A genealogical research guide to Iowa historical statutes from 1833 to 1950.
Historical Law Guides > Iowa
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Legal Ages at a Glance The legal system Legal age of adulthood Marriage Property ownership |
Inheritance Taxation Courts, juries, and testimony Sources & Where to Verify |
| Legal milestone | Age | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Full majority | 21 male / 18 female | Both sexes 21 from the Code of 1924; marriage made any minor an adult |
| Marry | 18 male / 14 female (territorial); 16 male / 14 female from 1851 | The 16 and 14 rule ran to 1950 |
| Parental consent for marriage | Any minor — under 21 male, under 18 female | Consent filed and noted in the county records |
| Sign one's own apprentice contract | 12 | A pauper minor was bound without giving assent |
| Apprenticeship ends | 21 male / 18 female | Ran to "the age of legal majority" |
| Choose own guardian | 14 | Both sexes; the court approved the choice |
| Guardianship ends | 21 male / 18 female | Final settlement approximates a birth year |
| Make a will | Full age — 21 male / 18 female | Every form needed 2 witnesses; a spoken will could pass personal property up to $300 |
| Serve as executor | 18 | A named executor under 18 leaves a temporary vacancy |
| Witness a will | Any age if competent | A gift to a witness fails unless 2 disinterested witnesses also sign |
| Witness a deed | Any age if competent | Witnesses were needed only where the person signing the deed had died, could not be brought in, or refused to acknowledge it |
| Testify | Any age if competent | Understanding the oath was the whole test |
| Jury service | 21 | Qualified electors — white men to 1868, all men after, women from 1920 |
| Road poll tax | 21 to 50 (1851); 21 to 45 in cities later | Able-bodied men; payable in labor at a dollar a day |
| Criminal responsibility | 14 at common law | Under 7 none; 7–14 presumed none; juvenile court from 1904 |
Iowa is an English common-law state, and the common law came in through its territorial parentage. The land entered the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and passed through Missouri Territory, then Michigan Territory in 1834, then Wisconsin Territory in 1836, then Iowa Territory from 4 July 1838, and finally statehood on 28 December 18461. The Iowa country was almost unsettled by Europeans under French and Spanish rule, so the courts the territory received were common-law courts and the law they applied was English. Property between spouses was governed by the common law, and then by statute.
Iowa took the common law by judicial practice. A researcher who wants the point pinned to a text should read the rule-of-decision provisions in the territorial Revised Statutes of 1843 and the early volumes of the Iowa Reports.
Iowa law runs through one lineage. The territorial legislature enacted the Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa at its first session in November 1838 — the "Old Blue Book" — and the Revised Statutes of 1843, the "Blue Book," compiled the territorial law down to statehood. The Code of 1851 was enacted and took effect on 1 July 1851; it is the master document, and most of the rules below start there. The Revision of 1860 restated it, printing the source section in parentheses beside each new number, and stands as a compilation except for its Codes of Civil and Criminal Practice, which were enacted on 4 July 1860. The Codes of 1873, 1897, and 1924 through 1950 follow.
Each code prints the derivation of every section in brackets at its foot, so a section of the 1939 Code shows its ancestor in 1924, 1897, 1873, 1860, and 1851, and every rule in this guide can be followed back through the volumes.
Full legal age in Iowa was 21 for a man and 18 for a woman, and marriage made any minor an adult at once: the period of minority extended in males to 21 and in females to 18, but all minors attained their majority by marriage2. The rule was in the Code of 1851 and ran forward through the Revision of 1860, the Code of 1873, and the Code of 1897 in the same words.
The territorial decades ran on the same two ages. The territorial marriage act required a parent's or guardian's consent for a male under 21 and a female under 183, which is the territorial legislature saying when each sex came of age. The territorial statutes fix no age of majority in general terms, so the marriage act carries the point.
From the Code of 1924 majority was 21 for both sexes, with a woman of 18 keeping the power to make a valid contract of marriage as an adult4.
The date changes the arithmetic on two common records. In the years before 1924 a woman's guardianship closed at 18, and 18 was the age at which she could make a will in her own right. A guardian's final settlement for a female ward therefore brackets her eighteenth birthday, and for a male ward his twenty-first.
