Guardianship Can Create Issues

There were a few guardianship cases in my own family that created some difficulties for those involved. Guardianships don't usually amount to much when there isn't money to deal with.


The partial image in this entry comes from a 1920 deed where the guardian of three of my ancestor's grandchildren sold their interest in their grandfather's estate at public auction. The farm was left "in the estate" after the estate was closed and settled and apparently the guardian wanted the grandchildren's part sold. I'll be making a road trip to learn more about the case which will be discussed in an upcoming "Casefile Clues" column. In this case, the grandfather died of "old age." His daughter and her husband (parents of the minor grandchildren) died a few days apart during the 1918 flu epidemic.

In another family (from about the same time), the guardianship was appealed all the way to the Illinios State Supreme Court. That's on my research list as well. Stay tuned.

Lease from 1874--Can You Read?

This is part of the text of an 1874 lease found in my ancestor's estate papers. The landlord wanted the balance of the payments and this was part of his proof. The property was in Prairie Township, Hancock County, Illinois. The parties were Jesse Quimby and Mimke Habben. Habben died in 1877 before the terms of the lease were completed.

Think you can read it?

I'm pretty certain what it says. It's not often one finds this kind of a record. Leases during this time period are not typically part of any record.

Where to Spend Your Time?

I've been thinking a lot about where to spend my genealogy time as it is limited. One can only spend so much social time on sites like Facebook, Genealogywise, etc.

After all, there is the research too!

I'm keeping Facebook because I interact with a lot of non-genealogists there.

I'm going to keep blogging because many relatives have found me because of doing google searches and finding my pages. They aren't on Facebook (and I don't have my genealogy stuff there) and they probably aren't on Genealogywise.

I'll stay on Genealogywise as well at least for now

And the rootsweb lists that I am on are helpful too. But I'm going to be restrictive of my time on those sites. The research, organization and writing is what I love to do and social time can really cut into that.

The other thing is what happens to these sites when the "new" wears off. There are genealogists on Facebook who don't post as often as they used to. The same thing happened on many of the Rootsweb lists several years ago. The new restaurant is always crowded for the first few weeks. And the grieving widow has lots of support initially. It is when the patina of being "new" goes away that reality sinks in. Time will tell. In the meantime, I have research to do as well.

How much did this stone cost in 1904?

This tombstone was purchased in 1904 under the directions of Barbara Haase's will and with the approval of the court. Any guesses on how much it cost when it was purchased in Warsaw, Illinois?

Genealogy Wise

I joined Genealogywise. I'm not certain how wise it is for me to have one more site to "check" on a regular basis, but I'll give it a try. I might post comments about it when I have time. Those who are interested can check it out at www.genealogywise.com

Google Alerts?

I have google alerts set up to send me alerts for several things in which I have an interest. Not unusual.

Odd thing is that I get "alerts" about pages with search terms that are old. This happens every so often for a rootsweb page that contains old (2002) posts I made about an ancestor. I'm not certain why I'm getting these "old" pages as "new hits" unless something else about the page is updated.

Of course the "hits" I get are always for things I submitted in the first place.

Do You Mention It?

Let's just say this image comes from the "insanity" record of a relative.

"On the 6th of June she developed a sever[sic] attack of delusional insanity with homicidal tendancy, which has continued up to the present time."

This document was dated June 14. It is a late nineteenth century record.

How much of this would you share with relatives? I'm not posting any identifying information about the individual (at least not yet). Additional information in the file provides more details about her threats and her behavior. It also indicates two siblings were also insane--a record of commital was also found for one of them as well during the same time period. I have not yet looked for any mention of the scenario in the local newspaper, but that is on my list of things to do.

You never know what you will find looking through court records. How much to share is potentially another question.

Subpoenas Spell the Names

The 2 April 1902 will of Barbara Haase includes the names of two witnesses. One was written in English and the other was written in German. I didn't do too bad of a job reading them, but wish I had read the entire set of documents from Barbara's probate before I did.

The subpoena from 12 July 1903 provides another rendering of the names of the witnesses to the will of Barbara Haase. The signatures are not all that difficult to read, but researchers should be aware that there may be additional records in the probate file that provides the names of the witnesses in a handwriting that may be easier to read.

Names of witnesses are always potential clues. The names are easier to use if they have been read and interpreted correctly.

Yet another reason for copying or scanning the entire file. These scans were made from microfilm of records at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Death Certificate for Eleanor Rowell

This is part of the death certificate for Eleanor Rowell. Eleanor was born Eleanor Carlisle ca. 1814 in Whitehaven, Cumberland, England. She was married twice, first to Robert Frame and after his death to William Rowell. Notice she died in the Fusehill Workshose--more records to check. Unfortunately this will make tracing her children with Robert Frame even more difficult. I really only know what happened to one son, Thomas, who immigrated to Chicago, Illinois.

I'll be writing more about Eleanor in an upcoming "Casefile Clues" column for Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter.

Eleanor is my wife's 3rd great-grandmother.

