Illinois Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

A French beginning and an English legal system

Illinois passed through more sovereigns than almost any other state. The French founded Cahokia in 1699 and Kaskaskia a few years later and governed the Illinois Country under French civil law and the Coutume de Paris, the customary law of Paris. Britain took the country in 1763, Virginia claimed it in 1778, and the United States organized it under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. It was part of Indiana Territory from 1800, a separate Illinois Territory from 1809, and a state on 3 December 1818.

The operative law became English. The new state adopted it by statute in 1819: the common law of England, together with the English statutes of a general nature passed before 1607, was the rule of decision until the legislature changed it¹. That statute has carried through every revision of Illinois law. The French inheritance survives in the records rather than the doctrine, in the oldest land titles of the American Bottom.

Two features of that system shape almost every Illinois record. Property between spouses followed the common law, so each spouse owned separately and dower governed what the survivor took; Illinois used no community-property rules. And land descended to all the children in equal shares from the Northwest Ordinance forward, so an Illinois estate divides among the whole family rather than passing to the eldest son². Probate was local throughout: wills, estates, and guardianships were handled by a probate justice of the peace and the county commissioners' court, and later by the county court.

Free, indentured, and enslaved

Three legal statuses existed side by side in early Illinois, and the rules in the sections below turn on which one a person held. The 1818 Constitution barred any new introduction of slavery, protected indentures already registered, and freed the children born to registered servants — males at 21, females at 18³. The Illinois Supreme Court held in Jarrot v. Jarrot (1845) that the descendants of slaves brought in under the French were free⁴, the Constitution of 1848 prohibited slavery, and the legislature repealed the last of the "Black Laws" on 7 February 1865. So a Black Illinoisan in the records before 1865 may appear as property, as a registered servant under indenture, or as a free person holding a court-issued certificate of freedom.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Twenty-one for a man, eighteen for a woman

From 1 July 1872 the rule was stated as plainly as a rule can be: males of 21 and females of 18 were of full age for all purposes, and until those ages they were minors⁵. It matters constantly for research. An eighteen-year-old Illinois woman was an adult, able to convey land, make a will, sue, and marry without anyone's consent, at an age when her brother was still a minor. The same 21 and 18 remained the rule at the end of the period covered here⁶.

Before 1872 the general age was 21 for both sexes, taken from the English common law the state received in 1819. Illinois had nonetheless set 18 for a woman in each of the situations that generate records, so the practical effect for a researcher is much the same across the whole period: a woman of 18 could make a will of her land, join her husband in conveying her own land, and finish an apprenticeship, and her guardianship ended at that age⁷.

What a minor could and could not do

A person under the age of majority was an "infant" in legal language. A minor could own property outright; what the law limited was the power to give it away. A contract or a deed made by a minor was voidable — good until the minor chose to undo it, which could be done on reaching majority — with an exception for "necessaries," meaning food, clothing, and the like suited to the minor's condition, for which the minor had to pay a reasonable price⁸.

Marriage left a minor a minor. For a young woman, marriage discharged her guardian's control over her custody and education but not over her property; as to her property she remained a minor until 18⁹. Apprenticeship ran on its own clock: a child could be bound out as an apprentice or servant, a boy until 21 and a girl until 18, which is the length of the indenture rather than a statement about adulthood¹⁰.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

Illinois set two lines, and both tracked the majority ages. A man of 21 and a woman of 18 could marry on their own. Below those ages a marriage could still be had, with the consent of a parent or guardian, and only down to a floor: from the first state marriage act a male over 17 and a female over 14 could contract marriage, with consent required whenever either party was a minor¹¹. In 1905 the floor was raised, and the way consent was given changed with it: the parent or guardian had to appear before the county clerk and swear to the relationship and to the minor's date and place of birth and residence¹². That affidavit sits in the license file and is often the best birth date on record for a young bride or groom.

A marriage made below the statutory age, or without the required consent, was voidable rather than void: it stood as a valid marriage, binding on everyone, unless a court set it aside, and the party who married too young could disaffirm it — that is, refuse to be bound by it — only on reaching the age of consent¹³. In practice an ancestor's underage or no-consent marriage was almost certainly valid, and its children legitimate.

Common-law marriage, valid into the twentieth century

This is the single most important marriage rule for Illinois research, because it means many real marriages left no license and no certificate. Through 30 June 1905, a couple who were competent to marry, who agreed in the present tense to be husband and wife, and who lived together and held themselves out as married were lawfully married, with no ceremony, no officiant, and no county record¹⁴. On the sparsely settled prairie, where a clerk or minister might be a day's ride away, this was how a great many couples married.

An act effective 1 July 1905 required a license and solemnization for every marriage contracted in Illinois after 30 June 1905¹⁵. The practical rule for a researcher is a bright line. For a couple whose relationship began on or before 30 June 1905, look for evidence of agreement, cohabitation, and reputation — the marriage may be perfectly valid though no license exists. For one beginning after that date, expect a license and a return, and treat their absence as a real problem. The act left a door open, and it shows up in the records: a couple already living as husband and wife could obtain a license and be married under the act, and their children were then treated as legitimate¹⁶. A license taken out by a couple who plainly had been together for years is often this rather than a new marriage.

How a ceremonial marriage was made and recorded

Where there was a ceremony, the law was generous about who could perform it and about self-solemnizing faiths.

Any religious society could celebrate a marriage according to its own rules and usages¹⁷, the provision that carries Quaker and other self-solemnized religious marriages. And Illinois honored a marriage valid where it was made, so a couple married across a state line was married in Illinois.

The restrictions on marriage

Several marriages were void from the start, and the list shifted over time¹⁸:

• Bigamy. A marriage while an earlier spouse lived was void, and punishable, from 1819 forward.
• Kindred. Marriage within the prohibited degrees was void; incest was defined by statute in 1843, reaching parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles, aunts, and the like.
• First cousins. Marriage between cousins of the first degree was declared incestuous and void from 1887.
• Mental incapacity. A person who was insane or an "idiot," the statute's term, could not contract a valid marriage — a matter of common law before 1874 and of statute afterward.

Enslaved people, free people of color, and interracial marriage

An enslaved person had no legal capacity to marry, so there is no civil marriage record for a person held in bondage; a bond of matrimony had to await freedom.

