Jennie M. Swetland, plat hustler

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"Here is just a follow-up on the criminal that may have stolen the pages and plat maps out of book B. There is no known proof that she also committed this crime, it was just speculated at that time." - submitted by James T. Faasen, 8 Dec 2024 This is a good example of historical research, where 1 bit of information can be worked into 2 bits, then 4, then 8, and so on. 1) A news article found on Newspapers.com mentioned Saugatuck had a missing plat map but provided little details. 2) The date of that article was used to look at the front pages of the Commercial Record around that time to find a related story that provided the name of Miss Jennie M. Swetland, who had an uncle, Perry Sherman. 3) Searching for Jennie M. Swetland found records of her conviction, but no data on her age or any info on her living in Kalamazoo. However, information was found on a Jennie Swetland in Washington D. C., but there is no way to link the two. 4) Using her name as a keyword, another uncle, William G. Kirby’s name was obtained. 5) Searching ancestry.com and FindAGrave.com, it was discovered that Kirby’s wife, Rhoda (Swetland) Kirby had a half-brother named Perry Sherman. 6) Researching Rhoda Swetland through wills, it was learned she had a brother named Silas H. Swetland 7) Researching Silas H. Swetland found he had a wife, Mary (Mott) Swetland, and a daughter, Jennie M. Swetland, who lived in Washington D. C. 8) Using the newspaper archive site FultonHistory.com, an article was found that established that Miss Jennie M. Swetland of Washington D.C. was the same young woman charged with forgery in Kalamazoo 9) Using FamilySearch.org, it was established that Hattie Jean Mott Sweatband was married in Wisconsin in 1892 and that her parents were Silas H. Swetland and Mary Mott. 10) Census records from 1900 to 1930 establish that she was not opposed to fudging facts about her age or background. She kept shaving years off her age to the point even her age at death was off by 2 years, and she was not buried in the same cemetery as her much younger husband. That’s how you paint a picture. However, whether she also stole the missing 200 pages out of Book B has yet to be determined. She is just the prime suspect in that matter.