A genealogical research guide to North Carolina historical statutes from 1670 to 1950.
Historical Law Guides > North Carolina
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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 | 16 male / 14 female | Common law 14 / 12 before 1854; a girl 14–16 by parental consent in the 1930s |
| Parental consent for marriage | Under 18 (both sexes), from 1871–72 | Before 1868, a girl under 15 needed her father's consent |
| Apprenticeship ends | 21 male / 18 white female | A bound girl of color served to 21 |
| Choose own guardian | 14 | A child old enough to pick their own guardian was at least 14 — helps estimate a birth year |
| Guardianship ends | 21 | Final settlement at 21 approximates a birth year |
| Make a will | 21 | Both land and personal property from 1811; needs 2 witnesses (a will in the maker's own handwriting needs none) |
| Serve as executor | 21 | An under-21 named executor gets temporary administration until majority |
| Witness a will | Any age | The witness must gain nothing under the will — any gift the will leaves to a witness is void |
| Testify as a witness | Any age if competent | The judge examined a child before testimony |
| Taxable as a poll | 16 (colonial, white males); 21 (free males from 1784) | People of color taxed from 12; upper cut-off 45 (1835) then 50 |
| Jury service | 21 | Tax-paying men; women from 1946–47, Black men eligible after 1868 |
| Criminal responsibility | 14 at common law | Under 7 none; 7–14 presumed none; under 16 juvenile from 1919 |
North Carolina's law came from England. The colony began under the Carolina charter of 1663, and English common law (judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature) governed from the start. After independence the state kept it deliberately, by statute: all parts of the common law then in force and use in North Carolina remained in full force1. The courts have held that the common law preserved by that statute is the common law of England as it stood in 1776.
The system was English through and through. One practical consequence is worth knowing at the outset: North Carolina handled probate in the county courts from the earliest period, so wills were proved there and probate records sit with county government.
The General Assembly 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:
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 North Carolina was 21, a rule drawn from the common law3. Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in legal language, even a 20-year-old.
The age dropped to 18 in 19714, after the period covered here.
A minor could own property. What the law limited was the minor's power to dispose of it:
Full legal capacity could be granted early only by a private act of the General Assembly; a court-ordered route became available in 19798.
Majority was 21 for both sexes, without variation, through 1950. Two other ages did differ by sex, and are easy to confuse with majority:
Into the mid-nineteenth century the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12. The Revised Statutes of 1837 regulated licenses, banns (the public announcement of an intended marriage), and penalties, and left the marrying ages to the common law.
The 16 and 14 rule first appears in the Revised Code of 1854: females under 14 and males under 16 were incapable of contracting marriage10. The 1871–72 marriage act re-enacted it as part of the switch from marriage bonds to marriage licenses11.
By the 1930s the rule had tightened in practice: males and females of 16 and over could marry outright, and a girl aged 14 to 16 could marry under a special license issued after a parent filed written consent12.
An underage marriage was voidable: it stood unless someone went to court to undo it13. In practice an ancestor's underage marriage was almost certainly valid.
The consent rule changed shape when the record system changed.
Under the marriage-bond system (colonial period to 1868) the rule targeted girls. It was an indictable offense to marry a female under 15 without her father's written consent, and on conviction the court appointed trustees to take charge of the girl's property14. By 1854, a clerk who issued a license — or a minister or justice who performed the marriage — of a female under 15 without written permission forfeited $1,00015. If her parents or guardian lived out of state, the applicant had to produce a written certificate from them stating she had reached 15, or had leave to marry16.
Under the license system the line moved to 18, for both sexes, from the marriage act of 1871–72. Written consent of a parent, of the relative the person lived with, or of whoever had custody was required whenever either party was under 1817.
By the 1930s a marriage was absolutely void if it was interracial18 or bigamous19.
