New York Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

An English legal system laid over a Dutch one

New York began under Dutch law and became English. From about 1624 to 1664 the colony of New Netherland was governed by Roman-Dutch civil law — the law of the Netherlands, descended from Roman law rather than from England. Under it husband and wife held a community of goods, meaning they owned the marital property together as one fund. Land passed to all the children alike. A married woman could trade, make contracts, sue, and make a will in her own name¹.

England took the colony in 1664 under Articles of Capitulation that protected existing Dutch property and inheritance customs for a time. The Duke's Laws of 1665 were the first English code², and English common law — judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature — displaced Dutch law over the following decades.

After independence the state kept the English system deliberately, by constitution. The Constitution of 1777 continued the common law of England and the statute law of the colony as they stood on 19 April 1775³. One practical consequence is worth knowing at the outset: New York gave probate to a county officer, the surrogate, so wills were proved and guardians appointed in the Surrogate's Court.

A common law steadily rewritten by statute

The legislature replaced common-law rules with statutes over time, and those dates make useful anchors — each one marks a change you will see in the records:

• 1786 — entails and primogeniture abolished; land was divided among all the children rather than passing to the eldest son⁴.
• 1830 — the Revised Statutes took effect on 1 January, recasting descent, dower, wills, guardianship, taxation, and jury law into the arrangement used for the rest of the century⁵.
• 1848 and 1860 — a married woman was given her own separate property⁶, and then her own earnings⁷.
• 1867 — married women were given the power to make wills and to serve as executrix and guardian⁸.
• 1930 — dower and curtesy abolished and the two systems of inheritance merged into one, from 1 September⁹.

For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one

Full legal age in New York was 21, for women and men alike, and it stayed 21 through 1950¹⁰. Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in legal language, even a 20-year-old.

The age dropped to 18 in 1974¹¹.

A minor's legal capacity

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the minor's power to dispose of it:

• A person under 21 was incapable of making a binding transfer of an interest in land⁵, so a minor's deed was voidable (valid until the minor chose to undo it): it stood unless he rejected it on reaching 21¹².
• Contracts could be avoided in the same way, with one exception. A minor had to pay a reasonable price for necessaries actually sold and delivered to him, meaning goods suited to his condition in life and to what he actually needed at the time¹³.
• A married minor remained a minor until 21. The lawful marriage of a female minor ended a general guardianship over her person while leaving the guardianship of her property in place¹⁴.

Other ages that differed by sex

Majority was 21 for both sexes, without variation. Two other ages did differ by sex, and are easy to confuse with majority:

• Wills. A boy could leave personal property by will at 18 and a girl at 16, while a will of land required 21 (below).
• Marriage. The minimum marrying age was lower for girls than boys (below). A married 15-year-old was still a minor.

Marriage

Marriage in the Dutch period

From about 1624 to 1664 New Netherland followed the marriage law of Holland, and the rules were not the English ones that replaced them. A couple gave notice of an intended marriage, the banns were published three times, and the wedding was performed either before the Dutch Reformed minister or before the magistrates¹⁵. There was no such thing as a valid private agreement to marry.

Two ages mattered, and both are higher than the English ones that followed. The Political Ordinance of 1580 barred the magistrate or minister from publishing banns for a man under 25 or a woman under 20 unless the couple produced the consent of their parents, or of the surviving parent¹⁶. A marriage made against a parent's wishes was not merely punished; it was void, and the couple lost their inheritance. So a Dutch-period marriage record for a young bride or groom should carry evidence of a parent's consent, and its absence is worth noticing.

New Amsterdam enforced this. In February 1654 the director-general and council ordered the magistrates of Gravesend to stop publishing banns in their own way, and declared marriages made outside the ordinances unlawful¹⁷. The record to look for is the banns entry, which was made where each party lived, while the marriage itself was recorded where the bride lived.

Who was old enough to marry

From the English takeover in 1664 until 1926 the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12¹⁸.

From 1926 the statute set higher minimum ages. A marriage was prohibited in which the man was under 16 or the woman under 14, and a town or city clerk who knowingly issued a license below those ages was fined $100 for each offense¹⁹. Three years later a separate act added a further step for the youngest brides, described under parental consent below.

A second age, 18, did a different job. The 16 and 14 rule decided who could be married at all: below it, no license could be issued. The figure of 18 decided whose marriage a court could later undo. A marriage in which either party was under 18 was properly made and valid, but a judge could annul it if someone asked, and could also refuse. The figure of 18 is in place by 1896; the earlier statutes used the phrase “age of legal consent” without putting a number to it, leaving the common-law age to govern¹⁸. So a 17-year-old's marriage was a real marriage unless somebody went to court about it, and in practice an ancestor's underage marriage was almost certainly valid.

Parental consent

Before 1907 a parent's consent was not required, and there is no consent paper to look for. Marriage was a civil contract, and the consent that mattered was the couple's own. The law put its check in two other places. A minister or magistrate who knowingly married someone below the age of legal consent was fined, and the parent or guardian who had custody of the minor could go to court afterwards and ask to have the marriage annulled. That suit failed if the couple had gone on living together after reaching the age²⁰. For those years, look for an annulment file rather than a consent.

The sworn consent paper that researchers meet was created by the licensing act of 1907, and it lasted through the period²¹.

The rule turned on the age of each party, and the two sexes were treated differently. Written consent of the parents, guardian, or person having custody was required where the man was under 21 but not under 16, or the woman was under 18 but not under 14. The consent had to be given under oath, on personal appearance before an authorized officer. From 13 April 1929 a further consent was required where the woman was under 16 and not under 14. A judge of the children's court for the town or city where the application was made had to approve it in writing, and that approval was endorsed on the application before the license could issue²¹. That consent paper is filed with the license application and names the consenting parent.

An informal marriage was a marriage

New York recognized marriage by present agreement, without any ceremony, for most of its history. A couple who agreed then and there to be husband and wife were married; living together and being known as married were evidence of that agreement rather than the thing itself. Three dates fix the periods:

A marriage validly contracted in either open period stands as firmly as a ceremonial one²⁵. This matters constantly in New York research, because an informal marriage created no record at the time it was made; it is proved afterwards by testimony about cohabitation and reputation.

The 1901 act left one useful trace. It added a fourth way to marry: a written contract of marriage. Both parties and at least two witnesses signed it, a judge of a court of record acknowledged it, and it was recorded within six months with the clerk of the county where the marriage took place²⁶²⁷. Those marriage contracts are a separate series from the ordinary license and return, and they run for the years the act was in force.

Void and annullable marriages

A marriage was absolutely void if it was incestuous or bigamous²⁸.

A marriage could be annulled on any of these grounds:

• a party was under the age of consent;
• either party was unable to understand the marriage;
• physical incapacity;
• consent obtained by force or fraud;
• incurable insanity of five years' standing; or
• a spouse absent and unheard of for five successive years

²⁹. From 1939 both applicants had to file evidence of a recent medical examination, including a blood test, before a license would issue³⁰.

The statutes list the impediments to a New York marriage exhaustively: kindred, an existing marriage, want of age, want of understanding, force, and later health³¹. Race is not among them, and New York never enacted a law against interracial marriage.

Enslaved people and people of color

Enslaved people could not contract a civil marriage, so no civil marriage record exists for them. Their unions were solemnized and recorded by churches, and Dutch Reformed registers are the fullest source. In practice an enslaver's consent controlled, because colonial law barred an enslaved person from acting without it³².

Two acts fix when that ended. The gradual abolition act of 1799 declared every child born to an enslaved mother after 4 July 1799 to be free, but bound to serve the mother's owner until 28 for males and 25 for females³³. The act of 1817 freed everyone born before 4 July 1799 as of 4 July 1827³⁴. From that date every person in New York married under the ordinary law.

A person's birth date therefore fixes the year of their freedom:

Manumission is the formal act by which an enslaver freed a person. Before those dates it ran on a certificate from the overseers of the poor stating that the person freed could support himself or herself, which was then filed with the local clerk³⁵. The certificate names the person freed and the former enslaver.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

The right to acquire, hold, and convey land belonged to every citizen. A citizen of the United States was capable of holding land in New York and of taking it by descent, devise (a gift of land made by will), or purchase³⁶. Free Black, mixed-race, and Native men held that right on the same terms as white men. Age placed no limit on holding land, only on parting with it, and that limit ran to 21³⁷.

