A genealogical research guide to New Jersey historical statutes from 1660 to 1950.
Historical Law Guides > New Jersey
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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, through 1950 |
| Marry | 14 male / 12 female | Set by the common law throughout the period |
| Parental consent for marriage | Under 21 male / under 18 female | Ages set by the act of 1795; the officiant filed the parent's written consent with the county clerk |
| Undo an underage marriage | Under 18, either sex | The right ends once the marriage is confirmed after 18 |
| Apprenticeship ends | 21 male / 18 female | The indenture states the child's age |
| Choose own guardian | 14 | The ward signs the petition himself — helps estimate a birth year |
| Guardianship ends | 21 | The ward's release approximates a birth year |
| Make a will of land | 21 | A married woman could not until 1852 |
| Make a will of goods | 14 male / 12 female to 4 July 1850; 21 after | Turns on the day the will was signed |
| Serve as executor | 21 | A younger one yields to a temporary administrator until majority |
| Witness a will | Any age | 3 for a will of land; 2 for anyone dying after 4 July 1850; a gift to a witness is void |
| Testify as a witness | Any age if competent | The judge examined a child before testimony |
| Release dower as a wife | 21 | A wife under 21 could not release it at all |
| Taxable as a poll | 21 | White males, from 1854, with no upper age; male servants and slaves rated from 16 earlier |
| Jury service | 21 to 65 | Land ownership also required until 1851; women from 1921 |
| Criminal responsibility | 14 at common law | Under 7 none; 7–14 presumed none; under 16 incapable of crime from 1935 |
| Freedom of a child born to an enslaved mother after 4 July 1804 | 25 male / 21 female | The birth is registered with the county clerk |
| Age at which an enslaved person could be freed | 21–35 from 1786; 21–40 from 1798 | Certified by two overseers of the poor and two justices of the peace |
New Jersey's law came from England. Dutch settlers founded Bergen about 1660, in the province of New Netherland, and Dutch law governed there until England took the colony in 1664. From 1664 English common law — judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature — governed. The colony split into East Jersey and West Jersey under the proprietors, reunited as a royal colony in 1702, and became a state in 1776. The new state kept the old law by constitutional provision: English common law, and so much of the statute law as had been used in the colony, stayed in force until the Legislature changed it1. The Constitution of 1844 carried that clause forward, and the courts still relied on it in the 1930s2.
The system was English throughout. Husband and wife each held their property separately, on the terms set out below, and the estate of each descended separately at death.
Two consequences are worth knowing at the outset. Probate — the proving of a will in court, and the settling of the estate under the court’s eye — was county business: from 1784 each county had an orphans' court, with the county surrogate as its clerk, who proved wills, granted authority to executors and guardians, took their bonds, and audited their accounts3. Wills, inventories, guardianships, and estate accounts therefore sit with county government. Deeds were county records too: a deed was recorded with the clerk of the county where the land lay, and only after the seller acknowledged it before an official or a witness proved it4.
The Legislature replaced common-law rules with statutes over time, and those dates make useful anchors — each marks a change you will see in the records:
For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.
Full legal age in New Jersey was 21, for women and men alike, for the whole period. No statute set it; the common law did, and the reception clause kept the common law in force5. Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in legal language, even a 20-year-old.
The age dropped to 18 in 1972, after the period covered here.
A minor could own property. What the law limited was the power to part with it:
Majority was 21 for both sexes, without variation, through 1950. Two other ages did differ by sex, and are easy to confuse with majority:
The common-law ages governed capacity to marry throughout this period: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12. New Jersey's marriage statutes dealt with officiants, consent, and recording, and left the marrying ages alone. The courts confirmed this in 1920: the licensing statute set consent ages without changing the common-law rule, so a marriage below those ages was voidable — it stood unless someone went to court to undo it12.
Either party could ask the Court of Chancery to set the marriage aside because he or she was under 18 at the time. The right ended once the marriage was confirmed after 18, and no decree issued where a child had been born or was expected, unless the court found it in the child's interest13. In practice a teenage marriage stood, and its children were legitimate.
From 1795 the rule fell on the officiant. No justice of the peace or minister could marry a male under 21 or a female under 18 unless the parent, guardian, or person having care of the minor attended and consented, or the minor produced a written consent proved by the oath of a witness who had seen it signed14. An officiant who ignored this forfeited $300, half to the state and half to the parent or guardian15.
