A genealogical research guide to Louisiana historical statutes from 1699 to 1950.
Historical Law Guides > Louisiana
|
Legal Ages at a Glance General Principles Legal Age of Adulthood Marriage Property Ownership |
Inheritance Taxation Courts Sources & Where to Verify |
| Legal milestone | Age | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Full majority | 21 | Both sexes, whole period |
| Marry | 14 male / 12 female | The age of puberty; no higher statutory floor before 1950 |
| Parental consent for marriage | Under 21, both sexes | Father and mother, or the survivor; the tutor if both are dead |
| Emancipation by a parent | 15 | By notarial act; gives the power to administer, not full majority |
| Emancipation by the judge | 18 | Full majority by court decree |
| Emancipation by marriage | Whatever age the marriage was lawful | Automatic and irrevocable |
| Tutorship ends | 21 | Or earlier at emancipation; the final account approximates a birth year |
| Bound out as apprentice or servant, term ends | 18 male / 15 female | Unless the indenture set a shorter term |
| Make a will | 16 | Under 16 none; at 16 the same amount an adult could give |
| Serve as testamentary executor | 21 | A minor was barred even with his tutor's authorization |
| Witness a will | 16, male | Women barred entirely; heirs and legatees excluded |
| Witness a notarial act | 14, male, free | Two witnesses; three if a party was blind |
| Witness a public inventory | Full age, male | Must live in the place where the inventory is made |
| Testify in court | Any age if of proper understanding | Competency, not age, was the test |
| Jury service | 21, male | Citizen; one year in the parish; grand jurors literate in English |
| Criminal responsibility | 14 at common law | Under 7 none; 7–14 presumed none; juvenile jurisdiction under 17 in Orleans from 1908, statewide from 1921 |
| Taxable as a poll | 21 to 60 | Males; the $1 poll tax ran 1898 to 1934 |
Louisiana's private law came from France and Spain, and behind them from Rome. Its rules for families, property, and inheritance were set out in written codes, and those codes governed the whole of the period this guide covers.
The institutions a researcher meets in Louisiana records are the civil-law ones, and each has a plain meaning worth fixing at the start. Property that a husband and wife acquired during their marriage belonged to the community, a jointly owned fund divided in half when the marriage ended, so a widow took her own half outright. Children were forced heirs: the law reserved a fixed portion of a parent's estate to them, called the legitime, and a will could not take it away. A survivor might hold a usufruct — the right to use property and draw its income for life while someone else owned it. A child who had lost a parent was placed under tutorship, the office that managed a minor's person and property, and the tutor answered to a family meeting, a gathering of relatives convened before a judge and recorded by a notary. A widow left with far less than her husband could claim the marital portion, a share of his estate measured against what he left. Most transactions of consequence were made by authentic act, a document drawn up before a notary who kept the original himself. Louisiana's civil divisions are parishes.
Because the notary kept the original rather than handing it to the parties, the notarial record often survives where nothing else does, and it names the parties, their parents, and their marital status. The parish clerk of court holds conveyance, mortgage, and succession records.
The law arrived in three layers:
Three civil codes carry the whole period, and each prints the article numbers of the one before it, so a rule can be traced backward from any of them:
| Code | In force | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Digest of 1808 | 1808 – 1825 | The first Louisiana code; unrepealed Spanish law survived alongside it |
| Civil Code of 1825 | 1825 – 1870 | A full recasting; the source of most nineteenth-century rules |
| Revised Civil Code of 1870 | 1870 – 1950 and beyond | The code in force for the whole later period, as amended |
For any given year, the rule in force is the article of the code then in effect. Because the Revised Civil Code of 1870 prints its 1825 predecessor's number in brackets beside each article, the chain from 1825 to 1870 can be read straight off the page.
Criminal law took the opposite path. The territorial Crimes Act of 1805 adopted the common law of England for crimes and criminal procedure1. That act remained the basic law of crimes until the Louisiana Criminal Code replaced it in 19422. So Louisiana ran civil law for families, property, and successions, and common law for prosecutions — which is why the criminal records read like those of any other Southern state while the succession records do not.
Full legal age in Louisiana was 21. The rule is stated in one sentence: minors are those of both sexes who have not yet attained the age of one and twenty years complete, and they remain under the direction of tutors till that age; when they have attained that age they are said to be of full age3. There was no different age for women at any point in the period.
The code also fixes a second, lower threshold that is easy to mistake for majority. Males who have not attained fourteen years complete, and females who are under twelve, are under the age of puberty; those who have reached those ages are called adults4. "Adult" in a Louisiana record therefore means a person past puberty, not a person of full age — a distinction that matters when reading marriage and succession papers.
A Louisiana minor could own property outright — by inheritance, donation, or purchase — at any age. What the law restrained was his power to bind himself.
A minor's engagement was not simply void. It was subject to restitution, the civil law's remedy for undoing a contract that damaged someone the law protected; minors, persons under interdiction (placed under a curator for incapacity), and married women all had the benefit of it. Where restitution was granted, the minor could not be made to pay back what he had received unless it was proved that the money had accrued to his benefit5.
The relief had a time limit built into it. Once a person ratified in majority an engagement he had subscribed as a minor, he could no longer avoid it — and that was so whether the engagement had been null in its form or merely open to restitution6. A confirmation or ratification executed shortly after a twenty-first birthday is therefore worth reading closely: it usually dates the majority, and it tells you a transaction had been made during minority.