3 October 2009--Wisconsin State Genealogical Society

I will be the featured presenter at the 3 October 2009 Wisconsin State Genealogical Society Seminar in Neenah, Wisconsin.

A registration brochure has been published and can be downloaded here.

Topics are:

• Research on a Tight Budget
• Researching the Entire Family
• Organization of Information
• Locating Emigrant Origins

Contact me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com for information on bringing me to your group's seminar or workshop.

How Many Johns do you Have?

I was looking through some of my recent blog posts and I realized how many of them were about an ancestor named John. Then I thought about the names of my great-great-grandfathers:

• John Michael Trautvetter (born in Thuringen Germany)--no I was not named for him, but he indirectly is why my name is Michael John instead of John Michael, but it wasn't his fault.
• Johann Hinrichs Frederichs Ufkes (who used John-born in Ostfriesland, Germany)
• Jans Jurgens Janssen (who used John--born in Ostfriesland, Germany)
• Jann Mimken Habben (who used John-born in Ostfriesland, Germany)

My third great-grandfathers:

• John Neill (born in Ireland)
• Johannes Gerhardes Grass (born in Ostfriesland, Germany)
• Johann Goldenstein (born in Ostfriesland, Germany)
• Jann Christophers Janssen (born in Ostfriesland, Germany)

That's about as far back as I feel like working right now. My grandfather was also John (John H. Ufkes). Of course, some of these used the English for mof John, some the low-German (Jans, Jan, etc.), some the High-German (Johann) and one the Latin (Johannes). It is nice to have all the bases covered.

Interestingly, I have no great-grandfathers who were named John (at least for a first name)--they were:

• Charles Thomas Neill
• George Adolph Trautvetter
• Frederich Jansen Ufkes (middle name actually a patronym ofJan[ John])
• Mimke Johnson (more often just John) Habben (middle name a patronym of John)

All said, no wonder it irritates me when someone uses my middle name as another word for a toilet.

Proving a Birth in 1850s Illinois

One is not always this fortunate. This record is from the guardianship of Francis and Louise Bieger, daughters of Peter Bieger. This wonderful document gave me the dates of birth for Francis and her sister.

The only drawback for the family was that the father had to die for the record to be created. How he died is another story altogether.

Peter died in 1855 in Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois. He is my 3rd great-grandfather. This image came from a digital copy I made from the microfilm while at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

John Ufkes 1872

On 4 September 1872, my ancestor John H. Ufkes was in Franklin County, Nebraska, where he initiated a homestead claim. I've written about this claim before, but thought I'd post his signature here.

This is one of the earliest records we have of John in the United States.

Doing Without Ancestry

Warning--there is opinion in this posting.

My subscription to Ancestry.com lapsed a few months ago and I decided to just let it go until I really needed it either for my research or for an article. So far, I've found that I have enough information I have not organized as it is...so I've not re-upped my subscription.

I have hundreds of digital images from trips to Salt Lake and Ft. Wayne" that I really haven't analyzed enough or put in my database the way that I should. I even downloaded quite a few census images from Ancestry.com that I haven't done data entry on either. They are just siting there in folders, waiting. And writing "Casefile Clues" keeps me busy too. I'd rather write up and analyze the records I have instead of letting them sit "unanalyzed" and gather more to just have a bigger set of files and records that I have "collected." Each time I work up a column I realize that I have so many leads left dangling.

Someday I'll re-up my Ancestry.com subscription. But for now, I'm satisfied to synthesize what I have. And I've been getting copies of original courthouse and other records that have not been digitized. And to be honest, for the foreseeable future offline records are really where family historians should be spending at least 3/4 of their time, maybe more.

I'm not opposed to online records at all, but for the time being, www.archive.org, www.familysearch.org, and http://books.google.com and other sites are keeping me busy enough.

John Lake in 1855

This is an image of the signature of John Lake, obtained from his BLM preemption claim of 1855. John's property was located in Chariton County, Missouri.

Ten years later, John was dead. Killed by bushwackers in his barn. This claim will be the focus of an upcoming "Casefile Clues" article in Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Plus Edition.

Michael Jackson's Will and Genealogy

Michael Jackson's will (or at least one of them) was admitted to probate recently and is on several websites for those who care to view it. Having taken a look at it, there are a few things I noticed that brought a few genealogical lessons to mind.

Things might be left out of the will--either intentionally or by accident. Jackson dumped his estate into a trust and the trust was not recorded (probably doesn't have to be is my guess). Does your ancestor's estate mention what happened to everything? I can think of several ancestral estate settlements where the real estate is inventoried, but then never mentioned again. If I had not gone to the actual land records, I would never have known how it was disposed of.

Jackson appointed his mother as guardian and if she could not act, then Diana Ross. While our ancestors probably didn't nominate celebrities as guardians for their children, names of guardians can be huge clues. In most cases our ancestors who had guardians probably had a step-parent, parent, uncle, aunt, or grandparent as a guardian. There are always exceptions.