He also had to send that written consent to the county clerk within three months16. Those consent certificates are filed with the county clerk apart from the marriage books, and each one names a parent or guardian and shows the child was under 21 or under 18 on a known date.
The same ages carried into the licensing era, when the consent had to be certified before two reputable witnesses17.
| Period | What the law required |
|---|---|
| 1719 – 1795 | A license, or banns — a public announcement of the intended marriage — read three weeks before |
| 1795 – 1897 | No license. The officiant files a certificate with the county clerk, who copies it into a book kept for the purpose |
| 1897 – 1939 | A license, where both parties live outside New Jersey; residents still marry without one |
| From 1 December 1939 | A license for everyone, and an authorized officiant |
Where the marriage went on paper moved twice. The officiant filed with the county clerk from 1795; from 1 May 1848 municipal clerks also reported yearly to the Secretary of State, giving each party's age, occupation, parents' names, and residence; and from 1 June 1878 officiants filed with municipal clerks or assessors instead of the county18. So a marriage between 1848 and 1878 may sit in two places at once, and the state return is the one that names parents.
One point matters above the rest. Between 1795 and 1939 a resident couple needed no license at all, so an ancestor may be lawfully married with nothing in any license series.
Officiants were broad from the start: every justice of the peace and every ordained minister19. Any religious society could also marry its own members by its own rules, provided its clerk kept a register20 — the provision that carries Quaker marriages, where the meeting's own minute book holds the record. From 1856 a marriage recorded by a religious society was lawful even where only one party belonged to it21.
A couple who agreed, then and there, to take each other as husband and wife were married in New Jersey law — with no ceremony, no license, and no record. Living together and being known in the neighborhood as married was how that agreement was proved. This was so until 1 December 1939. The act of that year drew the line: a common-law marriage contracted before that date stays valid, while one contracted on or after it is void unless the parties took out a license and an authorized officiant married them22.
This is the most important marriage rule in New Jersey research. Before December 1939 a couple with no marriage record may be perfectly well married, and their children legitimate and able to inherit. Where the rule applied, no document was created at all.
Marriage within the forbidden degrees of kinship was barred, and the 1795 act printed the full list for each sex — mother, stepmother, wife's mother, daughter, wife's daughter, sister, brother's or sister's daughter, grandmother, aunt, son's wife, granddaughter, and so on23. Close kinship, an existing marriage, incurable impotence, and inability to consent were the four grounds on which a court would set a marriage aside24.
Twentieth-century licensing added health grounds. No license could issue where either party had a venereal disease in a catching stage, was drunk or drugged, was of unsound mind, or had been in an asylum or a poorhouse without a proper discharge25. From 1938 each applicant filed a doctor's certificate of a blood test made within the previous 30 days26, so a license file from then on names a physician. A 48-hour wait ran between application and license27.
Marriage in New Jersey ran on one set of rules for everyone. The bars were the ones above — close kinship, an existing marriage, incapacity — and they reached every couple on the same terms, so Black, mixed-race, and interracial couples married under the ordinary law and appear in the ordinary county and church records.
For people held in slavery, practice diverged from law. A marriage depended on the enslaver's permission, and spouses could be sold apart, so a recorded marriage may describe a household later broken up. Because New Jersey recognized common-law marriage until 1939, formerly enslaved couples who lived together as husband and wife were lawfully married and their children legitimate, and no cohabitation register was created after emancipation.
The right to acquire, hold, and convey land belonged to every free man in New Jersey, of any race, at any age. What changed at 21 was the power to sell it himself. Marriage left that power intact, so a married man's deed carries his own signature — and his wife's, for the reason set out below.
Enslaved men had no legal capacity to own property of any kind; anything in their possession belonged in law to the enslaver.
For the colonial and early state years the English law of alienage governed. A foreign-born man could take land by his own purchase and keep it against every claimant but the state, which could call it in; and on a death, descent passed him over and ran to the nearest relation who was a citizen.
The act of 22 January 1817 changed the first half of that. From then on any alien could purchase and hold land in New Jersey as fully as a natural-born citizen, and purchases already made were confirmed28. Taking land by inheritance came later still, in the revision of 1846, which let an alien take by descent or by will and hold exactly as a citizen could — and reached back to cover everything descended or devised since 22 January 181729. A claimant could also trace title through an alien ancestor as through any other30, and a widow took dower — the life interest in a third of her husband's land described below — whether alien or not31. So an unnaturalized heir is a sound link in any New Jersey descent after 1817, and a doubtful one before it.
