Going to the Courthouse - Probate Records

The second area I like to research in a courthouse is the probate records.  Probate is the legal process of settling the affairs of a deceased person.  Probate isn't usually mandatory, but it does provide the approval of a court and law on the decisions made by the heirs in dealing with the assets and liabilities of the deceased and gives legal protection to those decision-makers.  So if someone did not own real estate or financial assets such as stocks and bonds, his heirs may not have felt the time and expense of probate were justified.  Nonetheless, there are probate records for most deceased ancestors.

Mennonite Inheritance Traditions.  Mennonites had very strong and clear beliefs about inheritance, which were based on I Peter 3:7:  "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." (NIV)  Since husbands and wives were joint heirs of the gift of new life in Christ, the Mennonites believed that they should share equally in the inheritance of mere material possessions.  They had followed this rule in Poland and Prussia; and when they moved to Russia, they had negotiated a special exemption so that they could continue to regulate their own inheritance matters.  There a Waisenamt (orphans' office) in each colony regulated inheritance matters.  In Canada, the Mennonites set up Waisenamter in Manitoba, but not in other provinces.  But in the United States, they were not able to do so, so they followed state inheritance laws or made wills.  Only in the 20th century did it become common for US Mennonites to prepare wills.  So many of our ancestors died intestate, i.e. without a will.

The Mennonite tradition dictated that the surviving spouse, if any, should inherit one half of all the property and that the children of the deceased spouse should divide the remaining part.  So children from a deceased spouse's previous marriage(s) and of the current marriage would inherit, but children of a surviving spouse's previous marriage(s) would not.  As an exception, if the wife had acquired real estate before the marriage in her own right, it would go only to her children.  Mennonites practiced impartible inheritance, so the farms were not divided into smaller tracts.  Instead a family auction was held and the winning bidder owed the other heirs for their share of the winning bid.  Often the winning bidder could not pay the full amount immediately; so in Russia and Canada, the Waisenamt would ensure that payments were made to the other family members annually.  Unfortunately the other heirs were left with no farm land of their own and only an annual payment of their share.  This practice of impartible inheritance was one of the main drivers of the frequent migrations to new places to find cheap farm land for young families.

Watch for any deviation from this inheritance pattern.  In particular, English common law, on which both US and Canadian inheritance laws are based, only gave a surviving wife a one-third life interest (not even complete, or fee simple, ownership) in the estate.  This was a serious deviation from Mennonite beliefs, so when it happened it indicated either that the deceased husband was not aware of the need to make a will or that the family had only a tenuous connection with the Mennonite community left.

Where to Look for Records.  Another question is in which county (or state) probate records might be filed.  Usually the probate is done in the county where someone was resident when he died, which be might different than the county in which he died.  If someone owns property in another county, there may be a small file in that county showing the final disposition of property, but it is usually not the main probate file.  For instance, my maternal grandmother died in McPherson County, Kansas, in the nursing home, but she had lived for seven decades in Meade County, Kansas, and all her real estate was in Meade County.  The probate was done in McPherson County because that is where she was resident when she died.  There were some probate records in Meade County, though, because her land had to be taken care of.  However, my paternal grandmother died in Washita County, Oklahoma, in the nursing home; but she owned real estate in Texas County, Oklahoma.  But her probate was done entirely in Texas County, Oklahoma.  So it's worth checking for probate records both where the person was resident when he died and where he owned real estate.

Probate records are usually held by the Clerk of the District Court, but sometimes there may be a separate family or probate court.  You will need to look in an index for your ancestor's name to get a file number, and then you request that file.  Old records may be bound in books or on microfilm.  If you have to search without an index, probate cases are usually ordered by the date when the case was opened, which may be from a few weeks to a few years after a person's death.

Which Records to Copy.  The case file may be voluminous, so you usually don't want to copy the whole thing.  Here are the items that I like to copy:

a)  Appointment of the Executor or Administrator.  It's interesting to see which person is appointed, whether other people refused, or whether there was a legal fight over the appointment - all of these things can tell you a lot about family dynamics.  (In discussions of probate, there is usually a lot made of whether a person died testate [with a will], in which case an executor is appointed, or intestate [without a valid will], in which case an administrator is appointed, but this need not concern us here.)

