Putting Together the Jonas Family, Through Probate Records
In September, I was lucky enough to be able to go through the probate record of William Jonas, my great-great uncle. For the past year, I have been working on this family line which I had two goals for:
- Find the missing child, according to many records Mary and Wilhelm had 14 children, I can only account for 13 of them.
- See if my family connects with the Johann Jonas family.
Using the probate record, I finally have the missing child. But, I am still working on goal number two.
William Jonas has a probate record because he was hit by a Chicago Railway System train and the family received $250 after his death. Once all the bills and the attorney were paid, the family members received $15.38 each. Does not seem like a lot of money when you look at it. This poor, young man, who was 18 was killed by the train and the family members receive $15.38 per person for their loss. Well, lets put that in perspective. It cost the family $40 to bury him, nothing like what the costs would be today.
Anyhow, within the probate records was the sworn testimony of William Jonas (young William’s father) and he has to answer questions pertaining to each child. This week, I plan to take the information that I obtained from the testimony and put together a new family tree to see how it differs from what I have found already. From what I have read, it seems like there might be some discrepancies with the ages of the children.
Note that photo above is not of William’s probate record, I do plan to share the one I took in an upcoming post. Make sure to check back as I chronicle the process I go through using William’s probate records.