A foreign-born man's position turned on a filing. An alien who had come to the United States could make a written deposition before an officer authorized to take proofs of deeds. In it he stated that he lived in New York, that he intended always to reside in the United States, and that he had begun the steps toward naturalization. The Secretary of State filed and recorded it³⁸. On filing it he could take and hold land and, for six years afterward, sell, mortgage, or devise it as a citizen could³⁹; and if he died within those six years his heirs took by descent⁴⁰. He could not lease the land out until he was naturalized³⁹. That deposition is a dated, signed record of a foreign-born ancestor. By the twentieth century the filing was no longer needed, and resident aliens held land on the same terms as native-born citizens⁴¹.

Women and land ownership

For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married. A woman who was single or widowed — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. A woman transacting freely in the deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed.

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture. That was the common-law rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's. Her husband took the rents and profits of her land and owned her personal property. Her own land could be conveyed only on a private examination, a separate interview with an official out of her husband's hearing (below)⁴². The Dutch period had been different, and the difference shows in seventeenth-century Hudson Valley records, where wives bought, sold, and made mutual wills with their husbands.

Statutes dismantled coverture in stages. The act of 1848 covered the real and personal property a woman owned at marriage, and property later coming to her from anyone other than her husband. All of it remained her sole and separate property, free of her husband's control and not liable for his debts⁶. The earnings act of 1860 secured her separate earnings and her power to carry on a business and to contract⁷, and further acts followed. By the twentieth century a married woman had all the rights of an unmarried one as to property, contracts, and business, including contracts with her own husband⁴³.

The date of the marriage and the date the property was acquired together decide which rule applies, so fix both before reading an estate settlement.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

A wife's signature — or its absence — tells you both the period and whether the man was married.

The driver is dower: a widow's life estate (the use of property for life, with ownership passing to someone else) in one-third of her husband's land. In New York dower attached to all the land the husband held at any time during the marriage, not merely what he owned at his death⁴⁴. A buyer therefore needed the wife to join in the deed and release it, or the land stayed subject to her possible future claim.

The release had a formality of its own. The acknowledgment of a married woman living in New York could not be taken unless she was examined privately, apart from her husband. She had to state that she executed the conveyance freely and without fear or compulsion of her husband. Without that acknowledgment no estate of hers passed⁴⁵. The certificate of that examination is written on the deed, and it establishes both the marriage and her appearance before the officer. That requirement ran until 1879, when a married woman's acknowledgment, and the proof of her execution of a deed, were put on the same footing as a single woman's⁴⁶. A married woman living outside New York who joined in a conveyance of New York land was treated as if she were single, and needed no private examination⁴⁷.

Dower and its male counterpart, curtesy — the husband's life interest in his late wife's land, which arose only where a child had been born alive of the marriage — were both abolished as of 1 September 1930. Curtesy ended as to any wife dying after 31 August 1930⁴⁸. Dower survived only for a marriage contracted before 1 September 1930. Even then it reached only land in which the husband had acquired an estate of inheritance — ownership that would pass to his heirs — during the marriage and before that date⁴⁹. A statutory share replaced them.

Which children could own land

A child of either sex could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or devise just as an adult did. What the child could not do was pass it on: a minor was incapable at law of making a binding transfer of an estate or interest in real property⁵⁰. A minor's land was therefore sold under a court order, on the application of a guardian, and the deed was signed by someone other than the owner. Own at any age; convey freely at 21.

Witnessing a deed

A witness of any age could serve, provided they understood an oath and could relate what they had seen. A deed was valid on the signature of the person making it, whatever the number or age of the witnesses. To be recorded, a conveyance had to be either acknowledged by the party who executed it or proved by a subscribing witness — a witness who had signed it — before one of the officers the statute named⁵¹. Where a subscribing witness proved it, he stated his own place of residence⁵². Competency, not age, was the test, and in practice witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear years later to prove the deed.

Enslaved people and free people of color and Native people

Enslaved people had no capacity to own property, and anything in their possession belonged in law to the enslaver. Colonial law made the point from the other side by forbidding anyone to buy from or sell to an enslaved person without the owner's consent⁵³.

Free people of color could own land, and did, throughout the period. The capacity to hold land ran to every citizen without distinction of race⁵⁴, and free Black and mixed-race families appear in the deed books and land papers accordingly.

Native land was different, and the difference is the whole story of the record. No purchase or contract for the sale of land in New York made with Native people after 14 October 1775 was valid unless made under the authority and with the consent of the legislature⁵⁵. No Native person residing in the state could sell, give, or devise land without that authority⁵⁶. Where you have a conveyance from a Native seller, the operative document is the act of the legislature, not the deed. Heirs of Native men granted land for Revolutionary military service took by descent like citizens, and their conveyances were valid only with the surveyor general's written approval endorsed on the deed⁵⁷.

Inheritance

Two separate systems

New York ran two separate systems for a person who died intestate (without a will), one for land and one for personal property, and they worked differently:

• Land passed by the rules of descent — a fixed order of relatives, set by statute, that carried the land automatically and directly to the heirs at the moment of death.
• Personal property (money, livestock, furniture, debts owed to the deceased) was distributed by an administrator, the person the court appointed to settle an estate that had no will, after debts and legacies were paid.

The two were merged into a single scheme for deaths after 31 August 1930.

The colonial system before 1830

The two systems described above took their familiar shape in 1830. Before that, colonial practice produced a different set of records, and it is worth knowing what they were.

Under the Duke's Laws of 1665 a death set off a local inquiry rather than a court filing. The constable and two overseers of the parish went to the house, asked how the person had died and whether there was a will, and if none was produced treated the death as intestate. They searched the estate in the presence of the widow, children, and other relations. Within 48 hours the constable reported in writing and on oath to the nearest justice of the peace, who could take security against anything being made away with until the next Court of Sessions, where administration was granted⁵⁸.

Two of those rules leave a trace worth chasing. Administration was withheld until the third sessions after the death, except that a widow or child could have it at once on giving security. And where the person who died left no children, brothers or sisters or their children, and no uncles or aunts or their children, the estate went to the King — but any such relative could still claim it by proving the relationship on oath within a year and six weeks⁵⁹.

An act of 11 November 1692 moved probate to the colonial government and set up the office whose records survive today. Wills were proved and letters of administration granted by the governor or his delegate, under the seal of the Prerogative Office. Wills for New York, Kings, Orange, Richmond, and Westchester were proved at New York. Because the other counties were far off, their Courts of Common Pleas could examine the witnesses locally and certify the will to the secretary's office at New York⁶⁰. That split explains why a colonial will from an outlying county is filed at New York with a local examination attached.

The same act reached orphans directly. Where the person who died left a wife and children, the wife alone had the right of administration. Where only orphans were left and no kindred would administer, the county supervisor took the estate, secured and improved it, and held it for the children until they married or reached 21⁶¹. That is the colonial equivalent of the guardian's accounting described below, and the age it fixes is the same: 21, or marriage, whichever came first.

Land: the rules of descent

Under English rule the eldest son took all the land, and an owner could tie land to a line of heirs by an entail. One act ended both. The act of 23 February 1786 abolished estates tail. Anyone who would have taken an entailed estate took a fee simple absolute instead — outright ownership, his to sell. The same act dealt with owners who died without a will leaving issue — descendants — of equal degree. The land descended to them in equal parts as tenants in common, each holding a separate share of the whole, in the same manner as if they had all been daughters⁶². That last phrase is primogeniture's epitaph: from 1786 sons and daughters took alike. The act replaced an earlier one of 12 July 1782, and saved the descents that had already taken effect under it.

From 1830 the Revised Statutes set out the order plainly. Land descended first to the intestate's lineal descendants, then to the father, then to the mother, then to collateral relatives — kin off the direct line, such as brothers, sisters, and cousins⁶³. Descendants of equal degree took in equal parts, however remote⁶⁴. Relatives of the half blood — kin through one parent only — took equally with the whole blood in the same degree. There was an exception. Where the land had come to the person who died from one of his own ancestors, everyone not of that ancestor's blood was shut out⁶⁵. Where the person who died left brothers or sisters, a surviving parent often took the land for life only, and the brothers and sisters took it afterwards⁶⁶. A child already given land or goods during the parent's lifetime had that gift counted against their share as an advancement⁶⁷.

