Constitutional Law

Family histories

I was just remembering a matter involving my my late ex, Frances.

After I discovered that the name Hardy is an alias, taken by my outlaw judge great-grandfather, our son Mark found it very interesting, but Frances found it rather appalling. Mark wanted to write a paper for school on the subject, and she made him pick some other topic.

Her maiden name was Frances Avery, and she'd mentioned that her family descended from an Ephraim Avery, a minister who had made the move from Connecticut to the Ohio frontier after some scandal. By pure luck, I found the scandal. I called her from a pay phone outside a law library, and said I'd happened upon a book that devoted an entire chapter to her ancestor. She said that was great, and then I noted the title was Great Murder Trials of the 19th Century or something like that. I later joked with her that at least when my ancestors killed their man, they killed their man.

Update: Here's his headstone, courtesy of Findagrave.com.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on April 25, 2010 (boomark / email).