. Read the acts in the session volumes.
• Ga. L. 1858, p. 58. Ratification by a minor on coming of age.
• Ga. L. 1866, p. 146. The Married Woman's Property Act, carried forward to O.C.G.A. § 19-3-9. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2021/title-19/chapter-3/article-1/section-19-3-9/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Ga. L. 1838, assented to 29 December 1838. Twelve months' support for a widow and children, printed in Cobb, Digest, vol. 1.
• Ga. L. 1845, approved 27 December 1845. A widowed mother's right to the guardianship and custody of her minor children, printed in Cobb, Digest, vol. 1, p. 335.
• Ga. L. 1884–85, p. 135. A husband or widow under 21 takes a distributive share without a guardian.
• Ga. L. 1915, p. 35 (Act No. 210), approved 16 August 1915. "An Act to establish in certain counties Juvenile Courts." Digital images. Digital Library of Georgia. https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlgl_122211817 (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Ga. L. 1953, Nov.–Dec. Sess., p. 284, § 3. Women made eligible for jury service; now O.C.G.A. § 15-12-1.1. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-15/chapter-12/article-4/part-2/section-15-12-1-1/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Ga. L. 1969, pp. 123, 124. Dower abolished; now O.C.G.A. § 53-1-3. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-53/chapter-1/article-1/section-53-1-3/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Ga. L. 1996, p. 1414. Common-law marriage ended for unions entered on or after 1 January 1997; now O.C.G.A. § 19-3-1.1. https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-19/chapter-3/article-1/section-19-3-1-1/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Land-lottery enabling acts: the Act of 1803 for the lottery drawn in 1805, and the Acts of 1830 and 1831 for the 1832 land and gold lotteries. Read the acts in the session volumes for those years.
• Tax acts of the General Assembly, 1785 onward, and the act of 1826 exempting men over sixty. The annual general tax acts fix the poll rates for each year. Read them in the session volumes and in Cobb's Digest.

Court Cases

• Askew v. Dupree. 30 Ga. 173 (1860).
• Breedlove v. Suttles. 302 U.S. 277 (1937).
• Chapman v. McClelland. 248 Ga. 725 (1982). https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/37959-1.html (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Dillon v. Dillon. 60 Ga. 204 (1878).
• Hudgins v. Chupp. 103 Ga. 484 (1898).
• Loving v. Virginia. 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
• Scott v. State. 39 Ga. 321 (1869).
• Shivers v. Latimer. 20 Ga. 737 (1856).
• Strain v. Wright. 7 Ga. 568 (1849).

Secondary and Reference Works

• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Georgia Probate Records." The courts of ordinary, the inferior court, and the probate record types by period. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Georgia_Probate_Records (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Georgia Archives. "Land Lottery Records." Who was eligible to draw in each lottery, and how the records are arranged. https://www.georgiaarchives.org/research/land_lottery (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Georgia Archives. "Tax Records FAQs." The poll tax in the county digests from 1785; the exemption of men over sixty from 1826; women not taxed as polls; formerly enslaved men liable from 1866; and the survival of the pre-1871 digests. https://www.georgiaarchives.org/research/tax_records_faq (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Georgia Archives. Virtual Vault. Colonial wills and county will books. https://vault.georgiaarchives.org/digital/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• New Georgia Encyclopedia. "Land Lottery System." https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/land-lottery-system/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• New Georgia Encyclopedia. "Reconstruction in Georgia." https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/reconstruction-in-georgia/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Today in Georgia History. "Poll Tax Abolished." The repeal effective 5 February 1945. https://www.todayingeorgiahistory.org/tih-georgia-day/poll-tax-abolished/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Georgia. Bulletin 157-10. 1948 revision, restating the law as of the late 1930s. A one-stop summary of Georgia law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, dower, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, with citations to the Code of 1933. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/legal-status-women-united-states-america-5430/legal-status-women-united-states-america-january-1-1948-report-georgia-539564/fulltext (accessed 25 July 2026).