The widow's interest in the land was dower — a life estate in one-third. Dower gave her the use of that third for life while ownership passed to the heirs, which is why you so often find a widow holding a life interest while the children hold the title. On top of it she could stay in her husband's chief house for 40 days after his death without paying rent, and have reasonable sustenance out of the estate meanwhile⁶⁸.

Personal property: the shares

The shares are precise, and the widow's turned on which relatives survived rather than on how many children she had. Two terms run through them. Next of kin means the nearest blood relatives — parents, then brothers and sisters, then outward. The residue is whatever is left after the share named just before it has been taken out. The first two rows below are the rule the Revised Statutes carried from 1830; the third and fourth were added by an act of 1845 and stood unchanged from then on; the surviving husband's rows date from 1867⁶⁹:

So a widow with five children took one-third, and each of the five took a fifth of the rest. Getting this right can make or break a family reconstruction built from an estate division. A wife who died from 1867 leaving no descendants fell outside these provisions altogether, and her husband took her personal estate at common law as before.

Administration of that personal estate went by a fixed order of preference: the widow first, then the children, the father, the mother, the brothers, the sisters, the grandchildren, and any other next of kin. Guardians stood in for those who were minors. Only if all of them declined did it pass to creditors, the first to apply preferred⁷². A husband had the first claim on his wife's estate. So the relationship of the administrator named in a file tells you who was already dead or had renounced.

For a person dying after 31 August 1930 the two systems merged, and the surviving spouse became a true heir. The share depended on who else survived:

• children — a third, with the rest divided among them;
• a parent but no child — $5,000 and half the remainder;
• only brothers, sisters, nephews, or nieces — $10,000 and half the remainder;
• none of those — the whole estate

⁷³. From the same date a surviving spouse could elect against a will and take an intestate share instead, up to half the net estate⁷⁴.

Minors and guardians and the age of fourteen

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property. The circumstances that called for one each throw off a court file:

• The father had appointed no guardian by deed or will⁷⁵.
• A legacy of $50 or more fell to a minor. A legacy below that figure went to the child's father and left no court record. One of $50 or more was paid to a general guardian who gave security, or was invested by the surrogate in the minor's name⁷⁶.
• A minor's land was to be sold, which required a court order⁵⁰.
• A minor was a party to a lawsuit, which required a guardian appointed for that suit⁷⁷.

At fourteen a minor could petition the surrogate and nominate his or her own guardian, subject to the surrogate's approval⁷⁸. Below 14, a relative or other person applied on the child's behalf, and the guardian appointed served until the child reached 14 and another was appointed⁷⁹. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

Guardianship ended at 21. On coming of age the minor was entitled to compel the guardian's account without showing any cause⁸⁰, and to receive the securities and interest held for him⁸¹. That final accounting is one of the most valuable documents in New York genealogy: it dates the minor's majority, and therefore approximates a birth year, and it frequently reveals a young woman's married surname. By the twentieth century a mother stood as joint guardian of her children with equal powers, and either parent could appoint a guardian by will⁸².

Children born outside marriage

At common law a child born outside marriage was filius nullius, "nobody's child," and could inherit from no one. New York changed that on the mother's side first. An act of 1855 let such children inherit real and personal property from their mothers as if legitimate, where there were no lawful children⁸³. The rule also ran the other way. The mother of a person born outside marriage who died intestate took the whole estate, and if she was dead her relatives took as if the deceased had been legitimate⁸⁴.

From 1896 a child born before its parents married became legitimate when they married, for every purpose and with all the rights of a child born in wedlock. An estate or interest that had already vested before the marriage was not disturbed⁸⁵. So where an inheritance runs to a child whose birth predates the parents' wedding, the marriage is the record to look for. From 1925 the statutes dropped the older words in favor of "child born out of wedlock"⁸⁶, which is the term to search in later files.

Where paternity was contested it was settled in a filiation proceeding, brought during the mother's pregnancy or within two years of the birth. The order of filiation declares paternity and fixes support, and it is enforceable against the father's estate if he dies⁸⁷. The file names the father.

Wills and executors and witnesses

The age to make a will of land was 21, and of personal property 18 for a male and 16 for a female. Land could be devised (given away by will) by all persons except idiots, persons of unsound mind, married women, and infants⁸⁸. Personal property could be bequeathed — left by will — by every male of 18 or over, and by every female of 16 or over who was not a married woman⁸⁹. In 1867 the words shutting out married women were struck from both sections, and from that year a wife could dispose of her own real and personal estate by will⁹⁰. By the last decades covered here the age for a will of personal property was 18 for both sexes⁹¹.

The age to serve as executor or executrix was 21. At the time the will was proved, a person could not serve if he was any of the following:

• under 21;
• incapable of contracting;
• a non-resident alien;
• convicted of an infamous crime, meaning one of the serious offenses that cost a man his good name; or
• adjudged unfit for drunkenness, poor management of money, or want of understanding

⁹². Where a named executor was under 21 the surrogate granted letters of administration with the will annexed — the court's written authority to settle the estate, given to someone else because the named executor could not yet act. The surrogate then issued supplementary letters to the named executor once the disability was removed⁹³ — so a change of administrator years after a probate often means the named executor simply came of age. From 1867 a married woman could take letters as executrix, administratrix, or guardian as though she were single⁹⁴.

A witness to a will could be of any age; what mattered was that the witness had no interest in the gifts. A will of real or personal property had to meet four requirements⁹⁵:

• the testator (the person making the will) signed it at the end;
• he made or acknowledged that signature in front of each witness;
• he declared the document to be his will; and
• two witnesses signed at his request

Each witness wrote his place of residence beside his name⁹⁶. Where a beneficiary was a subscribing witness and the will could not be proved without him, the gift to him was void so far as it concerned him. He stayed a competent witness, and could be compelled to testify⁹⁷ — though if he would have taken a share had there been no will, so much of that share was saved to him as did not exceed the gift⁹⁸.

An unwritten will of personal property was valid only if made by a soldier in actual military service or a mariner at sea⁹⁹.

Taxation

What was taxed

New York taxed property chiefly, and people only for work on the roads. All lands and all personal estate within the state were liable to taxation, whether owned by individuals or corporations, subject to the exemptions the statute listed¹⁰⁰ — and among those exemptions was the property of a minister of the gospel up to $1,500¹⁰¹. The Dutch and colonial governments had raised money by duties, excises, and quit-rents (an annual charge reserved on granted land), and the property assessment carried on from the colonial assessment acts.

The colonial pattern was the same one. A revenue act named a sum to be raised and laid it on the estates, real and personal, of the freeholders, freemen, inhabitants, residents, and sojourners of a place, to be assessed and collected locally¹⁰². Because personal estate counted, a colonial assessment list reaches beyond landholders and takes in lodgers and newcomers with goods of their own.

Two twentieth-century taxes reach individuals directly. The state income tax was enacted in 1919¹⁰³, and New York City imposed the country's first municipal general sales tax on 5 December 1934, before any statewide one¹⁰⁴.

Who was a poll

New York never levied the flat money tax that other states called a poll or capitation tax. Its colonial revenue acts laid the charge on estates real and personal, and the state carried that pattern forward¹⁰². Where the word "poll" turns up in an early New York list it is usually a count of voters, not of taxpayers.

One charge did fall on the person rather than on property, and it is the closest thing New York had to a poll tax: the highway labor assessment. Every man over 21 living in the town owed work on the roads whether or not he owned anything, and landowners and occupiers were assessed on top of that. The commissioners of highways fixed the total days to be worked each year at three times the number of taxable inhabitants, and every male inhabitant above 21 was assessed at least one day. Ministers and priests of every denomination, paupers, and the mentally incapacitated were excepted, and a man could pay money instead of working¹⁰⁵.

That assessment throws off a record worth knowing about. Each overseer of highways filed with the town clerk a list naming every inhabitant of his road district who was liable to work¹⁰⁵. Because liability began at 21 and did not depend on owning anything, a road district list catches laborers, tenants, and newly adult sons who never reach the assessment roll, and a man's first appearance on one brackets his twenty-first birthday.