Marriage ended minority outright. A fifteen-year-old bride was a legal adult from the wedding day, free to contract, convey, sue, and be sued. This accounts for Iowa deeds and contracts signed by very young married people with no guardian in the record.
A minor was bound by contracts for necessaries — food, clothing, shelter, schooling, the things a person cannot do without — and by his other contracts as well unless he disaffirmed them, that is, declared he would not be held to them, within a reasonable time after reaching majority, and restored whatever he still held of what he had received5.
A deed followed the same rule, which is why a minor's land was ordinarily sold by a guardian under a court order.
Any minor could be bound to service until the age of legal majority — so to 21 for a boy and to 18 for a girl6. The binding was by written indenture — a contract of service, signed and copied out for each side — stating the minor's age and the terms, and a minor over 12 who was not a pauper signed it himself, of his own free will7. Written consent was endorsed on it by the father, or failing him the mother, then the guardian, then the county judge8. The county judge bound a pauper minor without the minor's assent9.
The indenture was made in three parts — one to the master, one to the county judge, one to the consenting parent or guardian10 — so the county's copy is the one that survives, and it states the child's age.
Two ages govern, and they moved once:
| Period | Marrying age | Consent of a parent or guardian required |
|---|---|---|
| Territorial – 30 June 1851 | 18 male / 14 female | Male under 21, female under 18 |
| From 1 July 1851 | 16 male / 14 female | Any minor — male under 21, female under 18 |
Under the territorial statute a male of 18 and a female of 14 could marry, provided they were not nearer of kin than first cousins and had no living husband or wife11. From 1851 a marriage between a male of 16 and a female of 14 was valid12. Where a party was under age, the marriage was a nullity or not at that party's option, exercised at any time before he or she was six months older than the age fixed13. So an underage marriage stood unless the underage party moved against it, and the window closed six months after the birthday. The same words appear in the Revision of 1860 and in the Code of 193914.
Consent was required for any minor — any male under 21 or any female under 18, the ages of majority, both before and after 1851. A license could issue only where both parties were of the marrying age, where any minor had the previous consent of a parent or guardian, and where each party's condition allowed him to make a civil contract15. The territorial rule was the same, keyed to the same ages16.
The consent left a record. It was filed in the county office after being acknowledged by the parent or guardian or proved genuine, and a memorandum of the fact entered on the county court records17. Where the judge did not know the parties, he took the testimony of competent and disinterested witnesses as to their age and condition and entered their names on the record18. From the later nineteenth century the clerk required at least one affidavit from a disinterested person stating the parties' age and qualification19.
The county judge issued the license20. A magistrate, the county judge, a mayor, a judge of the supreme or district court, or an ordained or licensed minister could solemnize the marriage — that is, perform the ceremony21. A denomination with its own mode of marrying — Quakers most often — married in that mode, and the husband was then responsible for making the return22.
A marriage performed in any manner other than the statute prescribed was valid all the same. The penalty fell on the parties and on anyone aiding, who each forfeited fifty dollars to the school fund23. The officiant forfeited a like amount if he failed to make his return to the county court within ninety days24. The return is the core Iowa marriage record, and the clerk's register of names, date, and officiant is the index to it.
That section is the reason Iowa records behave as they do. The marriage statute directs how a marriage should be made and leaves the marriage standing where it was made otherwise.
Iowa recognized common-law marriage throughout this period, and the Code of 1851 assumed it: continuous cohabitation as husband and wife was made presumptive evidence of marriage for the purpose of the surviving spouse's share in land25.
The courts settled the elements, and they are three: a present intent and agreement of both parties to be married, continuous cohabitation, and a public declaration or holding out to the community that they were husband and wife26. Reputation in the neighborhood and the couple's conduct are the ordinary proof. A marriage the couple kept to themselves fell outside the doctrine.
This is the most useful fact in Iowa marriage law. A validly married Iowa couple may leave no county marriage record at all, and their children are legitimate. Where the county has nothing, look for the couple in the census as husband and wife, for deeds and probate filings describing her as his wife, and for the neighbors' statements in any estate or pension file.
Marriage was a civil contract requiring the consent of parties capable of entering into other contracts27. Four things barred it: kinship nearer than first cousins, a living husband or wife, want of the marrying age, and a condition disqualifying a party from making any civil contract28.
