Sorting Land Transactions by Date

When I go to a courthouse to do land research, I make spreadsheet of the land transactions that I find for each couple to summarize the information that I find.  Here's the link to a sample spreadsheet.  I feel it's important to sort the transactions by effective date - sometimes you see connections between transactions this way.

(Note that the effective date, the date that the document was signed, may differ significantly from the recording or filing date.  Occasionally someone delayed taking the deed to the courthouse for a long time.  The effective date is when the transfer of ownership and money actually happened - not the date when it was recorded in the courthouse to inform the public.)

When my great-grandfather Heinrich Reimer #317342 (1856-1923) moved from Jansen, Nebr., to Meade, Kans., in September 1908, he sold his land in Nebraska and bought land in Kansas.  Some of the transactions line up neatly.  For example:

• He sold 80 acres in Nebraska for $5000 on 27 May 1908.  
• Then he proceeded to buy 160 acres in Kansas for $4500 on 22 August 1908
• And he bought another 80 acres in Kansas on 20 October 1908 for $2000.  

It seems very likely that his sale of land in Nebraska for $5000 funded a large part of his purchase of land in Kansas for $6500.  He didn't buy all of his Kansas land with the proceeds from sales in Nebraska, but there are several tracts that he bought this way.  Since I sorted the transactions by date (instead of grouping the Nebraska and Kansas transactions separately), it's easy to see which transactions occurred close together.

In another example, my great-grandfather Jacob Suderman #319370 (1856-1906) and his family moved from Buhler, Kans., to Fairchilds, Tex., in 1898.

• In preparation for the move, he bought 334 acres in Texas for $3343 on 1 December 1897, using a lien from the seller for the purchase.  
• But he paid that lien in full by 18 August 1898.  
• Then he sold his Kansas land three weeks later on 8 September 1898 for $5700.  

Obviously, he didn't need the proceeds from his Kansas sale to pay the lien on his newly-purchased Texas land.  Based on this sequence of events and on other things (property tax records and his obituary), it is clear that he was a moderately wealthy man.  But I might have missed this small but significant detail if I hadn't sorted the land transactions by date.

Deeds of Sale May Give More Information

Sometimes when you are doing land research in the courthouse, you may run across a deed with your ancestor's name but you're not sure if this is your ancestor or a person of the same name.  This situation usually occurs when you are searching the grantor-grantee (or direct-indirect) indices and find a tract of land that you didn't know that your ancestor owned.

Here is an example.  I found a tract of land in Jefferson County, Nebr., where my great-grandfather Heinrich F. Reimer #317342 lived.  It was purchased by "Henry Reimer," but this piece of land was several miles from where he lived, so I wasn't sure if it was he or another Henry Reimer.  Here is a scan of the grantor-grantee information:

Warranty Deed, Sarah J. & Abr. F. Rempel to Henry & Katharina Reimer, 6 June 1903, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Deed Book 29:636, Register of Deeds, County Courthouse, Fairbury.

But if I check the tract index at the courthouse, I can find where "Henry Reimer" sold this piece of land.  In many, if not all, states, the sales deed shows the wife's name as well as the husband's.  This is because in most states a married couple owned property jointly if it was acquired while they were married.  So the wife would need to agree to sell her interest as well.  Here is the sales deed:

Warranty Deed, Henry & Katharina Reimer to Frank L. Rain, 27 May 1908, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Deed Book 37:431, Register of Deeds, County Courthouse, Fairbury.

The same tract of land was next sold by "Henry Reimer and Katharina Reimer, husband and wife."  BINGO!  My great-grandmother's name was Katharina, so the sales deed shows that the purchase is his.  For some reason, he bought eighty acres of land some distance from his farm and home.

Another time, I found a tract of land purchased by Katharina Fast in McPherson Co., Kans.  I knew that my great-grandmother Katharina (Penner) Fast #86813 (1852-1940) had actually lived in that section, so without question I believed it was she.  But many years later when I decided to go back to the county courthouse, I found that that tract was sold in the 1950s by a Katharina Fast living in California.  Since my great-grandmother died in 1940 and never lived in California, I realized that she was not the seller and therefore not the buyer and that I had made a faulty assumption.  Then I found a deed where her daughter Minnie Fast, my great-aunt, actually bought a nearby tract of land in that section.  So my great-grandmother never actually owned land there.  But again it was the sales deed that gave me the clue I needed.

Thanks

Just wanted to add my thanks to Glenn Penner, Conrad Stoesz, and Bruce Wiebe for consulting with me and giving really helpful details of Mennonite inheritance practices in the previous post.  I forgot to mention them.

Inheritance Anomalies

Mennonites have practiced Flemish inheritance customs since at least the 1700s, and probably before that; so when an inheritance doesn't follow the pattern, it's a big deal.

My great-great-grandmother Katharina Bergmann #7126 (1834-1916) lost her first husband, Johann Barkmann, in 1879 in Nebraska.  Within a couple years, she re-married to her brother-in-law, Martin Barkmann #3982 (1821-1894), who had also lost a couple wives.  Katharina had 80 acres of land; while Martin was a moderately wealthy man because he owned the land where Jansen, Nebr., was established in 1886.  When they got married, according to Flemish/Mennonite custom, both owned all of their property equally, regardless of who owned it before they were married.

Key Facts - Katharina had surviving children from her first marriage, but Martin had no surviving children or grandchildren from his two marriages.  He did have siblings, however.

