CategoriesMilwaukeeSaturday in the AtticZalewski

Saturday in the Attic

I was able to scan some neat stuff from my great-grandfather, Joseph Zalewski, that my dad had in his possession. Joseph was a Milwaukee Police Officer for 33 years.

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There was also a writeup after his retirement in 1951. (Sorry for the blurriness. It’s tough to scan since it’s taped to the back of a picture frame, so the reflection and angles made it hard to position.)

Joseph Zalewski

CategoriesCorriganFamily TreeIrishTell Me Thursday

Tell Me Thursday: Tom Corrigan Family

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From what I figured out, this is my great-great-grandfather Thomas CORRIGAN and his first wife Ellen FERGUSON (1854- abt 1890.) I had originally tabbed it as Thomas Corrigan and his second wife, my great-great-grandmother Emma Jane FIRMENICH. Then one day I looked closer at it and at Tom and Emma’s children and they didn’t seem to match up. It occurred to me that this was probably his first family since the kids line up pretty well with their ages. Tom was a busy man. He had 5 children with Ellen and then married my gg-grandmother and had 9 more.

The people in this photo (as far as I know) are: Ellen Ferguson and Thomas Corrigan in the back row. Joseph M. and William J. S. Corrigan (or vice versa) in the middle row. Mary Ellen, Agnes Alvina, and Thomas Francis Corrigan in the front row. This must be very close to Ellen’s death since little Thomas would only have been about 4 or 5 when that happened.

CategoriesGYRabbit Carnival

Mrs. Elizabeth Armstrong

We ran across this interesting inscription when we were searching for the headstones of my wife’s ancestors in Boscobel, Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of the front of the stone, just the back with the inscription. I can only assume it’s the headstone of Elizabeth Armstrong as is noted.

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I did some research on the event a found a few things. Google Book Search turned up a writeup on the subject mentioning Elizabeth Armstrong. I can usually include an excerpt into my blog, but this book won’t let me, so you can see it by visiting the book here.

There is also a writeup over at the Wisconsin Historical Society’s website:

The Indians kept a hot fire for two or three hours, while concealed behind the stumps or out-buildings. Capt. Stone’s company were mostly absent, and the fort numbered only some fifteen effective men. The women and children were panic-stricken, crying and wringing their hands. At this stage of affairs, Mrs. ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG, wife of JOHN ARMSTRONG, of Sand Prairie, in this county, finding the Fort but poorly supplied with balls, divided the women into parties; the first , who could load fire arms, constituting the first division; the second were to run bullets. Mrs. ARMSTRONG delivered to them a short effective address, telling them that it was but worse than folly to give up to fear in such an emergency as the present one – that they could expect no sympathy from the Indians, and to go to work immediately and do their best to save the Fort. They obeyed, and under her direction performed miracles.

You can view the full article here or read more about her during the Black Hawk War over at Wikipedia.

CategoriesCemeteriesTombstone Tuesday

Tombstone Tuesday: Olivine Laurent

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This week’s tombstone is that of my 3rd great-grandmother, Olivine Marie (St. Louis) Laurent. Olivine was born in Yamachiche, St. Maurice, Quebec, Canada in 1835 to Ephraim and Marie (Manseau) St. Louis. She married my 3rd great-grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Laurent in 1857 and then immigrated to Outagamie County, Wisconsin in 1860. Olivine was the first school teacher in Phlox, Wisconsin.  The school is now torn down.

I am grateful to the volunteer who took these photos for me via RAOGK a few years ago. I do plan on making a trip up north to visit this area. Many generations of my family from my maternal grandmother’s side lived and died up in the Outagamie and Langlade County area.

The headstone is located in St. Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery in Norwood, Langlade County, Wisconsin. I have uploaded the information to Find-a-Grave.

CategoriesWeekly HistoryZalewski

Weekly History

I’m going to steal this from Julie at GenBlog and post a recap of historical moments from select people in my family tree for the current week. It’s a neat idea and it will help me look through the names in my tree every week and maybe spur some research.

