FRANK ZALEWSKI

Frank Zalewski, 82, of 2630 N. Buffum st., was found dead on the floor of his home late Friday afternoon by his son, [my great-grandfather] Joseph, a police officer, who came to visit him. He had been living alone since his wife died two years ago. Death was due to natural causes, according to coroner’s assistants.

Mr. Zalewski was born in Germany and came to this country 51 years ago. He worked for the department of public works for 39 years, retiring six years ago. He and his wife celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1935. Funeral services will be held at 8:30 a.m. at St.  Casimir’s church, with burial in Holy Cross cemetery.

Survivors include two sons, Joseph and Frank, jr., and five daughters, Mrs. Angeline Pierzchalski, Mrs. Mary Gierszewski, Mrs. Frances Cybela, Mrs. Helen Stroinski and Mrs. Agnes Walczak.

You can actually view the obituary in the newspaper using Google’s News Archive website. I found it when I searched for “Zalewski” in their archives. Fortunately, he had a larger obituary that was picked up by Google’s character recognition software. Most of the normal obituaries aren’t picked up.

MRS. AUGUSTA LAST

Mrs. Augusta Last died Sunday morning, July 14, just 11 days after observing her 100th birthday. She was in good health and was listening to church services on the radio at the home of her daughter at Grafton when she suddenly hemorrhaged. The rescue squad was called and she was transferred to St. Alphonsus hospital where she was pronounced dead at 9:30 Sunday morning.

Mrs. Last was a semi-invalid for the past five years after breaking her hip in a fall at her home at 312 Van Buren St., Port Washington. Since then she had been alternating her visits and living with her two daugthers, Mrs. Arthur (Dora) Thielke, 13th Ave., Grafton and Mrs. Leonard (Ella) Didier in Port Washington.

The deceased, nee Augusta Luedtke, was born in Germany on July 3, 1863. She and her husband, the late Carl Last, had farmed two miles south of Port Washington on the Lake Shore Rd. in the tow of Grafton until August of 1926 when they moved to the Van Buren St. home. Mr. Last died the following summer, on June 5, 1927. She continued to live at her home until suffering the hip injury. She had transferred from the Didier home to the Thielke residence last November.

Survivors in addition to Mrs. Thielke and Mrs. Last are three sons, William and August of Port Washington, and Walter of Milwaukee; two other daughters, Mrs. August (Ida) Schlueter of West Bend and Mrs. Helen Kibbel of Port Washington; one daughter-in-law, three sons-in-law, 24 grandchildren, 58 great-grandchildren and 14 great-great-grandchildren.

The Rev. Christopher Boland, pastor of Frieden’s Evangelical and Reformed church in Port Washington officiated at the funeral services at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, July 16.

Burial was in Union Cemetery, Port Washington.

Funeral arrangements were handled by the Poole funeral home.

[Pinterest is] a “virtual pinboard.” Creative types often use actual pinboards or corkboards for inspiration on projects, adhering to it magazine clippings and printouts of images, quotations and typography; fabric swatches; cards; and other ephemera. In the business world, it’s more commonly referred to as a “vision board” but contains the same elements. With Pinterest, users – called “pinners” – can organize and “pin” photos of items they find on the Web to various boards on their page.

It may not sound exciting, but it can be pretty addicting like she says in her article. I think, for the genealogy folks, that it can be put to good use for inspiration or even collecting great old photos that you find around the web that you love. I’ve personally pinned some neat ideas for a family tree wall. I see a lot of other people using it (it seems to lean heavily female at the moment) for craft ideas, food ideas, and even fashion ideas. Another fun use is pinning places you’d love to visit or even people that inspire you. Maybe it will create some discussion on the site.

Here is my page if you’d like to browse around. The site looks to be invite-only right now, but I think I can invite you if you’d like. Just leave me a comment on here.

[Photo: AuntyCookie@flickr]

This is the obituary for my great-great grandmother, Emma Jane (FIRMENICH) CORRIGAN in from April 28, 1941. I’m not sure exactly which newspaper since I found the article in my grandmother’s collection and she didn’t note it. If I had to guess, it’s probably from a local Ashland, Wisconsin newspaper.

MRS. COOK, 67, OLD RESIDENT DIES MONDAY

Wife Of Former Street Commissioner Succumbs To Long Illness

Mrs. Emma Cook, 67, of 109 North Ellis avenue, a resident of Ashland and the Chequamegon region for the past 59 years and wife of the late George S. Cook, former city street commissioner, died Monday evening at her home following a lingering illness.

The former Emma Firmenich was born in Wrightstown, Wisconsin, on June 29, 1873, but moved with her parents to Ashland in 1882. The Firmenich family lived in Ashland for a few years and then moved to Sanborn.

