Kansas Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

The legal system

Kansas law was English common law, received by statute and then steadily replaced by statute. The territorial legislature of 1859 adopted the common law of England, together with the acts of Parliament made in aid of it before the fourth year of James the First, as the rule of decision in Kansas, so far as they did not conflict with the United States Constitution, the act organizing the territory, or any Kansas statute¹. Where no statute spoke, that common law governed. Property a husband and wife accumulated together belonged to the husband unless a deed or contract said otherwise — Kansas held property under the common law, not as community property².

The law of the territory changed hands twice in six years, and the break matters. The first territorial legislature, elected in 1855 and remembered by free-state settlers as the "Bogus Legislature," adopted the statutes of Missouri wholesale and added a slave code on the Missouri pattern³. The free-state legislature of 1859 swept that away and enacted the code this guide traces: the acts on marriage, married women, descents and distributions, guardians, wills, conveyances, and the homestead. Almost every rule a genealogist needs for Kansas dates from 1859, two years before statehood. Slavery in the territory ended on 23 February 1860, when a two-thirds vote of both houses carried an act over Governor Medary's veto declaring slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, forever prohibited in the territory⁴. Kansas entered the Union on 29 January 1861 under the Wyandotte Constitution.

Five dates anchor everything that follows: the free-state code of 1859; statehood in 1861; the General Statutes of 1868, the first state compilation; the Revised Statutes of 1923; and the Probate Code of 1939, which repealed the old chapters on wills, descents, executors, and guardians and re-enacted them as Chapter 59⁵.

Two courts hold the records. The probate court handled wills, estates, guardianships, and — for most of the period — marriage licenses. The district court heard civil and criminal trials with juries. When the courts were unified in the 1970s the probate business moved into the district court, which now holds those older files.

Legal age of adulthood

Full legal age was 21, for women and men alike, throughout the period⁶. Anyone under 21 was a minor, whatever else was true of them.

One qualification changes what you will find in the records. From 1917 a married person of 18 or over was treated as an adult during the marriage for contracts, property rights, liabilities, and the capacity to sue and be sued⁷. Marriage lifted the disabilities that would otherwise have kept an 18-year-old husband or wife from dealing with their own property.

A minor's contract was voidable — good until the minor chose to undo it, which he or she could do at 21 or soon after. For necessaries — food, clothing, lodging, and the like — the minor was bound⁸. A minor could also have the disabilities of infancy removed early: on petition and hearing, the district court where the minor lived could confer the full power to hold property and contract as though of full age, where it found this would promote the minor's interest⁹. Such an order is a district court record that names the minor and usually the reason.

Marriage

Age and consent

A man could marry on his own authority at 21, a woman at 18. Below those ages the father, or the mother, or a guardian had to consent, in person before the licensing officer or in writing. The 1859 territorial act set that rule and it carried forward in substance for the rest of the period¹⁰. A second consent applied lower down, and below the common-law floor there was no capacity to marry at all¹¹¹².

A Kansas marriage below 18 or 16 should therefore carry a probate judge's written consent in the license file alongside the parent's — two documents, not one.

The penalty for marrying a minor without consent fell on the officiant, who was guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to a fine of up to $1,000¹³. Where a party lacked capacity for want of age or understanding, the marriage could be undone by annulment, on the action of the incapable party¹⁴. A runaway teenage marriage in the Kansas record is a real marriage unless somebody went to court about it.

Common-law marriage

A couple could become husband and wife in Kansas with no license, no ceremony, and no clergyman. The statute made marriage a civil contract to which the consent of the parties was essential¹⁵, and the courts asked only three things: that both parties were capable of marrying, that they made a present agreement to be husband and wife rather than a promise for the future, and that they lived together and held themselves out to the community as married¹⁶.

The legislature discouraged the practice without abolishing it. The marriage relation was to be entered into only as the law prescribed, and a couple living together as man and wife without being married was guilty of a misdemeanor¹⁷. The Supreme Court held that such a couple nonetheless contracted a valid common-law marriage, even while exposing themselves to that punishment¹⁸.

Two things follow for research. The absence of a license does not mean a couple was unmarried, and a common-law marriage carried full inheritance rights — so census entries, deeds, and probate files showing a couple holding themselves out as married can establish the marriage where no license exists. And a prosecution for unlawful cohabitation in the criminal docket may be evidence of a marriage rather than against one.

Who could not marry

Marriages within the degrees of kinship were void: between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and first cousins. The rule reached illegitimate relations as well as legitimate ones¹⁹. Contracting or solemnizing such a marriage was a crime carrying a fine and up to five years²⁰.

Health bars came later. A person who was epileptic, imbecile, feeble-minded, or afflicted with insanity could not marry unless the woman was over 45²¹. From 1947 each applicant had to file a physician's certificate reporting a blood test for syphilis and the physician's opinion on feeble-mindedness, which the district judge could excuse where the woman was over 45 or an emergency justified it²².