In 1892, when Martin was 70 years old, he made a will, which would leave his wife $700 if she survived him and the rest of his estate to his siblings.  I found that will in Martin's probate file at the Jefferson Co., Nebr., courthouse.  Here is the first paragraph of the will:

Will of Martin Barkman, 20 July 1892, Probate file #251, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Clerk of the County Court, Fairbury, Courthouse.

According to Mennonite custom, after he died in 1894, his wife Katharina would keep half of their property (both of "her" 80 acres and "his" land and a substantial amount of money).  The other half would go first to his children by blood while Katharina's children (i.e. his step-children) would get nothing.

But he had no living descendants, so then his siblings would equally divide Martin's half of all their property.  Three of Martin's siblings had already died before Martin died in 1894; but since they had children, these children (Martin's nephews and nieces) would divide their parents' shares.

What actually happened was the following: 
1) Katharina kept "her" 80 acres of land - According to Mennonite custom, Martin's siblings should have gotten half of this since that land was owned jointly and since they were Martin's heirs.  But the will said nothing about what to do with "Katharina's" property.
2)  Katharina got $700 in cash - Again, according to custom, Katharina should have gotten half of "his" cash and other financial assets.
3)  Martin's eight siblings each got a one-eighth share of "his" land and other assets - They should have gotten an eighth share of half of "his" land and other assets.

Everything was done legally because Martin had made a will.  But when he made the will, he was deliberately violating centuries of Mennonite custom.  Clearly, Martin intended to manage their assets separately, even though this violated the Mennonite concept of marriage and property.  I don't know if Katharina agreed with this or not.  I've found unsourced grumbling from "the church" about their marriage not being proper, and I wonder if it was because he did not share his material assets equally with his wife.  Violating custom in this way showed that he did not accept Mennonite teaching on a very important matter.

On another note - one nice thing about his will is that it contained their signatures.

I don't have many, if any, signatures of my great-great-grandmothers; so it is special to have her signature, even if it was from a document that cheated her out of part of her inheritance.

Evidence for a Father - In a Surprising Place

Several months ago I wrote about my surprise when I found that my great-great-grandmother Katharina Bergmann's #7126 (1834-1916) father was listed as Jacob Barkman on her death certificate.  I described how I weighed the evidence and concluded that her death certificate was probably wrong and that her father was really Peter Peter Bergmann.  But I still had some doubts.

I found some evidence about her maiden name, and thus the surname of her father in a surprising place - the land records in the Jefferson County, Nebr., courthouse.  Katharina was widowed twice, when her first husband and my great-great-grandfather Johann Barkmann died in 1879 and again when her second husband Martin Barkmann died in 1894.  And each time while she was a widow, she conducted land transactions using the surname Bergmann.  In contrast, she used her married surname of Barkmann each time she was involved in a land transaction while she was married, so this is evidence of her maiden name.

A few weeks after her first husband Johann died, she used the surname Bergmann when she bought eighty acres of land that adjoined their home place.

Source:  Warranty Deed, Peter & Anganetha Heidebrecht to Katharina Bergmann, 4 November 1879, Fairbury, Nebraska, Deed Book P:202, Register of Deeds, Courthouse, Fairbury.

Her first name is cut off because it was in the crease of the deed book, but her last name is clear - "Bergmann."

After she was widowed a second time, she sold seventy-seven acres of land to her son-in-law Klaas R. Friesen and used the surname Bergmann.

Source:  Warranty Deed, Katharina Bergmann to Klaas R. Friesen, 27 March 1899, Jefferson County, Nebraska, Deed Book 25:165, Register of Deeds, County Courthouse, Fairbury.

She didn't use the surname "Bergmann" consistently - on two other deeds as a widow she used the surname "Barkmann."  But I think it's unlikely she would have used the name of Bergmann at all if it weren't her maiden name.

This is another good piece of evidence that her father's surname was Bergmann and not Barkmann.  When I analyzed her death certificate earlier, I felt that the evidence, while contradictory, was stronger that her father was Peter Peter Bergmann and not the Jacob Barkman listed on the death certificate.  Now the evidence is even stronger for Peter Peter Bergmann being her father.  And I certainly didn't expect to find it in the land records of Jefferson County, Nebr.

Collecting all the documents you can find and thinking about the implications of each one is crucial for doing good genealogy research.

Getting Out of the Doldrums

I've been in the genealogical doldrums lately.  I had an enjoyable time working on my Fast 1776 census project that I summarized here.  I made of lot of progress on other Fast families that so far are not connected to my own, but it also wore me out.  Thus, I haven't posted for quite a while.

I decided the best way to get out of my genealogical doldrums would be to do a fun project that would likely yield some good results.  I haven't researched my Reimer family (maternal grandmother's family), who lived at Jansen, Nebr., so I decided to make a trip to the Jefferson County courthouse.  And it proved to be just what I needed.

Just seeing the beautiful and unique Jefferson County courthouse would be enough to get any person out of the doldrums.

Source:  Wikipedia

I decided to focus on land and probate records because my great-grandfather Heinrich F. Reimer #317342 (1856-1923) had gone from being a simple farmer who owned 120 acres of farmland in 1900 (per 1900 Jefferson County plat map) to a man who gave two quarters of farmland to each of his eight children (2560 acres total) by the time he died in 1923.  Clearly there is an interesting story here.

I also wanted to find the probate for my great-great-grandfather Johann Barkmann #317873 (1827-1879).  He died of typhoid fever in Jefferson County, Nebr., only a year after arriving from Russia.   I knew very little about what he did after he arrived in America, so I thought that his probate file might answer some of those questions.

I'll share the results of my trip in following posts.