Meredith Thompson in the December 2013 Indiana Genealogist: "When railroads began to connect Indiana with the rest of the country in the 1840s, the state developed a reputation as a 'divorce mill,' with people coming from outside the state to file for divorce. Indianapolis was an especially popular destination; in 1858 two-thirds of Marion County divorce cases were filed by out-of-state petitioners."
Want more? Do you need the lowdown on Indiana's divorce laws? Waste no time in scrounging the internet: join the Indiana Genealogical Society and read Thompson's thorough source-cited explanation as just the first of your member benefits. Do it now and get your money's worth, as all annual memberships expire at the end of the calendar year.
Meredith Thompson, "Indiana's Pre-1940 Divorce Laws," Indiana Genealogist 24(4):13-20, December 2013.
Harold Henderson, "Indiana divorce laws guide!," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 26 February 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]
1 comment:
Harold, thank you for posting this. I have talked about this in some of my classes, as well as certain areas being a "Gretna Green".
It sounds like it was the Las Vegas of our ancestors - LOL!
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