Citations

1. Act of 1784, adopting the common law of England and such English statutes as were of general use as they "An Act for reviving and enforcing certain laws therein mentioned," Savannah, 25 February 1784, in Robert and George Watkins, A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia (Philadelphia: R. Aitken, 1800), 290, nos. 287–288; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestoflawsofst1800stat : accessed 25 July 2026). The acts binding on the inhabitants of the province on 14 May 1776 are declared of full force so far as not contrary to the constitution and form of government then established, "and also the common laws of England, and such of the statute laws as were usually in force in the said province." The same rule is restated in The Code of the State of Georgia (Atlanta, Ga.: J. H. Seals, 1861), Preliminary Provisions, sources of Georgia law, ¶ "Sixth"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codeofstateofgeo00geor : accessed 25 July 2026); carried to O.C.G.A. § 1-1-10(c). ↩ ↩
2. Constitution of Georgia, 1777, art. LI; Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ga02.asp : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩ ↩
3. Code of 1861, title page and preface; prepared by Richard H. Clark, Thomas R. R. Cobb, and David Irwin, and in force from 1 January 1863. ↩
4. Ga. L. 1866, p. 146, the Married Woman's Property Act; The Code of Georgia of 1933, Adopted March 24, 1933, Effective January 1, 1935 (Atlanta: The Harrison Company, 1935), § 53-502, and The Code of the State of Georgia, Adopted August 15, 1910 (Atlanta, Ga.: Foote & Davies Company, 1911), § 2993; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codeofgeorgiaof100prep and https://archive.org/details/codeofstateofgeov1prep : accessed 25 July 2026); now O.C.G.A. § 19-3-9. ↩ ↩
5. Code of 1933, § 74-104: "The age of legal majority in this State is 21 years; until that age all persons are minors." (Code of 1910, § 3019.) ↩
6. Code of 1933, § 29-106; the ratification rule from Ga. L. 1858, p. 58; Strain v. Wright, 7 Ga. 568 (1849). ↩ ↩
7. Code of 1933, §§ 20-201, 20-202 (Code of 1910, §§ 4234–4235). ↩
8. Code of 1933, § 49-105 (Code of 1910, § 3035), a ward above 14 may select a guardian subject to the ordinary's approval; testamentary guardian named by the father, § 49-103, and by a widowed mother, § 49-104, the latter from the act approved 27 December 1845, printed in Thomas R. R. Cobb, A Digest of the Statute Laws of the State of Georgia (Athens, Ga.: Christy, Kelsea & Burke, 1851), 1: 335; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestofstatutel01stat : accessed 25 July 2026); guardianship ends at majority, § 74-104. ↩ ↩ ↩
9. Code of 1861, § 1654: to be able to contract marriage a person must be of sound mind, "if a male, at least seventeen years of age, and if a female, at least fourteen years of age"; carried to Code of 1933, § 53-102 (Code of 1910, § 2931). The common-law ages of 14 for a male and 12 for a female governed before the Code took effect. ↩
10. Code of 1933, § 53-402. ↩
11. Code of 1861, § 1661, "Consent of parents": the Ordinary and his deputy are to inquire as to the ages of all persons for whom marriage licenses are asked, and on any ground of suspicion that the female is a minor under the age of eighteen years are to refuse the license "until the written consent of the parent or guardian, if any controlling such minor, shall be produced and filed in his office," with a penalty on an Ordinary who knowingly grants a licence without it, § 1662; carried to Code of 1933, § 53-207. ↩
12. Code of 1861, § 1653: to constitute a valid marriage there must be parties able to contract, an actual contract, and consummation according to law; carried to Code of 1933, § 53-101 (Code of 1910, § 2930). Common-law marriage ended in Georgia for unions entered on or after 1 January 1997, by Ga. L. 1996, p. 1414, now O.C.G.A. § 19-3-1.1 (https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-19/chapter-3/article-1/section-19-3-1-1/ : accessed 25 July 2026); a Georgia common-law marriage formed before that date remains valid. ↩