Extract from Appointment of Cornelius K. Siemens Administrator, Gerhard Siemens probate file, probate case 154, Surrogate Court, Moose Jaw Judicial District, Saskatchewan.  Accessed at FamilySearch.org, database Saskatchewan, Probate Estate Files, 1887-1931, 9 Jun 2014.

 b)  Bond - In general an executor or administrator must put up a bond, commensurate with the size of the estate, as a guarantee that he will properly handle his responsibilities.  Usually, a will contains a provision that the executor need not put up a bond.  But there is no such provision to exempt the administrator of an intestate estate - since most Mennonites died intestate, the relative size of the bond can tell you a lot about the wealth of the deceased.  For example, when my great-great-grandmother Katharina Fast #51804 (1814-1890) died in Nebraska, the bond for her administrators was only $200, while the bonds for most other estates at that time in that county were $3000-6000.  This is a strong indication that she did not leave a large estate.

Extract from Administrator's bond for Henry Penner, Estate of Franz Penner and Catharine Penner, 28 February 1891, Case #247, Page 494, County Court files, York County, Nebraska, Courthouse, York.  Accessed on LDS film #2168519.

c) Will - Usually the only place you will find someone's will is in the probate file because family rarely keep a copy of a probated will.

Extract from Will of David D. Fast, 15 August 1967, Texas County, Oklahoma, Probate Records, Clerk of District Court, Courthouse, Guymon.

d)  Estate Inventory - There should be a listing of all the assets and liabilities owned by the estate, including valuations.  This can tell you about the socioeconomic status of the deceased and what kind of business or employment he had.  Sometimes an inventory has great detail and other times it is quite simple.

Extract from Estate inventory, C. K. Siemens probate, case no. 1466, filed 1950, Meade County, Kansas, Clerk of District Court, Courthouse, Meade.

e)  Determination of Descent - This should give you a list of all a person's children.  Take note if there are any documents relating to disputes about whether or not a person is an heir.  Note that in the list below the wife got only a one-third share (not one-half).  I think this happened because my great-grandfather had only recently moved from Manitoba, where there were Waisenamter, to Saskatchewan, where there were not; so he had not thought to make a will.

Determination of descent, Gerhard Siemens probate file, probate case 154, Surrogate Court, Moose Jaw Judicial District, Saskatchewan.  Accessed at FamilySearch.org, database Saskatchewan, Probate Estate Files, 1887-1931, 9 Jun 2014.

f)  Final Determination - This will be the document that shows how assets are divided among the heirs.  Take note if anyone doesn't get his expected share or if particular pieces of property goes to a particular person (instead of an equal share of money).

Extract from Final Account of Executors of Elizabeth Fast Estate, 5 November 1983, Texas County, Oklahoma, Probate Records, Clerk of District Court, Courthouse, Guymon.

Of course, keep an eye out for other documents of importance.  Also, note when the case was opened and when it was closed - this can tell you about the legal and business acumen of the executor and the complexity of the estate.

By now you should have learned a lot about the socioeconomic status of your ancestor and about the dynamics of his family.

Going to the Courthouse - Land Records - Case Study

Volumes of land records piled high on a counter in the vault in a county courthouse can be a monumentally boring thing.  Or they can bring a family history to life.  Let me give an example of how I found them to put flesh on the bones of my family's history.

By 1921, my grandfather David D. Fast #112786 (1884-1974) was 37 years old, single, and owned a section of good farm land near Hooker, Oklahoma.  On 28 February 1921, he borrowed $10,000 from C. H. Bailey of Hutchinson, Kansas, something that I found in the land records at the Texas County courthouse (Mortgage, D. D. Fast to C. H. Bailey, 28 February 1921, Texas County, Oklahoma, Deed Book 96:128, County Clerk's Office, Courthouse, Guymon).  When I showed the mortgage to my uncle, he said Grandpa used that money to buy new John Deere farm equipment; and here is a picture from a local history book showing my grandfather using that equipment to harvest wheat.