A minor did not have to wait for twenty-one. Louisiana had three routes out of minority, and each one leaves a document.
| Route | Age | How it was done | What it gave |
|---|---|---|---|
| By a parent | 15 | Declaration by the father, or the mother if there is no father, before a notary and two witnesses7 | The full administration of his estate — leases, revenues, receipts8 |
| By the judge | 18 | Petition to the judge with the written assent of the tutor and the consent of a living parent9 | Full majority, "as fully as if he had arrived at the age of twenty-one years"10 |
| By marriage | Whatever age the marriage was lawful | Automatic on marrying11 | Court appearance without a curator, and the right to call the tutor to account12 |
Three points are worth carrying into the records. A minor emancipated only for administration could not bind himself for more than one year's revenue13. Emancipation by marriage could not be revoked14. And an emancipated minor could demand an account from his tutor and a settlement of the tutorship15 — so an emancipation is usually followed within months by a tutor's final account naming the whole family.
A minor could also be emancipated against his parents' will where they treated him excessively badly, refused him support, or gave him corrupt examples16. That proceeding is rare, and it is worth reading when you find it.
The code recognized three kinds of free servant: those who hired out by the day, week, month, or year; those who engaged to serve for a fixed time and were regarded as having sold their services rather than hired them out; and apprentices, who engaged to serve in order to learn an art, trade, or profession17. The manner of binding a person out was left to special laws18.
Two ages govern the length of an indenture, and they are lower than the age of majority — which is exactly why they are easy to misread:
| Who is bound | Term expires at |
|---|---|
| A minor male | 18 |
| A minor female | 15 |
| A person already of full age | Five years is the maximum term he may bind himself for19 |
Unless the indenture set a shorter term, a bound minor's engagement ended at those ages20. A boy released from his indenture at 18 had not reached majority, and remained under tutorship until 21.
A separate article reaches immigrants directly. A service contracted in a foreign country for a longer term was cut down to five years, counting from the day the person bound arrived in Louisiana21. For a family that came over under an indenture, that article fixes the outer limit of the servitude and dates it from arrival.
The master's obligations are what make these records useful. He bound himself to maintain the servant or apprentice for the whole term, to instruct the apprentice in his art, trade, or profession, and to teach him, or have him taught, to read, write, and cipher22. Either side could be compelled to perform, and a judge who rescinded the engagement ordered the money repaid in proportion to the time not yet served23. Where a master abused or cruelly treated the person bound to him, or failed in his duty — or where the servant or apprentice absconded — that was cause to release the aggrieved party or to grant other redress24. An indenture dissolved early therefore leaves a court record giving a reason, and the reason is often a description of the household.
Louisiana set no statutory minimum marrying age for the whole of this period. Capacity followed the age of puberty inherited from the civil law: 14 for a male, 12 for a female25. The code reached the question from the side of the officiant. Ministers of the gospel and magistrates were forbidden to marry any male under fourteen or any female under twelve, and one convicted of doing so was removed from office if a magistrate, or deprived forever of the right to celebrate marriages if a minister26.
That drafting matters for research. The penalty fell on the celebrant, not on the couple, so a marriage below the age still stood unless someone sued to annul it. A statutory floor did not arrive until long after 1950.
Consent was required for any minor — anyone under 21, of either sex. The minor who had reached the competent age to marry had to have the consent of his father and mother, or of the survivor of them, and if both were dead, of his tutor; and he had to furnish proof of that consent to the officer who issued the license27. A person of full age had instead to furnish proof of age28.
Consent has a sharp edge that shows up in wills. A parent could lawfully disinherit a child for ten named causes, and the tenth is that the son or daughter, being a minor, married without the consent of his or her parents29. Where a Louisiana will disinherits a child, an underage runaway marriage is one of the likeliest reasons, and the will must state the cause30.
A valid Louisiana marriage required a ceremony before an authorized celebrant, under a license. No one could celebrate a marriage without first obtaining a special license issued by the officer appointed to grant licenses in the parish where the marriage was to take place31.
The record this creates is unusually good:
| Step | Requirement | What survives |
|---|---|---|
| The license | Issued in duplicate by the licensing officer of the parish | The license, and the application behind it |
| The ceremony | Celebrated before three witnesses of full age | Names of three adult witnesses |
| The act of celebration | Made in duplicate, signed by the celebrant, the parties, and the witnesses, and appended to the license | Signatures of bride, groom, and witnesses |
| The return | One copy returned within thirty days to the officer who granted the license, who files and records it32 | The recorded marriage return |
Two rules round this out. No marriage could be contracted or celebrated by procuration — that is, by proxy33. And any person could oppose a marriage, though an opponent who lost paid the costs34; an opposition was heard within ten days35, and it leaves a court file that often explains a family quarrel.
This is the single most useful marriage rule in Louisiana for genealogists. A marriage declared null still produces its civil effects for the parties and their children, if it was contracted in good faith36. Where only one party acted in good faith, the marriage produces its civil effects in that party's favor and in favor of the children born of the marriage37.
This is the putative marriage, "supposed marriage." Its effect is that a bigamous or otherwise defective Louisiana marriage does not automatically bastardize the children or strip the innocent spouse. When a succession record treats children of an apparently void marriage as legitimate heirs, the putative marriage doctrine is usually why.
The impediments were few and are quickly stated. A marriage required parties willing to contract, able to contract, and contracting according to the forms prescribed by law38, with consent freely given — not given to a ravisher, extorted by violence, or founded on a mistake as to the person39. Persons already married could not contract another40. Marriage was prohibited in the direct ascending and descending line, and that prohibition reached children born outside marriage as well as legitimate ones41; among collaterals it was prohibited between brother and sister of the whole or half blood, legitimate or not, and between uncle and niece and aunt and nephew42. All other impediments from relationship or affinity were abolished43.
A couple could opt out of the default property regime by a marriage contract (contrat de mariage), a notarial act made before the wedding. It is a prenuptial agreement, and it is one of the richest Louisiana family documents: it commonly recites the parents of both parties, lists what each brought to the marriage, and settles a dowry. Look for it with the notary or the parish clerk, indexed near the marriage date. Where a Louisiana widow's estate settles on terms that make no sense under the ordinary community rules, a marriage contract is usually the explanation.
