This Week in Frick-Heckman History

George Farrell's original Pennsylvania death certificate records that he was born in Philadelphia on 25 September 1850. He died there on 8 November 1915, lived at 1519 North 13th Street, and was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery. His daughter Elizabeth Webb supplied the information, but did not know the names of George's parents.

George married Anna or Hannah Seitzinger about 1872. The exact church marriage remains missing, but the 1880 census places George and Hannah together at 747 Howard Street in Philadelphia. Their daughter Elizabeth Stewart Farrell's 1879 Methodist baptism also names George and Hannah. The 1900 census reports twenty-eight years of marriage and includes daughter Mary S. Farrell.

This family required a significant correction. The inherited GEDCOM had merged Mary with an unrelated William and Rosie Farrell household. Mary's death certificate names her mother as Hannah Sightsinger, a phonetic form of Seitzinger, and the correctly matched 1880 and 1900 households identify George and Hannah as her parents. William and Rosie are excluded from Kathi's direct line.

George's certificate contains no middle initial. Records that call him George N., W., or K. Farrell are retained only as search variants until a document establishes a middle name. His unknown parents and missing marriage record remain open research targets.

On 26 September 1747, Johannes Landis of Lower Milford Township, Bucks County, made his last will in German. The document identifies his wife Ann, his sons Samuel and Jacob, and his brother-in-law and executor Jacob Musselman. The estate accounting later divided the residue among nine children.

Johannes directed that Samuel, his son, would receive the 125-acre homestead for a stated payment of 150 pounds. The widow Ann Landis, Samuel's mother, was to receive the bed and bedstead, two cows of her choice, a horse called Paul, three sheep, one-third of the estate, rooms in the house, and use of the still kettle during her widowhood. The provisions offer an unusually personal view of the household and the security Johannes intended for his wife.

Although Johannes lived in Bucks County, the will was handled in Philadelphia. It was entered in Philadelphia Will Book 1, page 397, with original papers numbered 255. A published family study reports that the estate inventory was taken on 12 April 1748, placing Johannes's death after the will date and before that inventory.

The surviving images are high-resolution scans of a photocopy supplied by the Philadelphia Register of Wills from the original German will. The parchment had split along old folds and was later repaired with transparent tape. Portions of pages 1 and 2 were repositioned incorrectly during that repair, and tape obscures some words. The later red annotations identify proposed readings and are not part of the original document.

This will also corrects an earlier family-tree error. The Johan Landis who arrived aboard the Pink Plaisance on 21 September 1732 became associated with Ephrata in Lancaster County. Kathi's Johannes was already connected with Bucks County by 1730. The ship passenger was a different man and is excluded from this lineage.