Though, while looking through their wiki pages on the records, I did happen to somehow find my way over to the Digital Archives: State Regional Archives Trebon. According to their site, “users can research digitalized materials of State Regional Archives Trebon and State District Archives of South Bohemia.” That sounded promising since our records indicate the family was from the Netolice region of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic. I jumped right into their “Parish Registers” section and then into “Roman Catholic Church.” Fortunately, they had a map of all of the parishes, so I was able to see which parish Netolice was in. It happens to be its own parish, so that’s good.

It’s a pretty amazing website, if you have Czech ancestors from this region. Dozens and dozens of digitized parish records from as far back as the 14th and 15th centuries. Some are in the process of being indexed. Their system even allows you to bookmark pages, etc. While the viewer and website and slightly clunky, I wouldn’t say they’re any worse than Ancestry or FamilySearch, just different.

I opened the list of registers. Netolice seems like a big area.

They have parish records from 1656 to 1929 inside of 62 books. I spent a few hours, on and off, searching through the birth records around the time of her birth, but found nothing. I also tried some of her siblings with no luck. I also had no luck finding their parent’s marriage record. I actually didn’t even see the HUIZEL surname or anything similar, though I did run across her mother’s maiden name (REINDL) once, which was a glimmer of hope.

I decided to start searching the parishes around Netolice since it was a larger area and may have been written down since it was the biggest place in the area. No luck in the first few, but then I started on the Němčice parish records. I found a marriage record for Jan HUISL and Barbara REINDL in the 1856-1885 Marriage record book. Jackpot! I was somewhat lucky since their marriage was listed as 1864, which I didn’t find, but I kept browsing the records looking for common names and just happened to run across it in 1868. After some work on translation, it seems like they also list the bride and groom’s parents along with both of their mother’s fathers and the current occupation and location of everyone. It lists Jan’s parents as Vacslav HUISL and Terezie VYNEIK and her father as Josef VYNEIK. Barbara’s parents are Andreje REINDL and Anna BOHM and her father is Vacslav BOHM. Most of them were farmers (sedlaka), though Andreje wasn’t but I can’t seem to translate/transcribe his occupation, yet.

Click for larger version

I still didn’t have a lot of luck with Anna’s siblings, but then I noticed they have some records broken down into villages in the parish. I went through those and had good luck in the village of Zvěřetice. This was listed as Jan and Barbara’s residence in their marriage record, though it was spelled slightly different. Interesting to note on the baptism records of their first two children is that they were born before Jan and Barbara were married. Mary in 1865 and Jan Nep (or something similar) in early 1868. Both records were updated to make the children “legitimate” when their marriage was finalized. This is probably why other records indicate they were married in 1864. I did notice a lot of “illegitimate” births in the records (or entries that only had a mother listed.) That seems surprising in this time period.

I have yet to find my wife’s great-grandmother’s records. It doesn’t look like they have the records for the 1881 area available online, yet. From what I can tell it looks like they have some missing due to privacy issues, though I have also seem some that are for more recent time periods, so I don’t know. All I can see is this message when I hover over the records for her baptism book, “This parish register will be available online after 2033” so I may have some time to wait.

So, if you have Czech ancestors, definitely give the digital archives site a look. Besides parish registers they also look to have photos and other useful information about the area.

When I first arrived, I just double-checked some of the local Milwaukee church records for some more information and also to try to find Frank ZALEWSKI’s brother’s marriage record (Jacob to Pauline WONDKOWSKI.) Still no luck in finding that record. I had thought that maybe they got married at another church, but there were no other churches in the area with records back to 1891-92. Only St. Hedwig’s church had records that old from that area. Jacob and Pauline baptised most of their children there, but I could not find a marriage record. I’m hoping they didn’t get married before they came to Milwaukee since that would be tough to track down.

After lunch I got back and I asked the volunteer on site about my order. She was somewhat new, but she tried looking through all of the orders from the past to see if maybe it didn’t get sent out, etc. She then asked me to get the film number from the Family Search website and she’d look it up that way. Before I could sit and check, she found my order. In big letters written over the card it said, “Film already here. Needs refund.” I guess the film was already on-site when I ordered it, though the volunteer that day obviously didn’t help me check. Either way the news is great.