Marriage between a white person and a person of color was prohibited from 1829 to 1874. The statute declared such a marriage null and void, and punished the parties with a fine, whipping, and imprisonment of not less than a year; it also fined the clerk who issued the license and the officer who performed the ceremony¹⁹. The prohibition was gone by the revision of the marriage law in 1874, so an interracial couple could marry lawfully in Illinois from that year. For couples who had married while one or both were enslaved, an act of 1891 settled the question directly: such a marriage was as valid and binding as though the parties had been free, and the children of it were legitimate and inherited on exactly the same footing as any other child, from brothers, sisters, and other relations as well as from parents. The act reached marriages made outside Illinois too, so far as the right to inherit property inside the state was concerned²⁰. Until 1 July 1905 the general recognition of common-law marriage did the rest: a present agreement to be married, followed by cohabitation and reputation, made a valid marriage without any document.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

The right to acquire, hold, and convey land belonged to every free man in Illinois, of any race, and at any age. A man took land the moment it came to him by inheritance, gift, or purchase, whether or not he owned anything else, paid a tax, held office, or could vote. Free Black, mixed-race, and Native men held and conveyed land on the same terms as white men and did so throughout the period; the restrictions that hedged their position were about residence and registration rather than title, and appear under "Enslaved people and free people of color," below.

An enslaved man had no legal capacity to own property; anything in his possession belonged in law to the enslaver, though a registered servant under indenture could hold property he acquired to his own use²¹. A foreign-born man could buy and hold land, and the widow of a man born abroad took dower in his land exactly as if he had been born a citizen²².

Which women could own land, and the change of 1861

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 was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture, the common-law rule that merged a wife's legal identity into her husband's. Before 1861 her husband controlled her property, took the rents and profits of her land and the whole of her personal property, and her contracts had no force on their own; her own land could be conveyed only by a deed she joined and on which she was separately examined, described below. Wealthy families arranged around coverture by placing property in a trust for her "sole and separate use."

Coverture was dismantled in three steps, and each one changes what you should expect to find in the records:

From 1861, then, a wife's name on a deed to her own land is ordinary, and after 1869 her separate earnings and what she bought with them were hers. One limit lasted: a married woman living with her husband could enter a partnership business only where he had deserted her, was insane, or was in the penitentiary²⁶.

Dower, and when a wife had to sign her husband's deed

This is one of the most useful dating tools in Illinois land research, because a wife's signature on her husband's deed reflects the reach of dower, which in Illinois was broad and long-lived.

Dower was a spouse's life estate — the use of land for life, without owning it — in one-third of the other's land. From the earliest statutes a widow was endowed of a third part of all the lands her husband was seized of, meaning lawfully held, at any time during the marriage, unless she had released it in legal form²⁷. Because dower reached every parcel the husband had held during the marriage, not merely what he owned at his death, a buyer needed the wife to release it, and a married man's deed of his own land therefore carries his wife's signature. She released dower by joining her husband in the deed and acknowledging it before an authorized officer, who examined her separate and apart from her husband and certified that she signed freely and without his compulsion — the private interview often called a privy examination, noted on the face of the deed²⁸. The same separate examination was taken when the couple sold land she owned in her own right, and for that the statute required her to be over 18²⁹.

The act of 1874 abolished curtesy, the widower's old common-law life estate in all his wife's land, and made dower reciprocal, so that a surviving husband or wife alike took a life estate in one-third of the deceased spouse's lands held at any time during the marriage³⁰. Dower in this form survived well past the end of this guide's period. The consequence for research held throughout: during a marriage each spouse had an inchoate, or not-yet-vested, right of dower in the other's land, releasable only by joining in the deed, so a conveyance of one spouse's land ordinarily bears both signatures³¹. Forced sales became an exception in 1939: a sale on execution, judgment, or foreclosure passed the land free of the other spouse's inchoate dower, and the officer conducting the sale paid that spouse its computed value in cash out of the proceeds³². So a sheriff's or master's deed after 1939 will not carry the spouse's signature, and the money owed to the spouse shows in the report of sale instead.

The homestead, a second reason both spouses signed

Separately from dower, the Homestead Exemption Act of 1851 protected the family home from creditors: the lot and buildings occupied as a residence by a householder having a family were exempt from forced sale up to $1,000, raised in later years, and the exemption continued after the householder's death for the surviving spouse and children while they occupied it³³. The signing rule is the point for genealogists. Under the act of 1851 a release or waiver was valid only in writing, subscribed by the householder and acknowledged like a deed³⁴. Later law required the spouse to join as well, and a husband's release then did not bind the wife unless she signed too, so a conveyance of the family home characteristically carries both spouses' signatures for homestead as well as dower³⁵.

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 on reaching majority. In practice a minor's land was managed by a guardian, and any sale went through the probate court on a petition, with the deed executed by the guardian under a court order and a bond. A guardian could also mortgage or lease a ward's land, but only until the heir turned 21 if a boy or 18 if a girl³⁶. A sale of a child's land therefore leaves a court file — petition, order, bond, and a deed signed by someone other than the owner — and that file usually names the family.

Witnessing a deed

An Illinois deed was made ready for the record by being acknowledged by the grantor before an authorized officer, meaning a judge, justice of the peace, notary, or clerk, or by being proved by a subscribing witness — someone who had signed the deed as a witness and could swear he saw it executed³⁷. Where a witness proved a deed, competency rather than age was the test: the 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 in court years later.

Enslaved people and free people of color

An enslaved person could own nothing; anything in their possession belonged in law to the enslaver. Free people of color could and did own land in Illinois, on the same terms of title as anyone else, and appear in the deed and land-grant records accordingly. The restrictions fell on residence rather than ownership. Under the "Black Laws," a free person of color could reside in the state only on producing to the county commissioners' court a court-authenticated certificate of freedom, which was registered with the county, and on posting a $1,000 bond against becoming a public charge; a person found without a certificate could be seized and hired out as a presumed runaway, and anyone harboring or employing such a person was fined³⁸. An 1853 act went further and tried to bar free Black migration into the state altogether. These requirements generate their own valuable records — certificates of freedom, freedom registers, and bonds in the county files — and all of them fell when the Black Laws were repealed in 1865.

Inheritance

One system for land and goods alike

Illinois ran a single intestacy system, meaning a single set of rules for the estate of a person who died without a will: real and personal property descended together, by the same rules, to the same people. The rule came in with the Northwest Ordinance and never left. Land and goods pass to the children and their descendants in equal shares, with the descendants of a deceased child taking that child's share — per stirpes, "by the roots"³⁹. Daughters inherited equally with sons, and younger children with older⁴⁰. Advancements, meaning property already given to a child during the parent's life, were counted against that child's share so the children came out even.