Under the Code Noir of 1724 marriage between white colonists and Black people was forbidden, and clergy were forbidden to perform such marriages.
The Civil Code of 1825 stated the antebellum rule in one article: free persons and slaves were incapable of contracting marriage together, the celebration of such marriages was forbidden and the marriage void, and there was the same incapacity and the same nullity for marriages contracted by free white persons with free people of color44.
The Reconstruction legislature repealed that bar in 1868, and the repeal is visible twice over. The Revised Civil Code of 1870 omits the article entirely: the marriage chapter runs from bigamy straight to the prohibited degrees, with no race provision in between45. And the Revised Statutes of 1870 name the dead article expressly, extending the right to legalize a private or religious marriage to persons of whatever race or color as well as to marriages formerly prohibited by article 95 of the Civil Code, by any other article of the code, or by any law of the State46.
The bar returned by statute in 189447, and was extended in the following decades by acts criminalizing interracial cohabitation and the officiating of such a marriage. It fell with Loving v. Virginia in 1967.
For research, the window between 1868 and 1894 is real. Interracial marriages were lawfully contracted and recorded in Louisiana during those years, and they appear in the ordinary marriage records.
Enslaved people had no capacity to contract a civil marriage, so no civil marriage record exists for them; the Louisiana Supreme Court settled the point early48. Church registers, which recorded sacramental marriages of the enslaved, are therefore the primary source for these unions, together with the Freedmen's Bureau marriage registers kept in Louisiana in the 1860s.
Louisiana passed no act declaring formerly enslaved couples married automatically by their cohabitation. Several Southern states did, and a genealogist should not expect to find a Louisiana cohabitation register of the kind kept in Virginia or North Carolina.
What Louisiana enacted instead was better in one way and worse in another: an opt-in legalization by notarial act, which produced a far richer document than a cohabitation bond but only for the couples who came forward. The Reconstruction statute, carried into the Revised Statutes of 1870, provided that all private or religious marriages contracted in the State before its passage were valid and binding as if they had been contracted with every formality then required — provided that within two years the parties appeared before a notary (or, if abroad, a consul) and made an authentic act declaring49:
The consequences were retroactive and complete. A marriage so legalized took full effect from the date it was privately or religiously contracted, and the children acknowledged in the act took all the rights of legitimate children50. The marriage was deemed contracted under the community of acquets and gains unless the act said otherwise51. The right applied to persons of any race, and expressly to marriages formerly barred by article 9552. And couples who had simply lived together as man and wife before the act could use the same procedure, legitimating their children by doing so53. The only disqualification was some other legal impediment — an existing marriage, for instance — since an impediment of race or color alone did not bar relief54.
The Louisiana Supreme Court read the statute as confirming that such unions had been null until legalized, and applied it to couples who had been enslaved and had lived together with an enslaver's consent55.
For a researcher this is the document to hunt for. An authentic act of legalization gives a marriage date that may predate emancipation, and a list of children with their ages — often the only record that fixes a formerly enslaved family's structure before 1865. Look for it in the notarial records and conveyance books of the parish, within roughly two years of the act, and read it alongside the Freedmen's Bureau registers.
Louisiana also opened legitimation more generally. An act of 1870 gave natural fathers and mothers the power to legitimate their natural children by an act before a notary and two witnesses, provided that at the time of conception there was no legal impediment to the parents' intermarriage except those resulting from color or the institution of slavery56. The proviso is the whole point: it reaches exactly the couples whom slavery and the race bar had prevented from marrying. The resulting notarial acts of legitimation name both parents and the children, and they are the best substitute Louisiana offers for a cohabitation bond. The courts applied the act generously, holding that a white man could acknowledge and legitimate children born to a woman of color even while the 1894 marriage bar stood57.
Every free man could acquire, hold, and convey land, whatever his race. Free men of color — the gens de couleur libres, one of the largest and wealthiest free Black populations in the South — bought, held, mortgaged, and sold real estate throughout the antebellum period, and their transactions fill the notarial books of New Orleans and the river parishes.
A foreign-born man could own land in Louisiana on the same terms as anyone else, and he did not have to naturalize first. The code subjects the foreigner residing in the State, and his property within its limits, to Louisiana law58; the incapacities to inherit that it does set out turn on want of existence and on unworthiness — a failure of duty toward the deceased — rather than on where a man was born59. In a state settled by successive waves of French, German, Irish, Italian, and Isleño families, this matters: an immigrant ancestor may hold land and pass it to his heirs with no naturalization paper anywhere in the file.
The one universal restriction attached to enslaved men, who could own nothing: whatever an enslaved person possessed belonged in law to the enslaver.
Louisiana's marital property system is community of acquets and gains, and it applies to every marriage unless the couple made a marriage contract saying otherwise.
The community is composed of the profits of all the effects the husband administers, the produce of the reciprocal industry and labor of both husband and wife, and the estates they acquire during the marriage — by donations made jointly to them both, by purchase, or in any similar way — even where the purchase is in the name of only one of the two, because in that case the time of the purchase alone is regarded and not the person who made it60. Debts contracted during the marriage likewise fall on the common fund, while each spouse's premarital debts are paid out of their own individual effects61. A marriage contracted elsewhere by people who afterwards came to live in Louisiana became subject to the community as to property acquired after their arrival62.
The practical rule for researchers is short: land bought during a Louisiana marriage is community property and half of it belongs to the wife, even though the deed names only the husband. Half of every such tract passes at her death to her heirs, not his — which is why Louisiana successions so often open on the death of a woman who appears nowhere in the conveyance records.
Management was another matter. The husband was the head and master of the community; he administered its effects, disposed of the revenues they produced, and could alienate them by onerous title without the consent and permission of his wife63. He could not give community immovables away, nor give away the whole or a quota of the movables, except to establish the children of the marriage. If he sold community property fraudulently to injure his wife, she had an action against his heirs in support of her claim to one half, on satisfactorily proving the fraud64.
