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Archiver > ILHAMILT > 2001-02 > 0982620252


From: Cordah Elizabeth Robinson <>
Subject: [ILHAMILT-L] children/no children; heirs/no heirs
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 17:04:12 -0500 (EST)


All,

Recently I received some probate records from Bobbi Oxford in Hamilton
County. They were very interesting, dating in the late 1850s and early
1860s. Naturally, no question is answered without twenty more questions
surfacing.

In a document listing the estate of the deceased Allen MUNSELL, (the elder
brother), one of his younger siblings (Richard) was named administrator
In the documents, it referred to the fact that there was no widow. The
heirs mentioned were "thirteen heirs". This is the exact number of his
living siblings. To our knowledge, Allen never married and had no
children. A "typo"?

In another document, Rebecca MUNSELL transfered administrator duties
of her deceased husband's estate (Harry MUNSELL) to the Harry's brother
Richard, stating the children were minors. As far as we can tell from
family information, and as far as we can tell from the other probate
records, there were no children from this marriage. Was the reference to
minor children an error - a sort of "typo"? The heirs actually listed by
name were "Major" siblings and "Minor" siblings (over and under 21 of
course and all listed by name), including "the heirs of Allen MUNSELL"
(Allen was an older brother of the deceased Harry, and these supposed
heirs were not listed by name). Allen had no wife and no children as
far as we know. Another "typo"?

Have any of you had similar inconsistencies in such documents (I'm sure
they abound!)? Would you recommend going with known information, or
trying to pursue these anomalies, or what? I really think they are the
ante-bellum version of bureaucratic typos... you know, sort of "standard
language" in such documents that no one caught and corrected at the time.
But what do you all think?

I would like to get these docs online at some point - there are oh-so-many
Hamilton County names, including many mentions of Flanagan and
Biggerstaff. I would just scan them and put them online as images, but the
photocopying was none too good, and to be searchable, it should go up as a
text file. I'll do it eventually.

Thanks in advance. It was because of this great list that I got enough
info to be able to write Bobbi Oxford in McLeansboro for the documents. It
took a long time (were listed under MUNDELL not MUNSELL), but it was just
great getting them!

Cordah
researching gr3grandfather Ira MUNSELL b 1790 somewhere in VT

Cordah Elizabeth Robinson
ISS/UITS Teaching and Learning Technologies Lab
IU-Bloomington Ballantine Hall 307 855.7829
http://www.indiana.edu/~tltl/

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