Race was a bar only in the territorial period. The pro-slavery code of 1855 declared all marriages of white persons with "negroes or mulattoes" illegal and void, and made both the couple and the officiant guilty of a misdemeanor of an infamous character. The free-state legislature repealed that code in 1859, and the marriage act passed in its place barred marriage within the degrees of kinship and drew no distinction of race²³. From 1859 onward an ordinary Kansas marriage record can be expected for a couple of any races. Slavery itself existed in the territory under the 1855 code and ended in February 1860; from statehood the marriage statutes drew no distinction of race or condition.

How a marriage was recorded

Judges, justices of the peace, clergymen, and licensed preachers of the gospel could perform the ceremony²⁴. The duty to make the return lay on the officiant, who forfeited a penalty for neglecting it — so a missing return means a delinquent officiant, not necessarily an absent marriage²⁵. A marriage valid where it was contracted was valid in Kansas²⁶. By the twentieth century a three-day waiting period ran between application and license, waived only by a district judge on proof of emergency²⁷.

Property ownership

Men and land

A man could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or devise — a gift of land made by will. What arrived at 21 was the power to deal with it in his own name — to buy, sell, mortgage, and convey by his own deed. A deed he gave before 21 was voidable and could be undone at majority, so a minor's land was ordinarily sold for him through the probate court instead.

Marriage did not reduce a man's power over his own land. It added his wife's claim to it, which is the subject of the next two headings.

Women and land

Kansas gave married women separate property from the beginning of its free-state law. Under the common law a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's when she married — a condition called coverture, which left her unable to hold property or make a contract in her own name. The territorial act of 1859 put a different rule in its place, and that rule governed for the rest of the period.

The territorial act of 1859 provided that the real and personal property a woman owned at her marriage, its rents and profits, and anything coming to her afterwards by inheritance, by will, or by the gift of anyone except her husband, remained her sole and separate property, not subject to her husband's disposal and not liable for his debts²⁸. She could bargain, sell, and convey her real and personal property and contract about it as if she were unmarried²⁹. She could sue and be sued in her own name, carry on any trade or business on her own account, and keep her own earnings³⁰. The Wyandotte Constitution then directed the legislature to protect exactly these rights³¹. The courts read the act to give a married woman the same contractual power as her husband: whatever contract he could make, she could make³².

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly. A married Kansas woman's deed of her own land carried her signature and no one else's. A woman transacting freely in the Kansas deed books is not necessarily a widow or a single woman.

When a wife signed a deed

Two different rules put a Kansas wife's name on her husband's deed, and they work differently.

The first is the homestead. The constitution exempted it — 160 acres of farming land, or one acre within an incorporated town or city, with its improvements, occupied as a residence by the family of the owner — from forced sale, and provided that it could not be alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife³³. A deed or mortgage of the homestead signed by one spouse alone was void. The territorial predecessor set the homestead smaller — 80 acres, or one town lot, not exceeding $1,000 in value — and already required the wife's signature on a married man's mortgage or conveyance of it³⁴.

The second reaches everything else. One-half in value of all the real estate in which the deceased had a legal or equitable interest at any time during the marriage — owned outright, or held a claim a court would enforce as ownership — was set apart to the surviving spouse in fee, unless the survivor had released it³⁵. The husband's own signature passed title; but the buyer took subject to that claim unless the wife joined in the deed. Buyers therefore obtained her signature as a matter of routine, and its absence is a fact worth chasing.

A wife who was a nonresident at the time of the conveyance and had never lived in Kansas as her husband's wife had no such claim, and he could convey alone³⁶.

Children and land

A child could own land at any age. Selling it went through the probate court.

The probate court could order a minor's real property sold or mortgaged on the guardian's application — where the sale was necessary for the minor's support or education, or where the child's interest would be promoted because the property was unproductive, exposed to waste (damage or neglect that would lose its value), or for other peculiar circumstances³⁷. The petition had to state the grounds and be verified by oath, and a copy of it, with notice of the hearing, had to be served personally on the minor at least ten days beforehand. The court could order further publication in the newspapers, could refer the question to ascertain whether the sale was proper, and required the guardian to give a second bond of double the value before executing the sale³⁸.

So a single sale of a child's land leaves a petition, a notice served on the child, sometimes a newspaper notice, a reference, a bond, an order, and a deed signed by someone other than the owner. Where a Kansas deed conveys a child's land, the probate file holds the family.

Deed formalities

A Kansas deed took the grantor's signature and an officer's acknowledgment. A conveyance of land or of any other estate or interest in it was made by deed, executed by a person having authority and acknowledged before an officer — signed in front of a notary or other authorized official, who certified that the signer was who he said he was and signed willingly. That was the whole of the ceremony the law required³⁹. The acknowledgment is the formality at the foot of a Kansas deed, and recording made the deed good against the world.

Enslaved people, free Black Kansans, and Native land

Enslaved people in Kansas Territory had no capacity to own property; slavery there ended in February 1860, and Kansas came into the Union as a free state. From statehood the property and conveyancing statutes drew no distinction of race, and free Black Kansans bought, held, conveyed, and devised land on the same terms as anyone else — which is why deeds, mortgages, and probate files exist for Black families in Kansas from the earliest state years, including the Exoduster settlements of the late 1870s.

