A kind-hearted soul on the Alsace-Lorraine mailing list I joined scanned and sent me images for several legal documents relating to my Robitzer ancestors. From what he told me of them, and from what I can gather from my Google Translate rendition of his transcription, Margaret Robitzer inherited some land from her father when he died in 1875. She worked through agents in Pennsylvania, where she was living at the time, and sold the land. It shows me that she stayed in touch with her family back in France, since they were able to find her, communicate her father's death and her inheritance, and that she was able to sell off the land through the help of her family and agents there.
The best part of all? Margaret and her husband George Wachter both signed the document!!!
I love getting signatures, even if it's just them leaving an X, because it means you're seeing something they physically put their hand to. It really drives home that these were real people, and that at this moment in their lives, they were doing something I've done countless times as well - signing their names.
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