So a Louisiana husband's deed of community land carries his signature alone, and it is perfectly good. This is the opposite of the common-law states, and it is the reason a Louisiana deed looks so bare compared with a North Carolina one. The head and master rule lasted until 1980.
A married woman kept her own separate estate. All property not declared to be brought in marriage by the wife, or given to her in consideration of the marriage, or to belong to her at the time of the marriage, is paraphernal — her own extradotal property65. She had the right to administer her paraphernal property personally, without the assistance of her husband66; paraphernal property she did not administer separately was treated as under her husband's management67.
Administering was not disposing. The wife, even when separate in estate from her husband, could not alienate, grant, mortgage, or acquire — by gratuitous or onerous title — unless her husband concurred in the act or gave his consent in writing68. She could not appear in court without her husband's authority, even if she was a public merchant or held her property separately69; if he refused, the judge could empower her70. A woman separated from bed and board needed no authorization at all, because that separation carried with it a separation of property and dissolved the community71.
This gives a clean reading rule for Louisiana deeds:
| Whose land | Whose signature | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Community property | The husband alone | Normal; says nothing about the wife |
| The wife's own separate or paraphernal property | Both, or the husband's written consent | The land came to her — by inheritance, gift, or her own purchase |
| Her property, she acting alone | Hers alone | She was separated from bed and board, or widowed, or single |
A joint deed by husband and wife is a signal that the land was hers, and it is worth following back to a succession or a marriage contract. Her acting alone is a signal that the marriage had ended in separation.
Two further disabilities are useful markers. A married woman could not accept a succession without her husband's authorization or the judge's72, could not renounce one without it73, could not accept a donation without her husband's consent74, could not sue for a partition without authorization75, and could not make a donation inter vivos without her husband's concurrence or a judge's authorization76. She could always make a will without him77. The whole scheme of disabilities was swept away by the Married Women's Emancipation Act of 192878.
A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase. Selling it was the constraint, and Louisiana handled that through the family meeting — the institution that produces the best family documents in the state's records.
A family meeting had to be composed of at least five relations, or friends in default of relations, of the person on whose interest they were called to deliberate79. They were selected by proximity, beginning with the nearest; a relation was preferred to a connection of the same degree, and among relations of the same degree the eldest was preferred80. They had to live in the parish where the meeting was held or within thirty miles81. Anyone whose interests conflicted with the minor's was incompetent to sit, even if he was among the nearest relations82. The tutor needed the judge's special authorization, on the advice of the family meeting, to sue for a partition of a minor's inheritance83.
The value of this for research is hard to overstate. A family meeting held to authorize the sale of a child's land produces a notarial procès verbal naming five of the child's nearest relatives, stating how each is related, and recording where each lives. That is a ready-made pedigree, and it is filed with the tutorship in the parish records.
Louisiana conveyances of any consequence were authentic acts — instruments executed before a notary. An authentic act was passed before a notary in the presence of two witnesses, free, male, and aged at least fourteen years, or of three witnesses if the party was blind; where the party could not sign, the notary made him affix his mark84. Sales of succession property signed by the sheriff, the purchaser, and two witnesses were also authentic acts85.
An act that failed as an authentic act through the officer's incompetence or a defect of form still availed as a private writing if the parties signed it86. The authentic act was full proof of the agreement against the parties and their heirs unless proved a forgery87.
A donation of immovable property required an act before a notary and two witnesses, on pain of nullity88 — so a Louisiana gift of land is always a notarial act, never a private paper.
For public inventories, the standard was higher: witnesses had to be males of full age, domiciled in the place where the inventory was made89.
Free people of color owned property on the same terms as anyone else, and the deed and notarial records prove it. What the law added was a labeling requirement carried from the territorial Black Code of 1806 into the Digest of 1808: free people of color were to be identified as such in legal documents, styled free man of color or free woman of color, abbreviated f.m.c. and f.w.c.
However demeaning its purpose, that rule is a gift to the researcher. It means a free family of color can be traced through the conveyance and succession indexes by the designation itself, and that the racial status of a party to a Louisiana act before 1865 is usually stated on the face of the document.
Enslaved people could possess nothing in their own right, and could transmit nothing by succession or legacy, because whatever they possessed was their master's property. Two Spanish-period doctrines cut against this and left records: the peculium, property an enslaved person held with the master's sufferance, and coartación, self-purchase, which Governor Carondelet's decree of 1795 confirmed. Acts of self-purchase were passed before Spanish notaries and survive in the notarial archives; they name the person buying their freedom, the price, and the enslaver.
Louisiana calls the whole subject succession — both the estate and its transmission. A few words recur and are worth fixing at the outset: an heir succeeds by law, a legatee by will; a usufruct is the right to use property and take its fruits while someone else holds the naked ownership; and to collate is to bring a lifetime gift back into account at the parent's death.
Start here, because it explains more missing Louisiana records than anything else in this guide.
A succession was acquired by the heir immediately on the death, and by the operation of law alone, before he had taken any step to put himself in possession or said anything about accepting it90. The heir was seized of the estate from the moment of death91.
The consequence is blunt: where a person died leaving no debts, no minor children, and no heir who disagreed, the family could simply take the property, and nothing whatever went into court. A search that turns up no succession file is therefore not evidence that your ancestor died landless. It is often evidence of the opposite — an uncomplicated estate passing to adults who all agreed.
Turn the rule around and it tells you what a succession file implies. Proceedings were opened when something forced them, and the trigger is usually visible on the first page:
| What is in the file | What forced it |
|---|---|
| An inventory | Minor heirs, or an heir accepting with benefit of inventory |
| A tutorship, an undertutor, a family meeting | A surviving child under 21 |
| An administration and a tableau of distribution | Debts to be paid, or creditors pressing |
| A curatorship | An heir absent, unknown, or unborn |
| A partition suit | Heirs who could not agree, or a minor's share to be separated |
| A petition to prove a will | A testament of any form |
So read the reason the court was involved before you read anything else. It names the problem in the family, and the problem is usually the genealogy.