A marriage could be annulled by the superior court if the male was under 16 or the female under 14; if the parties were within the forbidden degrees of kindred (too closely related); if either was physically impotent; or if either was unable to understand or agree to the marriage. Two North Carolina peculiarities sit in the same list: it separately barred a Cherokee Indian of Robeson County from marrying a person of negro descent to the third generation, and it forbade double first cousins to marry. The section itself declares every one of these marriages void; the working distinction between a marriage void outright and one that stood until annulled comes from the case law and the annulment procedure rather than from the face of the statute20. The same restrictions appear in the antebellum case notes printed with the Revised Code of 185421.
A valid marriage required a ceremony before an authorized official. From the colony's earliest laws, a marriage had to be celebrated by someone in a sacred office, or entered into before someone holding a public and judicial trust22. Marriage came from that ceremony — the reason North Carolina had no common-law marriage.
Two points matter for research. North Carolina honored a marriage that was valid where it was contracted23, except where the couple were North Carolina residents who left in order to evade North Carolina law and then returned24. And the 1866 cohabitation act, below, provided a statutory route for freedpeople.
Enslaved people had no legal capacity to marry, so no civil marriage record exists for them.
Interracial marriage was banned from 1715, with a £50 penalty on the officiant25. The 1741 act extended the ban to people of color "to the third generation"26; an 1838 act tightened it27; the amendments framed in 1875 and ratified in 1876 wrote it into the Constitution28. It became unenforceable with Loving v. Virginia (1967), and remained in the constitutional text until the Constitution of 1971 replaced it.
A free person of color and an enslaved person were barred from marrying or cohabiting from 183029.
The 1866 cohabitation act is the single most important marriage record for African American research. "An Act Concerning Negroes and Persons of Color or of Mixed Blood"30 declared that formerly enslaved couples then living together as man and wife were lawfully married from the time their cohabitation began. Couples had to appear before the clerk of the county court or a justice of the peace and acknowledge the fact. The original deadline of 1 September 1866 was extended to 1 January 186831. The resulting cohabitation records, entered by the clerk in a book kept for the purpose, typically give the names and ages of both parties, how long they had been together, and often the name of the former enslaver.
The right to acquire, hold, and convey land belonged to every free man in North Carolina, of any race. A free man could own land whether or not he held any other property, paid a tax, held office, or could vote; nothing had to come before it. Free Black, mixed-race, and Indian men held this right on the same terms as white men and exercised it throughout the period — the restrictions that surrounded their ownership appear under "Enslaved people and free people of color," below.
Enslaved men had no legal capacity to own property of any kind; land they lived on or worked belonged in law to the enslaver.
A foreign-born man's right turned on citizenship. Once naturalized he owned and inherited land like any other citizen. Before naturalization he could buy and hold land, though he could not inherit it — where a landowner's nearest kin were aliens, the citizen relations inherited in their place32.
For a woman, everything turned on whether she was married. A woman who was single or widowed could acquire, hold, sell, and mortgage land on the same footing as a man. A married woman could own land, but her power to manage and convey it was limited during the marriage and broadened in stages — most importantly in 1868 and 1911. The subsections that follow set out both cases, and the signatures each required.
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 freely 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. Her husband controlled her property: he took the rents and profits of her land and owned her wages, and her contracts had no force on their own. Her own land could be sold only with her privy examination (a private interview with an official, apart from her husband, certifying she acted voluntarily). Wealthy families arranged around this by placing property in a trust for her "sole and separate use" — a private arrangement that gave her the separate ownership statute would provide later.
The Constitution of 1868 gave a married woman her own estate: property she owned before marriage, or acquired after, remained her sole and separate estate, was not liable for her husband's debts, could be left by her freely in a will (given away as a gift after death), and — with the written assent of her husband — could be conveyed by her as if she were unmarried33.
The 1868 change went only so far. She owned her property and could will it away, and she could deal with her personal property freely34. To convey her real estate she needed her husband's written assent and, until 1945, a privy examination35. The "Martin Act" of 1911 let married women make any and all contracts as if unmarried, while keeping those two requirements and adding a third — contracts with her own husband36.
