I have this fascination with cemeteries. It’s nothing creepy or evil. Ever since I was young, I’ve always found them as mysterious and interesting, almost like looking directly into the local history. When I was younger, we used to sled down a large hill at our local cemetery in the winter (don’t worry, we weren’t near any headstones.)

Once I started to get into genealogy, my research has taken me to many cemeteries in search of the final resting places of my ancestors. They’re all interesting in their own ways, some more than others. You get a feel of the history of the area by just looking at the surnames and types of headstones. Large headstones may mean that it was someone of importance or wealth. A group of small headstones with children’s names on them may indicate a rash of disease.

The cemeteries that I enjoy the most are the older ones, which are usually nestled within old, towering trees. For some reason, it gives it a almost quiet, spooky feel to it. It’s usually very peaceful. I enjoy the cemeteries with a little character instead of the newer, cookie-cutter types. I’m not a huge fan of the wide-open cemeteries that are next to a busy road. It always feels like people are watching me, the weird guy in the cemetery taking photos. Fortunately, there are many of these older cemeteries in the area I live in. I sometimes just visited them to capture their “beauty” with my camera and to pay a visit to those that are no longer around.

My all-time favorite cemetery, as of now, is Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. It’s so massive and it sits within the trees that it feels peaceful even though you’re inside of the city. It’s also home to many of the area’s most-famous citizens. Other cool cemeteries in the area of St. Mary’s Cemetery in Port Washington and St. Francis-Borgia Cemetery in Cedarburg.

I put a few of my images up on Flickr (feel free to comment on them), but I do have many more. I used to have a website up called “Southeastern Wisconsin Cemeteries,” but I haven’t had time to put it back up. It listed descriptions, info, photos and links to transcriptions for the local cemeteries.

Do you enjoy visiting cemeteries for your research and are there any cemeteries you enjoy?

I’d thought I would try a weekly photo post since I have a good collection of photos and it may help spur a research idea. I got the idea from Miriam over at AnceStories.

This week’s photo is from my Zalewski collection. The original photo is my grandmother’s collection. I’m not 100% sure who everyone in the photo is exactly, though I do know a few. The tall man on the right side is my great-grandfather, Joseph Zalewski and  I think that is his wife Emelia (Troka) Zalewski next to him. The man on the left with the cigar is my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Troka and his wife Clara (Szulta) behind him. I don’t know the others, but some of them look familiar. I assume this photo was taken before of after church, which means it was probably at St. Casimir’s church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Milwaukee was the birthplace and home to a few famous individuals. People who have shaped our world with their entertainment and their creations. Here are some of the people from the Milwaukee area. There are comedians, brewers, socialist mayors and even a Prime Minister.

Take a trip back with some of these famous individuals as I find them in the local census reports. It is neat to actually see these people listed in a census report, which I usually match up with normal citizens like myself and my ancestors.

Read the rest…

The last major ethnic group that has affected my Ancestry (and a bit of Wisconsin) is the Irish. It’s probably the 3rd largest ethnicity in my family tree, behind German and Polish.

All of the Irish in my family tree comes from my paternal grandmother’s line. She herself was born a Corrigan, which is obviously an Irish name. It takes a few jumps back before you find more Irish names since Corrigan seemed like it lasted more generations than the others.

My Irish immigrated over from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland and into Canada (making a stop in New York, I think.) The Michael Corrigan family came along with most of their children. They settled in the town on Mara in Ontario. There is actually a book called, “They Came to Mara,” that has some information on my family. They seemed to have lived there for a few generations before my great-great grandfather, Thomas Corrigan, traveled to and settled in the Ashland/Sanborn area of northern Wisconsin. Ashland is up near Superior; way up in the cold part (The cold-er part to be more specific.)

My Irish family didn’t really expand out of the Ashland area. My great uncle Edwin Corrigan wrote a letter to another family member talking about life in the Ashland area in the early 1900s. I wrote about it in an earlier post and I have transcribed most of it. And, as with most ethnic groups in Milwaukee, the Irish have their own cleverly-named, annual festival: Irish Fest.

The largest group that has affected my ancestry, and also the state as a whole, is the German culture. Every part of my family tree is somehow touched by this ethnicity. My maternal grandfather is almost 100% German and my maternal grandmother (who lives and breathes Irish culture) is closer to German than Irish even though her maiden name is Corrigan.

The are in which I live has examples of German culture everywhere. Cities with names such as Grafton, Hamburg, Germantown, Cedarburg, Fredonia all have German-sounding names and history. Walk into any cemetery in this area and they’ll be overrun with German surnames. Some of the surnames in my family tree with deep German heritage include Last, Thielke, Braatz, Rathke, Luedtke, and Firmenich.

Milwaukee itself was a German melting pot. Germans made up the largest percentage of immigrants in the city itself.

A great number of German immigrants had helped increase the city’s population during the 1840s and continued to migrate to the area during the following decades. Milwaukee has even been called “Deutsches Athen” (German Athens), and into the twentieth century, there were more German speakers and German-language newspapers than there were English speakers and English-language newspapers in the city. (To this day, the Milwaukee phonebook includes more than forty pages of Schmitts or Schmidts, far more than the pages of Smiths.) - Wikipedia

I always consider myself Polish and since I was a child I’ve always sided with the Polish heritage. Though, as it turns out I’m probably much more German than I am anything else. Polish only comes in on my paternal side due to my surname, Zalewski (and who knows if that’s German-Polish.)