February 22

1890 – Died – William THOMPSON – William was my 3rd great-grandfather on my father’s side. He died in Wrightstown, Brown Co., Wisconsin

February 23

1893 – Born – Herman RATHKE – Herman was my 3rd great-grandather on my mother’s side. He was born in Germany.

February 25

1760 – Born – Charles Francois CLOUTIER – Charles was my 6th great-grandfather on mother’s side. He was born in Cap Saint Ignace, Quebec, Canada.

1883 – Married – Carl F H LAST married Augusta Johanna LUEDTKE in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin and went on (per my research) to have 16 children. Carl and Augusta are my great-great grandparents on my mother’s side.

February 27

1945 – Died – Marianna (Giersch) ZALEWSKI – Mary was my great-great aunt on my father’s side. She passed away in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Co., Wisconsin.

CategoriesSite

Kreativ with a “K”

Seems I’ve been tagged with the KreativBlogger award by Julie at GenBlog. Thank you very much.

Award

I guess I’m supposed to tag 5 others according to the rules. I’m hoping I can find 5 bloggers that can be tagged. I usually get caught at the end of these, which I’m used to since it comes with having a “Z” surname.

Rules

  1. Copy the award to your site.
  2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
  3. Nominate 5 other bloggers.
  4. Link to those sites on your blog.
  5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominate.

And the award goes to…

CategoriesMilwaukeePolishTell Me ThursdayZalewski

Tell Me Thursday

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Wordless Wednesday’s Photo is labeled “trokas&szultas” in my list. Unfortunately, when I first scanned a few photos from my grandmother, I didn’t label them very well. Though, it was probably labeled something like that in the album itself. There are only two people I think I can pick out. My great-grandfather, Joseph Zalewski, in the middle of the back row and my great-great-grandmother, Clara (Szulta) Troka, third from the left in the middle row. I’m hoping to meet with my grandma and maybe go over some of these photos and see if she knows who they may be.

CategoriesNon-Genealogy

We Own You

I’ve been reading about this change to Facebook’s Terms of Use since I first read it on Mashable. I agree that their change was a bit “extreme” and I hope they fix the wording. But, I’ve seen people freak out due to the another part of their Terms of Use that says Facebook has the right to publish, re-use and distribute your content once you upload it. Truthfully, that isn’t really any different than most websites you probably use on a daily basis. For example, Google’s Blogger (home to Blogspot.com) says this in their terms of use:

“By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services.”

You see the same sort of stuff on Yahoo, too. It’s a basic “cover all bases” clause that allows them to publicly print your information on their services. I agree that it’s not “we’ll keep your data forever and use it however we like” but it’s still your standard terms of use. Google does own a lot of other sites which fall under “Google services.” Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been using computers since I was a wee lad and have been using the Internet since I was 14 or 15 and we had to use Lynx to browse the “World Wide Web.” Plus, we had to dial-up to the Internet on our 2400-baud modems, both ways, in the snow…oh wait, I got off-track there. To me, the standard Terms of Use are pretty..well..standard. I only upload/share information that I expect to be shared around. I also can’t stop someone else from uploading a photo of me, which then completely stops me from removing it.

I’m definitely not backing Facebook and their new (now defunct) Terms of Use, since it was a bit out of the ordinary, but I’m also not going to delete my account there. I do think these sites should take a more open approach to their terms, but I think some people need to look around at all of the sites they use before coming to a final conclusion.

CategoriesTombstone Tuesday

Tombstone Tuesday: Lonely Cross

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I run across these types of grave markers a lot in the southeastern Wisconsin area. Most of them are almost impossible to read after the wear and tear of the weather. This particular one is hard to read even without the spooky lighting that my camera captured. I’ve rarely seem markers like this that were readable, but I have seen them. They usually just list the persons name and year of birth and death. I’m assuming that these may be the “default” markers that are given to people that couldn’t afford a full headstone or were without family.