For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married. A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. A woman transacting on her own in the deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed.
A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture — the common-law rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's. He took the income from her land, owned her goods outright, and collected the debts owed to her; her own contracts had no force, and if he outlived her, her bonds and notes were his32. She still owned her land, but selling it took her husband and a ceremony of her own.
The Married Women's Act of 1852 gave a wife a separate estate. Property she owned when she married, and the income from it, stopped being subject to her husband's control and stopped being liable for his debts; the same was declared of women already married; and she could from then on receive property by gift, deed, or will and hold it as her own33. Before 1852, land coming to a married woman disappears into her husband's dealings; after it, she appears in the deed books and tax lists by name.
The act freed her ownership before her hand. She still needed her husband to join in a deed of her own land34, and from 1857 a wife of full age joining his deed could guarantee the title as if she were single35. Full power to contract came in the twentieth century, when she could sign any document affecting her own land without his consent36. Her wages became her own from 4 July 185237.
A deed to a husband and wife together gave each a half interest and gave the whole to whoever outlived the other. After 1852 each took half the income, and only the husband's own half could be seized for his debts38.
This is the most useful signature test in New Jersey land research, and the rule barely moved for three centuries.
The driver is dower: a widow's life estate — the use of land for the rest of her life, without owning it — in one-third of her husband's land. In New Jersey dower attached to every parcel the husband held at any time during the marriage, unless she had given up the right by deed39. A buyer therefore took the land subject to the wife's future claim unless she released it, and she nearly always released. So a married man's deed carries two signatures, and a deed from a man of marrying age carrying one is worth stopping on: he was single or widowed on that date.
The release had its own ceremony. No married woman's interest passed by her deed without a privy examination — the official taking the acknowledgment questioned her apart from her husband, and she declared that she signed freely, without fear or pressure from him. His certificate of that examination is written on the deed40, and it names her and shows the marriage was in existence that day.
Two refinements matter. A wife under 21 could not release dower at all41, so a valid release is evidence she had reached 21. And the share grew in 1928–29:
| Land acquired | Widow took | Surviving husband took |
|---|---|---|
| Before 31 December 1928 | Dower — the use of one-third for life | Curtesy — the use of all her land for life, if a child had been born alive |
| From 31 December 1928 (dower) and 1 January 1929 (curtesy) | The use of one-half for life | The use of one-half for life |
The fraction turns on when the land was acquired, not on the date of death42, so one estate can carry both.
Until her share was set out, a widow could live in the house and work the farm rent-free43. Where a will left her land without saying whether it replaced dower, she lost dower in that land unless she filed a written refusal within six months of probate44; that refusal sits in the probate file and shows which she took. A spouse who deserted and lived with someone else lost the right entirely45.
A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, devise — a gift of land by will — or purchase, just as an adult did. Selling it was the constraint, and it went through the orphans' court, so where a deed conveys a child's land the orphans' court file holds the family. Own at any age; sell freely at 21.
A witness of any age could serve, provided he understood an oath and could describe what he had seen. A deed was made ready for recording either by the seller acknowledging it before a judge or other authorized official, or by a witness proving it before one46. Competency, not age, was the test, and in practice witnesses were adults, often kin or neighbors of the seller, since a witness might have to appear years later to prove the deed.
Free people of color could own, inherit, and convey land in New Jersey on the same terms as anyone else, and did so throughout the period. One set of rules on deeds, descent, and dower governed every owner alike.
New Jersey was the last northern state to begin dismantling slavery, and it did so in stages. The gradual abolition act freed children born to enslaved mothers after 4 July 1804, but bound them to serve the mother's owner — a male until 25, a female until 21 — while anyone already enslaved stayed enslaved for life47.
That act created New Jersey's earliest systematic birth record for anyone. Whoever was entitled to the child's service had to give the county clerk, within nine months, a signed certificate naming himself, the child, and the child's mother, with the child's age and sex, which the clerk entered in a book kept for the purpose48. These county registers, running from 1804, name mother and child together.
Freeing a person was regulated from the start, and the rules turned on age. The colonial act of 1713–14 discouraged it, requiring the owner to post a £200 security and guarantee the freed person £20 a year for life49. An act of 1786 allowed the freeing of anyone between 21 and 35 who was brought before two overseers of the poor of the township and two justices of the peace of the county and found of sound mind and able to support himself or herself, and it set the form of certificate, to be recorded by the county clerk50. An act of 1798 raised the upper age to 40 and required two witnesses on the deed51, and an act of 1844 validated earlier deeds witnessed by only one52. A recorded manumission names the person freed and the former owner; the certificate behind it names the officials who examined them.
