Heartland Genealogy

A Kansas Deed with a Massachusetts Connection Have you ever looked at a deed and wondered why someone living hundreds of miles away was selling land to your ancestor? That is exactly the question raised by an 1899 deed involving my MENTZER family. The deed, recorded in Woodson County, Kansas, Deed Record 31, page 433 , documents the sale of 160 acres to Fred Mentzer . At first glance, it appears to be a fairly routine land transaction. But the residence of the seller—and a family biography—turn this deed into a much more interesting piece of the Mentzer story. The 1899 Deed On 8 February 1899 , George W. Allen , a widower of Northborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts , sold land to Fred Mentzer of Yates Center, Woodson County, Kansas , for $3,200 . The property was described as: The South East Quarter (¼) of Section Thirty-Six (36) in Township Twenty-Four (24) South of Range Fourteen (14) East That description represents a quarter section, or appr...

When the Right Surname Leads to the Wrong Family Genealogists accumulate interesting things in their files. Sometimes those treasures are exactly what we need. And sometimes… they are not. While digging through one of my Wells folders recently, I found a photocopy from Genealogy of the Wells Family and Families Related by Gertrude W. Wells-Cushing. The copied pages focus on Thomas Wells of England and Ipswich, Massachusetts , beginning with a discussion of the Wells family’s English origins and continuing with descendants of Deacon Thomas Wells and his wife Abigail Warner. At some point in the past, I clearly thought this might relate to my Wells line. Why else would I have spent money making photocopies? Today, of course, the original book is readily available online , but when this photocopy was made, access to genealogy books often required a trip to a library, correspondence with another researcher, or time at a Family History Center feeding coins into...