In the twentieth century Iowa added a mental-capacity screen. Institutions filed lists of mental defectives, the clerk issued no license to a person on a list, and there was a procedure to try the question of competency and to appeal it29. Where an Iowa couple of the 1920s or 1930s met an unexplained delay or refusal, that proceeding is the file to look for.
The territorial statute declared all marriages of white persons with Negroes or mulattoes illegal and void30. That act took effect on 1 March 1840.
From 1 July 1851 Iowa marriage law applied to all persons alike, whatever their race. The Code of 1851 set out the whole of the marriage law in seventeen sections31. Black, white, and mixed-race couples married under the ordinary law, took out the ordinary license, and appear in the ordinary county register. Iowa was among the first states to reach that position, and held it for the rest of the period.
Iowa was free soil. The territorial Supreme Court's first decision held that a Black man brought into the territory could not be reduced to slavery for an unpaid debt, and discharged him from all custody and constraint32.
A man could own land at any age, taking it by purchase, gift, inheritance, or devise — a gift of land made by will33. Majority added the power to deal in it himself: at 21 he could buy, sell, mortgage, and convey in his own name, and his deed stood.
Marriage left a man's own land in his own hands. He bought and sold it in his own right, subject to his wife's share, below.
Citizenship governed the foreign-born. A resident alien held property on the same footing as a citizen. A non-resident alien could hold Iowa land in three situations: as the widow, heir, or devisee of someone who had acquired it here, as the holder of a lien — a legal claim on the land as security for a debt — enforcing it, and as a purchaser at a sale on his own judgment34. Where a foreign-born ancestor's Iowa land leaves the record without a deed, an escheat proceeding under that chapter — the process by which land with no lawful owner falls to the state — is one explanation.
A single or widowed woman — a feme sole, a woman alone — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could35.
A married woman's position in Iowa was strong from the beginning. Under the Code of 1851 a wife kept her own personal property, her separate debts were hers alone to answer for, and her property together with its rents and income stood clear of her husband's creditors36. Contracts she made about her separate property, or purporting to bind only herself, bound her and not him37. Family expenses and the children's education were chargeable on the property of both38. By the Code of 1873 the rule was flat: neither spouse acquired any interest in the property of the other by the marriage, either could sue the other over property as if unmarried, and either could convey to the other39.
A married woman conveyed her own land "the same as any other person" from 1851. The territorial statutes had required a wife to join her husband in the deed and to be examined apart from him — a privy examination, a private interview with an officer certifying that she acted freely. The Code of 1851 ended that requirement, so a privy examination on an Iowa deed dates it before 1 July 1851.
Two Iowa rules turn a marital difficulty into a findable document:
A husband kept his wife and children in the homestead: he could not remove them without her consent, and if he abandoned her she took custody of the minor children unless the district court directed otherwise47.
This is the most useful thing to know about Iowa land records.
Each spouse took one-third of the other's land in fee simple — outright ownership, which the holder can sell or leave by will — and the share reached every parcel held at any time during the marriage. Dower — a widow's interest in her husband's land — and curtesy, the husband's matching interest in his wife's, were both replaced by it. The statute, in force from 1851 to the end of this period, gave the survivor one-third in value of all the legal or equitable estates in real property possessed by the deceased spouse at any time during the marriage, which had not been sold on execution or other judicial sale — a sale ordered by a court to satisfy a debt — and to which the survivor had made no relinquishment, meaning a signed giving-up of the right48. Curtesy was abolished in the same section, and the husband was given the same right in his wife's land that she had in his49.
Set that against an ordinary sale. Because the share reached every parcel the husband had held at any time during the marriage, a buyer took the land subject to the wife's one-third unless she joined in the deed and relinquished. Her signature is what carried the last third of the title.
| The husband's deed | What the buyer got |
|---|---|
| Signed by him alone | Two-thirds clear, with the wife's one-third outstanding as full ownership if she survived him |
| Signed by both, she relinquishing | The whole |
So a deed of a married man's Iowa land normally carries two signatures, and a married man's deed signed alone is worth investigating — it may mean he was unmarried at that date, which is itself useful, or it may mean a claim surfaced later in the abstract.