One rule turned on race and is worth knowing, because it explains gaps in the rolls. Under the state constitution no person of color was subject to direct taxation unless he was seized of a freehold worth $250. To be seized of a freehold means to own the land outright rather than rent it. That was the same freehold the constitution required of a man of color before he could vote¹⁰⁶. A free Black family below that line will not appear on the assessment roll.

From 1830 the annual assessment roll names the owners of property in a town or ward rather than its residents, so a tenant farmer or a laborer will often be absent from it altogether¹⁰⁰. For those men, look to the road district list instead.

Courts

Jury service

Under the Duke's Laws of 1665 a jury was small and locally drawn. The sheriff sent warrants to the constable of each town, who summoned the town overseers to attend as jurymen, taking a roughly equal number from each town. If that did not produce enough men, the justices could have the sheriff make up the number from able and discreet men already at court or living in the town where the court sat¹⁰⁷.

Three features of that system differ from the later one, and each matters to a researcher:

• a jury ran to six or seven men, not twelve, except in capital cases;
• there was no property test and no stated age — jurors were town officers, so a colonial juror is usually a man already holding local office; and
• kinship to a party was the one ground of challenge named, though the court could allow others. A man who refused to serve without just cause forfeited 20 shillings¹⁰⁸

A statute followed. "An Act for the Regulating and Returning able and Sufficient Jurors in Tryals at Law" was passed in the eleventh year of William III, and because it carried its own expiry date the assembly had to keep reviving it, which it did repeatedly down to the Revolution¹⁰⁹. That statute, carried into the Revised Laws of 1813, is the ancestor of the property-based list described below.

From 1830 jurors had to be men who met a property test, and the upper age moved once before 1950. Under the Revised Statutes the town supervisor, town clerk, and assessors met on the first Monday of July each year to make the jury list. They worked from the last assessment roll of the town, and a man had to meet every one of these tests:

• a male inhabitant, and not exempt from jury service;
• aged 21 or over and under 60;
• assessed for personal property of his own worth $250, or holding a freehold in the county worth $150, in his own right or in his wife's;
• in possession of his natural faculties, and not infirm or decrepit; and
• free from legal exceptions, of fair character, honest, of sound judgment, and well informed.

The court then discharged any man on the list who turned out to fall short of the property figures, or to be under 21 or over 60¹¹⁰.

The Code of Civil Procedure carried that rule forward word for word for most of the state, and set the two largest places apart. In New York City a juror had to be aged 21 to 70. He also had to own real or personal property worth $250 in his own right, or be the husband of a woman who owned that much. In Kings County the range stayed 21 to 60. So a man of 65 was too old to sit on a jury in Albany and young enough to sit on one in Manhattan. In 1895 the general upper age was raised to 70 as well¹¹⁰.

Two consequences follow, and they hold for both periods. A man who sat on a New York jury held property, or his wife did, and the assessment roll for that year will show it. And the property test applied to the whole panel. Where a jury came up short, the sheriff summoned bystanders from the county, called talesmen. They had to be qualified to serve as jurors in the cause just as the regular panel did¹¹¹.

That mechanism, rather than any rule about jurors, is how race operated. The list was drawn from the assessment roll, and a man of color who held less than $250 in real estate was not directly taxed¹¹², so he did not appear on the roll and could not be reached for the list.

Jury service was limited to men until 1937. From 1 September that year women became eligible for trial juries on the same qualifications as men, subject to a right to claim exemption on the ground of sex alone¹¹³; they became eligible for grand juries the following year¹¹⁴.

Criminal responsibility

Before 1882 the common law governed, and its middle band ran to 14 rather than 12. The Penal Code of 1881 put the ages in statute, and they stayed there through 1950¹¹⁵:

• Under 7 — a child was not capable of committing a crime¹¹⁶.
• 7 to 12 — presumed incapable of crime, a presumption the prosecution could remove by proving the child had capacity to understand the act charged and to know its wrongfulness¹¹⁷.
• 12 and over — full criminal responsibility.

Because those lines turned on age, the same statute said how age could be proved. The court could look at the child and could order an examination by a physician. It could also take as evidence a baptism entry from a parish register, a certified baptismal certificate, a transcript of the birth from a board of health or bureau of vital statistics, and entries in a family Bible¹¹⁷. A criminal file on a young defendant may therefore hold a birth record that survives nowhere else.

From 1922 a children's court in each county heard the cases of child offenders and of neglected children. A child under 16 was handled there as a juvenile delinquent rather than as a criminal¹¹⁸. New York City's children's court ran under its own act of 1924¹¹⁹. The practical effect for research is that after that change a child under 16 has a juvenile court file rather than a criminal case file, and those files are typically closed.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate facts. Understanding, not age, was the whole of the test. It made one express provision for young children. Sometimes a child actually or apparently under 12 was offered as a witness in a criminal proceeding but did not, in the court's opinion, understand the nature of an oath. The child's evidence could still be received unsworn, if the court thought the child had enough intelligence to justify it. No one could be convicted on that unsworn testimony unless other evidence supported it¹²⁰.

The disqualifications New York's statutes named ran on the witness's interest in the case. A party to an action, and any person interested in it, was a competent witness in his own behalf. There was one exception. Such a person could not testify about a personal transaction or communication with someone since deceased, in a case brought against that person's executor, heir, or next of kin¹²¹. That exception is why a New York estate contest is full of testimony from neighbors and short of testimony from the people who were actually there.

Women and people of color as witnesses

Women were competent witnesses throughout. By the twentieth century a husband and wife were competent witnesses in civil actions generally. Two limits applied: actions founded on a charge of adultery, and a rule protecting confidential communications between them. In criminal cases the spouse of an accused person was in all cases a competent witness¹²².

Colonial law set a narrow rule for enslaved people. Under the act of 1702 for regulating slaves, no enslaved person could give evidence in any matter at all. There was one exception. Where the charge was plotting together to run away, to kill the master or mistress, to burn houses, barns, or corn, or to kill the owner's cattle, the evidence of one enslaved person was good against another¹²³. Charges against enslaved people were also tried outside the ordinary jury. Under the consolidated slave act of 1730 the justices of the peace tried the case sitting with freeholders summoned for the purpose. Those freeholders were sworn to judge according to the evidence and could not be challenged. A master who preferred it could pay for a jury of twelve instead¹²⁴. Look for those proceedings in the colonial court records rather than the ordinary criminal files. From the state period the grounds of disqualification were the statutory ones set out above, and they applied to all persons alike.