Estates by the entirety kept their old form longest. Where land was conveyed to husband and wife together, the survivor took the whole — and during the marriage the husband alone controlled it and took the rents and profits37.
The route out of coverture was registration as a free trader. A married woman of 21 or over could become one with her husband's consent38. More useful to genealogists, a wife became a free trader by operation of law — able to convey her real and personal estate on her own — if she was legally separated, if her husband had been adjudged an idiot or lunatic, or if she had been abandoned or maliciously turned out of doors39. A free-trader entry in the register of deeds is strong evidence that a marriage had collapsed.
This is one of the most useful dating tools in North Carolina land research, because 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 in one-third of her husband's land. Whether a buyer needed her to release it depended on which land dower attached to.
| Period | Dower covered | Wife's signature needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Colonial – 1784 | Every parcel the husband held at any time during the marriage (common law) | Yes |
| 1784 – 1868 | Only land the husband owned at his death40 | No |
| 1868 – 1960 | Every parcel held at any time during the marriage (common-law dower restored) | Yes |
The 1868 rule is explicit. Widows were to be "endowed as at common law," meaning a one-third interest in all lands the husband was "seized and possessed of" — owned and held — at any time during coverture, including the dwelling house the family usually lived in41. A husband's own deed therefore passed two-thirds42, and the wife released dower by joining in the deed and being privately examined43. The rule carried forward into the twentieth century44.
Three other situations called for a wife's signature regardless of dower:
Two exceptions worth knowing: a husband whose wife had been adjudged insane could convey free of dower without her signature if he attached the proper certificate48; and married persons under 21 could renounce dower and curtesy and give written assent exactly as if they were of full age49 — so never assume a signing wife had reached 21.
The private examination ended in 194550. A wife still had to sign her husband’s deed to give up dower, but the separate interview was no longer taken. On a deed from 1945 to 1950 there is no certificate to look for.
Curtesy was the husband’s version of dower. If a child had been born alive of the marriage, a widower kept the use of his late wife’s land for the rest of his life51. Dower and curtesy both ended in 1960 with the Intestate Succession Act52. After that, a surviving husband or wife could choose a life interest instead of a full share53.
A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did. Conveying it was the constraint: a minor's deed was voidable and could be canceled within three years of turning 2154. In practice a minor's land was managed by a guardian, and any sale went through a court proceeding. Own at any age; convey freely at 21.
A witness of any age could serve, provided they understood an oath and could relate what they had seen. A deed was made ready for registration by being proved by a subscribing witness (a witness who had signed it) or acknowledged by the grantor (the person making the deed confirming it before an official)55. Competency, not age, was the test; the common law's "age of discretion" of about 14 is a fair practical guide, and in practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear in court years later to prove the deed.
Enslaved people had no legal capacity to own property; anything in their possession belonged in law to the enslaver.
Free people of color could own land, and did, throughout the entire period. Free Black, mixed-race, and Indian people held the right to acquire, own, and convey land, and kept it even after the 1835 Constitution took away the vote from free men of color. This matters: deeds, land grants, and estate records for free families of color exist, and historians have found that at least one member of most free African American families in North Carolina owned land during the colonial and early national periods.
The restrictions fell on the freedoms around ownership. An 1826 act criminalized free Black migration into the state56. The 1830 act on slaves and free persons of color required newly emancipated people to leave within 90 days57. An 1861 act barred Black people from owning or controlling enslaved people58. And the 1866 Black Code added a witnessing rule aimed at people of color: any contract in which one or more party was a person of color — for the sale of livestock of any value, or for other goods or money worth $10 or more — was void unless it was put in writing, signed, and witnessed by a white person who could read and write59. That requirement fell with the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared freed people citizens with the right to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey property. In 1866–68 deed books, expect to see that white witness.
Separately, contracts with Cherokee people worth $10 or more had to be in writing and signed before two witnesses, who also signed the document60.
