Zalewski Family Genealogy

February 9th

1898 – Died – Herman RATHKE – Herman is my 3rd-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born 23 Feb 1831 in Germany and immigrated with his family to Wisconsin in 1887. He passed away in Grafton, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin and is buried at Union Cemetery in Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin.

February 11th

1674 – Born – Petrus van CRAYBECK – Petrus is my 8th-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born in Kuringen, Belgium. He married Elisabeth BROUCKX in 1707. He passed away sometime before 1745 at Genk, Limburg, Belgium.

1867 – Married – Mathias Balthazar FIRMENICH & Paulina Henrietta THOMPSON – Mathias & Paulina are my 3rd-great-grandparents on my father’s side. They were married at Holland, Brown Co., Wisconsin and together had 13 children including my great-great-grandmother, Emma Jane FIRMENICH. Their marriage ended in 1910 when Paulina passed away.

February 12th

1779 – Died – Jean Claude MARIZOT – Jean Claude is my 7th-great-grandfather on my father’s side. He was born about 1720 in Contréglise, Haute-Saône, France. He married Thérèse DARD in 1751. He passed away at Contréglise, Haute-Saône, France.

February 13th

1811 – Married – Pierre-Jean QUINET & Marie-Françoise GRANGIER – Pierre and Marie are my 5th-great-grandparents on my father’s side. They were married at Menoux, Département de Haute-Saône (Franche-Comté), France and later immigrated to Wisconsin with their family. They had 9 children including my ancestor, Claude-Françoise (Francesca) QUINET. I am able to last track them to Fredonia, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin in the 1860 census and then I can no longer find them. I’m assuming they passed away are buried in the Ozaukee County area, but have yet to locate their headstones.

1899 – Died – Henry Peter THIELKE – Henry is my 3rd-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born October 1813 in Mecklenberg, Germany. He married Marie SPECHT sometime before 1840 in Germany. He and his family immigrated to Wisconsin and settled in the Grafton area. He passed away in Grafton, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin and is buried at Union Cemetery in Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin.

I wrote this for another site, so it may have more general genealogy info than I would have written if it was on this blog. But, you already know about all of this stuff.

As you know from other posts and podcasts, I do enjoy genealogy and the research that goes into unraveling my family tree. Last year, I came across a show on BBC Television in the UK called Who Do You Think You Are? I was able to watch most of the last (seventh) season and scattered other episodes from different seasons in the English and Australian versions via YouTube and other methods. (Since it’s only on British television and the DVDs are only Europe and UK region-coded, so I can’t watch them easily.) I have yet to watch an episode didn’t completely captivate me. Maybe it’s my love of Genealogy, or my love of hunting down a mystery, but the show grew on me.

Coming March 5 on NBC is the American version of this outstanding show. Here is the synopsis from the official NBC site:

“Who Do You Think You Are?” is an adaptation of the award-winning hit British television documentary series. The seven-episode program will lead celebrities on a journey of self-discovery as they unearth their family trees that reveal surprising, inspiring and even tragic stories that are often linked to crucial events in American history.

From the California Gold Rush to the Salem witch trials, from European aristocracy to the beaches of Africa, and from the Civil War to the Holocaust, “Who Do You Think You Are?” will reveal the fabric of humanity through everyone’s place in history. Each week, a different celebrity takes a journey into their family’s past, traveling all over the world. Viewers are given an in-depth look into their favorite stars’ family trees, and each episode will expose surprising facts and emotional encounters that will unlock people’s emotions — showing just how connected everyone is not only to the past, but to one another.

I know what you’re thinking, “Another celebrity reality show?” But, no, it’s nothing like that. There is no rehab or weight loss involved. Truth be told, this show could be about any random person in the world and I would still be very interested. Though, celebrities do bring a unique attraction to the show since it’s interesting to see where they came from and that most of their family histories parallel our own. It will be nice to watch the show with celebrities that I recognize. The UK and AU versions didn’t have as many celebrities that I knew besides people like Stephen Fry, Jeremy Clarkson, and Jerry Springer (born in England.)

“Why are you telling us this?”, you may ask. Mainly, I’m not sure how much marketing this show will get and I want everyone to give it a shot. People, including me, always complain about the crap on television and all of the useless reality shows that keep popping up. Well, this is fortunately not one of those shows. We need people to enjoy it and watch it to keep it on the air. We don’t want it to become the next Arrested Development.

Hopefully, besides enjoying the show, maybe it will get you interested in your own family tree. There is no time like the present to start researching your family history. Now is the time to talk to your more elder ancestors and collect the fascinating stories they may have. Take it from me, some of these stories and facts will fade along with these people, never to be found again. I sometimes wish I would have started just a year earlier in my research.

Below is NBC’s preview of the show. (If it’s not working, you can watch it here.)