13. Code of 1861, § 1658: to render a marriage valid there must be either a license previously granted by the proper officer or a publication of the bans in a neighboring church on three Sabbath days before the solemnization; licenses granted by the ordinaries, § 1659. The section is read against Askew v. Dupree, 30 Ga. 173, 189 (1860), the first Georgia decision on the point, holding that where no statute declares void a marriage not celebrated in the prescribed form, a marriage deliberately and intentionally entered into by parties able to contract is valid notwithstanding a failure to conform to the other prerequisites, and that a contract per verba de presenti — words spoken in the present tense, "I take you to be my wife" — makes a marriage even though statutes direct that a license issue. Followed in Dillon v. Dillon, 60 Ga. 204 (1878). ↩
14. Code of 1933, § 53-104 (Code of 1910, § 2935), and the marriage restrictions of Title 53; Scott v. State, 39 Ga. 321 (1869). Held unconstitutional nationally in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). ↩
15. Code of 1861, § 1665, marriages between free persons of color may be made without license or publication of bans; § 1666, the contubernial relation among slaves to be recognized in public sales whenever possible, and in criminal trials where it becomes important to the advancement of justice; and § 1664, marriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes, as defined in the Code, prohibited. ↩ ↩
16. Code of 1933, § 74-102, carrying Acts 1865–66, pp. 239–240, and Acts 1866, pp. 156–157. Not confirmed against the volumes — read the acts in the 1865–66 and 1866 session laws. ↩ ↩
17. Hudgins v. Chupp, 103 Ga. 484 (1898); the separate estate from 1866, Code of 1933, § 53-502. ↩
18. Code of 1933, § 31-101 (Code of 1910, § 5247), dower as a life estate in one-third of the land of which the husband was seized and possessed at the time of his death; Code of 1861, to the same effect; Chapman v. McClelland, 248 Ga. 725 (1982) (https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/supreme-court/1982/37959-1.html : accessed 25 July 2026). Dower was abolished by Ga. L. 1969, pp. 123, 124, and neither dower nor curtesy exists under O.C.G.A. § 53-1-3. ↩ ↩
19. Code of 1933, § 29-101 (Code of 1910, § 4179); Code of 1861, to the same effect. ↩
20. The enabling acts, including the Act of 1803 for the lottery drawn in 1805 and the Acts of 1830 and 1831 for the 1832 land lottery and the 1832 gold lottery. Not confirmed against the volumes — read the acts in the session laws for those years. Registration and white-guardian requirements for free persons of color, Code of 1861, provisions on slaves and free persons of color. ↩
21. The distribution act of 23 December 1789, as amended by the act approved 12 December 1804: the widow takes a child's part or share out of the personal estate, and if she prefers her dower has nothing further out of the realty; "in case of there being a widow and no child or children, or representative of children, then the widow shall draw a moiety of the estate, and the other moiety shall go to the next of kin." Printed in Cobb, Digest, 1, article "Distribution of Estates." ↩
22. Code of 1861, rules of inheritance: the wife is sole heir where the intestate leaves no children or descendants of children (¶ 2); where there are children she takes a child's part, "unless the shares exceed five in number, in which case the wife shall have one-fifth part of the estate," and if she elects dower she has no further interest in the realty (¶ 3). Carried to Code of 1933, § 113-903 (Code of 1910, § 3931); a husband or widow under 21 takes a share without a guardian, from Ga. L. 1884–85, p. 135. Both the one-fifth floor and the widow's taking the whole estate enter Georgia law with this code; neither appears in Cobb's Digest (1851), and the attribution of the one-fifth rule to an act of 1845 is mistaken. ↩ ↩
23. The act assented to 29 December 1838, allowing the executor or administrator "a reasonable support and maintenance for the space of twelve months" out of the estate for a widow and children notwithstanding the debts; printed in Cobb, Digest, 1: sec. 33. Carried to Code of 1933, §§ 113-1002, 113-1007 (Code of 1910, § 4041), with the later acts raising and regulating the allowance. ↩
24. Code of 1861, § 2373, every free person is entitled to make a will unless labouring under some disability of the law, and § 2374, "Infants under fourteen years of age are considered wanting in that discretion necessary to make a will"; carried as § 2371 of the Code of 1868, § 2406 of the Code of 1873 (where the word "free" has been dropped), and now Code of 1933, § 113-203 (Code of 1910, § 3839). The revisers set no statutory source in the margin against the section, and no testamentary age appears in the wills provisions of Watkins and Watkins (1800) or of Cobb's Digest (1851), whose appendix prints the Statute of Frauds but not the Statute of Wills; the age of fourteen therefore entered Georgia law with the codification. For the earlier rule the revisers cite one case, Shivers v. Latimer, 20 Ga. 737, 740 (1856), holding that on the death of a minor son "it was not in his power by will, being an infant, nor in the power of the Court, by means of the sale thereafter ordered, to divest the heirs at law of this minor of their interest in the land," and observing that the power to devise land was not co-extensive with the power to bequeath personalty. The case fixes no minimum age for bequeathing personal property before 1863, and no Georgia authority for that figure is confirmed. ↩ ↩