Kansas held many reservations and allotments. Title to treaty and allotted land passed under federal restrictions, and the Kansas probate court did not control a restricted allotment. Where an ancestor's land came to them as an allotment, the governing records are federal — treaty, allotment, and Indian agency files — and not the county courthouse.

Inheritance

The surviving spouse's share

Each spouse took a share in fee — outright ownership of the land itself, which the survivor could sell or leave by will⁴⁰. The provisions are sex-neutral: everything enacted for the widow of a deceased husband applied to the husband of a deceased wife⁴¹.

The shares are simple, and — unusually — they do not shrink as the number of children rises:

Real and personal property went the same way. The personal property left after debts was distributed to the same persons and in the same proportions as though it were real estate⁴².

All of this dates from 1859. The territorial married women's act gave a surviving husband one-half of his wife's separate property with the other half to her children, and a surviving wife one-half of her husband's property with the other half divided among his children; where there was no issue, the survivor took the whole⁴³.

Two things that came off the top

The homestead did not pass by those rules at all. It was exempt from distribution and descended absolutely to the surviving spouse and children, or to either of them⁴⁴.

The widow's allowance came out of the personal estate before anything was distributed: the deceased's wearing apparel, the household goods, provisions and fuel for one year, and further specified property or cash in lieu of it, up to $250. The widow selected the property herself, and none of it was liable for her husband's debts. Where there were no minor children it belonged to her absolutely, and it came on top of whatever she took under the will or the law⁴⁵. It is a separate probate record, and it names the widow and the minor children.

The share a will could not defeat

Neither spouse could will away from the other more than one-half of his or her property without the other's consent in writing before two witnesses⁴⁶. Where a husband's will tried to leave his wife less, she could take under the will or take one-half of his whole estate instead — her election, made after his death⁴⁷.

Both halves of this rule leave paper. A written spousal consent, or an election filed against a will, sits in the probate file and states exactly what the survivor chose.

The 1859 act also let a widow take her share in the ordinary dwelling house and the land given by law as a homestead, and had her share set off by referees — persons the court appointed to divide the land — appointed by the probate court, on application made any time after twenty days and within ten years of her husband's death; the referees could employ a surveyor⁴⁸. Their return describes her portion tract by tract.

Advancements

Where a person died intestate — without leaving a valid will — property given to an heir during life as an advancement, meant as part of that heir's share, counted against the heir's portion, valued at what it was worth when given. Where the advancement exceeded the share, the heir kept the surplus and refunded nothing⁴⁹. An estate division that gives one child noticeably less is often explained by a deed made years earlier.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

A minor's inheritance went to a guardian under the supervision of the probate court.

The father was the natural guardian of his minor children; on his death or incapacity the mother became guardian⁵⁰. The Wyandotte Constitution directed the legislature to provide for women's equal rights in the possession of their children, and by the twentieth century both parents were natural guardians equally, each as fully as the other⁵¹.

A guardian was appointed in these circumstances, and each throws off a probate file:

• Both parents were dead or disqualified to act, and none had been named by will⁵².
• The minor came into property that came from neither parent — the father being alive and well⁵³. A legacy from a grandparent, an uncle, or the mother's family required a guardian of the estate, and that guardian is often somebody other than the father. A guardianship for a child whose father is living tells you the child inherited from elsewhere.
• The court appointed the father, or on his death, absence, or incapacity the mother, to take charge of the child's property, where it thought them suitable⁵⁴.

A parent could name a guardian by will⁵⁵.

At fourteen, a minor of sound intellect could select his or her own guardian, subject to the court's approval⁵⁶. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is evidence the child had reached 14, and brackets a birth year.

Guardianship ended at 21. Three documents come out of it:

• The bond, with a surety — a second person who promised to pay if the guardian defaulted — in a penalty double the value of the personal estate and of the rents and profits of the land, conditioned on the faithful discharge of the guardian's duties⁵⁷.
• The inventory and appraisement of all the minor's property, made within forty days of the appointment and filed with the clerk of the probate court⁵⁸. It is an itemized picture of what the child inherited.
• The closing settlement. The guardian managed the ward's interests under the court's direction and accounted to it⁵⁹, and the settlement that closes the guardianship is filed when the ward turns 21 — which dates the majority, approximates a birth year, and frequently reveals a female ward's married surname.

Children born outside marriage

A child born outside marriage inherited from the mother, and the mother from the child, without any condition at all⁶⁰.

The child inherited from the father where the father had recognized the child as his own — and the recognition had to be general and notorious, or else in writing⁶¹. The evidence a Kansas court wanted was therefore either a document or a reputation in the community, which is very often the same evidence a genealogist has already gathered.

The father could inherit from such a child only where the recognition of the relationship had been mutual, and even then the mother and her heirs took preference over the father and his heirs⁶².

