That would be very interesting ! Maybe I can find something on the internet. Thanks. Carole In a message dated 11/9/2009 4:22:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: I recall that E. Wayne Carp was writting a book two or three decades ago on the history of adoption in the United States, and I am pretty sure that I recall him saying once that adoption as we conceive of it was a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century legal innovation that created a very different kind of formal legal (as well as personal and family) relationship between the person adopted and the people adopting. It's worth looking into the legal evolution of adoption, which may suggest ways in which at earlier times different kinds of in loco parentis operated and when it changed. Sorry, I don't have a title for Carp's book. Brent Tarter The Library of Virginia [log in to unmask] Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at http://www.lva.virginia.gov To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html