What the surviving spouse took

The surviving spouse's share was reworked twice, and the date of death decides which rule applies. In every version the widow, and after 1874 the widower, also had dower and the family award described below.

The 1872 act made the surviving spouse's interest sex-neutral and, for the first time, gave a spouse who left children a one-third share of the personal estate outright on top of dower⁴¹. The Probate Act that took effect in 1940 enlarged the land share, giving a surviving spouse with children an absolute one-third of the real estate, with the option to take dower instead⁴². Reading the right version for the year of death can make or break a family reconstruction built from an estate division.

The widow's award

On top of any share, the surviving spouse received a family award: support for the spouse and minor children, free of creditors and separate from the distributive share, which is the portion of the estate the law hands the survivor outright. In the early statutes it was specific property — one bed and bedding, the family's clothing, a milch cow and calf, her saddle and bridle, a horse worth forty dollars, household and kitchen furniture, and a year's provisions⁴³. By the mid-twentieth century it was a money award, not less than $1,000 with an additional sum for each minor child living with the survivor, to support the family during administration⁴⁴. It is a separate probate record, and it names the spouse and the children.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A minor inherited immediately — title vested in the heirs the moment the ancestor died. Managing that inheritance fell to a guardian, who gave bond, invested the estate, accounted to the court, and handed it over at majority. That final settlement, at 21 for a son and 18 for a daughter, is one of the most valuable documents in Illinois genealogy: it dates the ward's coming of age, and so approximates a birth year, and it frequently reveals a female ward's married surname.

Two definitions save a great deal of confusion. An "orphan" in Illinois probate meant a child whose father had died; the mother could be living, and the natural guardianship passed to her⁴⁵. And guardianship was driven chiefly by property. A guardian of the estate was needed whenever a child owned property, and the probate court appointed one for a child whose father was alive and well where the child held an estate not derived from the father — a legacy, meaning a gift by will, from a grandparent or a mother's family. A guardianship for a child with a living father is therefore a signal that the child inherited from elsewhere⁴⁶. The guardian of the person and the guardian of the estate could be two different people, so look for two records rather than one⁴⁷.

At fourteen, a ward — a boy or a girl alike — could choose their own guardian, subject to the court's approval; below that age the court appointed one⁴⁸. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year. A father could also name a testamentary guardian by deed or will, and a mother who was unmarried or widowed could do the same⁴⁹. Guardianship ended at majority.

Children born outside marriage

At common law such a child was filius nullius, "nobody's child," and could inherit from no one. Illinois extended inheritance on the mother's side and provided a route to legitimation on the father's.

From the mother, a child born out of wedlock was the heir of the mother and of the mother's ancestors, and the mother in turn inherited from the child⁵⁰. From the father, the child became legitimate, and so able to inherit from him, where the parents afterward married and the father acknowledged the child as his own⁵¹.

Where paternity was contested, it was settled in a bastardy proceeding, later called a paternity proceeding: an unmarried mother made complaint before a justice of the peace, named the reputed father, and the father, if found liable, gave bond and was ordered to support the child⁵². These proceedings name the father and generate their own county records.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will followed the majority ages for land and dropped lower for goods. An unmarried man of 21 or woman of 18 could devise land, meaning leave it by will; anyone of 17 could dispose of personal property; and a married woman could will her separate estate like anyone else⁵³. The Probate Act effective in 1940 replaced the split with a single age for a will of any property⁵⁴.

A will made by a 19-year-old man in 1900 is therefore good as to his goods and void as to his land; the same will in 1945 is good as to both.

A valid Illinois will was in writing, signed by the testator or by another at the testator's direction and in the testator's presence, and attested by two credible witnesses⁵⁵. The two-witness requirement held in every case, a will written and signed in the testator's own hand — a holographic will — included. The law did allow a nuncupative, or spoken, will of personal property, if it was committed to writing within twenty days and proved by two or more credible, disinterested witnesses who heard the testator speak it — useful to know when a soldier's or a dying person's wishes appear without a signed instrument⁵⁶.

A witness to a will could be of any age; what mattered was that the witness took nothing under it. A beneficial devise or legacy to a subscribing witness was void as to that witness, which left the witness disinterested and so competent to prove the will⁵⁷. So a gift to one of the two witnesses failed — and it tells you the drafter thought that witness close enough to the family to leave something to.

The age to serve as executor was 17, with a catch that relocates the record. Where the person named executor was under 21 when the will was proved, the probate court appointed a competent person to manage and control the estate, under the court's direction and on bond, until the named executor turned 21⁵⁸. By the mid-twentieth century a woman of 18 could serve as executrix or administratrix in her own right⁵⁹. Where a young person was named executor, expect the estate to be administered in an adult's name for the first years.

Taxation

What was taxed

Illinois raised its revenue from a property tax — an ad valorem tax, assessed on value — on land and other rateable estate. Early Illinois tax lists are therefore property lists, and a landless ancestor may not appear on them at all. Local school and road taxes, also assessed on property, round out the individual burdens.

The tax that reached a person as such was the road-labor requirement: every able-bodied man between 21 and 50 owed the county between one and two days' labor on the public roads each year, as the county commissioners' court fixed it, and he could work it off in person or discharge it in money⁶⁰. The road list of men liable to work is, in effect, a list of the able-bodied men of a district by name, and it is the closest Illinois record to a poll list.

Taxable ages at a glance

An exemption from the road-labor duty ran to those unable to work through infirmity, so a man dropping off the road list while still living is often explained by age or disability rather than removal from the county.

Courts

Jury service

Jury service in Illinois was long limited by race, sex, and taxpaying. The early statute made every free white male taxable inhabitant, a natural-born or naturalized citizen, between 21 and 60 years of age, of sound mind and not disabled by infirmity, competent to serve as a juror, with exemptions for judges, county commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, coroners, postmasters, licensed attorneys, and a handful of other officers⁶¹. A juror needed to be a taxpaying man of the right age, and later revisions framed the qualification as being one of the county's electors, meaning voters.