When  I first sat down to browse the microfilm, I wasn’t sure if it was the right place. It’s been so long since I originally ordered it. The title page said “Schwenten, West Prussia.” I had thought for some reason that West Prussia was more west, so I had wondered if this area was in present day Germany, not Poland. It was not and I was wrong, this was the right microfilm. I first went to try to find my great-great grandfather’s, Frank ZALEWSKI’s, baptism record in about 1858. I had no luck. Actually, as I was browsing I was disheartened by the fact that I saw no Zalewski or similar surnames in any of the listings. I was starting to think I had the wrong area. Then in about 1865, I ran across the surname “LINDNER.” Then I saw the baptism was for an Anna LINDNER. Her parents names basically matched the names I was given over a decade ago from another researcher. This was my great-great grandmother’s baptism record. She was baptised in Schwenten and her parents were Johan LINDNER and Eva SOŃEFELD (I originally had Eva Zemfeld.) Schwenten is now called Święte and it’s located in Gmina Łasin, Grudziądz County, Poland. (Google Map Link)

That was a refreshing find and it gave me hope for more finds. I only had a little over an hour before the FHL closed for the day. I ended up finding more siblings of Anna while browsing including her sisters Catharine, Josephine, Marianne, and Eva. I ended up finding Catharine and Josephine in marriage records in Milwaukee, so it looks like a lot of that family came here, too. That’s a new avenue of research. I also found the baptism records of Frank and Anna’s first three children: Martha, Angelika, and Elisabeth, all baptised in Schwenten. Elisabeth was named “Elsa” on the passenger list, but it seems she died not long after the voyage.

The kicker in my finds was the marriage record of Frank and Anna in 1884. All my notes always said they were married in Poznan, Poland, which is nearby but not that close. Obviously, it was pulling my research in the wrong direction. Their marriage records states that they were married in Schwenten on 2 Nov 1884. Frank is listed as Frank SALEWSKI. Sadly, no parent’s names listed. It lists Frank as residing in Gottschalk which is the location I found previously that pointed me in this direction. Gottschalk is now called Goczałki which is just south of Święte.

I also happened upon Anna’s parent’s marriage record for 2 Mar 1862. It also listed their ages so I was able to get approximate birth years. I found this right near the end so I will need to do more research when I have another chance. I will hopefully be able to keep going back generation by generation, though the records get tougher to read back then. Overall, it was an immensely successful trip. I have now pinpointed the origination location of my ZALEWSKI ancestors which is one of the big goals I’ve had for the last decade. Now comes the fun part of finding more information from that area.

Photo: hr.icio@flickr

Richard & Mary Jane (Corrigan) Zalewski.
Wedding Day, October 11, 1947

Today we lost my grandmother, Mary Jane Zalewski, one of the world’s biggest fans of Irish heritage. Born in Ashland, Wisconsin on April 27, 1926 along with her twin brother, Tommy, to Maurice & Agnes (Braatz) Corrigan. Story has it that they were born so small that my great-grandmother would bundle them up and put them on the stove door to keep them warm. While in Milwaukee visiting her aunt Ethel Corrigan, who ended up marrying my grandfather’s cousin, Edy Strelka, she met my grandfather, Richard Zalewski. They tied the knot on October 11, 1947 and had their first child, my uncle, in 1948. My dad soon followed in 1951 and then my aunt in 1960.

Throughout my life, they always lived in the little house in Cedarburg, Wisconsin that we used to visit for Christmas Eve and many other times throughout the year. My paternal grandparents were very loving, as most grandparents, but they were also stern. Grandpa would scold us for sneaking into the basement or jumping into the window wells, but Grandpa and Grandma also used to have the greatest toys to play with including the matchbox car track and the puzzles. She was always a big fan of Ireland and anything Irish. Even though she was probably just as much German (and some French) than she was Irish, no one dared to correct her on it. She was a CORRIGAN and she was full-blooded Irish and that’s that!

When I was in my first year of college, my grandfather got sick and passed away on April 18, 1999. It was very sad to me since this was the first major death in my family and the first loss of a grandparent. I didn’t know how my grandmother would handle it. It turns out she did very well with herself. She drove (albeit slowly) where she needed to go, met with friends, knitted like she always did, and was usually in good spirits. Sadly, she fell while living alone and had to move to an assisted living center, but she still made the best of it. I ended up buying my grandparent’s old house from my grandmother and we currently still live here. It’s comforting at times. Unfortunately, during the last few years, Grandma started to forget things and had trouble getting around, but she was her normal self a lot of the time. Even at 85, she still loved her pizza and beer. I’m told that she passed away peacefully in her sleep and now she is in a better place, probably catching up with my Grandpa. He’s probably got the “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” vinyl record already playing on the record player.