Paternity was settled in a bastardy proceeding. It began on the complaint of the mother, on oath, before a justice of the peace, who took the accusation in writing and issued a warrant to bring the accused before him to be examined in her presence⁶³. Where paternity was established the court put the father under bond for annual payments toward the child's maintenance and education⁶⁴. The file names the father — and under the recognition rule above, a paternity judgment can be what gives the child a claim on his estate.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was 21. Any person of full age and sound mind could dispose by will of all his or her property, saving what was needed to pay debts, what was allowed as a homestead, and other privileged property⁶⁵. One age, both sexes, and land and personal property alike. A married woman's will was subject to no special restriction beyond the spousal half described above⁶⁶.

A will had to be in writing and attested by two competent witnesses — that is, signed by them as witnesses — who saw the testator sign or heard the will acknowledged⁶⁷. A witness of any age could attest a will, so long as the witness was competent. A gift in the will to one of the attesting witnesses was void, unless two other competent witnesses also signed — though a witness who was an heir could still take up to what he would have inherited had there been no will⁶⁸. A legacy that failed for this reason tells you the drafter thought that witness close enough to the family to leave something to.

Every will but an oral one had to be attested. A holographic will — one written entirely in the testator's own hand — took the same two witnesses as any other written will.

An oral will was good for personal property only. Under the territorial act it could carry personal property up to $300 in value if witnessed by two competent witnesses, and a soldier in actual service or a mariner at sea could dispose of all his personal estate that way⁶⁹. The later code kept the oral will for personal property, made in the last sickness and reduced to writing and subscribed by two competent, disinterested witnesses⁷⁰.

To serve as executor a person had to be legally competent, which a minor was not. Letters testamentary — the court's written authority to act for the estate — went to the executor named in the will if he or she was legally competent and accepted the trust; otherwise the court granted letters of administration with the will annexed⁷¹. So where a will named a minor, the letters name the adult who actually settled the estate — look at the letters, not the will, for the person who did the work.

Two custody rules generate records. A will could be deposited sealed and endorsed with the clerk of the probate court during the testator's life. And anyone holding a will had to bring it into open court at the first stated term after learning of the testator's death, where it was publicly read; failing that, he could be brought in by attachment, jailed until he complied, and held liable for damages⁷².

Taxation

The tax that names the most people is the annual property tax on real and personal property — an ad valorem tax, assessed according to value — listed by county every year. The assessment rolls place a man in a township year by year, and they work as a census substitute between the federal enumerations.

The road tax changed character twice, and the three versions leave different records. A capitation is a flat charge on a person rather than on property; a "poll" is the taxable person himself.

Three things follow. Under the territorial tax the poll was the able-bodied man himself, so a man who owned nothing still appears — but because people of color were excepted, those lists are not a complete roll of adult men, and the absence of a Black ancestor from one means nothing. A state-period road record shows a landowner working out a tax on his land rather than a head count of men. And city poll lists are worth searching where a rural tax roll turns up nothing.

Two twentieth-century taxes complete the picture: the Kansas income tax, enacted in March 1933⁷⁶, and the Kansas retailers' sales tax, enacted in April 1937 at 2 percent⁷⁷.

Courts

Jury service

Jurors were selected from those assessed on the previous year's assessment roll, and had to have the qualifications of electors — residents and citizens entitled to vote. The county board picked men in possession of their natural faculties, not infirm or decrepit, of fair character, approved integrity, sound judgment, and well informed⁷⁸. The working test through the nineteenth century was therefore an adult man of 21 whose name appeared on the assessment roll. Payment of tax on personal property was not itself the test of a juror's competency, and the rolls covered both real and personal property⁷⁹.

Because eligibility followed the vote, it changed whenever the franchise did:

• Black men became electors, and so jurors, with the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.
• Women became eligible in 1912, when Kansas granted them full suffrage. No separate jury act was needed; the elector qualification carried them in automatically⁸⁰.

Women could be excused, and the machinery makes a useful record. The tax assessor was required to ask each woman elector, at the time of the annual assessment, whether she wished to be exempted from jury service that year, and if she did her name was left off the jury list. The exemption did not disqualify her — a woman who wanted to serve, served⁸¹.

Criminal responsibility

The common law governed, and the statutes left it there. A child under 7 could not commit a crime at all. Between 7 and 14 the law presumed the child incapable, and the prosecution had to overcome the presumption by showing the child understood the wrongfulness of the act. From 14 the child bore full responsibility and was tried as an adult.

In 1905 Kansas established a juvenile court with jurisdiction over dependent, neglected, and delinquent children, amended and supplemented in 1907⁸². Its jurisdiction over children under sixteen was exclusive⁸³. The practical effect for a researcher: from 1905 the record of a child under 16 is a juvenile court file rather than a criminal case file, and those files are usually closed.

Witnesses

A person of any age could testify who understood the duty to tell the truth and could relate what he or she had seen. The judge decided competency witness by witness, on the spot, and children did testify⁸⁴.

Husband and wife were competent witnesses for or against each other in criminal proceedings, but neither could be compelled except on the other's behalf. In civil actions neither could testify to any communication made by one to the other during the marriage⁸⁵.

From statehood the competency rules drew no distinction of race or sex. Women testified on the same terms as men throughout the state period.

(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, so anything here can be checked against the original sources.

