68 Ala. 29 | Ala. | 1880
Hearsay evidence is always admissible to prove pedigree, and this term embraces not only questions of descent and relationship, but also the particular facts of birth, marriage and death, and the times when these events may have happened. And any book, document, or paper containing entries made by a parent or relation, as to such facts, may be received as the wi’itten declarations of deceased persons who respectively made them.—1 Taylor on Ev. §§ 444, 450. Such evidence is held admissible not only from the extreme difficulty of providing any better, but is resorted to upon the ground of the interest of the declarants in all such matters of family relationship and connection.—1 Greenl. Ev. 103; 2 Best on Ev. § 498. The better opinion seems to be that the declarations of third persons can not be admitted to prove pedigree unless it is shown that they are deceased. White v. Strother, 11 Ala. 720; Baintree v. Hingham, 1 Pick. 245; 2 Best Ev. § 498. These principles do not preclude a person from testifying to his own age, which is a matter of pedigree, and which he is presumed to know in the same sense that he knows of a custom or prescription. The testimony of the witness Daniel Allen was properly admitted.
There is no error in the ruling of the Circuit Court, and its judgment is affirmed.