In the Weeds

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Great Blue Heron in the Weeds at a lake in SE Kansas
M. L. Haen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I recently found a legal suit while researching more distant Booth relatives, where some members of the family were suing other relatives. A bit more work found that often the defendants were their own siblings! Transcribing the lists of names was both tedious and disturbing, while thinking what happened? Why were they doing this?

While working through the first few transcription drafts, fixing spellings, adding in missing names, and double-checking numerous land descriptions, it reminded me of something similar found years ago. Fortunately there was an email about it to our Groups.io about that earlier case, with a transcription! 

Re-reading it was good luck: this notice stated, "the object and general nature of which is to try and determine the title to said land as between the parties, plaintiff and defendant," which I'm beginning to guess was similar in both cases. Both suits were in Missouri; the earlier (1918) in Mercer County; the later (1959) in Atchison County.

"In the weeds," is the phrase that came to mind—for my relatives and for me, the researcher. Searching the web for that phrase finds two meanings: feeling overwhelmed by too much work, and focusing on tiny details rather than the entire situation. Neither seems to fit as well as the image at the top, of a blue heron hunting.

Because that's what we do: hunt. We search through records created for various purposes, to tease out the details, to note the facts, the family, find and tell the story. Maybe I can find one or both court cases but even without that, the legal notices illuminate the legal system of the time, the community, and the families known and unknown connected to it.

For specific details, see the Mercer County research notes, and the Atchison County research notes. Feel free to download and/or comment in the Google Doc.


Future Plan

  • Find each plaintiff & defendant in FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT)
  • Tag each in my Ancestry.com tree
  • Add each to a "Network"
  • Add the story and transcription to a Wikitree (WT) "space page"
  • Link each person's WT profile to space page
  • Link each WT & FSFT profile


Please write us about interesting puzzles you have found while researching, and what you did with it.


Valorie Zimmerman

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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org





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