The defining Louisiana rule is that children were forced heirs. Donations, whether made during life or by will, could not exceed two-thirds of the disposer's property if he left one legitimate child; one half if he left two children; and one third if he left three or a greater number92. Descendants of any degree count for the child they represent.
Turned around, the portion reserved to the children — the légitime — was:
| Children surviving | Reserved to the children | The parent could give away |
|---|---|---|
| One | One-third | Two-thirds |
| Two | One-half | One-half |
| Three or more | Two-thirds | One-third |
Parents were protected too: with no children, a disposer leaving a father, a mother, or both could not give away more than two-thirds93. In these cases the heirs are called forced heirs because the donor cannot deprive them of the portion reserved for them by law, except where he has just cause to disinherit them94. With no legitimate descendants and both parents dead, a person could dispose of everything95.
Disinheritance was possible but hard. It had to be made in one of the forms prescribed for testaments96, by name and expressly and for a just cause97, and the just causes were only those the code listed98 — ten of them for a parent disinheriting a child, ending with the minor who married without parental consent99. The testator had to state the reason in the will, and the other heirs had to prove the facts100.
The research payoff is that a Louisiana will usually cannot disinherit the children. However the will reads, the children take their reserved portion, so the succession record will name them.
Louisiana had a doctrine for the child who was helped during a parent's lifetime, and it generates some of the most informative documents in a succession file.
Children and grandchildren coming to the succession of a parent or other ascendant had to collate — to bring back into the estate whatever they had received from that ascendant by donation between living persons, directly or indirectly101. The obligation did not have to be imposed: collation was always presumed unless the donor had expressly forbidden it102.
A parent who meant a gift to be kept over and above a child's share had to say so, by declaring it an "advantage or extra portion." That declaration could be made in the act of donation itself or afterwards by an act passed before a notary and two witnesses103, and any wording served so long as it put the donor's intention beyond doubt104. Even then the exemption had a ceiling: where what remained in the estate was not enough to give the other children their legitime, the child who had been given the advantage had to collate anyway, so far as was necessary to make up their shares105.
Two rules tell you whose succession to look in. Collation is due only to the succession of the person who made the gift — so where a father alone settled a dowry on a daughter, it is collated to his succession; where both parents settled it jointly, it is collated by halves to each of theirs106. And collation was due for what a father and mother had spent to procure an establishment for a child107 — a marriage settlement, a start in a trade, a piece of land at a wedding.
For research this is close to a gift. A succession that involves collation reconstructs the parents' lifetime transfers to each child, with dates and values, and it names the children who received them — including daughters whose dowries appear nowhere else and children who had long since moved away. Where an heir argues about collation, the record grows richer still.
In legal successions no difference of sex and no right of primogeniture are known; they are regulated by the most perfect equality108. Legitimate children inherit from their parents and grandparents without distinction of sex or primogeniture, though born of different marriages, in equal portions and by heads when in the same degree, and by roots when they inherit by representation109.
The order beyond the children runs: ascendants and siblings together, then remoter ascendants, then collaterals110, the nearest in degree excluding the others111.
This is the rule that trips up researchers trained on common-law states. As to the deceased's separate property, the surviving husband or wife inherited only when the deceased left neither lawful descendants, nor lawful ascendants, nor collateral relations — and then in company with, or behind, the deceased's acknowledged natural children112. In default of lawful relations, of a surviving spouse, and of acknowledged natural children, the succession went to the State113.
The code drew an asymmetry worth noticing. A surviving wife not separated from bed and board inherited from a husband who left no lawful descendants, ascendants, or collaterals, to the exclusion of any duly acknowledged natural child; a surviving husband in the mirror situation did not inherit unless his wife left no acknowledged natural children114.
A surviving spouse put in possession had to have an inventory made and give security, and could not alienate the immovables for three years except by authority of the court, at public auction, and where the alienation was deemed necessary115. Those three-year restrictions leave a paper trail.
That harsh position softened steadily. A series of acts — in 1844, 1910, 1916, 1920, and 1938 — gradually improved the survivor's standing116, and the direction of travel was always the same: from usufruct toward ownership. By the 1940s article 915 no longer gave the survivor a mere usufruct over the deceased's community share but made the survivor a regular heir to it. Where a husband or wife died intestate leaving neither descendants nor parents, the survivor inherited the deceased's community interest outright; where a father or mother survived, the parents took half of that interest and the survivor took the other half117.
The date therefore matters enormously. In an 1880 succession the widow gets the use of her husband's community half; in a 1940 succession she may own it. Where a Louisiana record shows a widow taking full title to community property, check the year before assuming a will or a sale explains it.
The survivor's real protection was not inheritance but the community. Half the community belonged to the survivor outright, in his or her own right.
On top of that the code gave a usufruct:
The remarriage clause is a dating tool. Where a Louisiana succession record shows a widow's usufruct being terminated and the children taking full ownership, look for her second marriage in that year.
Where the marriage had been unequal in wealth, the code added a claim. If the wife brought no dowry, or one inconsiderable with respect to the husband's condition, and either spouse died rich leaving the survivor in necessitous circumstances, the survivor could take the marital portion out of the estate120:
| Children surviving | What the survivor takes |
|---|---|
| None | One-fourth in full ownership |
| Three or fewer | One-fourth in usufruct only |
| More than three | A child's share in usufruct |
Anything the deceased left the survivor as a legacy counts against the portion. An amendment of 1926 provided for the allowance to be paid periodically during the administration of the succession121.