The share was set off after death by referees appointed by the court, who could employ a surveyor, marked the share off by metes and bounds — a boundary description running line by line around the parcel — and reported to the court50. Where the property could not readily be divided the court could order a sale and pay the survivor one-third of the proceeds51. The referees' report describes a specific third of a specific farm, and it is one of the best land documents in an Iowa probate file.
The homestead had its own rule, independent of the one-third share. A conveyance of the homestead was valid only where the husband and wife concurred in and signed it52. The homestead answered for taxes on it and for mechanic's liens — claims by builders and suppliers for work done on the property53 — and for debts contracted before the law or before the purchase54.
So a deed of the family home carrying both signatures where title stood in one name alone is the normal, expected Iowa form, and the wife signs there to release the homestead.
A child could own land at any age. Selling it went through the county court. Where it did not violate the terms of a will under which the minor held, the court could order the minor's real estate sold or mortgaged on the guardian's application — where a sale was necessary for the minor's support or education, or where his interest would be promoted because the property was unproductive, exposed to waste — damage or neglect that lets its value run down — or otherwise peculiarly situated55. The petition stated the grounds, was verified by oath, and a copy with notice of the hearing was served56.
A single sale of a child's land therefore leaves a petition, a notice, an order, a guardian's bond, and a deed executed by someone other than the owner. Where an Iowa deed conveys a child's land, the guardianship file holds the family.
An Iowa deed was made good by acknowledgment and recording. To acknowledge a deed is to appear before an authorized officer and declare that the signature on it is your own and freely given. An instrument affecting real estate held against later purchasers for value without notice once recorded with the county recorder of deeds57, and it was lawfully recorded once acknowledged or proved58. Acknowledgment within the state was taken before a court with a seal or its judge, justice, or clerk, or before a justice of the peace or notary public59; out of state, before a court of record, a commissioner appointed by the governor, or a notary60. The officer endorsed a certificate on the deed61.
Witnesses entered where the grantor — the person selling or giving the land — could not. If the grantor died before acknowledging, or his attendance could not be procured, or he refused, the due execution and delivery of the deed was proved before the same officers62, who could subpoena and compel the attendance of witnesses63. A witness of any age could serve, provided he understood the obligation of an oath64. In practice these witnesses were adults, because the proof might be taken years after the signing.
Free people of color could acquire, hold, and convey Iowa land on the same terms as anyone else, and did65. The Iowa "black laws" reached settlement in the state.
The territorial act to regulate blacks and mulattoes, approved 21 January 1839 and operating from the first day of April that year, allowed a Black or mulatto person to settle or reside in the territory on producing a court-attested certificate of freedom and giving bond with security in the penal sum of $500, conditioned that the person not become a county charge and for good behavior66. The territorial act fell with the Code of 1851, whose general repealing section swept away the public acts passed before that session67. The state passed its own exclusion law the same year68, enforced once, and repealed it in 1864 by an act which recited that enforcement had been attempted contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the people, repealed the exclusion act outright, and directed that all suits pending under it be dismissed69.
Where the certificate and bond were filed, the papers went into the county records, and they name the person, the certifying court, and the sureties.
Native land passed with the legislature's leave. The Meskwaki (Sac and Fox) were permitted by statute to reside in the state, and from 1857 they bought land in Tama County70. A researcher tracing that title should work from the act and the resulting county deeds together.
A person who died without a will died intestate, and a statute divided the estate.
Iowa applied one set of rules to the whole estate: personal property not needed to pay debts was distributed to the same persons and in the same proportions as though it were real estate71. Learn the descent rules once and they govern everything.
The survivor — husband or wife alike — took one-third in value, in fee simple, of the real property the deceased had held at any time during the marriage, excluding what had been sold on execution or judicial sale or released by relinquishment72. The share was set off so as to include the ordinary dwelling house and the land given by law as a homestead, or so much of it as equaled her share, unless she preferred a different arrangement; and no different arrangement was permitted where it would prejudice creditors73.
Two points do a lot of work. The share is ownership, so the widow or widower could sell it, mortgage it, and leave it by will — land coming out of an Iowa widow's own estate a generation later is often her third. And the share was claimed by an application for admeasurement — a request that the court measure the third off and set it apart — which could be made at any time after twenty days and within ten years of the death, specifying the tracts claimed74, so the file may open long after the funeral.