In the copy of Jackson's will, the names of the witnesses have been blanked out. Hopefully that didn't happen on a copy of your ancestor's will. Witnesses could be people your ancestor knew or just people who happened to be in town "on business" the same day and were willing to sign a document as a witness.

Jackson's will was filed shortly after his death. State statute usually stipulates the deadline for submitting a will to probate. Thirty days is typical and admission of a will to probate can help a genealogist estimate when an ancestor died.

I have a relative whose husband died around 2:00 in the morning. As soon as the courthouse opened that same morning, she was there filing the will for record. But that is another story entirely.

Getting Occupational and Spousal Clues from an Estate

Dick Eastman has posted my latest "Casefile Clues" column on his website.

"Getting Occupational and Spousal Clues from an Estate" discusses an estate settlement from the 1850s on Peter Bieger. Peter left few clues about his life, but his estate settlement provided more information than I expected.

This article is part of the "Plus" edition of the newsletter.

We are Networked on Facebook

Rootdig.com is networked blog on Facebook.
Our page is:

http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/rootdig.com/

Join us and keep up with the latest postings.

Michael

Before You Buy that CD of Scanned Books on Ebay

Just a heads up for those who use Ebay. There are many who sell CDs of historical books, county histories, atlases, etc. Make certain these are not available for free on www.archive.org, the BYU Historical Archives, etc. You can download from there and make your own CDs.

Save yourself some money.

Archive.org has Hobart's Biographies of Hancock County

I am a big fan of Archive.org. I recently downloaded Hobart's 1908 set biographies for Hancock and Henderson Counties in Illinois. The PDF version makes for nice visuals, part of one is shown in this post.

One of the nice things that I can do on this site is a full text search. I found references to several relatives that I would not have found using only the book's index. The full text search is great. One reference was to a cousin of my great-great-grandfather who lived with another cousin of my great-great-grandfather--contained in a biography of the cousin's in-laws.

One thing I didn't notice on the site were too many old county plat books. That was what got me looking at the site initially today, until I got sidetracked.

The person shown in this image is John Habben--my great-great-grandfather.

Check out those "etal" deeds

When searching through land records it always pays to look completely at those deeds that include "Et Al" along with the initial seller. That means there are others on the deed and those kind of records have a fair chance of involving the settlement of an estate.

That's exactly what was going on when this deed was drawn up in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1906. Turns out that Louise Myers is George's aunt and his siblings are also listed as grantors on this deed.

Deed Indexes in Public Land States

This is part of a deed from 1920 in Hancock County, Illinois.

It makes an excellent point of why it is important to search for the names of all relatives and not just the direct line. George and Ida Trautvetter are my great-great-grandparents. This deed is part of the settlement of his father's estate. Had I not looked for the last names of his siblings I would have overlooked it. Because the deed lists Louisa Mundy first, that is how it appears in the grantor index. Deeds with multiple grantors (as many "heirship" deeds are) are typically only indexed by the name of the first grantor.

This deed comes from Hancock County, Illinois Deed Book 177, page 579. More discussion of this record will appear in an upcoming "Casefile Clues" column in Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter.

Extra Early Bird Deadline for Family History Library Research Trip May-June 2010

We have extended our early early bird Salt Lake City Genealogy Library research trip deadline until 30 June 2009. More information on the extra early price is available here.

Fritz or Fred?

This is a partial list of the expenses in the accounting of the guardianship of Ommo Fooken, etal, in Hancock County Circuit Court in 1917. The documents were really copied because I needed a sample to show my trip attendees how to use the digital scanner while at the Family History Library last May.

I'm glad now that I scanned the documents. The last line on this image indicated that the guardian bought two bushels of clover seed from my great-grandfather, styled as Fritz J. Ufkes. I knew he went by Fritz as a youth, but figured by this point in time (he was married and had a child by the date of this document) he would be shown as Fred. Actually in an entry from 1918, he is styled as Fred Ufkes when he is paid $9 on Feburuary 28, 1918 for hauling sand for a dam that was built on the Fooken farm.

His brother Eielt was the guardian of the Fooken children. Their mother was Lena Ufkes one of Fred and Eielt's two sisters. Lena and her husband Poppo died while the children were small.

You Are Always Going to Forget Something

My list for the next trip to Salt Lake keeps growing.

What I thought was going to be a short project keeps growing. The probate records of John Micahel Trautvetter (died in Hancock County, Illinois in 1917) mention a mortgage on his farm and the approval of interest payments on the mortgage. The probate records make no mention of paying off the mortgage and any such payments are not included in the estate's accountings.

I thought land records would answer my question and they partially did. Turns out I also need the guardianship records for four of John's grandchildren and that may only answer another part of the question. These grandchildren were orphaned when their parents died in the Flu epidemic of 1918, less than a year after their grandfather Trautvetter died.

An upcoming column in "Casefile Clues" in Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (paid edition) will discuss the records and proces used to see what happened to John's farm after his death.