25. Code of 1933, § 113-301 (Code of 1910, § 3846), from Acts 1851–52, p. 104; Code of 1861, to the same effect. A gift to a subscribing witness is void though the witness remains competent, and a husband may witness a will giving a legacy to his wife, § 113-304 (Code of 1910, § 3849). ↩ ↩
26. Code of 1933, § 113-1201 (Code of 1910, § 3884); Code of 1861, to the same effect. A married woman may act as executrix or administratrix, § 113-1204 (Code of 1910, § 3944). ↩ ↩
27. The tax act approved 12 December 1804, sec. II, laying "the sum of thirty-one and a quarter cents … on all free male white persons of the age of twenty-one years and upwards," the same on slaves under sixty, and the same on male free negroes, mulattoes, and mustizoes; the act approved 24 December 1825 exempting free white males of sixty and upwards from the poll tax, re-enacted by the act assented to 23 December 1842; and the act re-enacting the tax for 1850 and after, taxing "each and every male citizen between the ages of twenty-one and sixty … twenty-five cents only" and every free negro or free person of color between eighteen and fifty five dollars, with a person of color nominally a slave taxed $150 from 1 March 1850. A free person of color failing to pay and having no property to levy on could be hired out by the collector, act of 16 December 1815. All printed in Cobb, Digest, vol. 2, article "Tax," secs. 2, 73, 85, 106, and 127–129; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/digestofstatutel02stat : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩ ↩
28. Code of 1933, § 92-108, $1 a year on every inhabitant between the ages of 21 and 60, for educational purposes, not demanded of women or of blind persons; the constitutional limit to education and to one dollar, § 2-5004; payment a prerequisite to registration, § 2-603; Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S. 277 (1937). Repealed effective 5 February 1945. ↩ ↩ ↩
29. The judiciary act carried in Cobb, Digest, 1: sec. 295: the clerks of the several courts, in the presence or under the direction of the judge, are to "regulate and correct the several Jury lists annually, by particularly specifying in distinct columns, the persons most able, discreet and qualified … to serve as Grand Jurors"; special and trial juries drawn from those lists, secs. 159 and 302. No freeholder qualification appears in the jury provisions of volume 1 of Cobb's Digest. ↩
30. Code of 1933, § 59-201, qualification of jurors, carried from the original Code of 1863, § 3821, through the Code of 1868, § 3841, the Code of 1873, § 3906, the Code of 1882, § 3906, Ga. L. 1887, p. 53, § 1, and the Penal Codes of 1895 and 1910, § 811; the constitutional formula for grand and traverse jurors, § 2-4502. Women made eligible by Ga. L. 1953, Nov.–Dec. Sess., p. 284, § 3, now O.C.G.A. § 15-12-1.1 (https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-15/chapter-12/article-4/part-2/section-15-12-1-1/ : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩ ↩
31. The common-law ages of criminal responsibility. Juvenile courts: "An Act to establish in certain counties Juvenile Courts," Ga. L. 1915, p. 35 (Act No. 210), approved 16 August 1915, § 1 (a juvenile court in each county of 60,000 or more, with original and exclusive jurisdiction), § 2 (jurisdiction over every child under sixteen), § 12 (the adjudication is neither a crime nor a conviction), and § 16 (the court may in its discretion permit a delinquent child to be proceeded against under the criminal law); digital images, Digital Library of Georgia (https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlgl_122211817 : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩
32. Code of 1861, the provisions on evidence and on slaves and free persons of color; the disability removed by the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and by the Constitution of 1868. ↩