Two enlargements matter for research. Black men became eligible after Reconstruction, as the federal amendments and the removal of the word "white" opened the electorate and, with it, the jury rolls. Women became eligible on 1 July 1939. The Supreme Court had held in 1925 that the Nineteenth Amendment did nothing to make a woman liable or eligible for jury service, and an attempt to admit women by referendum was struck down because the legislature could not hand the question to the voters⁶². Two acts approved the same day, 12 May 1939, and in force that 1 July did it. One directed the county board of each county to make its jury list from not less than one-tenth of the legal voters of each sex in every town or precinct. The other, for counties with jury commissioners, directed the commissioners to list all electors of each sex between 21 and 65 who were qualified for jury duty, entering each name in a book with the person's age, occupation, residence, and whether a householder or a freeholder⁶³. The Supreme Court upheld the change that August⁶⁴. Before 1 July 1939, a jury that heard an ancestor's case was a jury of men.

Criminal responsibility

Illinois fixed the age of criminal responsibility by statute. A child under 10 could not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor. A child of 10 to 14 could be convicted where the child knew the distinction between good and evil. At 14 a child bore full criminal responsibility⁶⁵.

From 1899 the records move. Illinois created the first juvenile court in the United States: the Juvenile Court Act, in force 3 July 1899, gave a separate court jurisdiction over dependent, neglected, and delinquent children under 16, and treated the proceeding as care rather than crime, with a petition in place of an indictment, its own juvenile record, and a bar on jailing a child under 12 alongside adult convicts⁶⁶. First established in Cook County and quickly copied elsewhere, the juvenile court relocated the record: from 1899, a child under 16 has a juvenile-court file rather than a criminal case file, 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 the facts. The trial judge examined a child before allowing testimony, and a very young child's word went to the weight the jury gave it rather than to whether the child could testify at all.

Two nineteenth-century rules reached who could take the stand. A person of color could testify against a white person from 1865. Before that the statute provided that a "negro, mulatto or Indian" should not be a witness in any court, or in any case, against a white person, and adjudged a person of one-fourth or more Black ancestry a "mulatto"⁶⁷; the rule fell with the repeal of the Black Laws. A woman was a competent witness throughout the period. The rules that reached a married woman's testimony were the ordinary common-law rules about spouses, which by the mid-twentieth century allowed a husband or wife to testify for or against the other, with confidential communications between them protected except in defined situations⁶⁸.

(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

• Illinois Constitution of 1818. Art. VI (slavery, registered indentures, and the freedom of servants' children at 21 and 18). Reprinted in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of 1845. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso00illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Illinois Constitution of 1848. Art. XIII (slavery prohibited); art. XIV (exclusion of free persons of color). Illinois Secretary of State, Illinois State Archives. https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/archives/online-exhibits/constitutions/1848.html (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Illinois Constitution of 1870. The frame of government for the last decades covered here. Illinois Secretary of State, Illinois State Archives. https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/archives/online-exhibits/constitutions/1870.html (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Sec. 2 (descent of intestate estates and the widow's third). Transcription. Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nworder.asp (accessed 25 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Hurd, Harvey B., ed. The Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1893. Chicago: Chicago Legal News Co., 1893. The acts as amended, each printed with the derivation note that traces it to its source act: ch. 28 (common law), ch. 30 (conveyances), ch. 39 (descent), ch. 41 (dower), ch. 64 (guardians and wards), ch. 68 (husband and wife), ch. 78 (jurors), ch. 89 (marriages), ch. 148 (wills). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/revisedstatutes00hurdgoog (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Illinois Compiled Statutes (current). Useful for tracing a rule forward and reading its source note: the Common Law Act (5 ILCS 50/1), the Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (750 ILCS 5/, including § 214 on common-law marriage), and the Probate Act (755 ILCS 5/). Illinois General Assembly. https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/ILCS (accessed 25 July 2026; the General Assembly reorganized its statute pages, so a saved link to the older ilcs.asp address no longer resolves).
• The Revised Laws of Illinois. Vandalia: Printed by Greiner & Sherman, 1833. Carries the act of 1819 declaring what laws are in force, p. 425. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/revisedlawsofill1833illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois. Springfield: W. Walters, printer, for Walters & Weber, public printers, 1845. The essential antebellum volume, and the source of most citations above: ch. 6 (apprentices), ch. 24 (conveyances), ch. 30 (criminal jurisprudence), ch. 34 (dower, p. 198), ch. 40 (evidence), ch. 47 (guardian and ward), ch. 58 (jurors), ch. 62 (laws), ch. 69 (marriages, p. 353), ch. 74 (negroes, mulattoes, &c., p. 387), ch. 93 (roads), and ch. 109 (wills, which also carries the rules of descent and the administration provisions). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso00illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1874. Edited by Harvey B. Hurd. The base of Illinois statute law for the next two generations, arranged in numbered chapters that stayed stable until 1993. Catalog record. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008596131 (accessed 25 July 2026).

Session Laws

• Historic Illinois Statutes. A finding aid to the digitized compilations and session volumes, arranged by year. The Advancing Genealogist. https://advancinggenealogist.com/resources/historic-illinois-statutes/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Illinois Laws and Statutes. Digitized session laws and revised statutes, by session. Western Illinois University Libraries. https://www.wiu.edu/libraries/govpubs/illinois_laws/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Thirteenth General Assembly. Springfield: Walters & Weber, Public Printers, 1843. The incest act, p. 155. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1843illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois. [Seventeenth General Assembly.] Springfield: Charles H. Lanphier, public printer. The homestead act of 1851, p. 25. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofillin17illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly. Springfield: Lanphier & Walker, Printers, 1853. The act to prevent the immigration of free negroes, pp. 57–58. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1853illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois. 1861. The Married Women's Property Act, p. 143. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1861illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois. 1887. The act barring marriage between cousins of the first degree, p. 225. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1887illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois. 1891. The act validating marriages contracted while one or both parties were enslaved, p. 163.
• Laws of the State of Illinois. 1899. The Juvenile Court Act, p. 131. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1899illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the Forty-Fourth General Assembly. Regular Biennial Session, 1905. The marriage act, p. 317. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1905illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of Illinois. 1865. The act repealing the Black Laws, p. 105. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofillpub1865illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twenty-Seventh General Assembly. Springfield: Illinois State Journal Print, 1872. Bastardy, p. 198; descent of property, p. 352; guardians and wards, p. 469. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1871illi (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the Sixty-First General Assembly. 1939. The two acts opening jury service to women, pp. 691, 692; the act freeing judicial sales from inchoate dower, pp. 690–91. Digital images. HathiTrust. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32437122760909 (accessed 25 July 2026). The Ohio State University copy, in full view.