We’ll miss you, Grandma. Thanks for everything. Ireland has one less fan today.

How do I live without the ones I love?
Time still turns the pages of the book it’s burned
Place in time always on my mind
And the light you left remains but it’s so hard to stay
When I have so much to say and you’re so far away

I love you, you were ready
The pain is strong and urges rise
But I’ll see you when it let’s me
Your pain is gone, your hands untied

- Avenged Sevenfold, “So Far Away”

Tonight, I went to the FamilySearch website to see what records they may have on Goczałki or Gottschalk, the area of Poland that I’m targeting in my latest research according to a recent post. I actually never got to finding the records since I was sidetracked by a link they had labeled “Free Classes.” I assumed these were classes at the local Family History Library and thought that they may be interesting. It would both get me to one of the libraries and also maybe learn more about how to use them. Instead, these are online classes. The one I picked was Introduction to Polish Research, which was about 53 minutes long. I paid attention for about 23 minutes when she was talking about ship manifests and origin locations. She recommended searching the passenger lists by origin location instead of by name. This way you could find other families that came from the same area. She also mentioned the amazing genealogy search website setup by Steve Morse at stevemorse.org.

I’ve used his site previously to find updated streets and addresses for Milwaukee and also converting the 1930 Census occupation codes. It’s not the prettiest site, but neither is Google. I never really got into the other search tools that he created, so I just started going down each of his passenger list tools pasting Gottschalk into the “Place of Origin” box. Not much luck. I did find Orlowski and Sobieski families, but I don’t have those names in my family tree. Then I got towards the bottom, beyond the Ancestry.com tools, and into a very basic looking one called Germans to America (1850-1897). It sounded too broad, but let’s try it. It came back with four people from Gottschalk, but one caught my eye, Jakob Salewski. The information didn’t give a port of arrival, but it did give an arrival date of 17 Sep 1891 and a ship name, the Rhynland. 1891 was the year of immigration listed on most of Jacob ZALEWSKI’s records. His age is also listed as 28, which calculates to about 1863, which also matches my Jacob.

I searched Ancestry’s immigration database for the keyword “Rhynland” and found one arriving in New York on 17 Sep 1891. Fortunately for me, Ancestry has a lot of New York passenger lists. What is interesting is that I’ve searched over and over for Zalewski, Salewski, and all other variations. I also tried all forms of Jacob and 1891 trying to find him. So, next, I browsed the New York records manually, picking 1891, then September, and then 17. As I had hoped, there was a “Rhynland” entry. I started browsing it manually page-by-page and found Jakob Salewski on page 16 of 19 and it did say he was from Gottschalk. This matches all of the other information I’ve been leaning towards. Interestingly, he is also traveling with two other men from Gottschalk, but they don’t ring a bell and who knows if they went to Milwaukee, also.

17 Sep 1891, Rhynland - Click for larger.

So, my next step (out of many other steps) is to see what records I can get for Goczałki and start digging. What a week.

Let’s start from the beginning, though instead of writing it all out again, I will point you to an older post and one recent post. Though, you should just be able to skim over the newer one. Long story short, this has to do with the GWIAZDOWSKI – GORALSKI – ZALEWSKI connection I have been researching recently.

After finding the passenger list and 1910-1920 Census records for the GWIAZDOWSKI – GORALSKI families, this is how it was all laid out in my head (Thanks to Google Draw for this easy to make figure):

Gwiazdowski Connection - Exhibit AClick for larger

That makes sense to me. Either August or Anna is Frank’s uncle or aunt, respectively. I can deal with that. It helps me a little bit.

Fast forward to last night. I “run across” the website for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Catholic Cemeteries. I use quotes there because I’ve been to this site before, it’s been there for years. I just never knew they had such a wonderful genealogy/burial record search. Not only does it have up-to-date burial records for eight prominent cemeteries in Milwaukee, it includes death date, burial date, last know address, marital status at death, and burial location. That’s not even the best part. It also includes a link to “Search for nearby graves or crypts.” With this feature, I can see which graves are nearby to this one. I was able to make (pretty confident) connections between people. More than likely people were buried near family.

