Hinrich Sartorius was born Ostfriesland, Germany, in 1837 and died in Adams County, Illinois, in 1912. He married Trientje Behrens in Golden, Adams County, Illinois, in the 1860s. Some things about research that I’ve learned from Hinrich:
- your beneficiaries can alter your will. Hinrich’s will gave one farm to one set of children and another farm to the others. One set would have received significantly more than the other after the properties were sold. They jointly petitioned the judge to give the property jointly to them all so they could equally divide the proceeds. The judge approved.
- initials are a pain. Hinrich’s 1880 census enumeration lists everyone in the household by their initials. Took me a while to find him.
- deaths at the state hospital are sometimes discreet. Hinrich died several counties away at the nearest state hospital where he had been sent a few weeks before he died. It is speculated that his health had deteriorated to the point where they could no longer take care of him. In 1912, this was not something the family would really mention or want to be common knowledge.
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