Constitutions

• Kansas Constitution of 1859 (Wyandotte). Adopted by convention 29 July 1859, ratified 4 October 1859, effective on admission 29 January 1861. Art. 15, § 6 (rights of women; equal rights in the possession of children); art. 15, § 9 (homestead exemption; alienation only by the joint consent of husband and wife). Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_015_0006.html; https://www.ksrevisor.gov/kanconst/093_015_0009.html (accessed 26 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Compiled Laws of Kansas, 1885. Compiled by C. F. W. Dassler. Topeka: Geo. W. Crane & Co. Catalog records give the printing as both 1885 and 1886; take the year from the title page of the copy consulted. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=sklMAQAAIAAJ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• General Statutes of Kansas (Annotated), 1935. Compiled, edited and indexed by Franklin Corrick, revisor of statutes. Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, W. C. Austin, State Printer, 1936. The code in force through the last decades covered here; note that the 1935 statutes carry a 1936 imprint. Located through the Mieszala index below.
• The General Statutes of the State of Kansas. Revised by John M. Price, Samuel A. Riggs, and James McCahon, commissioners appointed under an act approved 18 February 1867. Lawrence: John Speer, Public Printer, 1868. The first state compilation, and the citation most history lines run back to. Digital images. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=PkVMAQAAIAAJ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• General Statutes of the State of Kansas, 1897. Containing all laws of a general nature from the admission of the state in 1861 to 8 May 1897. 2 vols. Digital images. Google Books, vol. 1, https://books.google.com/books?id=Sr1CAAAAYAAJ; HathiTrust, vol. 2, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl39qr (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Revised Statutes of Kansas, 1923. Revised by Chester I. Long, F. Dumont Smith, and Hugh P. Farrelly, commissioners appointed by the supreme court, and adopted by the legislature at the regular session of 1923. Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, B. P. Walker, State Printer, 1923.
• The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas. Shawnee M.L.S., Kansas Territory: John T. Brady, Public Printer, 1855. The first-session code, which adopted the statutes of Missouri wholesale. Ch. 6 (apprentices), ch. 53 (crimes and punishments), ch. 108 (marriages, with the prohibition on interracial marriage at § 3). Printed in St. Louis although it carries Brady's imprint as public printer at the Shawnee Manual Labor School. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp85790665 (accessed 26 July 2026).

Session Laws

• An Act to Punish Offences Against Slave Property. Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, 14 August 1855. Shawnee M.L.S.: John T. Brady, Public Printer, 1855. Digital images. Library of Congress, Printed Ephemera Collection, Portfolio 20, Folder 1a. https://www.loc.gov/item/2020783734/; also Kansas Memory, https://www.kansasmemory.gov/item/6835 (accessed 26 July 2026).
• General Laws of the Territory of Kansas. Fifth session. Lawrence, Kansas Territory: Herald of Freedom Steam Press, 1859. The foundational free-state code, and the single most useful volume for Kansas genealogy. Ch. 63 (descents and distributions), ch. 67 (exemptions and the homestead), ch. 75 (guardians and wards), ch. 77 (highways), ch. 82 (maintenance and support of illegitimate children), ch. 84 (grand and petit jurors), ch. 85 (local exemptions), ch. 93 (marriage), ch. 94 (rights of married women), ch. 121 (adopting the common law), ch. 131 (wills). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/generallawsterr00kansgoog (accessed 26 July 2026).
• General Laws Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, at the General and Special Sessions of the Year 1860. Lecompton, K.T.: S. A. Medary & S. W. Driggs, Printers, "Democrat" Office, 1860. Ch. 111, "An Act to Prohibit Slavery in Kansas," at p. 200. Read as file 1860.010 in the Early State Records set below.
• The Laws of the State of Kansas, Passed at the Seventh Session of the Legislature. Leavenworth: Bulletin Book and Job Office, 1867. Ch. 62 (fire companies), ch. 68 (cities of the second class), ch. 84 (marriage), ch. 122 (roads). The Google catalog record for the scan below names the Kansas State Journal as publisher; the volume's own title page names the Bulletin Book and Job Office at Leavenworth. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/generallawsstat32kansgoog (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Library of Congress. Early State Records Project. Session Laws of Kansas. The territorial volumes for 1855, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, and 1861 in one item, with searchable text; the most convenient single source for territorial Kansas law. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp631273735 (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Session Laws of Kansas. Further acts cited in the notes, by year and chapter, each to be read in the session volume for its year: 1864, "An Act in relation to Roads"; 1876, ch. 104 (jurors); 1905, ch. 190, and 1907, ch. 177 (juvenile court); 1909, ch. 182 (civil procedure); 1911, ch. 248, and 1917, ch. 267 (roads); 1913, ch. 224 (marriage); 1917, ch. 184, and 1919, ch. 229 (majority, and married persons of eighteen); 1923, ch. 144 (the common law as the rule of decision); 1933, ch. 237 (county road powers repealed) and ch. 320 (income tax); 1937, ch. 374 (retailers' sales tax); 1939, ch. 180 (the Probate Code); 1947, ch. 240 (marriage) and ch. 241 (physician's certificate); 1957, ch. 256; and 1971, ch. 176 (the jury act repealed).