When a person died without a will (intestate), North Carolina divided the estate under two separate systems, one for land and one for personal property, and they worked differently:
Land descended by rules that changed three times before settling into the canons of descent that ran for a century and a half:
| Period | Who took the land |
|---|---|
| Until 1784 | The eldest son took all the land (primogeniture) |
| 1784 – 1795 | Divided equally among the sons — or among the daughters if there were no sons61 |
| 1795 – 1808 | Sons and daughters shared equally |
| 1808 – 1960 | The canons of descent: all children inherit equally, whatever their sex or age, subject to advancements62 |
Under the canons, females inherited equally with males, and younger with older children — subject to advancements, meaning a child already given land or goods during the parent's lifetime had that gift counted against their share63. Descent in North Carolina was governed by statute64.
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; she took land as an heir herself only in the last resort, when no one else could claim65. This is why you so often find a widow holding a life interest while the children hold the title.
The shares are precise, and they turn on the number of children. The widow’s first three shares ran unchanged from the Revised Code of 1854 into the 1930s; the last of her rows and both of the surviving husband’s are later additions, given here as they stood in the 1930s66:
| Survivor | Situation | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Widow | Not more than two children | One-third |
| Widow | More than two children | A child's part — an equal share alongside each child |
| Widow | No child, but next of kin survive | One-half; the next of kin take the other half |
| Widow | No child and no next of kin | All of it |
| Surviving husband | Only one child living | One-half |
| Surviving husband | More than one child | A child's part67 |
So a widow with five children took one-sixth; a widow with two children took a third. Getting this right can make or break a family reconstruction built from an estate division.
On top of her share, a widow received a year's allowance — a year's support for herself and her family, free of her husband's creditors and on top of her distributive share (her portion of the personal property); the amount was fixed by statute at $300, raised to $500 in 1937, plus $100 — $150 from 1937 — for every other member of the family68. It is a separate court record, and it usually names the widow and the children.
Where her husband left a will she disliked, a widow could dissent within six months of probate (the proving of the will in court) and take exactly as though he had died without a will69. The right to dissent belonged to the widow.
All of this changed in 1959–60, when the Intestate Succession Act combined the two systems into one and made the surviving spouse a true heir70.
A minor inherited immediately — title passed to the heirs the moment the ancestor died71. Managing that inheritance fell to a guardian, who gave bond, invested it, accounted annually, and handed it over — with a formal receipt — when the ward turned 21. That final settlement at 21 is one of the most valuable documents in North Carolina genealogy: it dates the ward's majority, and therefore approximates a birth year, and it frequently reveals a female ward's married surname.
A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property; where a child inherited nothing, often no guardianship record was created. Internalize one definition: an "orphan" in North Carolina records means a child whose father has died — the mother could be alive and well. The father was the natural guardian during his life; on his death the mother became natural guardian72.
The county courts had full power over orphans and their estates and appointed guardians where the father had appointed none, taking security from each one; the grand jury was charged with presenting any orphan left without a guardian73. After 1868 the work moved from the county court to the court of probate — the clerk of the Superior Court sitting as judge of probate — so the records may be indexed under either name74.
A father could also name a testamentary guardian — by deed during his life, with the mother's written consent and separate examination, or by will if she was dead75. The guardian of the estate could be a different person from the guardian of the person76, so look for two records rather than one.
At fourteen a ward could nominate their own guardian, subject to the court's approval77. 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.
At common law such a child was filius nullius, "nobody's child," and could inherit from no one. North Carolina extended inheritance first on the mother's side, then on the father's.
From the mother. Every illegitimate child of the mother, and the descendants of a deceased such child, was treated as an heir; the child inherited from the mother herself, though not as representing her in the estate of her kindred. A proviso kept an illegitimate child from inheriting land the mother had received from the father of her legitimate children78. The same "next of kin to their mother" rule applied to her personal property79.
From the father — after legitimation. There were three routes: a private act of the General Assembly80; the subsequent marriage of the parents, which from 1917 legitimated the child automatically81; and a court petition by the putative father (the alleged father)82.
