15 November 2007
The baby died at sea
The screen clips here are a little small, but parts are shown of two pages from the manifest of the Hermann, which arrived in New Orleans on 13 Oct 1857. The families of Herman and Ulfert Behrens are shown, along with their unmarried brother Claas. There is a notation on the entry for Heinrich Behrens that he died at sea (his entry is one of the last ones--with the lines drawn through it and with a comment in the last column). Clicking on one of the images will pull up a larger image.
This manifest is nice because it shows the last residence in Europe for the Behrens family--Ilowferehn--actually Ihlowfehn. Had I not known where they were from in Germany, this would have been a significant help.
Labels: behrens
20 February 2007
Probate mentioned in the Papers
A search of the online Quincy, Illinois, newspapers located this mention of my ancestor's estate in The Quincy Daily Whig of 14 Aug 1889. I already had seen the will, but there are a few things about this worth noting:
- in an earlier era, many newspapers published summaries of probate information--may be helpful if the courthouse can't find the record, burned, etc.
- more and more newspapers are being put online and can be searched via OCR. If I had not already had the probate information this would have been a neat way to locate it.
- if I did not have the probate information, I would want to contact the courthouse in order to locate it. This is only a summary of the information, the probate packet contains an inventory of the estate.
- Newspapers sometimes get things wrong--granddaughter Ricka Iders is actually Ricka Ideus.
I descend from three of the people mentioned: Ulfert Behrens, Trientje Satorius, and Ricka (Reka) Sartorius. Reka Satorius Janssen is my great-great-grandmother.
Labels: behrens, newspapers, sartorius, tips
