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Shaking Your Family Tree

February 11, 1999
	Divorce: Broken Valentines by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G.
Our ancestors were not perfect. How fast genealogists discover this. Warts and all, they are yours, and nothing you can do will change the past. While most of us think of divorce as a modern-day occurrence in American society, it has been around a long time. The Puritans in early Plymouth permitted divorce. As early as 1639, in Massachusetts Bay, James Luxford's wife asked for a divorce because he already had a wife. A magistrate granted the divorce, took the woman and her children under the court's protection by seizing Luxford's property and transferred it to her. Then the court fined Luxford 100 pounds and sentenced him to "be set in the stocks an hour upon the market day after the lecture and to be banished to England by the first opportunity.'' In 1788, Congregational minister Benjamin Trumbull expressed outrage that 390 couples had received divorces in Connecticut during the preceding 50 years. Numerous other couples ended their marriages in ways other than divorce. In South Carolina, for example, where divorce was prohibited until the middle of the 20th century, and in North Carolina where divorces before 1827 could be obtained only for impotency or adultery, numerous wives sought divorces of bed and board. A bed and board divorce (a mensa et thoro) was a legal separation. Other marriages ended in desertions. Notices in old newspapers frequently tell the stories of abandonment and "runaway'' spouses. By 1850, there was conflict between the pro-divorce and the anti-divorce factions in this country. New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley in 1852 warned that Americans' individualism was running amok. Between 1850 and the beginning of a divorce reform movement about 1880, divorce was frequently in the media spotlight. Divorce laws varied in the colonies and states, and changed through the years. For example in early Kentucky the only way to obtain a divorce was by an Act of the General Assembly. In 1809, a law authorized the circuit courts to grant divorces, but they were still granted by legislative acts until 1849. By 1894 Kentucky statue provided for divorce to the wife in cases of 1) abandonment for one year; 2) habitual drunkenness for not less than one year; or 3) cruel beating or injury, attempt at injury, or probable danger to her life. Under early statutes the offending party could not remarry as long as the former spouse lived. By 1873 this had changed and divorced parties could remarry, but only one divorce was permitted to any person except in those cases when the person was found not at fault for the divorce. Divorce records are found in diverse repositories, but 19th century and earlier divorces are often found in county or circuit courts or their counterparts. Divorces filed soon after statehood may be in the proceedings of the state's legislative body, while those filed before statehood may be in territorial or colonial legislative records. Consult "Research in Marriage and Divorce Records'', by Johni Cerny and Sandra Luebking in the revised edition of The Source published by Ancestry, Inc. in 1997. For a more historical view on this subject read Divorce: An American Tradition by Glenda Riley, published by Oxford University Press in 1991. And, while searching for information about your ancestors, don't neglect divorce records. While they often reveal a darker side of the family's history, they also can solve genealogical mysteries. Click Here  for Myra's Archive (c) 1999, Los Angeles Times Syndicate   Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Julie Case are co-editors of Missing Links, a free weekly genealogy e-zine. To subscribe, send your request to: Missing Links Newsletter   Return to Myra Vanderpool Gormley Main Page Return to Columns Main Page
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