This is a photo of my grandparents, Richard & Mary Jane (Corrigan) ZALEWSKI from August 1947.

Lisa at Small-leaved Shamrock has posted the 13th edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture. This one deals with Irish surnames and clans. It includes my entry which deals with my Corrigan surname.

Take a look and dive into the Irish history.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! I’d like to thank all of my military ancestors and all of your military ancestors, too.

• Johann W G LAST – Civil War- My 3rd-great-grandfather, server with Company K, 50th Infantry Regiment Wisconsin – 29 Mar 1865 to 14 Jun 1866
• LeRoy THIELKE – World War II – My grandfather, served in World War II. It’s not a subject that has ever been talked about, but I commend him for fighting for our country.
• Joseph Frank ZALEWSKI – World War I – My great-grandfather, started in the 86th Division, Company B, 331st Machine Gun Battalion. Later served in the US Army Infantry and fought with the Allied Expeditionary Forces in France during several major battles.
• Richard Joseph ZALEWSKI – My late grandfather, served in the US Navy during World War II.

Continue for some select photos

Read the rest…

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I was running through ideas in the shower today (who doesn’t?) and I tried to figure out what my fascination is with the family of Frank & Anna Zalewski. For some reason, this family really interests me. I enjoy finding out information about each of the children and their families. Maybe it’s because the photo of their family in 1907 was the first “old” family photo I saw. Maybe it’s because this was always the line that I’ve been stuck on.

It’s crossed my mind to put together a family reunion of sorts for the descendants of Frank & Anna Zalewski. We used to have one similar to that for my grandmother’s family, the descendants of Thomas Corrigan. I have no idea what kind of undertaking that would be, but I’m imagining a lot of work. Just contacting everyone seems like a massive job.

Every one of their children, except Frank Jr., married and had children of their own (though, I’m not sure if Angeline did.) I had most of their descendants listed, but not a lot of information about them. Maybe it will come to fruition some day, because I’d really like to see what information everyone else may have on their great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. For now, I will try to collect as much informati0n as I can on this family to create their story. Who knows, maybe it’ll make a good book about a family that traveled from Europe and made it in America?

Since publishing my Single View post on my great-great-grandfather, Frank J Zalewski, Sr. I have been checking all information I have on the Zalewski family. I ran through each of his children’s records and all of the other info I had written down. I was then looking for copies of obituaries that I know I’ve seen. I checked the “Zalewski” folder in my file cabinet and decided to just browse through everything in there again. In 2000 I was in contact with a descendant of Frank & Anna, Michael Rynka, that was also doing some research. When my dad and I met him, he gave me a nice booklet with all of his Zalewski family information in it. There was nothing new in that book, but I was able to scan in a lot of the photos that I had never scanned.

Then I read over the two letters that he had sent me originally. There was nothing new in the letters that popped out, until I read this:

I am especially interested in learning more about the parents and siblings of Frank Zalewski, Sr. I do not know their names, nor do I know how many brothers and sisters he may have had. My mother’s (Editor’s note: his mother is Frank & Anna’s granddaughter) godfather was Joseph GORALSKI, and she remembers that he was somehow related to the Zalewski family. However, I don’t know what the relationship may have been. Joe GORALSKI was not Frank’s brother-in-law, since his wife’s maiden name was not Zalewski. Perhaps Joe was Frank’s cousin.

I decided to go down this path. This paragraph most likely means that Joseph GORALSKI had lived in the Milwaukee area. After finding a Joseph Goralski in the Milwaukee US Census records (1900-1930), he is shown living with his wife and in-laws in the same area as Frank & Anna. His in-laws are listed as August & Anna GWIAZDOWSKI. Using the information in these records (immigration, birth, etc) I found this same group in a Philadelphia passenger list for December 1892. In the notes for this group of people it says, “Visitors Nephew Franz Zaleski at 902 Pulaski St.”

