CategoriesCarnival of GenealogyCorriganFun

Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan

My grandmother, who’s maiden name is Corrigan, always used to tell us about some distant cousin that they called “Wrong Way” Corrigan. She talked about how he flew a plane from New York to Ireland. When I was young, I thought this was some made-up, grandma-style folk tale the old people liked to tell their grandchildren. It turns out that he is real and that he really did that. Now, is he related to us and our Corrigan surname? That is another question.

Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan was born in 1907 in Galveston, Texas as Clyde Groce Corrigan, after his father. He legally changed his name to Douglas as an adult.

In 1938, after a transcontinental flight from Long Beach, California, to New York, he flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland, even though he was supposed to be returning to Long Beach. He claimed that his unauthorized flight was due to a navigational error, caused by heavy cloud cover that obscured landmarks and low-light conditions, causing him to misread his compass. Corrigan, however, was a skilled aircraft mechanic (he was one of the builders of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis) and a habitual risk-taking maverick; he had made several modifications to his own plane, preparing it for transatlantic flight. Between 1935 and 1937, he applied several times, unsuccessfully, for permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland, and it is likely that his “navigational error” was a protest against government “red tape”; however, he never publicly acknowledged having flown to Ireland intentionally. – Wikipedia

Wrong Way CorriganI decided to do what I could to find out if there is a connection somewhere down the Corrigan line, at least as far back as I could go. I started by finding Clyde G Corrigan in his first census report, the 1910 US Census. Fortunately, my first search brought up a Clyde G Carrigan (or Corrigan) living in San Patricio, Texas at three years old. His father’s name is also Clyde S Corrigan. We’re two for two. He also lives with his mother, Evelyn, and his younger brother, Harry. Clyde and Harry are also listed in the Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997.

Well, as I jump through the Corrigan line, fortunately made easier by less popular names like Clyde and not Michael, I find evidence that will not help my cause. I find Douglas’ grandfather, John Corrigan, living in California in 1900 with his son Clyde S. It says that John’s parents were both born in Ireland and that he was born in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, my Corrigan line came to North America in about 1820 and entered into the southern area of Ontario, Canada and stayed there a long time before dropping into Wisconsin. I don’t have much beyond that, so I won’t be able to connect his family with mine too quickly.

I did pinpoint two John Corrigans in Pennsylvania in the 1850 census and only one had parents that were born in Ireland. Hugh and Jane Corrigan living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I can find one Hugh Corrigan of that age that immigrated to New York from Ireland in 1841, but no other information to confirm this is him. It also doesn’t tell me which county in Ireland that Hugh came from. This would help me connect our families, since my Corrigan family came from County Tyrone. Unfortunately, I don’t have any Hugh Corrigans listed in my tree that were born around 1805 in Ireland. I can only imagine that somewhere back in Ireland, Wrong Way’s family connects to mine. How far back? We’ll never really know, I guess.

This was a fun little escape from the normal genealogy grind. It’s amazing what you can find about almost anyone that was alive before 1930 with all the data available today on the Internet. You escaped me this time, “Wrong Way” Corrigan! One day. I will find you! (Please…for my grandmother.)

CategoriesCorriganIrishWisconsin Research

Pour me a Guinness

Corrigans

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.

CategoriesGermanThielkeWisconsin Research

Ich bin [insert clever genealogy item here]

German Beer

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

CategoriesGenetic GenealogyPersonalZalewski

Ancestry DNA

As the news mentioned last week, Ancestry has opened it’s DNA area. I’ve been a user on Ancestry for many years and I also have become involved in Genetic Genealogy via the National Geographic study and also Family Tree DNA. So, I was more than happy to test our Ancestry’s system.

It was easy to transfer my data over from FTDNA to Ancestry. Currently, they can only transfer from FTDNA or National Geographic, though I imagine if you have your data handy you can convert it yourself. You just need to bring up your DNA data and type in the values into Ancestry from one of these two companies.

It took a few minutes after I entered it for it to find some matches, though unfortunately there are none before 26 generations out. They show you your matches in a nice graphical format including a map. They also give you an estimate of the number of years, along with generations, that this person and you may have a common ancestor.

If you have an Ancestry.com account and also have received your DNA info, I would recommend trying this out. Any and all data can help everyone!

Link: Ancestry DNA

CategoriesCemeteriesThielke

Centuries of Wear

It’s been a little slow on the genealogy home front these last few weeks, though I did find some new headstones when I went to look for a few new ones in Port Washington’s Union Cemetery. I had originally went to find the headstone of Herman Rathke and more than likely his wife, also. This would also cement the fact that this was my ancestor, since all I had to go on was his wife’s name.

I found their headstones, but I also found two more ancestor’s (or more) headstones right next to them. The headstones were of my Thielke ancestors. The one that grabbed my eye was of Peter Thielke, since his was still crisp, but his wife’s wasn’t so lucky. I’d known his wife’s name was Mary, or something similar, from the census records, but this headstone looks like it just may have her maiden name on it, but I can’t tell. All I can make out is “Marie” and also the name of “Peter Thielke.” I’ll attach them here, in case somebody else has better eyes or just happens to see it at first glance.

Marie Thielke Thumbnail
Click for full size image (large)

CategoriesZalewski

It Has Begun…

Ok, I did a little work on starting the Zalewski Family Tree Project this weekend. I went through a bit of the 1860-1900 Census records and added the “Zalewski” (and other variations) to one family tree file. It’s just a start, but hopefully this will become the largest collection of Zalewski family trees around. Also, hopefully we can connect the families to each other and help all of the researchers out there. I did notice some interesting things when I was entering some of this data:

  • Most of the Zalewski families seemed to have immigrated within the years 1889-1891, as did my Zalewskis.
  • They seemed to have collected mainly within the Great Lakes region (Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit.) There were some outside of there and I’m also just starting.
  • They usually lived within the same area, but then again most ethnic groups tended to do this.