Bastardy proceedings (from about 1700) generated their own records: the county court examined the mother, named the reputed father, and took a bastardy bond to spare the county the cost of the child's support. The age to which support ran rose over time — 10 (1933), 14 (1937), and 18 (1951)83.
One rule deserves its own heading, because it is the key to African American inheritance research.
The children of colored parents born at any time before 1 January 1868, of persons living together as man and wife, were declared legitimate — with the full rights of heirs at law and next of kin as to either parent; and if such children were dead, their own issue represented them84. The date matches the extended deadline for recording cohabitations under the 1866 act.
Three consequences:
The age to make a will was 21. One sentence sets it: no person was capable of disposing of real or personal estate by will, nor allowed to qualify as executor of a will, until reaching the age of twenty-one88.
Before the 1811 statute, the common-law ages governed: a boy could make a will of personal property at 14 and a girl at 12, while a will of land required 21.
The age to serve as executor or executrix was also 21 — the same statute set both89. By the 1930s the rule was stated plainly: an executor or administrator had to be of full age90. Where a named executor was under 21, the court granted temporary administration until he came of age. One quirk worth watching: if an executrix married, her letters (the court's written authority for her to act) could be revoked if her new husband failed to give bond91, so a change of administrator right after a wedding is often the reason.
A witness to a will could be of any age; what mattered was that the witness had no interest in the gifts. An attested will (one signed in front of witnesses) had to be signed by the testator (the person making the will) — or by another in his presence and at his direction — and signed in his presence by at least two witnesses, each of them disinterested (having nothing to gain under the will)92. Two companion sections fit alongside this: a devise to a witness was void93, which left such a witness disinterested and so competent; and an executor was a competent witness94.
A holographic will — one written entirely in the testator's own hand and found among his valuable papers or lodged with someone for safekeeping — was valid with no attesting witnesses95. These are common in the North Carolina record.
Three taxes on individuals leave usable records: the poll (head, or "capitation") tax, a flat tax on a person rather than on property; the property tax, on land and, before 1865, on enslaved people; and, in the twentieth century, a state income tax (1921) and sales tax (1933).
For genealogy, the poll tax is the prize, because it lists people who owned nothing — which makes early tax lists into census substitutes.
Under the acts of 1715, 1723, 1738, and 1749, a tithable (taxable person) was:
96. The constable went house to house to take the list in the five days after 10 June each year and returned it before 5 August, so the ages behind a list are ages that summer.
This is the single most useful fact in colonial North Carolina tax records. Because free women of color counted as taxable from age 12 while white women did not, free families of color can be identified in the tax lists by the taxation of their women. You will even find collectors noting that a man "refuses to list his wife" — a man resisting being classed as non-white.
The state reinstated the property tax after 1777, and settled in 1784 on taxing free polls aged 21 and upwards, and enslaved people, male and female, aged 12 to 50.
The 1835 constitutional amendments fixed the categories in the Constitution itself: the capitation tax was to be equal throughout the state, and all free males over 21 and under 45, and all slaves over 12 and under 50, were subject to it, with an exemption for bodily infirmity97.
The Revised Code put a figure on it: 40 cents on every free male aged 21 to 45, and the same on every enslaved person of either sex aged 12 to 50 — payable by the owner98.
The Reconstruction Constitution levied a capitation tax on every male inhabitant over 21 and under 50, equal to the tax on $300 of property, with the proceeds applied to education and the support of the poor (up to a quarter to the poor). County and town boards could exempt individuals for poverty or infirmity99.
The suffrage amendment of 1900 made payment of the poll tax a prerequisite to voting — a central tool of disfranchisement. That voting requirement was repealed in 1920. The tax itself survived until the Constitution of 1971 (ratified 1970) forbade it100.
| Period | Taxation began at | Taxation ended at |
|---|---|---|
| Colonial | 16 (white males); 12 (people of color, either sex, free or enslaved) | Set by county-court exemption for age or infirmity |
| 1784–1835 | 21 (free polls); 12 (enslaved) | 50 (enslaved) |
| 1835–1868 | 21 (free males); 12 (enslaved, either sex) | 45 (free males); 50 (enslaved) |
| 1868–1970 | 21 (males) | 50 |
Throughout, an exemption for bodily infirmity was available by order of the county court. When a man drops off a poll list while still alive elsewhere in the record, an infirmity exemption — or simply his 45th or 50th birthday — is usually the explanation.