Source:  Hardesty History (Hardesty, Okla.: Hardesty Extension Homemakers Group, 1973) 2.

He never paid off the loan, instead paying the interest yearly and rolling it over in 1926.  By this time he was married with four children.  When the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl hit, he couldn't pay the mortgage; and on 4 August 1931, he sold his section of farm land, which included the family home to the same C. H. Bailey, apparently for a bargain price.  My dad had been born on 10 July 1931, less than a month before the family lost the farm, so it must have been an incredibly stressful time.  Here is a copy of the deed, which I found in the courthouse, when Grandpa had to sell his farm:

Warranty deed, D. D. & Elizabeth Fast to C. H. Bailey, 4 August 1931, Texas County, Oklahoma, Deed Book 170:366, County Clerk's Office, Courthouse, Guymon.

My grandfather lost the farm equipment as well, and the family moved about ten miles away to an old house near Hardesty, Oklahoma, built in the 1880s of blocks cut from soft chalk rock.  My oldest aunt remembers the family belongings piled into a horse-drawn wagon while the family drove their car to the "new" home, known as the Rock House.  The following years of the Great Depression were incredibly trying with four small children and another one on the way and not enough food or coal to heat with.

But my grandfather was an indomitable optimist, and he managed to save a few head of cattle out of the debacle.  He had always wanted to be a rancher instead of a farmer and had made a few attempts to get into ranching.  But now he had no choice since he needed to make a living and all he had left were a few cattle.  He rented some ranch land around the Rock House and eventually built up a good herd.  By the 1950s, he owned 680 acres of excellent ranch land and rented another 1320 acres.  At the age of 78 in 1962, when most men his age were retired or already dead, he built his dream home on his ranch. He lived in it another 12 years, until he died in 1974 at age 90.

Here is the deed, again from the courthouse, for the first 80 acres of land that he bought in 1947, the first time that he had owned real estate in 16 years:

Warranty deed, Minnie Binkley to D. D. & Elizabeth Fast, 27 May 1947, Texas County, Oklahoma, Deed Book 277:451, County Clerk's Office, Courthouse, Guymon.

 Why was it important to find the mortgages and deed in the courthouse?  My aunt had written up her recollections in an excellent family history, but she was a young girl at the time and didn't know many of the financial and business details.  When I showed them to her and to my uncle, it sparked memories of the farm equipment, the bill collectors, and the move to the Rock House.  Neither of them had known exactly why their father had lost the farm, the amount borrowed, the many years spent rolling over the loan without repaying it, and exactly when it had been foreclosed.  But combining documents and memories added to the family history that my aunt had already done.

Courthouse documents alone can be fashioned into an interesting story if you think what it must have been like to experience the events that they represent.  And adding memories and family histories to the mix can make it truly exciting.

3-Day Sale on Ancestry DNA

There is a 30% sale on Ancestry DNA through Monday, 28 November 2016.  Here is the US link sale on Ancestry DNA  and the Canadian one.

If you've thought about doing a test or stocking up to have several ready for when you meet a possible cousin, now might be the time.

Going to the Courthouse - Land Records

One of the most interesting things to research at a courthouse is the land records.  In the United States, land records are public; so they are made available for public inspection.  You can see and use the records for free, although you usually have to pay if you want copies.  Thus, anyone can walk into the courthouse during business hours and view them.

In the county clerk's office (the holder of the land records might be called something else in your state), you should tell them that you are doing family history research and when and where your family lived in the county.  Usually an employee in the clerk's office will briefly show you where the record books are and explain how they can be used.  There is not usually much hand-holding, although most employees are glad to answer a few questions; but they do have their own work to do and guiding researchers is not part of it.  Try to be a good citizen to smooth the way for future genealogists.

Typical shelves of deed books, from Renssellaer County, New York.  Source:  http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/reverter-clause-ties-up-sale-3785686.php

If you don't have a legal description of the land, then you should tell the employee where your family lived and ask them to show you on a map the township and range.  Or if you are looking for town lots, tell them the address, and they should show you where to look for those.