An heir could accept a succession purely and simply, taking on all the deceased's debts personally, or accept with benefit of inventory, in which case he was liable only up to the value of the estate122. Acceptance had to be express or tacit123, and renunciation was never presumed: it had to be made expressly by public act before a notary in the presence of two witnesses124.
For genealogy the important sentence is this: it was not necessary for minor heirs to make any formal acceptance, because acceptance was considered as made for them with benefit of inventory by operation of law125. Benefit of inventory means an inventory, and a Louisiana public inventory is a superb document — an exact and particular description of all the movable and immovable property, appraised, plus a description of all titles, books, credits, and papers found, with the names and residences of debtors126. Before 1865 it lists the enslaved people by name and age. Wherever minor children survived, look for the inventory.
Where an administration was opened, it closes with two documents worth pulling in every case.
The administrator rendered his account to the judge who had appointed him, and could pay nothing — even with money in hand — until the judge authorized it. Where there were funds, he presented a statement of the payments to be made, setting out the privileges and mortgages and showing the dividend due to each127. That statement is the tableau of distribution.
The judge then ordered the creditors and legatees notified to show cause within ten days why they should not be paid as the tableau proposed128. If nobody opposed it, the administrator paid accordingly and the judge homologated the tableau — approved it and gave it the force of a judgment129. An opposition was decided summarily, and an appeal stopped all payment until final judgment130.
For research the tableau is a census of everyone with a claim on the estate: creditors by name, legatees by name, and the amount each took. Where an heir opposed it, the opposition sets out who he says he is and why he is entitled — often the clearest statement of a family relationship anywhere in the file. "Homologated" on a Louisiana document simply means the judge approved it; the word appears constantly and stops no one who knows it.
A minor not emancipated was placed under the authority of a tutor after the dissolution of his parents' marriage131. There were four sorts of tutorship — by nature, by will, by the effect of the law, and by the appointment of the judge132; tutorship by nature took place of right, and every other kind had to be confirmed or given by the judge133. In every sort, the tutor was accountable134.
Tutorship by nature belonged of right to the surviving mother or father on the dissolution of the marriage by death135 — so the Louisiana word for a fatherless child's guardian is not a stranger's name but usually the mother's. A tutor by nature had to cause an inventory to be made and an undertutor appointed, and although not compelled to give security, had to give a special mortgage or have the minor's legal mortgage inscribed against his own property136. That inscription is findable in the parish mortgage records and dates the opening of the tutorship.
A mother was not compelled to accept the tutorship, but if she refused she had to perform a tutor's duties until a tutor was appointed; and a mother who refused kept the superintendence of her children and the care of their education, the tutor being entrusted only with the administration of their property137. Where a widow was pregnant, no tutor was appointed until the child was born; a curator could be appointed meanwhile for the unborn child, and at the birth that curator became the undertutor of right138 — a neat trick that dates a posthumous birth to within months.
The right to appoint a tutor by will belonged exclusively to the father or mother dying last, and could be given by testament or by any declaration executed before a notary and two witnesses139. For a natural child, the mother was tutrix of right where the father had not acknowledged the child, or had acknowledged it alone without her concurrence; a child acknowledged by both had the father first and the mother in default of him140.
A tutorship file is also where the family meeting sits, and it is the best document Louisiana produces (see "Children and land," above): five of the minor's nearest relations, named, with each one's relationship and residence given. Any serious step in a tutorship — selling the minor's land, partitioning his inheritance, compromising a claim — required one, so a long tutorship can leave several, spaced years apart, and together they track a family as it moves and marries.
Every tutorship had an undertutor, whom the judge appointed when the letters of tutorship were certified141. The undertutor swore an oath142, and his duty was to act for the minor whenever the minor's interest opposed the tutor's, and to notify the judge if the tutor failed to render his annual account143. Two officials, two sets of papers, and often two families represented.
Louisiana gave a minor no right to choose his own tutor at any age. Tutors were fixed by nature, by will, by the effect of the law, or by the judge. The tutorship ended at 21, or earlier on emancipation, and the tutor's final account — filed at that moment and naming the ward — is the Louisiana equivalent of the guardian's final settlement, dating majority and therefore approximating a birth year.
Louisiana had a settled procedure for the person who simply went away, and it turns a dead end into a file.
Where someone was absent and it was not known whether he lived, the court appointed a curator to administer his estate, and suits by and against him were prosecuted by or against that curator144. Who got appointed tells you who was still alive. The judge had to prefer the absentee's wife to his presumptive heirs, the presumptive heirs to his other relations, the relations to strangers, and creditors to persons with no interest145. So a curatorship granted to a wife establishes that she survived and had not remarried; one granted to a brother or a nephew says the wife was gone and names the next of kin the court recognized. The curator swore an oath, had a full inventory and appraisement made by the recorder or a notary, and gave security to the amount of that inventory146 — so the file holds a complete list of what the missing man owned.
After a long enough absence the heirs could have themselves put provisionally in possession of his estate147, and a curator who could swear the absentee had not been heard from for ten years, and that he knew of no heirs residing in the State, could apply to the court148. Where a succession fell to a person whose existence was unknown, it went to those who would have taken concurrently with him, or to those who would have taken had he never existed — without prejudice to his right to claim it later149, and those put in possession kept the proceeds they had received in good faith150.
Ten years of absence without news was also sufficient cause for the husband or wife to marry again, on being authorized by the court151. A second marriage in the record with no death and no divorce behind it may rest on exactly this, and the authorization is a filed document.
For research, an absentee curatorship is one of the most useful files in the parish records. It states when the person was last heard from and where he was last known to be, and it names the relations who came forward to claim his estate.
The code sorted these children into two classes. Those acknowledged by their father are natural children; those not acknowledged by the father, or whose parents were incapable of contracting marriage at the time of conception, or whose father is unknown, are called bastards152.