The act of 1846 abolished slavery and in the same breath made everyone then enslaved an apprentice bound to the same owner until discharged, with their children free from birth. A discharge took a signed document plus a certificate from the township overseers of the poor and two justices of the peace, recorded with the county clerk53. Those discharges name both parties. The 1846 apprenticeships ran until the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.
A person who died without a will died intestate. New Jersey then divided the estate under two separate systems, and they worked differently:
So an estate can leave a full personal file and no land record, or the reverse.
| Period | Who took the land |
|---|---|
| Until 24 May 1780 | The whole to the eldest son |
| 1780 – 1817 | Divided among the children, each son taking two shares to each daughter's one |
| 1817 – 1950 | Divided equally among all the children, whatever their sex |
The 1780 act describes the old rule in its own preamble: the law of descents worked injustice by giving an ancestor's whole real estate to the male heir at law, shutting out the other children54. In its place it put division among the sons, and, where there were daughters too, a division giving each son two shares to each daughter's one; a dead child's share went to that child's own children, and land already given to a child during the parent's life counted against that child's share as an advancement55. The equal-shares rule arrived in 181756.
So a lopsided division of New Jersey land in the 1780s or 1790s is correct as it stands, and the arithmetic identifies the sexes of the children even where the document does not name them: a son's share is twice a daughter's.
The orphans' court act of 1784 supplied the machinery. Where someone died intestate leaving two or more children, any of them under age, the court could order a division, with the boundaries of each child's share fixed by three impartial men it appointed, who reported back in writing57. That report names every child and describes each share. Division and partition papers are kept by the county clerk in at least some counties rather than by the surrogate, so search the clerk's land records as well as the estate file.
The 1846 revision restated equal shares and set out who inherited when there were no children — brothers and sisters and their issue, then the father, then the mother for life, then half-brothers and half-sisters, then the nearest relatives58. A child born after the father's death inherited as if born in his lifetime59. By the twentieth century a surviving spouse took all the land where the deceased left no children60.
The shares are fixed, and they do not change with the number of children:
| Survivor | Situation | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Widow | Children survive | One-third; the rest equally among the children |
| Widow | No children | One-half; the nearest relatives take the other half |
| Widow | No children and no other relatives | All of it |
| No widow | Children survive | All of it, equally among them |
A child already given a portion during the parent's life brought it into account and took only enough to even the shares61. The twentieth-century statutes kept one-third to the surviving spouse where there were children, and the whole where there were none62. Because the fraction is fixed, an account showing a widow taking a third tells you children survived, before you have found a single child's name.
From 1851 the family also kept its wearing apparel and $200 of household goods and tradesman's tools against all creditors, as fully after the debtor's death as before it63. The twentieth-century statutes carried that reservation into the law of estates, with the widow choosing the items herself from the inventory64. Where the choice was written down it names her, and it belongs with the estate papers rather than the will.
Guardianship was the orphans' court's business, and the surrogate issued the paperwork65. Fix one definition first: an "orphan" in New Jersey records is a child whose father has died — the mother could be alive and well, and while the father lived the court had no power to appoint at all66.
The age of fourteen splits the practice. A ward of 14 or over chose his own guardian, and the court's authority issued on a petition signed by the ward himself in front of the surrogate67. A younger ward did not choose: the mother or nearest relative applied, and the court appointed someone to serve until the child turned 14 and named his own68. So a guardianship petition carrying the ward's signature puts him just over 14, and a second appointment for the same child marks the fourteenth birthday rather than a death.
Guardianship ended at 21. From 1856 a guardian could avoid a formal accounting by filing with the surrogate a release from the ward, now of full age — or from the ward and her husband together, if she had married69. A release dates the ward's majority, and where the ward is a woman it often gives her married surname. Where none was filed, the guardian's final account does the same work.
A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property, so where a child inherited nothing, often no guardianship record was created. A father could appoint a guardian himself, by deed in his lifetime or by a will attested by three witnesses, to hold the custody and the profits of the child's land until 2170; by the twentieth century either parent could do it, with the other parent's written consent71. And where a parent absconded or stayed away two years, leaving children under 21 unprovided for, the court could appoint on the children's own application72.