If you have a legal description, go to the tract book for that township and range.  Once you locate the township and range, then find the correct section.  Usually there is at least one page for each section.  Starting about the time your ancestor bought land, scan the list of grantors and grantees for the right name.  All types of transactions are listed together - warranty deeds, quit claim deeds, mineral leases and releases, mortgages and releases, etc.  Jot down the volume and page for the transactions that interest you.

Here is a snippet from a tract book from Texas County, Oklahoma.  Notice the section, township, and range numbers across the top.  Then there are columns for the grantor (seller, mortgagor, lessor, etc.) and grantee.  Next is an abbreviation for the type of instrument, such as WD for warranty deed and QCD for quit claim deed.  Next are columns with tick marks for each quarter-quarter this is involved in the transaction.  Finally, columns for the number of acres involved and most importantly the volume and page where you can find the recorded copy of the instrument.

Usually you can pull the books off the shelves yourself, but sometimes you have to ask an employee to get it for you.  You may have to ask about the organizational scheme of the books - sometimes they are shelved strictly by number but other times warranty deeds are together, mortgages are together, etc.  Sometimes the old books that are rarely used are in a vault somewhere.  When you find the instrument, enter all the data into your spreadsheet.  If you want a copy, ask an employee how it works and the cost.  They may make copies for you, or you may need to make them yourself.  Prices vary widely.  Digital photographs are usually forbidden.

Once you have all the transactions on the known tracts of land that your family owned, I like to check the grantor-grantee index to see if they owned land that I didn't know about.  This would also be the place to start if you don't know where they lived in the county.  This is an index for a period of years where all the transactions are indexed by last name.  So you might have a book for 1908-1920, 1921-1932, etc.  You should look in both the grantor and grantee sections in all the years that your family lived there.  It usually doesn't take too long because the book has many sections, for example, not just an F section but Fa, Fe, Fi, Fo, and Fu.  The grantor-grantee index is also called the direct-indirect index, with the direct portion being that indexed by grantor and the indirect by grantee.

Sometimes it may be hard to find the right tract of land.  My grandfather Cornelius K. Siemens #7529 (1884-1950) lived at Satanta, Kansas, with his family from 1916-1918.  When I went to the Haskell County courthouse, I knew approximately where they lived; so I searched in the tract book for that township but found nothing.  Then I went to the grantor-grantee index, but again I found so Siemens.  So I went back to the tract book and searched again.  Then it dawned on me - there was a Jacob L. Plett listed as an owner of half a section.  That was Cornelius' father-in-law!  Apparently, Jacob Plett had purchased two quarters, one for each of his daughters in the Kleine Gemeinde community there.  That was why there were no Siemens in the records.  But this added an interesting dimension to the family story that I had not known.

Before you leave the county clerk's office, you should do two things.  First, check that you have a purchase and a sale transaction for every piece of land that your family owned.  Do the same for mortgages and mineral leases if you are keeping track of those.  However, often if land is transferred to heirs by probate, an instrument is not recorded, so note those items to check for in the probate records that you are going to get.  Second, ask an employee if they have any other interesting records - this could include school records, cemetery records, city directories, and many other things.

Before leaving the county, I like to go see the land in person that my ancestors owned and take a picture of myself at the site.  It gives me an appreciation for the physical environment in which they lived.  If some or all of the original buildings are there, it is even more interesting.  I also try to go by the Mennonite church where they worshiped and the cemetery if family members are buried there.

By now you should have a good idea of the socioeconomic status of your ancestors from the land they owned.  You may also have gained some insight into family dynamics based on transfers of land between family members.  I hope you will find research on land record at county courthouses to be as valuable as I have.

Going to the Courthouse - Legal Land Descriptions Explained

Many people are intimidated by the Public Land Survey System, the section, township, and range designations, used in much of the US; but it is a very effective way to locate land.  Surveyors laid out baselines that run east and west and meridians that run north and south, and all land in a specific area is measured from these lines.  For example, in downstate Oklahoma, the land is measured east and west of the Indian Meridian and north and south of the 1870 baseline.  But in the Oklahoma panhandle, the Cimarron Meridian and 1881 baseline are used.