Sources & Where to Verify

Constitutions

• 50constitutions.org. Side-by-side text of successive versions of individual constitutional sections. https://50constitutions.org/ny/constitution (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York Constitution of 1777. Art. XXXV (reception of the common law of England and the colonial statute law as it stood 19 April 1775); art. XXXVII (purchases of Native land). Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ny01.asp (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York Constitution of 1821, art. II, § 1, and New York Constitution of 1846, art. II, § 1. The $250 freehold required of a man of color to vote, and the clause exempting men of color from direct taxation unless they held it. Printed in the front matter of Edmonds, Statutes at Large, vol. 1, below.
• New York Constitution (current), art. I, § 15 (purchases of Native land void without legislative consent). New York State Senate. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CNS (accessed 5 August 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• Bender's Selected Statutes of the State of New York, as Amended to Close of the Legislative Session of 1920. 11th ed. Edited by John T. Fitzpatrick. Albany, N.Y.: M. Bender & Company, 1920. The Decedent Estate Law, Domestic Relations Law, and Real Property Law, each section printed with its source or derivation and the consolidators' historical notes. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bendersselected00stagoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• The Code of Civil Procedure of the State of New York, Being Chapter 448 of the Laws of 1876, as Amended by Chapter 416 of the Laws of 1877. New York and Albany: Banks & Brothers, 1878. The Code as first enacted, and where several rules in this guide lived between 1877 and 1909: § 1027 and the separate juror sections for New York City and Kings County (§§ 1079, 1129). The 1892 printing carries the surrogates' chapter added in 1880, and with it § 2732 (order of distribution) and § 2734 (estates of married women); the 1903 printing shows § 1027 as amended in 1895. Digital images. Internet Archive. 1878 printing, https://archive.org/details/codecivilproced02stagoog; 1892 printing, https://archive.org/details/codecivilproced03stagoog; 1903 printing, https://archive.org/details/newyorkcodecivi02parsgoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Collin, C. A., ed. The Revised Statutes of the State of New York, Together with All the Other General Statutes (Except the Civil, Criminal and Penal Codes) as Amended and in Force on January 1, 1896. 9th ed. 4 vols. New York and Albany: Banks & Brothers, 1896. Prints each Revised Statutes section with an editorial note giving the later act that amended or superseded it — the quickest way to find when a rule ended. The Revised Statutes, Parts I to IV, are in volume 2. Because the set excludes the Civil, Criminal and Penal Codes, rules moved into the Code of Civil Procedure after 1880 — intestate distribution and juror qualifications among them — must be read there instead. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/revisedstatutes05stagoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• The Consolidated Laws of the State of New York. Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1909. The arrangement in force in the last decades covered here: Domestic Relations Law, Decedent Estate Law, Real Property Law, Penal Law, Judiciary Law. New York State Library scanned set. http://purl.nysed.gov/nysl/41378452 (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Cahill's Consolidated Laws of New York. Chicago: Callaghan & Company, 1930. The same chapters as amended to 1930, covering the Decedent Estate Law as revised for deaths after 31 August 1930.
• Edmonds, John W., ed. Statutes at Large of the State of New York, Comprising the Revised Statutes as They Existed on the 1st Day of January, 1867, and All the General Public Statutes Then in Force, with References to Judicial Decisions and the Material Notes of the Revisers. 2nd ed. Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1869. The working edition for the whole nineteenth century. Vol. 1 carries Part First (taxation) and Part Second, chs. I–IV (dower, aliens, Native land, descent, and the proof and recording of deeds); vol. 2 carries Part Second, chs. V–VIII (wills, letters testamentary, distribution, guardians) and Parts Third and Fourth (jurors). Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge00spengoog; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge14unkngoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Edmonds, John W., ed. Statutes at Large of the State of New York, Containing the General Statutes Passed in the Years 1867, 1868, 1869 & 1870, with Reference to All the Decisions Upon Them. 2nd ed. Vol. 7. Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1870. A separate title and imprint from volumes 1 and 2 above. Carries the surrogates' courts act of 1867 at pp. 167–70. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge05spengoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated. Book 14, Domestic Relations Law. Brooklyn: Edward Thompson Co. Prints each section with its source credit — the act that added it and every act that amended it — which is how the marriage-age provisions are dated here. Digital images. HathiTrust Digital Library. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112104377850 (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York State Library. Index to every digitized New York revision and compilation, with links, including the Revised Laws of 1813 and the Revised Statutes of 1829. https://nysl.nysed.gov/scandocs/laws (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Parker, Amasa J., Jr. Supplement to the New York Annotated Codes. New York: The Banks Law Publishing Company, 1907. Reprints the Code sections amended between 1903 and 1907, each with its derivation from the Revised Statutes and the full list of chapters that had amended it — the quickest way to date a change. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/newyorkcodecivi01stagoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• The Penal Law and Code of Criminal Procedure of the State of New York. Albany, N.Y.: M. Bender, 1911. Penal Law §§ 816–817 (the ages of 7 and 12) and Code of Criminal Procedure § 392 (the unsworn evidence of a child under 12). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/penallawandcode00stagoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of New-York. 3 vols. 1829; in force 1 January 1830. The source of nearly every nineteenth-century rule in this guide. New York State Library scanned set. http://purl.nysed.gov/nysl/6347946 (accessed 5 August 2026).

Session Laws and Colonial Records

• Current Consolidated Laws, each section printed with its citation chain, useful for tracing a rule backward. New York State Senate. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws (accessed 5 August 2026).
• The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution. 5 vols. Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1894. Volume 1 prints the Duke's Laws of 1665 (from p. 6), the colonial revenue and assessment acts, and the act of 27 November 1702 for regulating slaves (ch. 123, pp. 519–21); volume 2 prints the act of 30 October 1710 reviving the jury act (ch. 214) and the consolidated slave act of 29 October 1730. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew06stagoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the Sessions of the Legislature Held in the Years 1777–[1801]. Albany: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1886. Vol. 2 carries the ninth session, and with it the act of 23 February 1786 abolishing entails and regulating descents. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsstatenewyor16stagoog (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York State Archives. Digital images of the Gradual Abolition Act (Laws of 1799, ch. 62), the act of 1817 (ch. 137), and the Married Women's Property Act (Laws of 1848, ch. 200). https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10815; https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10817; https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10821 (accessed 5 August 2026).

The acts below are cited in the notes but have no separately digitized session volume in this run. Read them in the session laws for their year, or in an annotated edition where each section carries its citation chain. Acts already linked above — Laws of 1786, ch. 12; Laws of 1799, ch. 62; Laws of 1817, ch. 137; and Laws of 1848, ch. 200 — are not repeated here. They are: Laws of 1845, ch. 236 (the widow's enlarged share of the personal estate), and the later amendments of 1893, 1897, 1898, 1901, 1903 and 1906 to the same section; Laws of 1860, ch. 90, and Laws of 1867, ch. 782 (married women); Laws of 1855, ch. 547 (inheritance from the mother); Laws of 1879, ch. 249, and Laws of 1880, ch. 300 (acknowledgments by married women); Laws of 1892, ch. 270 (unsworn evidence of a child); Laws of 1895, ch. 321, and Laws of 1907, ch. 194 (juror qualifications); Laws of 1896, ch. 272, and Laws of 1899, ch. 725 (legitimation by the later marriage of the parents); Laws of 1901, ch. 339, Laws of 1907, ch. 742, and Laws of 1933, ch. 606 (informal marriage); Laws of 1919, ch. 627 (income tax); Laws of 1922, ch. 547 (Children's Court Act); Laws of 1924, ch. 254 (children's court in New York City); Laws of 1925, ch. 515 (statutory terminology); Laws of 1926, ch. 590 (the marriage ages of 16 and 14), and Laws of 1929, ch. 633 (the children's court's consent to the marriage of a girl under 16); Laws of 1929, ch. 229 (dower, curtesy, and the right of election); Laws of 1937, ch. 706 (proof of age for a marriage license); and Laws of 1937, ch. 513, and Laws of 1938, ch. 558 (women as jurors).

Court Cases

• Beardsley v. Hotchkiss. 96 N.Y. 201 (1884).
• Clayton v. Wardell. 4 N.Y. 230 (1850).
• Fenton v. Reed. 4 Johns. 52 (1809).
• Hinman, Matter of. 147 App. Div. 452 (1911), aff'd 206 N.Y. 653 (1912).
• Hynes v. McDermott. 91 N.Y. 451 (1883).
• Irving Trust Co. v. Day. 314 U.S. 556 (1942). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/314/556/.
• Kellogg v. Kellogg. 122 Misc. 734, 203 N.Y.S. 757 (1924).
• People v. Massaro. 288 N.Y. 211 (1942).
• Pettit v. Pettit. 105 App. Div. 312 (1905).
• Rice v. Butler. 160 N.Y. 578 (1899).
• Sternlieb v. Normandie National Securities Corp. 263 N.Y. 245 (1934).
• Van Rensselaer v. Kearney. 52 U.S. (11 How.) 297 (1850). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/52/297/.
• Ziegler v. P. Cassidy's Sons. 220 N.Y. 98 (1917).

Secondary and Reference Works

• New York (State). Children's Court of the City of New York. Annual Report of the Children's Court of the City of New York, 1929. New York, 1929. Quotes the marriage-consent paragraph added in 1929 in full and tabulates the applications granted and denied in its first months. Digital images. HathiTrust Digital Library. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010803800 (accessed 5 August 2026).
• Historical Society of the New York Courts. "When Did Slavery End in New York?" Summarizing Craig A. Landy, "Emancipation of Slaves in the State of New York," Judicial Notice 12 (2017): 42. https://history.nycourts.gov/when-did-slavery-end-in-new-york/ (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York City Department of Records and Information Services. "Marriage Contracts." What the contract series created by the act of 1901 contains. https://www.archives.nyc/blog/2023/10/13/marriage-contracts (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. "New York Probate Records Since 1787." The surrogates' record series before and after the Revised Statutes standardized them. https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/knowledgebase/new-york-probate-records-1787 (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York State Archives. "Commission to Examine Laws Relating to Child Welfare." Identifies the Children's Court Act and the other child-welfare acts of the 1920s by chapter. https://www.archives.nysed.gov/creator-authority/new-york-state-commission-examine-laws-relating-child (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York State Archives. "Probate and Wills." https://www.archives.nysed.gov/research/probate-and-wills (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York State Archives. "Records of Aliens Enabled to Own Real Property." The alien depositions series and what it contains. https://www.archives.nysed.gov/research/res_topics_gen_naturalization_aliens (accessed 5 August 2026).
• New York State Archives Partnership Trust. "Women's Rights in Early New York." The contrast between Dutch and English law for married women. https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Gallery/204 (accessed 5 August 2026).
• United States Department of State. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1901. Document 452, quoting the opinion of the New York attorney general of 16 August 1901 on the legitimation of a child by the later marriage of its parents, with the text of Domestic Relations Law § 18. Office of the Historian. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1901/d452 (accessed 5 August 2026).
• United States Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for New York State. Bulletin of the Women's Bureau No. 157-31 (revised). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949. Law stated as of 1 January 1948; digests majority, married women's property, dower, curtesy, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service with citations to the then-current code. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-31-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf (accessed 5 August 2026).