Court Cases

• Browning v. Browning. 89 Kan. 98 (1913).
• Carman v. Kight. 85 Kan. 18 (1911).
• Freeman v. Fowler Packing Co. 135 Kan. 378 (1932).
• Harrington v. Lowe. 73 Kan. 1 (1906).
• Kittel v. Smith. 136 Kan. 522 (1932).
• Nagle v. Tieperman. 74 Kan. 32 (1906).
• Pellett v. Pellett. 132 Kan. 427 (1931).
• Pfleiderer v. Brooks. 122 Kan. 647 (1927).
• Putnam v. Putnam. 104 Kan. 47 (1919).
• Shane v. City of Hutchinson. 88 Kan. 188 (1913).
• State v. Angel. 42 Kan. 216 (1889).
• State v. Gereke. 74 Kan. 196 (1906).
• State v. O'Keith. 136 Kan. 283 (1932).
• State v. Reed. 53 Kan. 767 (1894).
• State v. Walker. 36 Kan. 297 (1887).
• Opinions in the Kansas Reports may be read at CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com (accessed 26 July 2026).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Brown, Jay Scott. "Intestate Succession in Kansas." Washburn Law Journal 8 (1969): 284. Traces the one-half spousal share and the 1939 Probate Code back to their source acts. https://contentdm.washburnlaw.edu/digital/api/collection/wlj/id/2637/download (accessed 26 July 2026).
• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Kansas Vital Records." County clerks held birth and death records before 1911, and county probate courts held marriages before 1913. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Kansas_Vital_Records (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Kansas Department of Revenue. Pub. KS-1510. The retailers' sales tax of 1937 and its original 2 percent rate. https://www.ksrevenue.gov/pub1510.html (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Kansas Historical Society. "Slavery in Kansas Territory." Kansapedia. The 1855 adoption of Missouri's statutes and the abolition vote of 23 February 1860. https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/slavery-in-kansas-territory/16698 (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Kansas Historical Society, State Archives. Marriage license record descriptions, by county. Gives the contents of a county marriage license record: the names and ages of the parties, that they married of mutual consent and sound mind, the dates of the license and of the ceremony, and the name and title of the person who performed it. https://www.kansashistory.gov/archives/197563 (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes. Every current section prints a full history line back to the General Statutes of 1868, with source-or-prior-law notes giving the pre-1939 section numbers. The fastest way to trace a Kansas rule backward; the marriage license and consent line is at 23-2505. https://www.ksrevisor.gov/ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Matthews, Burnita Shelton. "The Woman Juror." Women Lawyers' Journal 15 (January 1927): 15. Dates Kansas's admission of women to juries to 1912 and explains the elector mechanism that made a separate act unnecessary. http://wlh.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/the-woman-juror-15wlj151927.pdf (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Mieszala, Debbie. "Historic Kansas Statutes." An index of digitized territorial and state session laws and compilations, 1855–1951, with direct links. https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-kansas-statutes/ (accessed 26 July 2026).
• Moran, Rachel F. Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Records Kansas as one of three territories that repealed an anti-miscegenation law before statehood, in 1859.
• University of Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library. "Probate Court, 1855–1982." Douglas County record group. Douglas County probate records were kept separately from the district court until 1977, when the probate court merged into the district court; the probate court had jurisdiction over estates, wills, adoptions, sanity hearings, delinquent and dependent children, marriages, and town incorporations. https://archives.lib.ku.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/416275 (accessed 26 July 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Kansas. Bulletin 157-15. Rev. ed., law stated as of 1 January 1948. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. A digest of Kansas law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, the spousal share, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, common-law marriage, spousal testimony, and jury service, with citations to the 1935 General Statutes. Digital images. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-15-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 26 July 2026).