Source:  https://www.blm.gov/cadastral/meridians/oklahoma.htm

Then townships that are six miles square are laid out (see the "Township Grid" in the image below), so a township contains 36 square miles.  The township number indicates how many townships the tract is north or south of the baseline.  The range number indicates how many townships the tract is east or west of the meridian.

Next each township is broken down into one-square-mile tracts called sections, and there are 36 of them in a township (see the middle white diagram of a township below).  Sections are always numbered in the same way, starting in the northeast corner of the township and running west 1-2-3-etc.  Then the next row south is numbered from the west back to the east 7-8-9-etc.  This continues until you get to 36 in the southeast corner.  A section contains 640 acres.

Sections can be broken in quarters of 160 acres and quarter-quarters of 40 acres (see the bottom left diagram below).   So you could have the northwest quarter of Section 12 (NW4 Section 12) or the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter (NW4 SE4 of Section 18), for example.  Tracts could also be divided into halves, e.g. the west of the southwest quarter (W2 SW4).  And here is a specific example - one small piece of my grandfather's ranch in Oklahoma was the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 11, Township 2 North, Range 17 East of the Cimarron Meridian.  This would be abbreviated SW4 SE4 11-2N-17ECM.  The directional part of the township and range numbers (north/south and east/west) and the meridian name are often left out when it is obvious what they would be (SW4 SE4 11-2-17).

Here is a diagram that shows how the system works:

Source:  http://www.geocommunicator.gov/geocomm/lsis_home/home/lsis-plss-description.html

Land in Canada from Manitoba and provinces west is described by the Dominion Land Survey, which is very similar to the US Public Land Survey.  A couple of main differences are that sections are numbered from the southeast corner of the township, unlike in the US where they are numbered from the northeast corner.  Also, there one prime meridian in eastern Manitoba - land in Manitoba east of this meridian is ranges designated as "east."  All land west of this was in ranges designated "west."  Finally, townships were numbered starting from the south at the US border.  Farther north, surveyors ran baselines and the township numbering restarted at these baselines.  So the Canadian system is more a unified whole.

Next we'll discuss how to research land ownership at the courthouse.

Going to the Courthouse - Getting Ready

Most people dread going to the courthouse.  In the worst case, you could be going for a criminal trial.  But even going to pay your property taxes or renew your driver license is no fun.  But genealogists love going to the courthouse because it is a treasure trove of documents.

A random county courthouse from commons.wikimedia.org

My experience will be based on courthouses in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.  I suspect that most states west of the Mississippi are similar, but you should be aware that each state and even each county is different.

Preparation is key - there are lots of records to look at, so you will want to know what you're looking for.  First, have family group sheets ready for all your ancestors who lived there because you'll want to know all the family members and their birth, marriage, and death dates. 

Make sure you know what churches they attended and where they are (or might be) buried.

Check when they were naturalized as those records are often at the county courthouse.

Make a list of ancestors who died while resident in that county (not necessarily the place of death) and be ready to look for the probate of their estates.  Generally people who owned real estate went through probate, and even some people who only had personal property did so as well.

Next, look on the county website to see what records are available electronically.  I once went to the Fort Bend County, Texas, courthouse only to learn when I got there that they charged a dollar a page to print land records in the courthouse but that they could be printed for free if you accessed them online.  Other places charge a dollar a page online but a quarter in the courthouse, so you never know.

Determine as exactly as possible when and where your ancestors lived and owned land - the more precisely you know the location, the less time it will take to find their deed records.  If they were within city limits, try to get the street address.  If they lived in the country in state-land states (most of the states west of the Mississippi), you need the section, township, and range.  Or if you know how many miles they lived from a certain town, you can figure out the section, township, and range from maps at the courthouse.  The courthouse should have maps available to locate their property exactly if you know the address or the legal description.

I have an Excel spreadsheet for each couple where I write the land transactions they were involved in.  This way I don't forget any details, and I don't have to sort through chicken scratches in a notebook when I get home.  I've uploaded the template to Google Drive so that you can download it.