Citations

1. New York State Archives Partnership Trust, “Women’s Rights in Early New York,” on the community of goods, partible descent, and the contractual and testamentary capacity of married women under Roman-Dutch law in New Netherland, and on the loss of those capacities under English rule; New York State Archives Digital Collections (https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Gallery/204 : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
2. The Duke's Laws (1665), printed in The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1894), vol. 1, beginning at p. 6; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
3. N.Y. Const. of 1777, art. XXXV ↩
4. Laws of 1786, ch. 12, passed 23 February 1786, "An act to abolish entails, to confirm conveyances by tenants in tail, to regulate descents, and to direct the mode of conveyances to joint tenants"; printed in Laws of the State of New York, Passed at the Sessions of the Legislature Held in the Years 1777–[1801] (Albany: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1886), vol. 2, ninth session, pp. 191–92; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsstatenewyor16stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
5. Real Property Law § 11; and see The Revised Statutes of the State of New-York, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 10, printed in John W. Edmonds, ed., Statutes at Large of the State of New York, Comprising the Revised Statutes as They Existed on the 1st Day of January, 1867, 2nd ed. (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1869), vol. 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge00spengoog : accessed 5 August 2026); derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 70, § 1 ↩ ↩
6. Laws of 1848, ch. 200, passed 7 April 1848; digital images, New York State Archives Digital Collections (https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10821 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩ ↩
7. Laws of 1860, ch. 90, carried forward as Domestic Relations Law § 60 ↩ ↩
8. Laws of 1867, ch. 782, §§ 2–4, passed 25 April 1867 ↩
9. Laws of 1929, ch. 229, in force 1 September 1930, revising the Decedent Estate Law and the Real Property Law; and see Real Property Law §§ 189–190 ↩
10. Domestic Relations Law § 2, as digested in United States Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for New York State, Bulletin of the Women's Bureau No. 157-31 (rev.) (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), law stated as of 1 January 1948; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-31-rev_dolwb_1949.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
11. Laws of 1974, ch. 924, in force 1 September 1974; the rule now stands as Domestic Relations Law § 2 and General Obligations Law § 1-202, printed with its citation chain by the New York State Senate (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/DOM/2 : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
12. Beardsley v. Hotchkiss, 96 N.Y. 201 (1884); Sternlieb v. Normandie National Securities Corp., 263 N.Y. 245 (1934); and see Rice v. Butler, 160 N.Y. 578 (1899) ↩
13. Personal Property Law § 83, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
14. Domestic Relations Law § 84, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
15. Marriage in New Netherland followed the ordinances of Holland, which required the publication of banns and a ceremony before the Dutch Reformed minister or the magistrates; the banns were entered where each party lived and the marriage where the bride lived. For the ordinance series itself see New York State Archives, “New Netherland Council Dutch Colonial Ordinances,” series A1875 (https://iarchives.nysed.gov/xtf/view?docId=ead/findingaids/A1875.xml : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
16. Political Ordinance of the States of Holland and West Friesland, 1 April 1580, art. 3, forbidding the grant or proclamation of banns for a man under 25 or a woman under 20 without the consent of the parents or the survivor of them, and rendering a marriage made without that consent void; translated and discussed in R. W. Lee, An Introduction to Roman-Dutch Law, bk. I, ch. V, transcribed at Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_Roman-Dutch_Law/Book_I/Chapter_V : accessed 11 August 2026). The ordinance carried forward the Perpetual Edict of Charles V of 4 October 1540 ↩
17. Order to the magistrates of Gravesend not to publish banns contrary to the ordinances, 10 February 1654, New Amsterdam, signed P. Stuyvesant and others, declaring such marrying unlawful as against the civil and political laws in force in the colony and in the fatherland; New York State Archives, Dutch Colonial Council Minutes, series A1809, vol. 5, translated in Charles T. Gehring, ed., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, vol. 5, Council Minutes, 1652–1654 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1983); digital images, New York State Archives Digital Collections (https://iarchives.nysed.gov/xtf/view?docId=tei/A1809/NYSA_A1809-78_V05_0207.xml : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
18. Domestic Relations Law § 7, subd. 1, printed with its derivation in Bender's Selected Statutes of the State of New York, as Amended to Close of the Legislative Session of 1920, 11th ed., ed. John T. Fitzpatrick (Albany, N.Y.: M. Bender & Company, 1920); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/bendersselected00stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026); derived from Domestic Relations Law (1896), § 4. The conflict between this section and the 16-and-14 rule of § 15-a was noted at the time; see Kellogg v. Kellogg, 122 Misc. 734, 203 N.Y.S. 757, 763 (1924), which the Women's Bureau report misdates to 1934 ↩ ↩
19. Domestic Relations Law § 15-a, “Marriages of minors under sixteen years of age,” printed with its source credit in McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated, Book 14 (Domestic Relations Law), p. 303: “New. Added by L. 1926, ch. 590, § 2. Amended by L. 1927, ch. 547, § 3; L. 1928, ch. 43, in effect Feb. 15, 1928,” the 1928 amendment restoring the section as enacted in 1926; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112104377850 : accessed 5 August 2026). The rule as it stood in the 1930s is digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
20. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VIII, tit. 1, art. 1, § 12 (penalty on the minister or magistrate), and art. 2, §§ 20–21 (who could bring the suit, and when it was barred), in Statutes at Large, vol. 2. The marriage article carries no requirement of a parent's consent ↩
21. Domestic Relations Law § 15, in Bender's Selected Statutes (1920), derived from Domestic Relations Law § 10, as added by Laws of 1907, ch. 742, § 6, and amended by Laws of 1908, ch. 73, § 2, Laws of 1912, ch. 241, and Laws of 1917, ch. 503. The children’s court consent was added by Laws of 1929, ch. 633, in effect 13 April 1929, reported and quoted at the time by the court that had to give it: Annual Report of the Children’s Court of the City of New York, 1929 (New York, 1929), pp. 8, 27, which sets out the new paragraph in full and tabulates the applications granted and denied from 13 April to 31 December 1929; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010803800 : accessed 5 August 2026). The full amendment chain for § 15 is printed in McKinney's Consolidated Laws, Book 14, p. 303. As digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York, with documentary proof of age required of an applicant under 21 by Laws of 1937, ch. 706; the requirement of a parent's consent enters with this article and has no earlier antecedent: the consolidators' derivation for § 15 reads “Domestic Relations Law, § 10, as added by L. 1907, ch. 742, § 6, and amended by L. 1908, ch. 73, § 2,” and the neighboring sections of the licensing article are likewise marked as added in 1907, where sections carried forward from the Domestic Relations Law of 1896 — § 10, for one — have their earlier section noted instead ↩ ↩
22. Laws of 1901, ch. 339, approved 12 April 1901, in force 1 January 1902, amending Domestic Relations Law § 11; and see Pettit v. Pettit, 105 App. Div. 312 (1905) ↩
23. Laws of 1907, ch. 742, repealing the provision added in 1901; and see Matter of Hinman, 147 App. Div. 452 (1911), aff'd 206 N.Y. 653 (1912), and Ziegler v. P. Cassidy's Sons, 220 N.Y. 98 (1917) ↩
24. Laws of 1933, ch. 606, amending Domestic Relations Law § 11, in force 29 April 1933 ↩
25. People v. Massaro, 288 N.Y. 211 (1942); and for the rule as it stood before 1901, Fenton v. Reed, 4 Johns. 52 (1809), Clayton v. Wardell, 4 N.Y. 230 (1850), and Hynes v. McDermott, 91 N.Y. 451 (1883) ↩
26. Domestic Relations Law § 11, subd. 4, in Bender's Selected Statutes (1920) ↩
27. Laws of 1901, ch. 339, adding subd. 4 to Domestic Relations Law § 11 ↩
28. Domestic Relations Law §§ 5, 6, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
29. Domestic Relations Law § 7; the absent spouse, § 7-a ↩
30. Laws of 1939, ch. 110, §§ 2–3 ↩
31. Domestic Relations Law §§ 5, 6 (void marriages) and § 7 (voidable marriages), as digested in Women’s Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York; the sections enumerate the impediments and contain no restriction by race ↩
32. “An Act for Regulateing of Slaves,” ch. 123, passed 27 November 1702, in Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 1, pp. 519–21; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
33. Laws of 1799, ch. 62, "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery"; digital images, New York State Archives Digital Collections (https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10815 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
34. Laws of 1817, ch. 137, passed 31 March 1817; digital images, New York State Archives Digital Collections (https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/10817 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
