18 June 2014
Civil laws, across time, have created all sorts of legal words for the ways that property can change hands. Each term carries its own nuances, and clues often lurk within those shades of meaning. Knowing these, when we encounter them in a record, can shape the outcome of our research.
As students of history, most of us know the basic terms involved in estate settlements—terms such as bequest, will and testament, and intestate proceedings. But what about devise and devolve?
The legal lexicographer Henry Campbell Black, and his successors, define the distinctions this way:
Devise:
"A testamentary disposition of land or realty; a gift of real property by the last will and testament of the donor."
Devolve:
"To pass or be transferred from one person to another; to fall on, or accrue to, one person as the successor another. ... The term is said to be peculiarly appropriate to the passing of an estate from a person dying to a person living."*
In historical research, we also frequently see the term "devolve" when there is no will. However, a word of caution is in order: In some of the British colonies, such as Connecticut, there were periods in which "devolve" was used even when a will existed.
*Henry Campbell Black, Black's Law Dictionary: Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modern, 5th ed., Joseph R. Nolan and M. H. Connolly, eds. (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1979), 407–8.