Reading so many wills from the late 1700's and 1800's has given me a more personal perspective on a time when women had very few rights. On the one hand, I'm touched by the lengths most of my great grandfathers went to in order to provide for their wives after their deaths. On the other hand, I have to wonder whether the sons fulfilled their father's direction that they provide yearly incomes for their mothers. Recently, I was going through the estate papers of Robert Ripley, whose wife was Rebecca Vickery, my second great grandmother. Robert's will was made the day before he died in March of 1865. Although Rebecca was to be provided with a yearly income, she did have to petition the court for food, livestock, and furniture from the estate to provide for her family while the estate was settled. One of the papers was a decree that made Rebecca's brother-in-law. Thomas Ripley, the legal guardian of Rebecca's 8 children. Rebecca lived the rest of her years with her son James and his family and died in 1903. On October 18, 1929, the British Privy Council decreed that Canadian women were "persons" under the law.
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AuthorHi there! My name is Mallory Burton and I started researching the Ripley family in 2011. I'd describe myself as a careful amateur who's more interested in story than names and dates. I hope you enjoy my website and blog. I also have a public Mallory/Ripley tree on Ancestry with over 4,000 names. To contact me, please comment on any one of my blog posts. Archives
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