♀Rosina (surname unknown)

Rosina (living in 1737) lived in Lampeter Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, the yeoman Felix Landis. In the spring of 1737 she joined him in dividing his 400 acres on Mill Creek, and a month later his will left her a third of his estate. She was possibly the sixth great-grandmother of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through her son Felix Landis (died 1770).

The Mill Creek land and the will

Her surname and her family are not known. Felix had bought the Mill Creek land from the London Company in February 1718/19. On 25 and 26 March 1737 Felix and his wife Rosina divided the tract. They sold one half to John Pinkly of Lampeter Township for £100 5s and the other to the younger Felix Landis for £75. Rosina made her mark on both deeds.

A month later, on 29 April 1737, Felix made his will. He left “my Beloved Wife Rosina one full third part of all my Real and Personall Estate”, and divided the rest share and share alike between “my only Son Felix” and his daughters Anna, Barbara and Froneka. Rosina was most likely the mother of all four. Felix died before his will was proved at Lancaster on 29 December 1739 or 1740. When Rosina died is not known.

Notes

Her name and the records

Rosina is named in four records: the two deeds of 25 and 26 March 1737, known from published abstracts of Lancaster County Deed Book A, where she is “Rosanah”; her husband’s will of 29 April 1737, where she is “Rosina”; and a deed of 2 December 1747 (Deed Book B, pages 497 to 499), which recites the 1737 sale to the son and calls her “Rosannah”, without saying whether she was still living. An online family tree gives her the surname Weltner; no record of the time carries it.

Her children

No record names the mother of Felix’s children. The son Felix was of age by February 1729/30, when a Pennsylvania naturalization act listed him as “Felix Landas, Junior”, so he was born by about 1709. Rosina was Felix’s wife in 1737 and is taken to be the mother of the son and three daughters named in the will, but a first wife cannot be ruled out.