Tonjes Jurgen Ehmen’s Will, His Wife, and Ancestry.com’s Index

A search of the “probate database” on Ancestry.com resulted in a reference to Tonjes Ehmen in Adams County, Illinois. That reference was to an executor’s bond made out in the initial process of settling his estate during the end of the Civil War. On 17 May 1864, Anton J. Sievers made out a bond as the executor of the Will of Tonjes Ehmen in an Adams County Court (Adams County, Illinois, Executor’s Bonds, Vol. 5, page 376).

There was no index entry on Ancestry.com referencing a will for Tonjes. If there was an executor’s bond for Tonjes’ will, there should have been a will. Instead of using the search box to query the “probate database” at Ancestry.com, I decided to manually search for the will in the will record. The wills should have been recorded in the order they were proved (not the order in which they were signed) and finding the section of the will record book from May of 1864 should not have been too difficult.

And it wasn’t.

There it was.

Tonjes signed his will as Tonjes Jurgens Ehmen. That’s part of the problem. The will book entry for his will is index at Ancestry.com as Tonjes Jurgens, which is why it was not located with a search of the database. I could have easily found the reference if I had searched for entries with only a first name of Tonjes.

The indexer simply dropped the last name from the index reference.

There’s at least one slightly unusual item in Tonjes’ will.

The will is interesting in how Tonjes’ wife is referenced. He indicated in his will that she was in Germany and that she had received property on a “separate division.” He ehmenwill also gave his wife one hundred dollars “provided that she may call for it.” The money was to go to his children if she did not. It is not known at this point just what the “separate division” refers to. Obviously the couple was not divorce as Schwantje is styled as his wife. A search of court records (for a case of separate maintenance) and land records (for possible quit claim deeds between the couple) is warranted.