Where the property could not readily be divided, the court could order the whole sold and one-third of the proceeds paid over75. A sale was prevented by anyone interested giving security to pay the appraised value with ten percent interest within a year, and the survivor could keep the property by giving like security to pay off the others76. Money paid to a widow could buy a new homestead, exempt from the debts the old one had been exempt from77.
Subject to the survivor's share and to charges, the remaining estate descended in equal shares to the children, with the heirs of a dead child taking that child's share by representation — stepping into the dead parent's place and dividing what that parent would have received78. Advancements — property given by the intestate in his lifetime to an heir — counted as part of the estate for division, taken at what it would then be worth in the condition in which it was given, and an heir who had received more than his share kept it79.
Beyond the children, the Code of 1851 ran the estate up a fixed ladder, and each rung is a family the researcher may need to identify. Issue, in the table below, means a person's children and their descendants:
| Who takes | When |
|---|---|
| Husband or wife | Always — one-third in value, in fee simple |
| The children, in equal shares | Whenever there is issue; a dead child's heirs take that child's share |
| Half to the wife and half to the father; or the father wholly, where there is no wife | No issue80 |
| Each ascending ancestor and that ancestor's issue in turn; failing the male line, the mother and her heirs; failing those, the wife or her heirs, divided among more than one lawful wife | No issue, and the father has died81 |
| The state, by escheat | Nothing remains inheritable82 |
The twentieth-century codes enlarged the survivor's share where there was no issue; read the descent chapter of the code in force at the death.
A surviving spouse took the share against a will. The widow's right stood whatever her husband's will said, if she objected to it and relinquished all rights the will gave her83. The later codes made this a formal election, with notice, a record of the election, notice by an interested party, an election by law where the survivor did not act, and a separate procedure where the survivor was insane or mentally incapable84.
The election is a dated, signed paper in the probate file, and it tells you which way the survivor went.
The father was the natural guardian of his minor children; on his death or incapacity the mother became guardian85. Either could appoint a guardian by will, and where both parents were dead or disqualified the county court appointed86.
A guardian was appointed whenever a minor came into property from a source other than his parents, with both parents living and well87. This is the one people miss. A legacy from a grandparent, an uncle, or the mother's family triggers a guardianship of the estate, and the guardian is often somebody other than the father. A guardianship for a child whose father is alive tells you the child inherited from outside the household, and points at a different family.
The father, or on his death or incapacity the mother, could be appointed guardian of the property where the court thought them suitable88.
At fourteen, a minor of sound intellect selected his own guardian, subject to the court's appointment89. The rule was the same for both sexes. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.
Both rules are older than the state. Under the territorial act the courts of probate admitted orphan minors above fourteen, the father being dead, to choose their own guardians, and appointed for those under fourteen, in every case where the minor held real or personal estate90. Where a minor whose father was living was entitled to an estate not derived from that father, the probate court called the father in to show cause why a guardian should not be appointed, and could name the father if he was a proper person or otherwise the person a minor of fourteen chose91. A guardian other than the father had charge of the estate but no control over the child, and gave bond in double the amount of the minor's estate92. So an Iowa guardianship file from the 1840s answers the same questions as one from the 1870s. The papers sit with the probate books, and the file moved with the court that held probate — the county court from 1851, the circuit court from 1868, and the district court from 1887.
The guardian gave bond with surety — a second person who promised to make good any loss — in double the value of the personal estate and the rents and profits of the real estate, conditioned on faithful discharge, and took an oath in the same terms93. Within forty days he filed an inventory of all the minor's property, appraised as a decedent's would be, in the county judge's office94. He managed the estate under the court's direction and could lease the land or lend the money during minority95.
Guardianship ended at majority — 21 for a male ward and, in the years before the Code of 1924, 18 for a female ward96. The final settlement is one of the most valuable documents in Iowa genealogy: it dates the ward's majority and so approximates a birth year, and for a female ward it frequently reveals a married surname.
Iowa's rule was generous, and it is stated in two short sections.
An illegitimate child inherited from the mother, and she from the child97. The birth was the whole of the proof.
