What does the colon mean in "Fred : W. Wedekind" in the Grantee area of a land deed?

Doris Castleton

samshicat

What's the batch code so we can take a look at it? The code is in brackets at the end of the title of the batch.

maryellenstevensbarnes1

It's probably/possibly the name of the Grantee --- Fred. W. Wedekind -- I'd check the handwriting again for spelling

Doris Castleton

Thank you. I just wondered if Fred could have a brother W. Wedekind, which means I would need to do 2 separate entries, one for Fred and wone for W. Wedekind. What do you think?

Doris Castleton

US, Illinois, Monroe County—Deed Records, 1816–1900[M3JV-MMK] 6th and 8th grantee entries. I couldn't seem to go on last night without knowing if that colon meant something about how to do the entry (vs. just if it was written Fred W. Wedekind. None of my google searches brought up any information that was helpful. I've seen it before and ignored it, but now I am reviewing and feel responsible to make sure I do it right. Thank you so much.

Doris Castleton

P.S. I also had one more question, but the rules answer it--but it's hard to obey the rule when I think I see a better answer: in the same Monroe Cty deed rcds, #4 grantee entry gives the name (as spelled) Francis Krby, but below in entry #5 (as grantor) the name is spelled Francis Kirby. I want to write Kirby in both entries, but the rule says to spell as seen, so I wrote it as Krby in #4 and Kirby in #5. Is that best?

Ksalers

I would index this name as Fred W Wedekind. The ( : ) could mean they shortened his name from Frederick. Which we shouldn't index as Frederick, we type what we see. If you look down at #16 and #23 the recorder has added the and symbol. So we can conclude that if Fred had a brother, W, then this recorder would have put an and symbol to indicate there were two individuals. :)

Also, you are correct in typing what you see. So I would definitely keep the name for #4 as Krby and #5 as Kirby.

John Empoliti

Good reasoning, @Ksalers N regarding the clerk’s use of the & or + to indicate two Grantees with the same last name in that cramped space when he meant that.

Also, the batch is not available anymore, but I remember looking for and finding other examples of that clerk’s use of the colon in the Grantor column, including at least one example where it was used twice, e.g. A : B : C. I don’t recall the A in that case, but the B was a name and the C was “atty” or “by atty.”. So the colon probably was a personal form of demarcation or other alert/ shortcut that the clerk may have used for a variety of reasons. In this case, perhaps meaning “Fred aka W Wedekind,” or maybe “W Wedekind, who goes by Fred.” In any case, I agree that typing what you saw (without the colon) was the most reasonable action as others have said.

Doris Castleton

Thank you to all in the community who reached out to answer my questions. It's helping me learn more quickly. Thanks again. Sister Castleton