Though, if you do get interested in genealogy, here are some great starting links and there is always my genealogy site.

• Ancestry.com’s Intro Page
• FamilySearch’s “How Do I Start?” page
• NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” site
• BBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” site

Here are some useful posts I’ve read this week.

• Elyse at Elyse’s Genealogy Blog talks about “Who Do You Think You Are?” coming on NBC in March and how important it is to get the word out.
• A guest post over at Mountain Genealogists talks about “Preservation and Interpretation of our Ancestor Stories.”
• At Digging Up Stones there is a good post about finally finding that document or piece of information you’ve been looking for. I know I’ve been there.
• Over at Stories of My Ancestors, they post about reaching outside of the box when looking for those elusive ancestors. A good idea for any researcher.

My first Treasure Chest Thursday. It seems like this will replace the “Tell Me Thursday” posts I used to do. I compressed that into Wordless Wednesday. I can’t guarantee I’ll have a post for every Thursday, but I’ll try.

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This is my great-grandfather, Joseph Zalewski’s, badge from when he was a Milwaukee Police Officer. He became a police officer on February 1, 1918 after returning from World War I. He served until he retired on September 21, 1951. In the recent collection of documents I received was a letter written to him from the Chief of Police about his resignation.

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I’ve decided to start putting the descriptions with my Wordless Wednesday posts instead of posting them the next day. I feel it’s sometimes confusing and more work to post the same thing twice rather than just saying it all on one day. I will still call it Wordless Wednesday, since that’s the name that everyone uses, but it will have words. Sue me.

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This is a photo of my great-great-grandother, Clara (Szulta) Troka and her two daughters, Francis & Emily. Emily is my great-grandmother who married Joseph Zalewski. Francis was better known as Sister Mary Clarentine when she joined the convent. There is no exact date written on this photo, but if I would have to guess I would say it was taken around 1910-1911 since Francis looks very young.

February 1st

1849 – Born – Ignatz Peter SZULTA – Ignatz is my 3rd-great-grandfather on my father’s side. New evidence that I found may actually move his birth date to January 30th. Recently, I had found that Ignatz was born in what is now Sulęczyno Parish, Kartuzy County, Pomorskie, Poland. He married Nepomuncena SYLDATK in 1875 and immigrated to Milwaukee. He passed away on 25 May 1922 in Milwaukee and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. Here is part of Ignatz’s birth record showing what looks like 30 Jan for his birth and 31 Jan as his christening.

February 4th

1903 – Born – Agnes Catherine BRAATZ – Agnes is my great-grandmother on my father’s side. She was born in Mellen, Ashland Co., Wisconsin to Frank & Margaret (STEARNS) BRAATZ. She married Maurice CORRIGAN in 1923 and had 5 children. I had the pleasure of knowing my great-grandmother, since she was alive for all of my childhood. She was my last great-grandparent to pass away when she died on 9 Apr 1998. She is buried with her husband at St. Agnes Cemetery in Ashland, Wisconsin.

No, not a last name, the name LAST. You should see how difficult it is to do any sort of search on this surname. Typing in “last surname” or just “last” into search engines usually gets me a lot more than I need. Sometimes it gives me “Did you mean ‘last name’?” It’s even tough on genealogy sites like Ancestry, since some records put in “Last” if the person’s surname was unknown.

The LAST surname first shows up in my tree from my great-grandmother on my maternal side, Madora Martha Louisa LAST, who married Arthur THIELKE. Madora was one of 16 children! She was the tenth child for Charles Carl LAST and Augusta Johanna LUEDTKE, born in Grafton, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin. Charles was born in Doeringshagen, Pommerania, which is located in present day Poland. His parents were Johann W G LAST (a Civil War veteran) and Charlotte STRASSMAN. Charles has immigrated to Wisconsin with his parents in 1857 and shows up in the 1860 Census in Wisconsin.

According Ancestry’s surname information page, LAST was most common in Wisconsin in 1880. Also, they note it to mean a metonymic occupational name for a porter, from Middle High German last; German Last or Yiddish last ‘burden’, ‘load’. A porter is more than likely someone who was in charge of a door or a gate (similar to a doorman.)

There are many LASTs in this area, most of which probably descend from Augusta & Charles and their 16 children. Augusta not only had 16 children, but she lived to be 100-years-old. Now comes the part when I need to research back in Poland.

I decided that a new theme was needed. The previous one was nice, but it has been falling behind in some things. The web moves fast. This one gives me more control over certain things and it listed to have been tested and working in the most common browsers (sadly, even IE6, which I wish would die already.) I’ll probably be making some minor changes and tweaks in the next few days, but I’m pretty happy with it already. It’s slick, simple, and it looks nice without taking you away from the content, which is king.