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Seeing that Pulaski Street is right near Fratney Street in the Riverwest neighborhood of eastern Milwaukee where Frank and his family lived most of their life, this was a very, very good clue. Now, assuming this all adds up, this would make August GWIAZDOWSKI Frank’s uncle and Mary GORALSKI (Joe’s wife) his cousin. And, obviously, this would make Frank’s mother’s maiden name GWIAZDOWSKI, also.

Now, I have yet to prove this information, but I am so happy that this passenger list happened to list that much detail as to where exactly the passengers were going. This is the first time I’ve seen that much detail and it was the exact information that connects them to my family. Without it, I wouldn’t have gave it a second thought.

This opens up more research, but that’s a good thing. One good and bad thing is that the surname GWIAZDOWSKI doesn’t seem to be extremely popular. I’ve already found some information on other people researching it, so I have some contact to make.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if Michael Rynka is still around. It’s been 9 years since I’ve last contacted him. When we met him he was already blind in one eye and I had heard that he may have had a stroke in the last few years. I checked around today using online phone books and even looked through the obituaries, but I haven’t found him. I do have his address and phone number from 2000, so I may just go out on a limb and give them a try.

See, it pays to do these Single View posts, huh?

This is the first of my “Single View” posts. These will be entries on a specific individual (or possibly family.) I will put out as much detail as I have in hopes to find someone who may have more information. Not only will this help me get the info online, but it will also help me dig through the data again and maybe find something I missed originally. I welcome any research tips.

This entry is about Frank J ZALEWSKI, Sr. Frank is my great-great-grandfather and the oldest Zalewski entry in my family tree. As with most people, I’d like to dig deeper into my paternal (surname) line as far as I can. Unfortunately, this is probably the shortest line I have.

Read the rest…

My entry for the 13th edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture. Here is what this carnival is about. Share with us the surnames in your Irish family tree, but don’t just stop there. Do a little research and tell us the origin of one or more of those surnames, the stories of how they might have changed over the years, or tales of how they’ve been mixed up and mispelled, etc.

The big Irish surname in my tree is CORRIGAN. The name starts at my paternal grandmother, who is always the family’s biggest Irish supporter. I can trace the surname back to Michael John CORRIGAN who immigrated from Killeeshil Parish, County Tyrone, Ireland to Ontario, Canada in the 1820s. The family lived there for many years before my great-great-grandfather, Thomas CORRIGAN, moved to Wisconsin with his family. The history of the CORRIGAN surname according to Wikipedia is:

The Corrigan (O’Corrigan, Carrigan, Corocan, Courigan, Currigan) surname is of Irish descent. Translated Corrigan means “Spear”. The name is believed to have originated from Coirdhecan of the Cineal Eoghain. It is also believed to be connected to the Maguire clan. The Corrigan surname was popular in the 17th century in County Fermanagh in Ireland. Today, the name is spread out across most counties in Ireland and some of the United States and Canada.

Via my genealogy research, I have met and talked to a lot of CORRIGAN researchers, a lot of whom descended from the same Michael John CORRIGAN family. I have yet to trace back into Ireland, besides County Tyrone as listed above.

There are also few famous individuals with the CORRIGAN surname such as the actor Ray “Crash” Corrigan and Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, who I posted about in the past.

I actually haven’t run into many misspellings of the name, other than the few listed in the Wikipedia entry above. Soundex usually handles most of the common spelling changes. The few other Irish surnames I have in my tree are MCCANN, THOMPSON, NUGENT, BOYLE and CRONIN, but none of these go as far or are researched as deep as CORRIGAN.

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According to the note for this photo, this is a picture of my grandfather, Richard Zalewski (middle), with his sister Irene to his left and Eugene Nowiski to his right. I don’t know off-hand who Eugene Nowiski is, but it does look like he’s ready to change someone’s oil. Multiple people have said that my grandfather looks a bit like me in this photo when I was a kid. I can see it. I assume the photo was taken in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as Richard lived there most of his life.