Look at the county website to see which departments have which records.  For instance, in Oklahoma the county clerk has the deed records, but in Kansas they are held by the register of deeds.  Check the department hours and holidays while you are on the website.  And then a day before you leave, give them a call to see if they will be open - if the county judge's funeral is the day you plan to go, your entire trip may be wasted.

In the next post, I will explain how legal descriptions work.

Another Mystery

Here's another mystery about the same Gerhard Abraham Fast #62896, my 3-greats-grandfather.  He was born in West Prussia about 1787, and moved to Molotschna Colony in 1817.  He appeared in the 1835 census in the village of Lichtfelde at farm #16 at age 48.

Gergard" Abragamov" Fast" household, 25 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Lichtfelde village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #16.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 333R-334.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

But then sometime in the 1840s, Gerhard Abraham's wife, Elisabeth Driedger #62897, appears as as the Widow Fast in the Alexanderwohl church membership list.  Below is a snippet from that church book, listing Abraham Sperling, Catharina Fast, and Widow Fast as members.  I'm sure it is she because the membership numbers show her as #251, the mother of Catharina Fast #250, who married Abraham Sperling #249, which fits the family information.  Moreover, there is only one Fast family in Lichtfelde at this time. So Gerhard Abraham must have died by this point.

Membership record of Abraham Sperling, Catarina Fast, and Witwe Fast, members 249-251, Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church, Alexanderwohl, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl, no page.  Accessed at http://mla.bethelks.edu/archives, microfilm chr_17, congregation #15, "Russian Book," frame 16 on 25 July 2013.

The 1847 Molotschna voter's list also shows her as Widow Fast in Lichtfelde.  Here is her line from the tabulation of the votes from Lichtfelde village:

Witwe Fast [Widow Fast] entry, 12 November 1847, Wahlliste der Dorfsgemeinde Lichtfelde [Election List for Lichtfelde Town Meeting], Lichtfelde village, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Fond 6, Inventory 2, File 10510, p. 47.  Accessed at Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Hillsboro, Kansas.

The line reads "Witwe Fast," which means Widow Fast, and then it shows the candidates for whom she voted for village mayor and district administrator.  Again, a record shows that she was a widow, which means that her husband Gerhard Abraham must be dead.

Now here is the mystery - in 1874 when he would have been 86 years old, Gerhard Abraham wrote a letter to his son Jacob, my great-great-grandfather to bid farewell to Jacob as he prepared to leave for America.  Here is the first page of the letter:

Letter, Gerhard Abraham Fast to Jacob Fast, 14 February 1874.  Copy held by Viola (Fast) Funk of Corn, Oklahoma.  A Fast cousin in Oregon sent a copy to Minnie Fast who sent a copy to David D. Fast.

Clearly the name Gerhard Fast has been added in another hand to the letter, but the content of the letter makes it clear that it was written by Gerhard Abraham Fast, who should have been dead for three decades at this point.  What is going on?

I have only one clue - a clue that I discovered in the Alexanderwohl church book.  Gerhard Abraham's son Gerhard was baptized at Alexanderwohl on 31 May 1843.

Baptism record of Gerhard Fast, 31 May 1843 O.S., Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church, Alexanderwohl, Molotschna Mennonite District, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, Russia, Kirchen Buch der Gemeinde zu Alexanderwohl, p. 90.  Accessed at http://mla.bethelks.edu/archives, microfilm chr_17, congregation #15, "Earliest Kansas List," frame 45.

If you read the columns from left to right, the first one is the baptismal candidate's name - Gerhard Fast.  Then the year of baptism - 1843.  Then the day - 31st - the month of May is omitted here, but it is in the page heading.  Then the candidate's father - Gerhard Fast - is listed.  Finally, his home village of Lichtfelde is given.  Then below that a line of explanatory comments.  First, Atest which refers to a letter of good standing given to transfer to another church, which means that Gerhard the son must have transferred to another congregation at some point.  Then under the father's name are two comments, gestorben and gekommen, which means "he died" and "he came." Gestorben is even crossed out.