Court Cases

• Bruce v. McCormick. 396 Ill. 428 (1947).
• Cartwright v. McGown. 121 Ill. 388, 12 N.E. 737 (1887).
• Jarrot v. Jarrot. 2 Gilman (7 Ill.) 1 (1845).
• Kibbe v. Ditto. 93 U.S. 674 (1876).
• People ex rel. Denny v. Traeger. 372 Ill. 11, 22 N.E.2d 679 (1939). The 1939 woman-juror amendments and their effective date.
• People ex rel. Fyfe v. Barnett. 319 Ill. 403 (1925).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Bridges, Roger D. "The Illinois Black Codes." Illinois History Teacher (1996). Illinois Periodicals Online, Northern Illinois University Libraries. https://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.html (accessed 25 July 2026; the host did not respond on that date, so try the Illinois Periodicals Online index if the direct link fails).
• Dexter, Darrel. Bondage in Egypt: Slavery in Southern Illinois. Cape Girardeau, Mo.: Center for Regional History, Southeast Missouri State University, 2011.
• Heerman, M. Scott. The Alchemy of Slavery: Human Bondage and Emancipation in the Illinois Country, 1730–1865. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
• "Homestead Rights in Illinois and the Non-Titleholding Spouse Dilemma." Attorneys' Title Guaranty Fund. The 1851 act and its later form. https://www.atgf.com/underwriting/news/homestead-rights-illinois-and-non-titleholding-spouse-dilemma (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Illinois Secretary of State, Illinois State Archives. "100 Documents." Images of the Black Law of 1819, the Black Law of 1829, Jarrot v. Jarrot, and the Juvenile Court Act, with explanations. https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/archives/online-exhibits/100-documents/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• Sangamon County Historical Society. "First women jurors." Dates the 1930 referendum, its invalidation, and the 1939 act. SangamonLink. https://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/first-women-jurors/ (accessed 25 July 2026).
• U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Illinois, as of January 1, 1960. Bulletin 157-12 (Revised). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1960. States each rule with the Illinois Revised Statutes chapter and section then in force. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_12_dolwb_1960.pdf (accessed 25 July 2026).
• "Who Can I Marry? A Chicago History." Chicago Public Library. Illinois marriage restrictions by date, with references to the statutes. https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/who-can-i-marry-a-chicago-history-2/ (accessed 25 July 2026).