You can browse the Zalewski Family Tree Project on my site now. If you find a family member in there, let me know and we can “connect the dots,” if you will.

As always, feel free to send your Zalewski information in.

CategoriesZalewski

Planting the Seed

Joe and Richard

Well, I’ve begun the starting work on my super Zalewski Family Tree project. Unfortunately, I haven’t received many Zalewski trees after I requested them. I’ll have to start marketing it on message boards and mailing lists. Though, I did browse through the documents on I found on footnote.com regarding the Zalewski name. I ran across a document from the “Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation” about a Charles Zalewski in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The document is basically a declaration of intent to be American and not Pro-German. Interesting stuff over there. I have the document linked on my footnote Story Page that I created for some Zalewski stuff (enjoy his hairstyle.) Once I found that document, which includes his parents, siblings and children, I found him living in Milwaukee in the census reports from 1900-1930 along with his brother Frank (not mine, unfortunately.) No connections yet, but it’s still fresh.

Again, all of you Zalewski researchers out there, send in your Zalewski Family Trees. If we get this all put together, hopefully we can find many connections.

CategoriesFamily TreeMilitaryZalewski

Grandpa Joe

Joseph Zalewski

Though, I was alive for more than a year before my great-grandfather, Joseph Zalewski, passed away, I really don’t remember much of him or have any photos of him and I. He seemed like a nice guy. If he was anything like my grandfather (his son) he was probably strict, yet loving. He was probably pretty stern since he was a Milwaukee Police Officer and fought in World War I.

He served in the US Army Infantry during World War I (1917-1918). Research has said he fought with the Allied Expeditionary Forces in France during several major battles. Unfortunately, his military records were destroyed in a fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center – St Louis, Missouri (according to a reply to a 1994 inquiry submitted by another family researcher.) After the war, he returned to Milwaukee where he served with distinction on that city’s municipal police force for 33 years until his retirement.

Joseph’s parents immigrated from Poland in 1890 and out of all of their children, only two of them were sons. Joseph was the only Zalewski boy to have children, making him the only Zalewski line from Poland in the area that I can prove relation. So, even though there are many Zalewski’s in the Milwaukee area, I don’t know how, or if, I’m even related to them. This is one reason for this website along with the Zalewski Family Tree Project and the Zalewski Surname DNA Study.

CategoriesCemeteriesZalewski

Flickr

www.flickr.com


I did a bunch of updates to my Flickr account. I had signed up for it awhile ago, but never used it. I still plan to use my own website for most of my genealogy pictures, but some will go there for all to see. Above is a selection of some of the cemetery photos I took while doing research. For some reason cemeteries always interested me. Maybe it’s because they’re usually very peaceful, yet kinda dark and gloomy at the same time. Whatever it is, I really enjoyed taking photographs while I was in them.

I also created a “Zalewski Genealogy” Flickr group for all of you Zalewski researchers to post your photos. Let’s see if all of the Zalewskis look the same.

Feel free to view my photos or even add me as a contact. I’d be more than happy to add you!

CategoriesFamily TreeGenetic GenealogyZalewski

Hanging Out My Genes

R1a1

I saw a show on the National Geographic channel a few years ago about Genetic Genealogy, or Genetealogy as the cool kids call it. It really interested me. I’ve recently become more interested in world history, especially in the areas of my ancestors and how they lived (This would’ve been helpful in college, when I needed to know it.) This show was telling me that I could order a test and find out exactly where my ancestors came from, at least, my paternal ancestors. Sign me up! I ordered the kit and sent it back. I waited a few months and received my results. They tell me that my DNA data falls into the “R1a1 haplogroup.” That makes complete sense, doesn’t it? For more on haplogroups and genetic genealogy, visit the Wikipedia article.

This what the National Geographic’s Genographic project, who ran my tests, says about the R1a1 haplogroup.

Today a large concentration of — around 40 percent — of the men living in the Czech Republic across the steppes of Siberia, and south throughout Central Asia are members of haplogroup R1a1. In India, around 35 percent of the men in Hindi-speaking populations belong to this group. The M17 marker is found in only five to ten percent of Middle Eastern men. The marker is also found in relatively high frequency — around 35 percent — among men living on the eastern side of present-day Iran.

This only applies to my direct male line, which is my Zalewski line. I only have that back a few generations, so it’s not too much help, yet. If I find a perfect match to someone else with the Zalewski surname, it means that we more-than-likely have a common ancestors in the recent past. Unfortunately, I’ve not run across this, even though I do have perfect matches with a few individuals. Since they’re different surnames, it probably means we share an ancestor prior to the use of surnames. This is why I set up the Zalewski Surname DNA Study group on the Family Tree DNA site. Hopefully, more Zalewskis will join the study and we’ll find some connections. Nothing yet, but we only have a few members. So, all you Zalewski men out there, get testing!

CategoriesZalewski

Zalewski: It’s all in the name

Zalewski. Not a name you see everyday. Americanized, which is quite common. Though, not very hard to pronounce, some people just shred it because it ends in “ski.” We pronounce it zuh-loo-ski, but I’m told the original pronunciation is something like shuh-lef-ski due to the polish version of these letters.

According to a book on surnames, Zalewski comes from a topographic name for someone that lived on a flood plain or bay. (Leave it to my polish ancestors to live on a flood plain. No wonder we get a bad rap.) This is also similar to the Zaleski name, which means someone who ‘lived on the other side of wood‘. So, all I need to do now is go to Poland and check everywhere that is near water or near trees to find my surname’s origin.

Full Surname Info Page