So, with this I not only found the death date of Jacob ZALEWSKI (on the figure above) that I’ve been trying to find, but I also found the burial information on a Mrs. Mary GORALSKA (as it’s listed on the site.) She is buried near her husband Joseph and Mr. and Mrs. August GWIAZDOWSKI. On a related note (har har), also buried in the same location is a Jacob George ZALEWSKI (the above Jacob’s son) and his wife Alice. Now that doesn’t prove that Jacob is related to them (which also includes Frank, his brother) but it gives hope.

Now, this information is very helpful on it’s own, but when I use it along with the century of archives of The Milwaukee Journal, it gets even more powerful. Unfortunately, before about 1930 or so, they didn’t list much in the death notices. I found both August and Anna GWIAZDOWSKI, listed in the paper, but it’s just their name, address, death date, and cemetery. What I did find was Mary’s obituary from April 2, 1940.

You see it, don’t you? “…also survived by 1 brother, Frank Zalewski…” I was elated at this point. I thought to myself, “I found Frank’s parents!” Then, I started doing the math.. How can Mary be Frank’s brother if there is no way, under normal circumstances, that she would ever have the last name of ZALEWSKI? She was a GORALSKI when she was married and according to the other documents, her parent’s last name was GWIAZDOWSKI. How does that work? Then I thought, maybe it’s not my Frank Zalewski, but another Frank. So, Mary would be my Frank’s cousin. That makes sense logically and follows the info in the passenger list, but again doesn’t solve the name issue. Here, again I visualized it, which helped a bit.

Gwiazdowski Connect - Exhibit BClick for larger

So, after all of that running through my head I decided the only outcome that made sense is that Mary is my Frank’s cousin (the brother is another Frank), which is safe with the “nephew” info from the passenger list. The only way I was able to solve the surname issue was assuming that Anna is Mary’s real mother and August is her step-dad. Maybe Anna’s first husband (Mary’s father) passed away and she re-married before travelling to the US. Now, this is only true if all of the information is correct, which is another possibility.

I’m still no further in my research, though I now have things I can do. Unfortunately, it seems Joseph & Mary had no children, so I probably need to order Mary’s death certificate from the Wisconsin Vital Records office to find her maiden name. Hopefully, she also lists her parent’s names on it. I should maybe even order Jacob’s or Anna’s. I’ll have $20 riding on that hope.

Did that all make sense? Can you follow it and come up with another conclusion?

I already had a lot of information on Mathias, which is one reason I decided on him. There is always missing information, which is one reason that these projects are helpful. It requires me to comb through all of the information I have and put it in order. I usually end up finding some detail that I had missed earlier. The sites also get to put the visitor into the life of someone who lived in the past and to see what they went through.

Mathias’ life was pretty full. From immigrating to America at a young age to traveling hundreds of miles to a new home to dealing with the loss of children during a disease outbreak, he had been through a lot.

Take a journey and learn more about Mathias on my new site, Everything I Know About Mathias Firmenich.

The first furniture

That’s what the banners and balloons should read in November when our baby arrives. According to the Ultrasound technician, we’re having a girl and she sounded pretty confident. Finding out now is exciting to us. People always seem like we should wait until it’s born to find out, but we’d rather find out now. It gives us a fun surprise early and from what I’ve heard, you sometimes don’t get to enjoy the surprise during the delivery since there is so much other stuff going on.

As for having a girl, I’m very excited. I’d be just as excited either way, but I was secretly hoping for a girl (maybe 60/40 girl/boy.) I grew up a boy (surprise!) and I had two brothers, so a baby boy didn’t seem that crazy to me. I know how to handle a boy. Having a girl is another story. I have very little experience with little girls. Thankfully, my wife is a girl (no way!) so I’ll have help there. When you find out the gender a lot of things go through your mind. Now you can get a clearer picture of the future. Beforehand, it was somewhat blurry. All thoughts had the baby replaced with “generic child” in my brain, now I can put a face, or at least gender, on it. Obvious thoughts of “Daddy’s Little Girl” and all that stuff float on through sometimes. It’ll sure be an experience and I’m ready for it.

As for a genealogy point-of-view, we’ll be able to give her a pretty clear picture of where she gets certain traits. Obviously, as a girl, she won’t get my Y-DNA passed down to her, but she will get her mother’s mtDNA. We just need to get her mother an mtDNA test at some point to pinpoint her maternal genetic genealogy. The way it looks, it’s possibly English or at least from somewhere in the UK, but we don’t have enough info, yet.