While not a big fan of German cuisine, I plan on making it down to Milwaukee’s famous annual Germanfest celebration. As with most of Milwaukee’s ethnic festivals, I assume there will be a large genealogy-related area. Are there any ethnic fesitvals/celebrations in your area?

Photo © fensterbme

Another culture that helped shape Wisconsin into what it is today is the Dutch culture. I may throw in some Belgian stuff, also, since my family crosses into both and the history also crosses into both. My maternal grandmother’s ancestors were mostly Dutch and Belgian (though she’s the “mixed bag” in my tree, bringing in French, French-Canadian, Belgian, Dutch, German, and some others.)

This group seemed to congregate in the east central part of the state, up near Green Bay and Appleton, Wisconsin, which we call the Fox River Valley. You can tell this by the city, place, and family names in that area. Names like Holland and Vandenbroek and a lot of family names that start with “Van.”

Between 1840 and 1890, Wisconsin was a major center of Dutch immigration. Father Theodore Johannes Van den Brock was an early promoter of Dutch Catholic immigration to Wisconsin and beginning in 1848, he helped to bring 40,000 Catholic Dutch to Wisconsin. Most Dutch immigrants to the Fox River Valley followed the Erie Canal-Great Lakes route, landing in Green Bay where many chose to remain. Later Dutch settlements in Wisconsin were generally small agricultural communities. - WisconsinHistory.org

One of my families that came into that area was the Van Parijs family. Somewhere along the line, they changed their name to Van Price (which caused me some trouble, as I posted about earlier.) They settled in the Shawano County area (pronounced like Shaw-no.)

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name is DeBroux (Dah-broo), which is, from my research, from Belgium. They liked to hack the spelling of this surname up in the census. I found it listed by such spellings as DeBrue and Gebroux (but some of these are probably based on the transcriptions.)

The DeBroux family came from Belgium in the late 1800s and settled in Langlade County, which was a popular area for these two cultures. An interesting fact about my DeBroux ancestors that came to Wisconsin is that their names are somewhat unique and I thought that this might help me find information on them. His name is Desire DeBroux and her name was Desiree (unknown surname.) Unfortunately, this is not the case, but it was worth a shot.

Here are some good Dutch/Belgian links for Wisconsin and elsehwhere:

• Trace Your Dutch Roots
• Dutch in Wisconsin
• Zeeland Archives - Great database where I found a lot of info on my families. Only really covers the Zeeland, Netherlands area.

Photo © Jenny Rollo

Yes, Pete, it is. In fact , it’s pronounced “mill-e-wah-que” which is Algonquin for “the good land.” - Alice Cooper, Wayne’s World

Most of the paternal side of my family tree, more specifically my paternal grandfather’s side, came to and lived in Milwaukee’s Polish Community. They all came about the same time, the late 1800s or early 1900s. By that time, Milwaukee was getting established as a major hub in Wisconsin.

The first immigrants to Milwaukee were French traders and trappers. During the 1830s, settlement occurred rapidly, and in earnest. Families established themselves here, bringing the population to several hundred by 1837. That year, under a mandate from the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature to incorporate, Milwaukee and other settlements in the state became villages. A City Charter was adopted in 1846, and Solomon Juneau was elected the first mayor. Juneau was a French trader who had settled his family in Milwaukee. - City of Milwaukee website

The polish immigrants came to Milwaukee starting in the mid nineteenth century and mostly settled in Milwaukee’s south side, though my family lived on what is considered the “east side” today. In 1906, almost one-quarter of Milwaukee’s total population was Polish. Milwaukee had one of the nation’s largest Polish communities up to 1980, getting near 200,000. Today, Milwaukee even has an annual Polish Fest to celebrate their Polish heritage.

Polish families tended to settle in one area, usually just outside of the city area. I imagine this was very helpful due to the fact that most immigrants knew little English and this would obviously help them communicate better. Even though the large Polish community was usually overshadowed by Milwaukee’s larger German community, there is no doubt that this city has been shaped and changed forever by them.

Some great Polish-related Milwaukee links:

• Roman B. Kwasniewski Photograph Collection
• Polish Churches of Milwaukee
• Polish Center of Wisconsin

When trying to think of some things to write about on a constant basis, I browsed some other genealogy blogs out there and got a cool idea. Now, it may be tough to post about my genealogy research and history of the Zalewski name multiple times a week. I thought, why not write some posts about the history and culture of Wisconsin and Milwaukee throughout the years?

I’ve lived and worked in the Milwaukee area my whole life and most of my ancestors either lived in this area or in other parts of Wisconsin. I do a lot of research here and know a lot about the history. Zalewski is somewhat common name in the Milwaukee area due to Milwaukee being a large Polish community, so I’ve done a lot of research there also. Stay tuned for some articles on different parts of the state, it’s culture, and it’s history.