Acknowledgment was a formal act, and it leaves a record: it had to be made by a declaration executed before a notary public in the presence of two witnesses, by the father and mother or either of them, whenever it had not been made in the registering of the birth or baptism of the child153. That second clause sends you to the baptismal register — in Catholic Louisiana, the most complete vital record there is. Acknowledgment by the father alone had effect only as to the father154, and could not be made where the parents were incapable of marrying at conception155.
Legitimation came by two routes:
What such a child could inherit turned on which parent and on who else survived:
| From | Condition | What the acknowledged natural child takes |
|---|---|---|
| The mother | She leaves no lawful children or descendants | Her whole succession, excluding her ascendants and collaterals159 |
| The mother | She leaves lawful children | A moderate alimony only160 |
| The father | He leaves no descendants, ascendants, collaterals, or surviving wife | The whole, excluding only the State161 |
| The father | Anyone above survives | An action for alimony only162 |
By donation the limits were parallel: where the natural mother left no legitimate children, natural children could receive her whole succession163; where the natural father left no legitimate descendants, acknowledged natural children could receive one-fourth if he left legitimate ascendants or brothers and sisters or their descendants, and one-third if he left only more remote collaterals164.
Bastard, adulterous, and incestuous children could inherit nothing, the law allowing them a mere alimony165, and their parents could not give them more than was necessary for sustenance or to procure them an occupation166.
Louisiana recognized three principal classes of testament — nuncupative or open, mystic or sealed, and olographic167 — and verbal wills resting only on witnesses' recollection were abolished168.
| Form | How it is made | Witnesses |
|---|---|---|
| Nuncupative by public act | Dictated by the testator to a notary, written down as dictated, read back in the witnesses' presence, all at one time without interruption169 | Three residing in the place, or five not residing there |
| Nuncupative by private act | Written by the testator or another, presented to the witnesses as his will, read and signed170 | Five residing in the place, or seven residing out of it; in the country, three residing in the place or five out of it171 |
| Mystic or sealed | Signed, closed, and sealed, then presented to a notary who draws the act of superscription172 | Seven — later reduced to three173 |
| Olographic | Entirely written, dated, and signed by the hand of the testator174 | None |
The olographic will is the one to know. It is subject to no other form and may be made anywhere, even out of the State175 — so a perfectly valid Louisiana will may be a single handwritten sheet with no witnesses at all.
How it was proved is the genealogy. An olographic testament was opened if sealed, and had to be acknowledged and proved by the declaration of two credible persons who swore they recognized it as entirely written, dated, and signed in the testator's hand, having often seen him write and sign during his lifetime176. Those two people are named in the probate record, and the statute's own test — having often seen him write — means they were close enough to the deceased to know his hand. Where the witnesses to an attested will had died or moved away, the same device was used: two credible persons declared that they recognized the signatures on the will or the act of superscription177. Harvest those names. They are neighbors, kin, business partners, and priests, and they are frequently the only contemporaries of your ancestor the record will ever name. Words added by another hand count as not written, and unapproved erasures are disregarded178.
A useful revocation rule: a testament falls by the birth of a legitimate child of the testator after its date179. An old will admitted to probate despite a later-born child means the will was remade.
A minor under sixteen could not dispose of any property180. A minor above sixteen could dispose only mortis causa — by will — but could dispose of the same amount a person of full age could, and needed no authorization or concurrence from his curator to do it181.
So the will age in Louisiana is 16, and a sixteen-year-old's will is as full as an adult's. Two guards accompany it: a minor with the right to dispose mortis causa could not do so in favor of his tutor or of his teachers while under their authority182; and even after coming of age he could not give to a former tutor until the final account of the tutorship had been rendered and settled, though this did not apply to relations who had served as tutors183.
A minor could not be a testamentary executor, even with the authorization of his tutor or curator184, so the executor age is 21. More generally, he who could not obligate himself could not be an executor185. A married woman could not accept an executorship without her husband's consent; where there was a separation of property between them she could accept with his consent, or on his refusal by the court's authorization186. Where the testator named no executor or the one named refused, the judge appointed a dative testamentary executor187.
The executor's first duties generate records. He had to cause the seals to be affixed if there were minor, interdicted, or absent heirs, and to have an inventory made in every parish where the testator left property, by the parish recorder or a notary188. He rendered an annual account189 and took a commission of two and a half per cent190.
Witnesses to a will were tightly restricted. The following persons were absolutely incapable of being witnesses to testaments: women of whatever age; male children who had not attained sixteen years complete; persons insane, deaf, dumb, or blind; and persons whom the criminal laws declared incapable of exercising civil functions191. Nor could a testament be witnessed by those constituted heirs or named legatees under any title192 — with mystic testaments excepted, since the witness there does not know the contents193. Where residence was required, it meant residence in the parish where the testament was made194.
Two things follow for research. The names at the foot of a Louisiana will are always men, always at least sixteen, and never beneficiaries — so they are neighbors, friends, or unrelated kin, and worth harvesting as associates. And no woman witnessed a Louisiana will in this period, so a female name in the witness line signals a document that is not what it appears to be.
Four kinds of levy on individuals leave usable records.
The property tax reached land and, before 1865, enslaved people. Louisiana taxed slaves from the territorial period: an act of 1805 imposed a tax on slaves, charged to the owner195. Parish assessment rolls therefore list a slaveholder's real estate and the number of people he held, and they run annually where they survive.
License and occupation taxes fell on trades and professions, and an ancestor's occupation can sometimes be recovered from a license roll when it appears nowhere else.
The poll tax, also called a capitation tax, was a flat charge on a person rather than on property. A "poll" is simply the taxable person.
Income and sales taxes arrived in the 1930s as part of the Long program and are of little genealogical use.
