Chap. 430.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 2552 of the Code, in relation
to how bastards take by inheritance, so as to prescribe in what cases the chil-
dren of former slaves may take by inheritance.

Approved December 12, 1903.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section
twenty-five hundred and fifty-two of the Code of Virginia be amended
and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

§ 2552. When bastards take; when children of former slaves take.—
Bastards shall be capable of inheriting and transmitting inheritance on
the part of their mother as if lawfully begotten. And the children of
parents, one or both of whom were slaves at and during the period of
cohabitation, and who were recognized by the father as his children, and
whose mother was recognized by such father as his wife, and was ce-
habitated with as such, and their descendants, shall be as capable of in-
heriting any estate whereof such father may have died seized or pos-
sessed, or to which he was entitled, as though such children had been
born in lawful wedlock.

2. This act shall be in force from its passage.