Citations

1. Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois (Springfield: W. Walters, printer, for Walters & Weber, public printers, 1845), ch. 62 ("Laws"), § 1, p. 337; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso00illi : accessed 25 July 2026). The section carries forward "An Act declaring what Laws are in force in this state," approved and in force 4 February 1819, printed in The Revised Laws of Illinois (Vandalia: Printed by Greiner & Sherman, 1833), 425; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedlawsofill1833illi : accessed 25 July 2026). The 1819 act made the common law of England, together with the British statutes made in aid of it before the fourth year of the reign of James I that were of a general nature and not local to that kingdom, the rule of decision until repealed by the legislature, excepting three named English statutes. The rule descends through the Revised Statutes of 1874, ch. 28, to 5 ILCS 50/1. ↩
2. Northwest Ordinance of 1787, sec. 2 (the estates of persons dying intestate to descend to and be distributed among their children and the descendants of a deceased child in equal parts, with no distinction between kindred of the whole and half blood, saving to the widow her third part of the real estate for life and one-third of the personal estate); transcription, Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nworder.asp : accessed 25 July 2026). Restated at Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109 ("Wills"), § 46, p. 546. ↩
3. Illinois Constitution of 1818, art. VI (no new slavery or servitude; registered indentures protected; children of registered servants free, males at 21 and females at 18); reprinted in Revised Statutes of 1845, pp. 29–41. ↩
4. Jarrot v. Jarrot, 2 Gilman (7 Ill.) 1 (1845). ↩
5. "An Act in regard to guardians and wards," approved 10 April 1872, in force 1 July 1872, § 1, headed "Who minors" (males of the age of twenty-one, and females of the age of eighteen years, shall be considered of full age for all purposes; and until these ages are attained they shall be considered minors); printed in Harvey B. Hurd, ed., The Revised Statutes of the State of Illinois, 1893 (Chicago: Chicago Legal News Co., 1893), ch. 64, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedstatutes00hurdgoog : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩
6. U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Illinois, as of January 1, 1960, Bulletin 157-12 (Revised) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1960), 3, § 1 ("Age of majority"), citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 283; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_12_dolwb_1960.pdf : accessed 25 July 2026). The report states the law as of 1960; for the rule in force in a given year before 1950, read ch. 3 in the Illinois Revised Statutes for that year. ↩
7. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 1 (will of land at 21 if male, 18 if female), ch. 24 ("Conveyances"), § 17 (wife conveying her own land, she being above 18), ch. 6 ("Apprentices"), § 1, p. 52 (indenture running to 21 for a male, 18 for a female), and ch. 109, § 134 (a guardian's mortgage or lease of a ward's land to run no longer than until the heir reaches 21 if a male, 18 if a female). ↩
8. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 3, § 2 ("Contractual powers of a minor"), citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 121½, § 2 for the necessaries rule; the voidable character of a minor's contract or deed was the common-law rule. ↩
9. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 3, § 1, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 466 (the marriage of a female minor discharges her guardian as to her custody and education, but not as to her property). ↩
10. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 6, § 1, p. 52 (all children under 14 may be bound by indenture with or without their consent, and all minors above that age with their consent; males until 21 and females until 18, or for a shorter term). ↩
11. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 69 ("Marriages"), § 1, p. 353 (all male persons over 17 and females over 14 may contract and be joined in marriage, provided that where either party is a minor the consent of parents or guardians be first had). ↩
12. "An Act to amend sections three (3), four (4), six (6), thirteen (13) and fifteen (15) of an act entitled, 'An act to revise the law in relation to marriages,' approved Feb. 27, 1874, in force July 1, 1874," in Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the Forty-Fourth General Assembly, Regular Biennial Session (1905), 317–18, amending § 3 of the act of 1874; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1905illi : accessed 25 July 2026). The amended § 3 raised the minimum marrying age with consent to 18 for a male and 16 for a female, leaving the without-consent ages at 21 and 18, and required the consenting parent or guardian to appear before the county clerk and swear to the relationship, to the minor's date and place of birth and residence, and to such further proof of age as the clerk required; the same 18 and 16 still stood at mid-century, Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 11, § 18, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 89, § 3. ↩
13. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 11, § 18 (a marriage without the required parental consent is not void but voidable, and is binding and valid until disaffirmed or annulled by judicial decree), collecting the Illinois decisions. ↩
14. Cartwright v. McGown, 121 Ill. 388, 12 N.E. 737 (1887) (recognizing common-law marriage in Illinois and stating its requirements). ↩
15. Laws of 1905, 318, amending § 4 of the act of 1874: the proviso closing that section declared all marriages commonly known as common-law marriages thereafter entered into null and void unless, after entering into one, the parties obtained a license and had a marriage solemnized as the act provides. The license requirement itself, in § 6, was older — it stood in the same words in Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 89, § 6, as amended in 1889 — so it is the 1905 proviso, not the license section, that ended common-law marriage. The rule was settled by mid-century: Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 11, § 19. Now 750 ILCS 5/214. ↩
16. Laws of 1905, 318, amending § 4 of the act of 1874 (children born to parties who had entered into a common-law marriage deemed legitimate upon the parents obtaining a license to marry and marrying in the manner the act provides). ↩
17. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 69, § 3 (all persons belonging to any religious society, church or denomination may celebrate their marriage according to the rules and principles of that society, and a certificate signed by its minister, or by its clerk where there is no minister, and registered as the chapter directs, is evidence of the marriage); carried forward as Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 89, § 5. ↩
18. "An Act to punish the crime of incest," in force 7 February 1843, in Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Thirteenth General Assembly (Springfield: Walters & Weber, Public Printers, 1843), 155, § 1 (marriages between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, and between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, declared incestuous and absolutely void, the section extending to illegitimate as well as legitimate relations); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1843illi : accessed 25 July 2026). First cousins were added by "An Act to amend section one of 'An act to revise the law in relation to marriages,' approved February 27, 1874, in force July 1, 1874," approved 15 June 1887, Laws of the State of Illinois, 1887, 225, § 1 (adding "and between cousins of the first degree" to the list of incestuous and void marriages); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1887illi : accessed 25 July 2026). Bigamy was void and punishable from 1819, and mental incapacity was a matter of common law before 1874 and of statute afterward; see also "Who Can I Marry? A Chicago History," Chicago Public Library. ↩
19. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 69, § 2, p. 353 (no person of color, negro or mulatto, to be joined in marriage with any white person; such marriages null and void; a fine, whipping not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, and imprisonment of not less than one year on the parties, with a penalty on the clerk who knowingly issues the license and on the officer who celebrates the marriage); tracing to the act of 1829. The prohibition was not carried into "An act to revise the law in relation to marriages," approved 27 February 1874, in force 1 July 1874, printed in Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 89, whose § 1 reaches only the degrees of kindred and whose § 2 reaches only mental incapacity. ↩
20. "An Act to establish the validity of marriages contracted wherein one or both of the parties were slaves at the time and to establish the legitimacy of their offspring, as to the right to inherit property," approved 15 May 1891, in force 1 July 1891, Laws of the State of Illinois, 1891, 163; printed as Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 89, § 18. ↩
21. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 74 ("Negroes, Mulattoes, &c."), § 21, p. 387 (if servants acquire property they may hold the same to their own use, the master to support them if sick or lame). ↩
22. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 34 ("Dower"), § 2, p. 198 (the widow of an alien entitled to dower of her husband's estate in the same manner as if he had been a native-born citizen). ↩
23. "An Act to protect Married Women in their separate property," approved 21 February 1861, in force 24 April 1861, in Laws of the State of Illinois, 1861, 143, § 1 (all property real and personal belonging to a married woman as her sole and separate property, owned by her at marriage, or acquired during coverture in good faith from any person other than her husband by descent, devise or otherwise, together with the rents, issues, increase and profits, to remain during coverture her sole and separate property under her sole control, held and enjoyed as though she were sole and unmarried, not subject to the disposal, control or interference of her husband, and exempt from execution or attachment for his debts); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1861illi : accessed 25 July 2026). The Supreme Court of the United States quoted and dated the act in Kibbe v. Ditto, 93 U.S. 674, 676 (1876), and the rule as codified is at Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 68 ("Husband and Wife"), § 9. ↩
24. Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 68, § 7 (a married woman may receive, use and possess her own earnings, and sue for the same in her own name, free from the interference of her husband or his creditors), and § 8 (neither spouse to recover compensation for labor performed or services rendered for the other); from the earnings act of 1869. ↩
25. Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 68, § 9 (a married woman may own, in her own right, real and personal property obtained by descent, gift or purchase, and manage, sell and convey the same to the same extent and in the same manner that the husband can property belonging to him), and §§ 1–2 (a married woman may sue and be sued without joining her husband). ↩
26. Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 68, § 6 (a married woman living with her husband may not enter into or carry on a partnership business unless he has abandoned or deserted her, is idiotic or insane, or is confined in the penitentiary). ↩
27. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 34, § 1, p. 198 (a widow shall be endowed of the third part of all the lands whereof her husband was seized of an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage, unless the same shall have been relinquished in legal form). ↩
28. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 24, § 21, pp. 107–08 (a married woman may release her right of dower in lands her husband holds by joining him in the deed and acknowledging it; the officer to acquaint her with the contents and examine her separate and apart from her husband, whether she executed the same and relinquished her dower voluntarily, freely, and without his compulsion, and to certify those facts); and see ch. 24, § 15 (married women may relinquish right of dower). ↩
29. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 24, § 17, p. 107 (where husband and wife wish to convey the real estate of the wife, she being above the age of eighteen years, they may execute the conveyance, and the officer shall examine her separate and apart from her husband and certify the acknowledgment). ↩
30. "An Act to revise the law in relation to dower," approved 4 March 1874, in force 1 July 1874, § 1 (the estate of curtesy abolished, and the surviving husband or wife endowed of the third part of all the lands whereof the deceased husband or wife was seized of an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage, unless relinquished in legal form); printed in Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 41, § 1, with its derivation from Revised Statutes of 1845, p. 198, § 1. ↩
31. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 5–6, § 5, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 68, §§ 17, 21 (each spouse's inchoate right of dower, released only by joining in a deed with the other or by a separate deed to the other's grantee), and Bruce v. McCormick, 396 Ill. 428 (1947). ↩
32. "An Act to add Section 14a to 'An Act in regard to judgments and decrees, and the manner of enforcing the same by execution, and to provide for the redemption of real estate sold under execution or decree,' approved March 22, 1872, as amended," filed 25 July 1939 without the Governor's signature, Laws of 1939, 690–91, § 14a (a sale on execution, judgment, or decree of foreclosure of mortgage, or to enforce a mechanic's or vendor's lien, or for the payment of money, to pass free of the inchoate right of dower of the owner's spouse, the officer making the sale to pay that spouse out of the proceeds a sum equal to the value of the dower computed as if the debtor had died on the date of sale and the spouse had elected to take dower in cash on recognized mortality tables, with no such payment to reduce what is due a person whose interest or lien is superior). ↩
33. "An Act to exempt homesteads from sale on execution," in force 4 July 1851, in Laws of the State of Illinois [Seventeenth General Assembly] (Springfield: Charles H. Lanphier, public printer), 25, § 1 (exempting from levy and forced sale, for debts contracted from and after 4 July 1851, the lot of ground and the buildings thereon occupied as a residence and owned by the debtor, being a householder having a family, to the value of one thousand dollars, the exemption continuing after the householder's death for the widow and family while one of them occupies it, until the youngest child turns 21 and until the widow's death); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofillin17illi : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩
34. Act of 1851, § 1 (no release or waiver of the exemption valid unless in writing, subscribed by the householder and acknowledged in the same manner as conveyances of real estate). ↩
35. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 4, § 3B, and 5–6, § 5, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 52, § 4, and ch. 30, § 26 (no release or waiver of the homestead valid unless in writing, subscribed by the householder and spouse and acknowledged; a release by the husband does not bind the wife unless she also signs). ↩
36. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, §§ 134–35, p. 564 (real estate may be mortgaged or leased by executors or guardians, for no longer a term than until the heir attains 21 if a male or 18 if a female, and only on petition to and order of the court of probate). ↩
37. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 24, § 1, p. 104 (every deed signed and sealed by a maker of full age, sound mind, discovert, at large and not in duress sufficient to convey), § 16 (by whom and before whom a conveyance may be acknowledged), § 18 (deeds acknowledged or proved in proper form entitled to record), and § 20 (proof of a deed by a subscribing witness). ↩
38. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 74, §§ 1–5, p. 387 (no black or mulatto person permitted to reside in the state until producing to the county commissioners' court a duly authenticated certificate of freedom and giving bond with security in the penal sum of one thousand dollars against becoming a public charge; penalty for harboring a person of color without a certificate; registration of families and of certificates of freedom; a person without a certificate dealt with as a runaway); tracing to the Black Laws of 1819 and 1829. The exclusion was extended by "An act to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state," approved 12 February 1853, in Laws of the State of Illinois Passed by the Eighteenth General Assembly (Springfield: Lanphier & Walker, Printers, 1853), 57–58, §§ 1, 3 (a penalty for bringing a negro or mulatto into the state, and a fine of fifty dollars on any negro or mulatto, bond or free, who came into the state and remained ten days with the evident intention of residing there); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1853illi : accessed 25 July 2026). The whole apparatus fell together: "An Act to repeal section sixteen (16) of division III, chapter XXX of the Revised Statutes, all of chapter LXXIV of said Revised Statutes, and an act entitled 'An act to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state,' commonly known as the 'Black Laws,'" approved and in force 7 February 1865, in Public Laws of the State of Illinois, 1865, 105, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofillpub1865illi : accessed 25 July 2026). ↩
39. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 46, p. 546 (estates both real and personal of persons dying intestate, after payment of debts, to descend to and be distributed to the children and their descendants in equal parts, the descendants of a deceased child taking their parent's share). ↩
40. "An Act in regard to the descent of property," approved 9 April 1872, in force 1 July 1872, in Public Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twenty-Seventh General Assembly (Springfield: Illinois State Journal Print, 1872), 352, § 1, First (estates real and personal to descend to the children and their descendants in equal parts); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1871illi : accessed 25 July 2026). Printed also in Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 39, § 1. ↩
41. Public Laws of 1871–72, 352, § 1, Third and Fourth (with no child or descendant, the surviving spouse takes one-half of the real estate and the whole of the personal estate as an absolute estate forever, the other half of the real estate descending as in other cases; with a child or descendants, the surviving spouse receives as absolute personal estate one-third of all the personal estate), in Revised Statutes of 1893, ch. 39, § 1. For the earlier rule, Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 46, p. 546, gave a widow with no child one-half of the real estate and the whole of the personal estate as her exclusive estate forever, saving her dower in every case. ↩
42. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 8–9, § 15, and 14, § 27, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 162 (where issue survive, the spouse takes one-third of the personal estate and an absolute estate in one-third of the real estate, divested if the spouse elects dower, the remaining two-thirds descending to the descendants; where no descendant survives but a parent, brother, or sister, one-half of the real estate and all the personal estate). The Probate Act took effect 1 January 1940, and the shares stated are those in force in 1960; for the shares in force in an earlier year, read ch. 3 in the Illinois Revised Statutes for the year of death. ↩
43. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 48, p. 547 (the widow in all cases allowed to have and retain as her sole and separate property one bed and bedding, the wearing apparel of herself and family, one milch cow and calf, her saddle and bridle, one horse of the value of forty dollars, household and kitchen furniture sufficient for herself and family, and provisions for one year, together with the property exempt from execution, set apart by the executor or administrator and not subject to the debts of the deceased). ↩
44. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 9–10, § 16, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 330 (an allowance for the support of the surviving spouse and the minor children for nine months after the death, free from execution, garnishment, or attachment, of not less than $1,000 with a further sum of not less than $500 for each minor child residing with the survivor). The figures are those in force in 1960; for the award in force in an earlier year, read ch. 3 in the Illinois Revised Statutes for that year. ↩
45. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 47 ("Guardian and Ward"), §§ 1–2 (courts of probate to admit orphan minors above 14, the father being dead, to make choice of guardians, and to appoint for those under 14; where an orphan minor above 14 has no guardian, the court to notify the minor to appear and choose one). ↩
46. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 47, § 3 (where a minor having a father living is entitled to or possessed of any estate, real or personal, not derived from the father, the court of probate to notify the father and proceed to a guardianship of the estate). ↩
47. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 13–14, § 25, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 290 (the guardianship of a minor's estate and of the minor's person may be awarded to different persons). ↩
48. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 47, § 1; carried forward — Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 13–14, § 25, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, §§ 287–88. ↩
49. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 47, § 17 (every father of sound mind and memory, of a living child or a child likely to be born, under 21 and unmarried, may by deed or last will dispose of the custody and tuition of the child during its minority; and every mother of sound mind and memory, being sole, may do the like); carried forward — Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 14, § 26, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 296 (either parent of an unmarried minor may designate a guardian by will, without depriving the surviving parent of custody during his or her life). ↩
50. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 15, § 29, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 163 (a child born out of wedlock is the heir of the mother and of any maternal ancestor, and the mother inherits from such a child dying intestate without a surviving spouse or descendants). ↩
51. Legitimation where the parents afterward marry and the father acknowledges the child; Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 15, § 28, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 163. ↩
52. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 16 ("Bastardy"), and "An Act concerning bastardy," Public Laws of 1871–72, 198–99, §§ 1–2 (an unmarried woman pregnant, or delivered of a child that would be deemed a bastard, complains to a justice of the peace of the county where she is pregnant or delivered or where the accused may be found, and accuses a man on oath of being the father, whereupon the justice issues a warrant to be executed in any county); carried forward as the paternity statute. ↩
53. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 1, p. 536 (every person aged 21 if a male, or 18 if a female, and not married, being of sound mind and memory, may devise lands and personal estate by will; all persons of the age of 17, married women excepted, may dispose of their personal estate by will; and married women may dispose of their separate estate, real and personal, by will as other persons). ↩
54. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 8, § 14, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, § 193 (every person 18 years of age, if mentally competent, may dispose of real and personal property by will). The Probate Act took effect 1 January 1940. ↩
55. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 2, p. 536 (a will in writing, signed by the testator or by another at the testator's direction and in the testator's presence, and attested by two or more credible witnesses). ↩
56. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 9, p. 538 (a nuncupative will good for the conveyance of personal property if committed to writing within twenty days and proven before the court of probate by two or more credible, disinterested witnesses who were present at the speaking of it). ↩
57. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 11, p. 539 (a beneficial devise, legacy or interest to a subscribing witness void as to that witness, unless the will be otherwise proved). ↩
58. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 109, § 23, p. 541 (persons of the age of seventeen years, of sound mind and memory, may be appointed executors; but where a person under 21 is appointed executor or executrix, the court of probate shall appoint some competent person to manage and control the estate, under the direction of the court and on bond, until the named executor attains 21); and see § 29 (letters may be granted as if no executor had been named where the person named is under 17). ↩
59. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 3, § 2, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 3, §§ 229, 246 (a female 18 years of age or more may serve as executrix or administratrix). ↩
60. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 93 ("Roads"), § 1 (the county commissioners' court to fix and enter of record a number of days, not exceeding two nor less than one, that every able-bodied man between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years shall labor upon some public road within the county during the year), and § 2 (a road tax on taxable property in addition). ↩
61. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 58 ("Jurors"), § 1 (all free white male taxable inhabitants, natural-born or naturalized citizens, between the ages of twenty-one and sixty years, competent as jurors, excepting judges, county commissioners, judges of probate, clerks, sheriffs, coroners, postmasters, licensed attorneys, overseers of the highway, and occupiers of mills, ferries, toll-bridges or turnpike roads). ↩
62. People ex rel. Fyfe v. Barnett, 319 Ill. 403 (1925), holding that the Nineteenth Amendment had no effect on the liability or eligibility of women for jury service, as summarized in People ex rel. Denny v. Traeger, 372 Ill. 11, 22 N.E.2d 679 (1939); and Sangamon County Historical Society, "First women jurors," SangamonLink, for the 1930 jury lists drawn under the referendum and its invalidation. ↩
63. "An Act to amend Section 1 of 'An Act concerning Jurors, and to repeal certain acts therein named,' approved February 11, 1874, as amended," Senate Bill No. 88, approved 12 May 1939, in Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the Sixty-First General Assembly (1939), 691, headed "Women on juries authorized" (the county board of each county to make a list of not less than one-tenth of the legal voters of each sex of each town or precinct, giving the place of residence of each name, to be known as the jury list); and "An Act to amend Section 2 of 'An Act in relation to jury commissioners and authorizing judges of courts of record to appoint such jury commissioners and to make rules concerning their powers and duties,' approved June 15, 1887, as amended," Senate Bill No. 89, approved 12 May 1939, ibid., 692, headed "Women on jury lists" (the commissioners to prepare a list of all electors of each sex between the ages of 21 and 65 possessing the necessary legal qualifications for jury duty, each name entered in a book with the person's age, occupation, place of residence, and whether a householder residing with his family and whether a freeholder); digital images, HathiTrust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32437122760909 : accessed 25 July 2026), the Ohio State University copy. By mid-century the rule was stated flatly: Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 16, § 32, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 78, §§ 1, 2, 4, 9. ↩
64. People ex rel. Denny v. Traeger, 372 Ill. 11, 22 N.E.2d 679 (1939), decided 8 August 1939 on an original petition for mandamus brought by a Cook County elector against the jury commissioners; the opinion dates both amendments to 1 July 1939 and the writ was awarded. Gov. Henry Horner signed the bills in May 1939, and women were serving by that September — Sangamon County Historical Society, "First women jurors." ↩
65. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 30 ("Criminal Jurisprudence"), §§ 3–4 (a person of sound mind and discretion includes one who has arrived at the age of fourteen years, or before that age if such person know the distinction between good and evil; an infant under the age of ten years shall not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor). ↩
66. "An Act to regulate the treatment and control of dependent, neglected and delinquent children," in force 3 July 1899, in Laws of the State of Illinois, 1899, 131, §§ 1, 3–4, 11 (the act applying only to children under the age of 16 not inmates of a state institution; a juvenile record kept separately; proceedings begun by petition; and no child under 12 committed to jail or confined in any building or yard with adult convicts); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofill1899illi : accessed 25 July 2026). First established in Cook County; now 705 ILCS 405/. ↩
67. Revised Statutes of 1845, ch. 40 ("Evidence and Depositions"), § 23 (a negro, mulatto or Indian shall not be a witness in any court, or in any case, against a white person; a person having one-fourth part negro blood adjudged a mulatto). The section was repealed by name with the rest of the Black Laws on 7 February 1865 (note 38), which is why a person of color appears as a witness against a white party only from that year. ↩
68. Women's Bureau, Report for Illinois, 7–8, § 13, citing Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 38, § 734, and ch. 51, § 5 (a husband or wife competent to testify for or against the other, with confidential communications protected except in defined situations). ↩