The child inherited from the father where paternity was proven during his life, or where he had recognized the child as his — and that recognition had to be general and notorious, or else in writing98. Where the recognition was mutual, the father inherited from the child99, though in that direction the mother and her heirs took preference over the father and his100. The Code of 1851 rested the father's side on recognition; the later codes added proof of paternity during his life as a second route101.
"General and notorious" is a question of fact, and proving it made litigation. A contested Iowa estate involving an illegitimate child throws off depositions from neighbors about what the father called the child and how he treated it — which is to say, exactly the testimony a genealogist wants. Look for the case file, not just the order.
A child born before its parents' marriage became legitimate by that marriage102.
Paternity was separately determined in a bastardy proceeding — a court action brought to name the father of a child born outside marriage and make him pay for its keep. Where a woman was delivered of, or pregnant with, a bastard child, complaint was made in writing to the county court naming the reputed father, and a summons issued requiring him to appear on not less than seven days' notice103. The county could also proceed against the putative father — the man alleged to be the father — for the child's support, and the question of paternity was tried in that action104. The file names him.
The age to make a will was full age — 21 for a man, and 18 for a woman until the Code of 1924. Any person of full age and sound mind could dispose by will of all his property, subject to homestead and exemption rights and to the survivor's share, except what was needed for debts and administration105. Property acquired later could be devised where the intention was clear106.
Iowa allowed three forms, and each needed two witnesses:
| Form | What it disposed of | Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Written will | All property | Signed by the testator, or in his presence and at his direction; 2 competent witnesses107 |
| Verbal will — spoken, not written | Personal property up to $300 | 2 competent witnesses108 |
| Will of a soldier in service or a mariner at sea | All his personal estate | 2 competent witnesses109 |
A witness could be of any age if competent, and a gift to a witness failed unless two disinterested witnesses also signed110 — except that a witness who would have taken by intestacy could still take up to the value of what was devised111. So a legacy to one of the two witnesses simply fails, and its failure tells you the drafter thought that person close to the family.
The age to serve as executor was 18. Where a minor under eighteen was appointed executor, there was a temporary vacancy as to him until he reached that age112, and the court appointed as executor a person of full capacity and of that age or over113. So an Iowa executor could be younger than an Iowa testator — an eighteen-year-old son could qualify.
A married woman acted as executor independently of her husband, and marriage after appointment left the appointment good114. Where a named executor was under 18 or otherwise unable, the court appointed a substitute and the administration went forward without delay115.
Four kinds of tax on individuals leave usable records: the general property tax, the poll tax, the road tax that went with it, and, from the end of the century, a tax on property passing at death. A poll is the taxable person, and a poll or capitation tax is a flat charge laid on the person himself.
The county court met annually on the fourth Monday of July and levied state revenue at three mills on the dollar, ordinary county revenue at not more than six mills together with a poll tax of fifty cents, a school tax between a half mill and a mill and a half, and the road tax116.
The territorial pattern was the same one. The county commissioners met at their regular July session, levied on real and personal property up to five mills on the dollar, and could levy a poll tax of up to fifty cents on every male citizen over twenty-one and under fifty117. So the fifty-cent poll and the bracket of 21 to 50 are territorial, and an Iowa man appears on a poll list from the 1840s on the same terms he would in the 1850s. The same act exempted a hundred dollars' worth of household furniture to each householder, libraries, farm implements, and mechanics' tools118.
| Levy | Who was liable | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| County poll tax, fifty cents | Each poll on the assessor's list | Fixed in practice by the road-tax bracket below |
| County road tax, $1 to $2 | Every person liable to the county poll tax; able-bodied men | 21 to 50 |
| City or town road poll tax, up to $5 | Able-bodied male residents | 21 to 45 |
Every person liable to a county poll tax also owed a road tax fixed by the county court at not less than one nor more than two dollars a year119. For that purpose every man between the ages of twenty-one and fifty was deemed able-bodied, unless he satisfied the court otherwise and obtained an order exempting him temporarily or permanently120. The tax could be worked off: a man could pay the whole or part of his poll or personal property road tax in labor at a dollar a day, on written notice to the supervisor by 1 September, performing the work where directed and ordinarily within two miles of home121. The supervisor issued numbered certificates for labor done and kept a tally122.
Exemption ran on age or infirmity. The polls or estates of persons who by reason of age or infirmity were in the assessor's judgment unable to contribute to the public charges were exempt, subject to reversal by the county court123. So a man can leave an Iowa poll list while still alive and still resident: he turned fifty, or the assessor excused him.