Such a child inherited from the mother, and she from the child, as if the child had been born in marriage73. The mother had the sole right to custody74, which is why the child appears in her estate and not the father's. Both parents owed support, enforceable by either parent, by whoever had the child, or by the overseer of the poor75.
The older machinery produced the records genealogists find. The mother was questioned on oath before a justice of the peace and named the father; he was jailed unless he gave security or bound himself to appear at the next court of quarter sessions — the county's criminal court, sitting four times a year; then two justices ordered weekly payments from mother or reputed father76. The examination names the mother, the child, and the reputed father.
One caution runs through this section. Because common-law marriage was valid until December 1939, parents living together as husband and wife were married and their children legitimate, with no document anywhere.
The age to make a will of land was 21 throughout, and the same section barred married women and anyone of unsound mind77. A married woman's will of land before 1852 is void, so where land passes from a wife in that period, look for a trust or a marriage settlement.
The age to make a will of goods changed in 1850, and it turns on the day the will was made:
| Will made | Age for a will of land | Age for a will of goods |
|---|---|---|
| On or before 4 July 1850 | 21 | 14 for a boy, 12 for a girl |
| After 4 July 1850 | 21 | 21 |
The 1846 act left wills of goods to the common-law ages78, and the 1851 supplement closed the gap: a will of personal estate made after 4 July 1850 by anyone under 21 had no force79. So a will of goods made by a 17-year-old on or before that day stands, whenever it came to be proved. By the twentieth century the rule was one line: a person had to be 21 to make a will at all80.
The number of witnesses changed at nearly the same moment, and this rule turns on the date of death instead, which makes the two easy to confuse. A will of land needed three subscribing witnesses — witnesses who signed it — a requirement running back to the colonial act of 1713–1481. For anyone dying after 4 July 1850 two were enough, signing in the presence of the testator — the person making the will — after he had signed before them both or acknowledged his signature to them82.
A will witness could be of any age, but had to take nothing under the will: a gift to a subscribing witness was void, which left the witness disinterested — having nothing to gain — and so competent83. A legatee — someone left goods or money by the will — found among the witnesses means that gift failed.
An executor had to be of full age. The statutes fix this through the machinery rather than a number: where the named executor was under age, the surrogate appointed someone else to administer the estate durante minore aetate, "during the minority," until he came of age84. A change of personal representative a few years after probate is often a young executor turning 21.
Two other rules relocate records. A will made before the testator had children was void if he left a child, or a pregnant wife, at his death; and a child born after the will was made took the share it would have had if there were no will85. A spoken will stood on its own for goods worth $80 or less. Above that it needed the oaths of three witnesses who were present and heard the testator call on them to bear witness, and it had to be spoken in his last sickness, at home or where he had lived the past ten days86.
Two kinds of tax on individuals leave usable records: the poll, head, or capitation tax — a flat charge on a person rather than on property — and the property tax on land and goods. For genealogy the poll tax is the prize, because it lists men who owned nothing at all, which makes early tax lists into census substitutes.
Everything runs through the yearly township list. Between 20 May and 20 August the assessor listed the people, land, goods, and estates taxable that year, and every inhabitant had to give a true account of his name and property; a man who refused, or lied, was taxed double87. The county's assessors then met in September and swore to abstracts giving the number of taxable inhabitants in each township88.
The yearly list was called the ratables — the roll of people and property rated, or assessed, for tax that year. The colonial and early state ratables are itemized, which makes them unusually informative. The assessor returned householders; merchants and shopkeepers; mills, furnaces, and forges; glass houses, stills, and brew houses; houses and improved lots; ferries and boats carrying for hire; every single man who worked for hire; every bought servant and every male slave of sixteen and upwards, except those unable to work; improved land; cattle and horses of two years and upwards; and sheep of one year and upwards89.
Note where the sixteen falls: it fixes the age for male servants and slaves, and the single man is rated at any age. The state act of 1784 kept the same shape, taxing single men without an age — at one rate if the man kept a horse and a lower one if he did not — and every male slave between sixteen and sixty90. The categories survived into the 1820s and had gone by the revision of 184691.
The single man's entry is the useful one. A young man with no land appears in his own right, which places him in a named township in a named year, and he leaves that column once he has enough property to be taxed on it instead92.