My wife, who is much better with the written word than I am, has been blogging about the new baby experience on our website. Feel free to pop on over there.

Now on to paint the nursery this weekend.

As a genealogist, this has another layer of joy for me. Now, officially, my tree and my wife’s tree are merged into one. Now when I do research on her tree, I’m actually doing it for my own child. They will come into this world with a pretty solid family tree already made for them. I’ve now ruined any fun and mystery they may find looking into their family history (haha.)

6 Weeks

From my wife’s description: I know, it’s hard to decipher this thing. Heck, it’s tough for me and it’s my baby’s first screenshot! (Well, it is a screenshot…) The big round part is NOT the baby, it’s the yolk sac. The tiny little blur between the arrows is the baby at 6 weeks. We’re 6 more beyond that and it has grown, but we haven’t had a new ultrasound yet. We did hear the heartbeat for the first time this week though!

Well, we’re taking this one day at a time and the mother is doing great. Completely prepared and also scared out of my mind of things to come, but in a good way.

Charles Van Price was born in the early 1800s and came to U.S. in 1874. He traveled to Dousman, Wisconsin in Waukesha County. He worked for Mr. Dousman, later moved to Little Chute, Wisconsin, then to Phlox, Wisconsin in 1887. While staying with his daughter, Effie, in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1922, he went grocery shopping for her and was never seen again. After investigating, it was assumed that he returned to Holland from Milwaukee. He sold his land earlier, and was now one of the wealthiest men in that part of the state. His daughter found he had withdrawn all his savings (a very sizeable amount) and probably left for Europe. They traced him to Antwerp, Belgium — then all trace was gone. He was never heard from again.

I tried to find any sort of trace of him in Belgium. Maybe he’s listed on a death record or a cemetery listing, but I never found anything. I was re-adding all of Charles’ census record information into my family tree, since I never actually put in the exact source info in the past, when I ran across a listing for a “Charles O. Price” in the Applications for US Passports database that closely matched him on Ancestry.

There were actually two applications listed which looked to be a year apart, but they match pretty closely. The first one says that he was born on June 6th, 1844 in Isendick, Holland. The information I have is July 6th, 1846 in IJzendijke, Netherlands (Holland) which is almost a match. It also says he lived most of his life in Phlox, Langlade Co., Wisconsin which is the area where Charles and his family did live. He mentions in the application that he is planning to go to the Netherlands to “visit my brothers” and that he will return in 3 months traveling on the boat, Finland, from New York on August 5th, 1922.

What is odd is that there is a second application right after the first one for a Charles O. Price born on June 6th, 1844 in Izendag, Holland. This one lists Charles’ father as Jacob Price. That matches with me as I have his father as (his original name) Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS. This one also notes that he lived in the Little Schute[sic] & Antigo, Wisconsin area which is also near Phlox. It also notes that he owns a previous passport which was obtained on July 24th, 1922 (the previously mentioned application.) Now, this application says that he intends to “visit my brother” in the Netherlands and stay for one year leaving from the port of New York. This one does not list a ship or a date. It almost seems like he didn’t actually go in 1922, or maybe that he went for 3 months and then went back in 1923 when this second application was made. Obviously, according to stories, never came back after that one.

There are a few notable and even oddly humorous things on these applications. The first thing is that when describing Charles’ physical appearance, under “Nose” it says “Quite Large.” Also, how on both documents the birth places are completely different (at least in spelling), the immigration dates don’t match, and the living locations aren’t exactly the same. On both documents he uses a witness that has known Charles for awhile. H.A. Friedman swears that Charles is a good dude and that he should get a passport. In the first document in 1922, H.A. says that he, a “native” American, has known Charles for 15 years. In the second application in 1923, H.A. says that he, now a “naturalized” American, says that he has known Charles for 20 years. Great Scott! Has Charles invented the flux capacitor?

Though, one wonderful thing about this document is that the applicant is required to attach a photo of themselves. The first document’s photo is not very good, but the second one is much clearer and it is the first time that I’ve seen Charles. I’m not sure if my grandmother has ever seen a photo of her great-grandfather, so I’d love to show this to her.

I still don’t know what happened to Charles after he arrived in Belgium or the Netherlands, but at least this does prove that he planned to go back. Maybe it makes more work. Oh well, isn’t that how Genealogy works? The two documents are shown below. Click for larger copies. The first half of the first page and last half of the end page are from other individuals, so please ignore them.