Could this mean that Gerhard Abraham was thought dead for some time in the 1840s but then he returned?  This is the only explanation that I can think of that accounts for all the information. Did he leave on a trip to St. Petersburg or back to West Prussia and not return when expected?  Was he kidnapped and held against his will for some time?  It seems that such an event would have been noted in the Odessa archival files of the colony administration, but I haven't found anything yet.  Until I find more information this will remain a tantalizing mystery.

Family Mysteries

Have you run across events in your family history that you would like to know more about?  Things that intrigued you?  Something that made you ask why?

From the 1835 Molotschna census, I learned that my 3-greats-grandfather, Gerhard Abraham Fast (b. ABT 1787), lived at Ohrloff #25 in the Molotschna Colony in South Russia from 1817 to 1819 before he got a farm in Lichtfelde.  There was a whole list of men who lived at that farm for a few years, so I didn't pay much attention to it.  I didn't even bother looking at the previous page in the census to see how long the list of temporary residents was.

Here is the snippet of the census for Gerhard Abraham Fast:

Gergard" Abragamov" Fast" household, 28 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Ohrloff village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #25.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 222R-223.  Accessed on microfilm from California Mennonite Historical Society, Fresno, California.

Charcoal drawing of Cornies by Tobias Voth.

Then one day when reading a biography of Johann Cornies, the great Mennonite agriculturalist, entrepreneur, reformer, and administrator, I noticed that his farm number was
Ohrloff #25.  That seemed like a familiar number, so I looked through my database and quickly realized that my 3-greats-grandfather had lived there. When I looked at the 1835 census records again, I saw that Johann Cornies had owned the farm.















Here is a snippet from the census showing that Johann Johann Cornies was the owner of #25:

Iogan" Ioganov" Kornis" household, 28 February 1835, 8th Revision of Census of Russian Empire, Ohrloff village, Molochanskii Mennonistskii Okrug, Melitopol'skii Uezd, Tavricheskaia Guberniia, household #25.  Found in Odessa Region State Archives, Odessa, Ukraine, Peter J. Braun Collection, Fond 89, Inventory 1, File 357, p. 221R.  Digital copy from Tim Janzen, Portland, Oregon.

In fact, there were nine families or single men listed who had lived at #25 from 1816, when the last census had been taken, until 1835, and then moved on.  Presumably these nine were young men who worked for Cornies in his many enterprises and then moved on.  Cornies was concerned that young men should get a farm or learn a trade so that they could support themselves.  My 3-greats-grandfather was about 30 years old in 1817 when he had just arrived in Molotschna with his wife and two small children.  And Cornies organized the village of Lichtfelde, to which Gerhard Abraham Fast moved in 1819, as one of the original settlers, and picked the name for it.  So he must have been influential his Gerhard's life.

But I have many questions about this -
How did Cornies and my ancestor get connected?  Did they know each other from Prussia?  Or did they have common friends or relatives?  They did not attend the same church back in Prussia - Cornies went to Bärwalde while Gerhard when to Tiegenhagen.  I haven't been able to find a connection, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't one.

How did it affect my 3-greats-grandfather to work closely with Cornies?  Cornies was the type of person you either loved or hated  - there was no middle ground.  Did the two years on the Cornies farm turn Gerhard into an entrepreneur?  Or was two years all he could take and moved away?  Did Cornies' interest in German Pietism influence Gerhard's family and have something to do with several of them joining the Alexanderwohl church later?  Did my 3-greats-grandfather tell stories about Cornies the rest of his life?  Again, I have no answers, except that relations between the two men must have been sufficiently good that Gerhard took a farm in the new Lichtfelde village that Cornies was organizing.

There are lots of questions and not many answers.  But there is a picture of the Ohrloff #25 farm (many years later of course) where my 3-greats-grandparents lived for a couple of years when they first arrived in Russia:

Formerly Johann Cornies' farm in Ohrloff, Molotschna colony.  Originally from P. M. Friesen's history of Mennonites in Russia.