35. The certificate of the overseers of the poor was required by the acts of 1785 and 1788 and carried forward by Laws of 1788, ch. 40, “An Act Concerning Slaves,” passed 22 February 1788, which also barred the manumission of a person over 50 or unable to provide for himself. For the surviving series and what a certificate contains, see Ulster County Clerk, “Certificates of Manumission” (https://clerk.ulstercountyny.gov/archives/resources/certificates-of-manumission : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
36. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 8, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
37. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 10, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
38. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 15, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; carried from the act of 1825, p. 427, §§ 1–3, and amended by Laws of 1834, ch. 272 ↩
39. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, §§ 16–17, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩ ↩
40. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 18, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; derived from the act of 1826, p. 348, § 2 ↩
41. Real Property Law § 10; the earlier acts on aliens holding land are Laws of 1798, ch. 72, Laws of 1802, ch. 49, Laws of 1872, ch. 120, and Laws of 1893, ch. 207, as noted in Bender's Selected Statutes (1920) ↩
42. Coverture came in with the common law of England, received by N.Y. Const. of 1777, art. XXXV, and was dismantled by the acts of 1848, 1860 and 1867 cited below; for the contrast with the Dutch rule see New York State Archives Partnership Trust, “Women’s Rights in Early New York” (https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Gallery/204 : accessed 11 August 2026). The private examination is Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. III, § 10, cited below ↩
43. Domestic Relations Law §§ 50, 51, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
44. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 3, § 1, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; carried from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 56, § 1, into Real Property Law § 190 ↩
45. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. III, § 10, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
46. Laws of 1879, ch. 249, § 1, as amended by Laws of 1880, ch. 300, providing that the acknowledgment by married women, or the proof of their execution of deeds or other written instruments, may be made, taken and certified in the same manner as if they were sole; noted under Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. III, § 10, in C. A. Collin, ed., The Revised Statutes of the State of New York, Together with All the Other General Statutes (Except the Civil, Criminal and Penal Codes) as Amended and in Force on January 1, 1896, 9th ed., 4 vols. (New York and Albany: Banks & Brothers, 1896), vol. 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedstatutes05stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
47. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. III, § 11, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
48. Real Property Law § 189 ↩
49. Real Property Law § 190 ↩
50. Real Property Law § 11 ↩ ↩
51. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. III, § 4, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; carried from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 369, § 1, through Laws of 1829, ch. 222, Laws of 1840, ch. 238, Laws of 1845, ch. 109, and Laws of 1848, ch. 195, as amended by Laws of 1856, ch. 61 ↩
52. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. III, § 12, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
53. “An Act for Regulateing of Slaves,” ch. 123, passed 27 November 1702, § 1, forbidding any person to trade with a slave in buying or selling without the leave and consent of the master or mistress, on penalty of treble the value of the thing traded for and £5 to the master or mistress, in Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 1, p. 519 ↩
54. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 8, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; Real Property Law § 10 ↩
55. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 11, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 2, p. 153, § 1; to the same effect, N.Y. Const., art. I, § 15 ↩
56. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 12, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
57. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. I, tit. 1, art. 2, § 13, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 2, p. 175, § 55 ↩
58. The Duke’s Laws (1665), printed in The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1894), vol. 1, under the title “Administration,” at pp. 8–9; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
59. The Duke’s Laws (1665), printed in The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1894), vol. 1, at p. 9 (administration withheld to the third sessions except for a widow or child; escheat to the King for want of the named relatives, saving a claim proved on oath within a year and six weeks) ↩
60. Ch. 27, “An Act for the supervising Intestates Estates, and Regulating the Probate of Wills and granting of Letters of Administration,” passed 11 November 1692 and confirmed by the King 11 May 1697, in Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 1, pp. 301–2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
61. Ch. 27, passed 11 November 1692, in Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 1, p. 302: the wife alone to have administration where a wife and children survived; the county supervisor to hold and improve an orphan’s estate, and to see the children maintained and educated, until they married or reached 21 ↩
62. Laws of 1786, ch. 12, §§ 1–4, repealing the act of 12 July 1782; and see Van Rensselaer v. Kearney, 52 U.S. (11 How.) 297 (1850) ↩
63. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. II, § 1, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
64. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. II, § 2, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 52, § 3, first rule ↩
65. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. II, § 15, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
66. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. II, §§ 5–6, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
67. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. II, §§ 23–26, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
68. Real Property Law § 204 ↩
69. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 3, § 75, as amended by Laws of 1845, ch. 236, which added the widow's whole-surplus and $2,000 provisions as subd. 3; printed in that amended form in Edmonds, Statutes at Large, 2nd ed. (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1869), vol. 2, pp. 99–100; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge14unkngoog : accessed 5 August 2026). Re-enacted in the same words as Code of Civil Procedure § 2732, “Order of distribution,” where it appears complete in the 1892 printing of the Code; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codecivilproced03stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026). The section's printed derivation reads “From 2 R. S. 96 (Part 2, c. 6, tit. 3), § 75; L. 1845, c. 236,” and records later amendments by ch. 686 of 1893, ch. 37 of 1897, ch. 319 of 1898, ch. 410 of 1901, ch. 367 of 1903 and ch. 639 of 1906, none of which altered the widow's shares: Amasa J. Parker, Jr., Supplement to the New York Annotated Codes (New York: The Banks Law Publishing Company, 1907), § 2732, pp. 568–70; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/newyorkcodecivi01stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026). Carried into Decedent Estate Law § 98, printed with its derivation in Bender's Selected Statutes (1920) ↩
70. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 3, § 79, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2, p. 101, as it stood before 1867: the distribution provisions did not reach the personal estates of married women, and their husbands took by the rules of the common law ↩
71. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 3, § 79, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2, as amended by Laws of 1867, ch. 782, § 11, which confined the rule to “the personal estates of married women dying, leaving descendants them surviving” and gave the husband the same distributive share a widow would take “and no more”; printed in John W. Edmonds, ed., Statutes at Large of the State of New York, Containing the General Statutes Passed in the Years 1867, 1868, 1869 & 1870, 2nd ed., vol. 7 (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1870), pp. 167–70, the act itself at pp. 167–70 and § 11 at p. 169; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/statutesatlarge05spengoog : accessed 5 August 2026); re-enacted as Code of Civil Procedure § 2734, “Estates of married women,” and later Decedent Estate Law § 100 ↩
72. Laws of 1867, ch. 782, § 6, amending Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 2, art. 2, § 27 ↩
73. Decedent Estate Law § 83, applying to deaths after 31 August 1930, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
74. Decedent Estate Law § 18, applying where the testator died after 31 August 1930 leaving a will executed after that date; and see § 82, the statutory share in place of dower; the section was upheld in Irving Trust Co. v. Day, 314 U.S. 556 (1942) ↩
75. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VIII, tit. 3, §§ 4–5, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
76. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 3, §§ 46–48, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
77. Code of Procedure § 116, as amended by Laws of 1865, ch. 616, § 3 ↩
78. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VIII, tit. 3, § 4, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 454, § 30 ↩
79. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VIII, tit. 3, §§ 5, 10, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
80. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VIII, tit. 3, § 11, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
81. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 3, § 50, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
82. Domestic Relations Law §§ 80, 81, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
83. Laws of 1855, ch. 547, § 1, passed 18 April 1855; carried into Real Property Law (1896), § 89, as printed in Bender's Selected Statutes (1920) ↩
84. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 3, § 75, subd. 8, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; later Decedent Estate Law § 83, subd. 7 ↩
85. Domestic Relations Law § 18, enacted as part of the Domestic Relations Law, Laws of 1896, ch. 272 (General Laws, ch. 48), and amended by Laws of 1899, ch. 725; the section is quoted in the opinion of the New York attorney general of 16 August 1901, printed in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1901, doc. 452; digital images, Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State (https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1901/d452 : accessed 5 August 2026); carried into Domestic Relations Law § 24 by Laws of 1907, ch. 742, § 6, as printed with its derivation in Bender's Selected Statutes (1920) ↩
86. Laws of 1925, ch. 515 ↩
87. Domestic Relations Law §§ 120, 122, 127, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
88. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 1, § 1, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 364, §§ 1, 5 ↩
89. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 2, § 21, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 367, § 16 ↩
90. Laws of 1867, ch. 782, §§ 3–4 ↩
91. Decedent Estate Law §§ 10, 15, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
92. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 2, art. 1, § 3, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from Laws of 1830, ch. 320, § 17 ↩
93. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 2, art. 1, §§ 3, 5, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
94. Laws of 1867, ch. 782, § 2 ↩
95. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 3, § 40, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2, as substituted by Laws of 1837, ch. 460 ↩
96. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 3, § 41, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
97. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 3, § 50, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 367, § 12 ↩
98. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 3, § 51, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2 ↩
99. Revised Statutes, pt. II, ch. VI, tit. 1, art. 2, § 22, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 367, § 14 ↩
100. Revised Statutes, pt. I, ch. XIII, tit. 1, § 1, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1; compiled from the acts of 1823, p. 389, 1824, p. 16, 1825, pp. 281, 330, 355, 373, and 1826, pp. 45, 94, 135 ↩ ↩
101. Revised Statutes, pt. I, ch. XIII, tit. 1, §§ 4–5, in Statutes at Large, vol. 1 ↩
102. Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 1; e.g. ch. 118, passed 27 November 1702, “An Act to Enable the Mayor, Aldermen and Comonalty of the City of New York, for the time being, to raise Money upon the ffree-holders and Inhabitants thereof, for defraying their publick and necessary Charges Annually,” at pp. 514–15; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog : accessed 5 August 2026). The revenue and assessment acts in this set lay the charge on estates real and personal; for the labor charge that fell on the person, see the highway labor note below ↩ ↩
103. Laws of 1919, ch. 627, approved 14 May 1919 ↩
104. New York City Local Law No. 20 (1934), effective 5 December 1934, imposing a 2 per cent tax on retail receipts under authority delegated by the legislature; described in “Some Aspects of the New York City Retail Sales Tax,” St. John’s Law Review 9 (1935); digital images, St. John’s University School of Law (https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6017&context=lawreview : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
105. Revised Statutes, pt. I, ch. XVI, tit. 1, art. 2, “Of the persons liable to work on highways, and the making of assessments therefor,” § 19 (who is liable), § 21 (the overseer's list of persons liable, filed with the town clerk), and § 24 (the mode of assessing the labor, and the exceptions), in Statutes at Large, vol. 1, pp. 464–66; commutation of the labor for money is art. 3, at p. 467; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 2, p. 271, § 4, and Laws of 1826, p. 228, § 1 ↩ ↩
106. N.Y. Const. of 1846, art. II, § 1, carrying forward the rule of the Constitution of 1821 ↩
107. The Duke’s Laws (1665), printed in The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1894), vol. 1, under the title “Tryalls,” at pp. 42–43; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew01johngoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
108. The Duke’s Laws (1665), printed in The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1894), vol. 1, at p. 43 (size of the jury, kinship as a lawful exception, and the juror’s per diem) and the supplementary clauses on jurors at p. 71 (the 20-shilling forfeit for refusing to serve, and the court’s power to judge of other exceptions besides kindred) ↩
109. “An Act for the Regulating & returning Able & Sufficient Jurors in Tryals at Law,” passed in the eleventh year of William III and expired by its own limitation, revived by ch. 214, passed 30 October 1710, and again by ch. 493, passed 11 November 1726, in Colonial Laws of New York, vols. 1–2. Only the reviving acts are printed in full in this set; for the text of the act itself see the Bradford and Baskett printings noted there. Carried forward into the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 329, the derivation given for the Revised Statutes juror sections below ↩
110. Revised Statutes, pt. III, ch. VII, tit. 4, §§ 12–13 (the town officers, and the qualifications for the list) and § 33 (discharge of a juror who fell short of the property figures, or was under 21 or over 60), in Statutes at Large, vol. 2, pp. 428–29, 433; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 329. Carried into the Code of Civil Procedure as § 1027, which as first enacted kept the range at 21 to 60 with the same property figures and the same wife's-freehold limb, alongside § 1079 for the city and county of New York (21 to 70; real or personal property of $250 in his own right, or the husband of a woman owning as much) and § 1129 for the county of Kings (21 to 60): The Code of Civil Procedure of the State of New York, Being Chapter 448 of the Laws of 1876 (New York and Albany: Banks & Brothers, 1878), §§ 1027, 1079, 1129; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codecivilproced02stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026). Section 1027 was afterwards amended by Laws of 1895, ch. 321, which raised the upper age to 70, and by Laws of 1907, ch. 194, which added a separate property rule for the county of Queens. The 1903 printing of the Code gives § 1027 in the amended form, headed as amended in 1895 and carrying the citation line “1 R. S. 411, § 13; L. 1895, ch. 321”; Parker, Supplement to the New York Annotated Codes (1907), § 1027, p. 299, reprints it with both amendments noted ↩ ↩
111. Revised Statutes, pt. III, ch. VII, tit. 4, art. 2, §§ 54–55, in Statutes at Large, vol. 2; derived from the Revised Laws (1813), vol. 1, p. 330, § 14, and amended by Laws of 1861, ch. 210 ↩
112. N.Y. Const. of 1846, art. II, § 1 ↩
113. Laws of 1937, ch. 513 ↩
114. Laws of 1938, ch. 558 ↩
115. Penal Code of 1881 (Laws of 1881, ch. 676), §§ 18–19, in force 1 December 1882, carried into Penal Law §§ 816–817 with those derivations printed against each section in The Penal Law and Code of Criminal Procedure of the State of New York (Albany, N.Y.: M. Bender, 1911); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/penallawandcode00stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026). At common law the presumption of incapacity ran from 7 to 14 ↩
116. Penal Law § 816, printed in The Penal Law and Code of Criminal Procedure of the State of New York (Albany, N.Y.: M. Bender, 1911); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/penallawandcode00stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026); derived from Penal Code § 18 ↩
117. Penal Law § 817, in Penal Law and Code of Criminal Procedure (1911); derived from Penal Code § 19 ↩ ↩
118. Laws of 1922, ch. 547, the Children's Court Act ↩
119. Laws of 1924, ch. 254, the Children's Court Act of the City of New York ↩
120. Code of Criminal Procedure § 392, in Penal Law and Code of Criminal Procedure (1911), as amended by Laws of 1892, ch. 270, in effect 1 September 1892 ↩
121. Code of Procedure § 399, as amended in 1867; later Civil Practice Act § 347 ↩
122. Civil Practice Act §§ 346, 349, and Penal Law § 2445, as digested in Women's Bureau, Legal Status of Women: New York ↩
123. “An Act for Regulateing of Slaves,” ch. 123, passed 27 November 1702, in Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 1, pp. 519–21, the evidence clause at p. 521; the act was continued in force by a series of later acts and repealed by the consolidated act of 1730 ↩
124. The consolidated slave act passed 29 October 1730, in Colonial Laws of New York, vol. 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsnew06stagoog : accessed 5 August 2026). Its closing section repeals the four earlier acts on enslaved people passed in the first, seventh and eleventh years of Queen Anne and the third year of George I. The trial provisions described here are at pp. 686–87 ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.