Citations

1. General Laws of the Territory of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas Territory: Herald of Freedom Steam Press, 1859), ch. 121, § 1, "An Act Adopting the Common Law as the Rule of Action in this Territory"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsterr00kansgoog : accessed 26 July 2026). The later formulation, which takes the common law as modified by constitutional and statutory law, judicial decisions, and the conditions and wants of the people, entered by the act of 1923, ch. 144, § 5, and was carried into the Revised Statutes of Kansas, 1923 (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, B. P. Walker, State Printer, 1923), 77-109 ↩
2. U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Kansas, Bulletin 157-15, rev. ed., law stated as of 1 January 1948 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), No. 10; digital images, FRASER (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-15-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 26 July 2026). No statute created a community of interest between spouses, and by the rule of common law such property belonged to the husband unless joint ownership was created by deed, contract, or other private agreement ↩
3. The Statutes of the Territory of Kansas (Shawnee M.L.S., Kansas Territory: John T. Brady, Public Printer, 1855); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp85790665 : accessed 26 July 2026). The first territorial legislature adopted the statutes of Missouri and enacted An Act to Punish Offences Against Slave Property, approved 14 August 1855, which Brady issued separately the same year; digital images, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/2020783734/ : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
4. General Laws Passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas, at the General and Special Sessions of the Year 1860, ch. 111, "An Act to Prohibit Slavery in Kansas," §§ 1–2, p. 200; returned by the Governor with his objections and passed over the veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses, 23 February 1860. The volume is (Lecompton, K.T.: S. A. Medary & S. W. Driggs, Printers, "Democrat" Office, 1860); read as file 1860.010 in the Library of Congress Early State Records set, digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp631273735 : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
5. Session Laws of Kansas, 1939, ch. 180, the Probate Code, effective 1 July 1939, codified as chapter 59 of the statutes. The session volumes for the state period are indexed and linked year by year in Debbie Mieszala, "Historic Kansas Statutes" (https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-kansas-statutes/ : accessed 26 July 2026); later notes cite these volumes by year and chapter ↩
6. The General Statutes of the State of Kansas (Lawrence: John Speer, Public Printer, 1868), ch. 67, § 1, revised by John M. Price, Samuel A. Riggs, and James McCahon, commissioners appointed under an act approved 18 February 1867; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=PkVMAQAAIAAJ : accessed 26 July 2026). The section was amended by the acts of 1917, ch. 184, § 1, and 1919, ch. 229, § 1, and carried in that form into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-101, and the General Statutes of Kansas (Annotated), 1935, compiled by Franklin Corrick, revisor of statutes (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, W. C. Austin, State Printer, 1936), 38-101 ↩
7. Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-101, as it stood after the acts of 1917, ch. 184, § 1, and 1919, ch. 229, § 1; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 1 ↩
8. General Statutes of 1868, ch. 67, § 2, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-102, and the General Statutes of 1935, 38-102 ↩
9. General Statutes of 1935, 38-108 to 38-110; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 2 ↩
10. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 6. The marriage law was re-enacted by The Laws of the State of Kansas, seventh session (Leavenworth: Bulletin Book and Job Office, 1867), ch. 84; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsstat32kansgoog : accessed 26 July 2026). The 1859 section reads that no judge, justice of the peace, clergyman, or preacher shall join in marriage any male under twenty-one or any female under eighteen without the consent of the parents or guardian under whose care and government the minor may be, on pain of a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars. The 1867 act runs to fifteen sections; its § 5 is the provision directing the probate judge to issue a license to any person legally entitled to one, and the act states no age or consent requirement of its own. That license section is nonetheless the vehicle the requirement later travelled in: the statutory history of the present K.S.A. 23-2505, which now carries the lawful age and consent rules, runs from the act of 1867, ch. 84, § 5, through the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 61, § 5, the acts of 1905, ch. 302, § 1, and 1913, ch. 224, § 2, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-106, and thence the act of 1947, ch. 240, § 1. Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes, "23-2505" (https://www.ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch23/023_025_0005.html : accessed 26 July 2026) ↩
11. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-106; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 18 ↩
12. Browning v. Browning, 89 Kan. 98, 100 (1913) ↩
13. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 6 ↩
14. General Statutes of 1935, 60-1515 ↩
15. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 1 ↩
16. State v. Walker, 36 Kan. 297 (1887) ↩
17. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-101, 23-118 ↩
18. State v. Walker, 36 Kan. 297; Freeman v. Fowler Packing Co., 135 Kan. 378, 379 (1932) ↩
19. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 2, carried through the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 61, § 2, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-102 ↩
20. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 3 ↩
21. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-120, with the sworn statement and the officiant's sources of information at 23-121 and 23-122 and the penalties at 23-123 ↩
22. Session Laws of Kansas, 1947, ch. 241 ↩
23. Territorial Statutes of 1855, ch. 108, "Marriages," § 3, declaring marriages of white persons with negroes or mulattoes illegal and void, and § 4, setting the penalty on the parties and the officiant. That code was repealed in 1859 and replaced by the General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 2, which declares void only marriages within the degrees of kinship. On the repeal, see Rachel F. Moran, Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001) ↩
24. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 5 ↩
25. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 7 ↩
26. General Laws of 1859, ch. 93, § 4, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-115 ↩
27. Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-106, as amended by the act of 1947, ch. 240, § 1 ↩
28. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 1, carried through the married women's act in the General Statutes of 1868 into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-201, and the General Statutes of 1935, 23-201 ↩
29. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 2, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-202, and the General Statutes of 1935, 23-202 ↩
30. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, §§ 3, 10, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 23-203 and 23-204; and see Revised Statutes of 1923, 60-404 ↩
31. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 15, § 6 ↩
32. Harrington v. Lowe, 73 Kan. 1, 14 (1906) ↩
33. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 15, § 9, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 60-3501 ↩
34. General Laws of 1859, ch. 67, §§ 1–2 ↩
35. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-108. The rule descends from the General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, §§ 5, 7, through the General Statutes of 1868 and the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-108, 22-117, and 22-127, into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 27; and see Putnam v. Putnam, 104 Kan. 47, 53 (1919) ↩
36. Pfleiderer v. Brooks, 122 Kan. 647, 650 (1927); Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-108 ↩
37. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 10 ↩
38. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, §§ 11–14 ↩
39. General Statutes of 1868, ch. 22, § 3, approved 31 October 1868, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 67-205 ↩
40. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-127, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180 ↩
41. Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 15, citing Nagle v. Tieperman, 74 Kan. 32, 43 (1906) ↩
42. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, § 1, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-130, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 24 ↩
43. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, §§ 5, 7, 8, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-118 and 22-119, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, §§ 26–27 ↩
44. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-102 to 22-107 ↩
45. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-511, 22-512, 22-514; and see Pellett v. Pellett, 132 Kan. 427 (1931) ↩
46. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 4, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-238, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 38; and see Carman v. Kight, 85 Kan. 18, 22 (1911) ↩
47. General Laws of 1859, ch. 94, § 9, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-117, 22-127, 22-245, and 22-246; Kittel v. Smith, 136 Kan. 522, 525 (1932) ↩
48. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, §§ 6–10 ↩
49. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, §§ 27–28 ↩
50. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 1 ↩
51. Kan. Const. of 1859, art. 15, § 6; Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-201; State v. Angel, 42 Kan. 216, 222 (1889) ↩
52. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 2 ↩
53. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 3 ↩
54. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 4 ↩
55. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 2, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-201 and 38-202 ↩
56. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 5 ↩
57. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 6 ↩
58. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 7 ↩
59. General Laws of 1859, ch. 75, § 9 ↩
60. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, § 23, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-121, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 23 ↩
61. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, § 24, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-123 ↩
62. General Laws of 1859, ch. 63, §§ 25–26, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-123 and 22-124 ↩
63. General Laws of 1859, ch. 82, § 1 ↩
64. Revised Statutes of 1923, 62-2301 to 62-2321 ↩
65. General Laws of 1859, ch. 131, § 1, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-201, and thence the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 37, which ties the power to the rights of majority ↩
66. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-201; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 14 ↩
67. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-202, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 42 ↩
68. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-212, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 40 ↩
69. General Laws of 1859, ch. 131, §§ 3–4 ↩
70. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-273, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 44 ↩
71. Revised Statutes of 1923, 22-302 and 22-307, carried into the act of 1939, ch. 180, § 58 ↩
72. General Laws of 1859, ch. 131, §§ 14–16 ↩
73. General Laws of 1859, ch. 77, "An Act to provide for locating and working Highways," § 22 ↩
74. Laws of 1867, ch. 122, § 1, amending § 20 of "An Act in relation to Roads," approved 18 March 1864, and setting a road tax of not more than five mills on taxable real estate, payable in labor by any able-bodied man at $2 a day under the district overseer. The county road powers ran on through the acts of 1911, ch. 248, § 36, and 1917, ch. 267, § 1, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 68-201, repealed by the act of 1933, ch. 237, § 1 ↩
75. Laws of 1867, ch. 68, "An Act to Incorporate Cities of the State of Kansas, of the second class," powers of the council, cl. 3; a like clause appears in the act for the next class of cities. The firemen's exemption is Laws of 1867, ch. 62, "An Act to encourage the organization of Fire Companies," § 1, which exempts an active fireman from jury service and from all poll taxes. An earlier local exemption is the General Laws of 1859, ch. 85. And see Shane v. City of Hutchinson, 88 Kan. 188 (1913), on a poll tax not being collectible in cities of the first class ↩
76. Session Laws of Kansas, 1933, ch. 320, § 1, approved 29 March 1933 ↩
77. Session Laws of Kansas, 1937, ch. 374, § 1, approved 9 April 1937 ↩
78. General Laws of 1859, ch. 84, "An Act providing for the Selection and Summoning of Grand and Petit Jurors," §§ 1–3, carried through the General Statutes of 1868, ch. 54, §§ 1–2, and the act of 1876, ch. 104, §§ 1–2, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-101 and 43-102, and repealed by the act of 1971, ch. 176, § 22 ↩
79. State v. Reed, 53 Kan. 767, 772 (1894); State v. Gereke, 74 Kan. 196, 198 (1906) ↩
80. Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-102; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 32; Burnita Shelton Matthews, "The Woman Juror," Women Lawyers' Journal 15 (January 1927): 15, dating Kansas to 1912. The jury statute was not amended to admit women; eligibility followed the elector qualification the act had carried since 1859 ↩
81. Revised Statutes of 1923, 43-116 and 43-117; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 32 ↩
82. Session Laws of Kansas, 1905, ch. 190, "An act to establish a juvenile court and to provide for dependent and neglected children," amended and supplemented by the act of 1907, ch. 177, and carried into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 38-401 and following, repealed by the act of 1957, ch. 256, § 39 ↩
83. State v. O'Keith, 136 Kan. 283, 285 (1932) ↩
84. General Statutes of 1868, ch. 80, § 323, carried through the act of 1909, ch. 182, § 321, into the Revised Statutes of 1923, 60-2805 ↩
85. Revised Statutes of 1923, 62-1420 for criminal proceedings and 60-2805 for civil actions; Women's Bureau, Bulletin 157-15, No. 13 ↩