The later city road poll tax kept a narrower bracket. Cities and towns could require all able-bodied male residents between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five to pay a sum fixed by the council, not exceeding five dollars, between 1 February and 1 October, on demand made by personal notice or by mail124. A man claiming exemption filed an affidavit stating the nature of his disability, and the council approved or refused it125. Members of the national guard were exempt from poll tax and from road labor during service126.
The assessor's annual list is the record all of this generates. Among the items returned to the state was the number of polls in each county, alongside the counts of horses, cattle, and the rest127.
A separate tax fell on property passing at death. Iowa laid it by act of the 26th General Assembly, and the rate turned on how closely each taker was related to the deceased: property passing to anyone outside the immediate family paid five percent of its value above one thousand dollars, after debts128. The return filed for it therefore names the beneficiaries and states each one's relationship, which is often the fullest statement of a family an estate produces.
Iowa keyed jury service to the vote. All qualified electors of good moral character, sound judgment, and in full possession of the senses of hearing and seeing were competent jurors in their counties129, and good character and working senses were the whole property test, on the regular panel or as a talesman — a bystander summoned on the spot to fill out a short jury.
Everything therefore followed the elector qualification, which under the Constitution of 1846 was a white male citizen of the United States aged twenty-one, resident six months in the state and twenty days in the county130. The working test for most of the period was an adult man of 21 who could vote.
Exemptions were generous: officeholders under the United States or the state, practicing attorneys, physicians and clergymen, professors and teachers, and all persons disabled by bodily infirmity or over sixty-five years of age131. Anyone could be excused whose own or the public's interests would be materially injured by attending, or whose health or a family sickness or death required absence132.
An annual jury list of one hundred and fifty competent persons was made in each county133, apportioned among townships in proportion to the votes polled at the last general election134 — which is why a county's jury records and its poll books were kept together, and why the jury list reads as a rough census of the county's adult male voters.
Because the jury pool was the electorate, the two dates that changed it are suffrage dates.
Black men became eligible for Iowa juries in 1868, when the voters ratified the amendment striking "white" from the suffrage clause of the Constitution135. From that point the jury list follows the whole male electorate.
Women became eligible in 1920–21. The Nineteenth Amendment made women qualified electors, and in 1921 the Iowa Supreme Court held that they were therefore both entitled and obliged to serve as jurors136. A jury list in an Iowa county for 1921 or later carries women's names, and their appearance dates the list.
A witness of any age could testify. Every human being of sufficient capacity to understand the obligation of an oath was a competent witness in all cases, civil and criminal137. Capacity was the whole test, and the judge examined the child and decided it. Facts that had formerly excluded testimony could still be shown to lessen its credibility138.
Two disqualifications ran and then ended:
Women were competent witnesses throughout. What reached a married woman before 1860 was the interest rule, which caught any party or interested person whatever their sex, together with the rules about spouses: the husband was a witness against the wife, and she against him, in a criminal proceeding for a crime one committed against the other, and they were witnesses for each other in all criminal prosecutions145. Communications made while married stayed privileged after the marriage ended146. The later codes made husband and wife witnesses for each other in all civil and criminal cases147.
The common law fixed the age, and the Iowa statutes left it there. A child under 7 was incapable of committing a crime. Between 7 and 14 the law presumed incapacity, and the State overcame the presumption by showing the child knew the wrongfulness of the act. From 14 the child bore full responsibility and was tried as an adult148.
Iowa created juvenile courts in 1904, by an act enlarging the powers of the district court and regulating the treatment and control of dependent, neglected and delinquent children. By the codes a juvenile court sat in every county as a court of record, kept its own separate records, and had the jurisdiction given it by law149. For that chapter a "child" was any person under eighteen150, and a "delinquent child" was defined by conduct — habitually violating a state law or city ordinance, incorrigibility, associating with thieves or vicious persons, growing up in idleness or crime, and a short list of similar categories151.
This relocates the records. After 1904 a child under 18 has a juvenile court file, in a separate series, and those files are typically closed. Where an ancestor's trouble with the law leaves no trace in the criminal dockets, the juvenile records are the reason.
(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)
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