The first New Jersey head tax with an age attached to it is the act of 1854, which charged fifty cents on every white male inhabitant of the state of the age of twenty-one years and upwards93. It ran from a man's twenty-first birthday for the rest of his life, with no upper age releasing him; the two exemptions below are the ordinary ways out. Because the charge fell on white men, a free man of color enters the tax books through his property rather than through his poll. Personal tax was assessed where the man lived; land where it lay94. A poll entry therefore places a man's residence in a given year even when he owned nothing.
A man could leave the poll list while alive and still resident, and there were two ordinary reasons. The polls of all Revolutionary soldiers were exempt95. And a militiaman who produced a certificate of service, signed by his company commander and countersigned above him, was free of jury duty and poll tax for one year; seven years' service earned a discharge exempting him from jury duty for good96. When a man drops off a poll list while still alive elsewhere in the record, one of these is usually the explanation. How long the fifty-cent poll itself survived is not established here. The place to settle it is the tax title of the successive compilations, each of them digitized: the Revision of 1877, the General Statutes of 1895, the Compiled Statutes of 1910, and the Revised Statutes of 193797.
The qualifications sat in one place and covered grand jurors and trial jurors alike: a citizen of the state, living in the county, above the age of twenty-one and under the age of sixty-five, and holding a freehold — owning land — in the county he was summoned for. A juror short of any of these could be challenged and discharged on his own oath, though no objection was allowed once he was sworn98.
The land requirement covered the whole panel, not merely bystanders summoned to fill a short jury, and it ended in 1851, when the Legislature dropped it and directed that the words requiring it be struck from the writs summoning juries99. So a man on a New Jersey jury panel before 1851 owned land in that county on that date, whether or not you have found the deed.
Those four tests — citizenship, county residence, age, and, until 1851, a freehold — were the whole statutory qualification, and they reached every man on the same terms, so a free man of color who met them was qualified to serve.
New Jersey admitted women to jury service by a specific act in 1921. By 1948 women with the same qualifications served as grand or trial jurors, and the excuses from service ran without distinction of sex100.
The common law fixed the ages, and the courts set them out plainly: under 7, a child was legally incapable of committing a crime; between 7 and 14, the law presumed incapacity, and the State could rebut it by proving the child knew right from wrong and understood the act; from 14, the law presumed capacity101.
Statute then moved the line in three steps. County courts for juvenile offenders were created in 1903, made up of the judges of the common pleas102. In 1929 a full revision established the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts in each county and gave them jurisdiction over children under the age of sixteen103. Then in 1935 the Legislature provided that any person under the age of sixteen was incapable of committing a crime — felony, high misdemeanor, misdemeanor, or other offense104.
So from 1935 the minimum age for a criminal conviction in New Jersey was 16. Whether murder was an exception was argued for twenty years and settled in 1954, when the juvenile court's jurisdiction was held to cover even the most serious charges105. From 1946 the juvenile court could send a child of 16 or over to the prosecutor for a serious offense106.
The practical effect is to move the records: from 1903, and firmly from 1929, a child under 16 has a juvenile court file with the county court rather than a criminal case file, and those files are typically closed.
A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate facts. The trial judge examined a child personally before allowing testimony. A very young child's uncorroborated word carried little weight, but that was a question of weight rather than competency.
The disqualifications the statutes named turned on marriage rather than age. No person could be excluded as a witness in any civil or criminal action because of the marital relationship, except as the statutes provided107. In a criminal case either spouse could prove the fact of the marriage, and a married woman could testify against her husband where she was the complainant against him; otherwise neither spouse was competent against the other108. Neither could be compelled to disclose a confidential communication made during the marriage109.
One disqualification turned on status. Under the colonial act of 1713–14 the evidence of an Indian, Negro, or Mulatto slave was allowed on the trials of such slaves in criminal causes, and those trials were heard by two justices of the peace sitting with five freeholders rather than by the ordinary courts110. That separate tribunal ended in 1768, when an act took the trial of slaves out of the colonial scheme111. From 1798 the rule stood in one line: an enslaved person could give evidence only in a criminal case, and only for or against another enslaved person112.
Two things follow. The bar ran by status rather than by race, so free people of color were competent witnesses throughout and appear in the ordinary case files. And an enslaved person's testimony before 1768 belongs to the separate slave-trial proceedings held by justices and freeholders; after that date such trials went to the ordinary courts, and the testimony with them. The disqualification itself went with slavery in 1846.
(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.