Louisiana funded schools partly from a poll tax under the Reconstruction constitution196. The Constitution of 1898 fixed the form that matters. The General Assembly was to levy an annual poll tax of one dollar upon every male inhabitant between the ages of twenty-one and sixty years, for the maintenance of the public schools in the parishes where collected197.
| Period | Who was taxed | Ages |
|---|---|---|
| Territorial and antebellum | Enslaved people, taxed to the owner, alongside land | Set by the revenue acts |
| 1868 – 1898 | Poll tax for the support of the schools | Fixed by the Reconstruction constitution |
| 1898 – 1934 | Every male inhabitant, $1 a year for the parish schools | 21 to 60 |
| After 1934 | The poll tax is repealed | — |
The same constitution made payment a condition of voting: no one under sixty could vote who had not paid, on or before 31 December of each year, the poll tax for the two preceding years198. Poll-tax receipts were therefore worth keeping, and where they survive they place a named man in a named parish in a named year.
The tax was repealed in 1934, at Huey Long's urging: a joint resolution approved on 14 July 1934 proposed the amendment to the constitution's suffrage sections that abolished it199. Louisiana was the second Southern state, after North Carolina, to abandon the poll tax, and registration jumped sharply once it went.
Two cautions for anyone using poll-tax records as evidence. The 1934 amendment was so tangled that many people paid the tax that year anyway, and a further amendment in 1940 was needed to settle the point200 — so receipts exist for years after the repeal. And repeal did not open the rolls: voters still had to sign a pollbook at the sheriff's office until 1940, and other devices kept Black registration minimal for another generation.
The poll tax fell on men. Louisiana taxed free people of color on the property they held, under the ordinary revenue acts, and a free man of color appears on the assessment rolls in the same columns as his white neighbors — so the tax rolls, unlike those of some other Southern states, will not sort a free family of color out for you by the way it was taxed.
A juror had to be a man of full age — 21. The statutory qualifications were: a citizen of the United States and of Louisiana; a bona fide male resident of the parish for one year next preceding service; not under interdiction, not charged with any crime or offense, and never convicted of an offense punishable by hard labor unless pardoned; and a competent and intelligent person of full age with the capacity to try both civil and criminal cases201.
Two features stand out. There was no freeholder or property requirement — a Louisiana juror needed no land, unlike his contemporaries in several common-law states. And the statute provided expressly that no distinction should be made on account of race, color, or previous condition202.
The statute's promise and the practice diverged. District judges had discretion to rule a man incompetent for a particular case on grounds including ignorance of the English language203, and in Orleans Parish the commissioners drew names from citizens having the qualifications requisite to register as voters204 — which tied jury service to the suffrage restrictions of the 1898 constitution and, with them, to the poll tax. That was the mechanism by which Black men and poor men were kept off Louisiana juries after 1898, notwithstanding the statute's own words.
Grand jurors faced an extra bar: a grand juror had to be able to read and write English and be a person of well known good character and standing in the community205.
Women were not eligible in this period. When eligibility came, it came with a condition: no woman was drawn for jury service unless she had first filed with the clerk of court a written declaration of her desire to be subject to it206. That opt-in regime lasted until 1975.
Because the Crimes Act of 1805 brought in the common law of England for crimes, the common-law ages governed:
Louisiana created juvenile courts in the first decade of the twentieth century, and the sequence matters because it tells you when — and where — a juvenile file can exist at all:
| Year | Act | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1906 | Act 82 | First juvenile court scheme, by constitutional amendment; jurisdiction over children under 16207 |
| 1908 | Act 83 | Replaced it, raising jurisdiction to under 17, and created the Juvenile Court for the Parish of Orleans; the amendment was approved by the electors in November 1908208 |
| 1910 | Acts 48 and 135 | Suspended the 1908 act outside Orleans except in parishes with a town over 7,000, whose police jury could ask the Governor for a court209 |
| 1921 | Acts 83 and 126 | Juvenile courts for Orleans and for the State generally; the Constitution of 1921 carried the jurisdiction forward210 |
| 1922 | Act 119 | Juvenile Court for the Parish of Caddo211 |
The effect on the records is the point: after 1908 in Orleans, and later elsewhere, a child under 17 has a juvenile court file rather than a criminal case file, and juvenile files are ordinarily closed. In a rural parish before 1921, the same child would still appear on the ordinary criminal docket — so the absence of a juvenile record is a fact about the parish and the year, not about the child. When the Criminal Code of 1942 replaced the Crimes Act, it fixed a statutory floor of criminal responsibility at ten years, leaving the juvenile courts' jurisdiction untouched212.
A witness of any age could testify, if he or she was of proper understanding. The code says it plainly: the competent witness of any covenant or fact whatever, in civil matters, is a person of proper understanding213. Competency, not age, was the test, and the judge decided it witness by witness.
The circumstance that a witness was a relation, a party to the cause, interested in the result, or in the actual service or salary of one of the parties did not make him incompetent, though it might diminish his credibility214. An attorney could not give evidence of what his client had confided without the client's consent, though being employed in the cause did not disqualify him215.
A husband could not be a witness for or against his wife, nor a wife for or against her husband — except where they were joined as plaintiffs or defendants and had a separate interest, when each was competent as to that separate interest216.
Women were competent witnesses in the ordinary courts throughout. What barred them was not the courtroom but the notary's office and the will: women of whatever age could not witness a testament217, witnesses to authentic acts had to be male218, and witnesses to public inventories had to be males of full age219. Those disabilities sat alongside a general article providing that women could not be appointed to any public office nor perform any civil functions except where the law specially declared them capable, while widows and unmarried women of age could bind themselves as sureties or endorsers as men of full age could220.
Under the territorial Black Code and the antebellum law, enslaved people and free people of color could not testify against white persons; their evidence was received in matters among themselves. The Constitution of 1868, the Reconstruction statutes, and the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave people of color full competence to testify.
Enslaved people were tried in their own tribunals under the Code Noir and the Black Code rather than in the ordinary criminal courts, so look for those proceedings among parish court and police jury records rather than in the criminal dockets.
(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)
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.