What I'm Working On...

I received responses from both the Schuyler county clerk’s office and the Crawford County, Iowa, recorder’s office.

Remarkably, the Schuyler county clerk and recorder’s office has no records of Charles and his brother Philetus’ land transactions in the 1850s and no record of the land being sold by presumably Eunice and Alanson when they moved on to Iowa in the 1870s. The Bureau of Land Management website has images of the original land patents, and I have a photocopy of an index to land purchases, so I know where the land was and when it was purchased. A little further research online suggests that these land records may be available on microfilm through the Family History Library. I have not found them online.

The folks at the Crawford County, Iowa, recorder’s office didn’t find any record of the death of Lafayette Swift. They did give me the name of a local researcher. I emailed him and he told me about the online newspapers available through the Dennison library website. I search and found no mention of his death. The Worths were not long-time members of the community. In fact, they moved quite often between leaving Illinois and finally planting roots in western Loup county, Nebraska in April 1884. It is possible there is another newspaper that would have carried the news of a 21 year old man’s death. I will keep looking, but I have a feeling this may remain a mystery.

Another question I would ask Grandma if I could: Do you know the circumstances of the deaths of John H. Swift and Lafayette Swift, your mother’s brothers? I bet she did, but I didn’t know to ask.