Jurors had to be 21, a rule the courts established rather than the jury statute101. It carried weight: an indictment (a grand jury's formal charge) could be quashed (thrown out) where a grand juror had been under 21 when the charge was brought102.
The statutory qualifications were that a juror had paid all taxes assessed against him for the preceding year, and was of good moral character and sufficient intelligence103.
Land ownership requirements changed over time. Before the Civil War the jury list itself was made up from the taxable freeholders of the county, so a man on the regular panel owned land104. By the twentieth century that had gone, and only a talesman still had to be a freeholder: a juror on the regular panel could serve without owning land105; a talesman — a bystander summoned on the spot to fill out a short jury — had to be a freeholder owning real estate in the county where the court sat106.
So the working test in the twentieth century was an adult man of 21 who had paid his taxes; before the war, add land ownership to that. That tax-payment requirement was the mechanism by which poor men, and after 1900 Black men in particular, were kept off juries.
Before 1919 the common-law ages governed:
From 1919 a statute changed this. North Carolina's first Juvenile Court Act gave the courts exclusive original jurisdiction over any case of a child less than sixteen years of age who was delinquent, violated any law or ordinance, or was truant, unruly, wayward, or misdirected107. A child under 16 was adjudicated delinquent rather than convicted — the statute provided that the adjudication counted as neither a crime nor a conviction — while a 16-year-old was tried as an adult. The line was not quite absolute: where a child of fourteen was charged with a felony, the juvenile judge could send the case to the judge of the Superior Court, and the child was then held or bound over to the next term108. That line held until 2019.
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 competency statutes turned on other matters — such as being a party to a transaction with someone since deceased — rather than on age109.
Women could testify. A spouse was generally competent and compellable in civil cases, with carve-outs for adultery; in criminal cases a wife could be a witness for her husband, and against him to prove marriage in a bigamy prosecution, or where he was charged with assaulting her, abandoning his family, or failing to support them110.
Jury service was limited to men until 1946–47. The Constitution guaranteed trial by a jury of "good and lawful men"111, and that word was read literally.
In 1937 the Attorney General advised that women were already eligible without new legislation and invited a test case; none followed. In 1938 the Supreme Court noted a trial court’s finding that women were systematically excluded from the Guilford County jury lists even when of good character, sufficient intelligence, and property-owning112. In 1944 it settled the question: “good and lawful men” meant men, so a panel of ten men and two women summoned as talesmen was improperly constituted, and women remained ineligible propter defectum sexus, “on account of the defect of sex”113. The General Assembly then proposed a constitutional amendment changing “men” to “persons”114, the voters ratified it in 1946, and the enabling act followed in 1947115, broadening the jury list beyond the tax rolls to take in county residents over 21 who did not appear on the tax lists — added because so many women were absent from them116.
People of color could give evidence only in cases between other people of color, until Reconstruction. From 1777, people of color — including anyone descended from Negro or Indian ancestors to the fourth generation, whether enslaved or free — were competent as witnesses only in cases between other people of color117.
Under the 1866 Black Code a person of color became competent wherever the rights of persons or property of persons of color were in issue, and in pleas of the State where the violence, fraud or injury was charged to have been done by or to a person of color. In all other civil and criminal cases the evidence stayed inadmissible unless the parties of record consented118. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Constitution of 1868 then gave people of color full competence to testify.
On juries, Black men were legally eligible after 1868, though in practice they were kept off. The tax-payment requirement served as a lever, and exclusion intensified after the disfranchisement campaign of 1900119.
(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.