She was married to Thomas Corrigan in 1892 at Sanborn where the couple lived until 1905. They then moved to Ashland and lived near the cemetery on Sanborn avenue for several years. Mr. Corrigan died in 1916, but his wife continued to live in their home until 1926 when she moved to Milwaukee. Six years later she returned to the city and in 1932 was married to Mr. Cook in Ashland. Mr. Cook died on December 5, 1940.

She was a member of the St. Agnes church, the Altar Society and the Old Settlers’ Club.

Survivors are twelve children, Edwin and Sadie of Ashland; Maurice, Clayton and Mrs. E. H. Olson of Iron Mountain, Michigan; Henry, Mrs. Norbert Enders (Lenore) and Mrs. Ed Strelka (Ethel) of Milwaukee; Mrs. Harry Nantais (Beatrice) of Dearborn, Michigan; Frank of Rivera, Florida; Mrs. Joseph Maurer and Mrs. Mary Foster of Detroit; four sisters, Mrs. A. F. Anderson and Mrs. Joe Fabro of Ashland, Mrs. William McKindley and Mrs. Thomas Gorman of Grand Coulee, Washington; and one brother, Henry Firmenich, Baudette, Minnesota.

Funeral services will be held at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Cook home and at 9 a.m. at St. Agnes church. Interment will be in St. Agnes cemetery. The body will be removed from the Wartman Funeral Home to the Cook residence on Thursday where is will lie in state until time of services.

According to the instructions, the list should be annotated in the following manner:

• Things you have already done or found: bold face type
• Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
• Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
• You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item

1. Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents
2. Can name over 50 direct ancestors [with a little help from my genealogy program]
3. Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents
4. Have an ancestor who was married more than three times [Don't think more than 3, but I have a few 3-timers]
5. Have an ancestor who was a bigamist [Not that I found, yet]
6. Met all four of my grandparents [Yes, and fortunately, two are still with us]
7. Met one or more of my great-grandparents [I, fortunately, remember meeting 3 of them, but 5 were alive when I was a baby]
8. Named a child after an ancestor [If you count middle names. Our daughter Aerissa's middle name is Jean after my mother's and my grandmother's middle name]
9. Bear an ancestor’s given name/s
10. Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland [CORRIGAN, McCANN, THOMPSON]
11. Have an ancestor from Asia
12. Have an ancestor from Continental Europe
13. Have an ancestor from Africa
14. Have an ancestor who was an agricultural laborer [Probably a good 75%+]
15. Have an ancestor who had large land holdings [I'm told one of my ancestors had a good sum of money, which I also assume land was involved]
16. Have an ancestor who was a holy man – minister, priest, rabbi
17. Have an ancestor who was a midwife
18. Have an ancestor who was an author
19. Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones
20. Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng
21. Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
22. Have an ancestor with a forename beginning with Z
23. Have an ancestor born on 25th December
24. Have an ancestor born on New Year’s Day
25. Have blue blood in your family lines [Nobility, no, but my great-grandfather, Joseph ZALEWSKI, was a police officer. They're sometimes called Blue Bloods. My wife's line has the noblility]
26. Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
27. Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
28. Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century
29. Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier
30. Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents
31. Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X [More than likely, I just haven't seen it]
32. Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university
33. Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence
34. Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime
35. Have shared an ancestor’s story online or in a magazine (Tell us where) [on here, more than likely, many times]
36. Have published a family history online or in print (Details please) [Would like to someday]
37. Have visited an ancestor’s home from the 19th or earlier centuries
38. Still have an ancestor’s home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
39. Have a family bible from the 19th Century
40. Have a pre-19th century family bible

[Find-A-Grave Page]

1. List your matrilineal line – your mother, her mother, etc. back to the first identifiable mother. Note: this line is how your mitochondrial DNA was passed to you!
2. Tell us if you have had your mitochondrial DNA tested, and if so, which Haplogroup you are in.
3. Post your responses on your own blog post, in Comments to this blog post, or in a Status line on Facebook or in your Stream at Google Plus.
4. If you have done this before, please do your father’s matrilineal line, or your grandfather’s matrilineal line, or your spouse’s matriliuneal line.
5. Does this list spur you to find distant cousins that might share one of your matrilineal lines?

According to my blog, it seems I did this line for myself already. Though, I will post it again in case something is more up-to-date. I will do my father’s line and also my wife’s line since I haven’t really inspected those before. Here is mine, first.

1. Brian J ZALEWSKI
2. Sharon THIELKE married John ZALEWSKI
3. Marge DeBROUX married LeRoy THIELKE
4. Mildred Vida VAN PRICE (5 Jul 1903 Mattoon, Shawano Co., Wisconsin – 29 Oct 1994 Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin) married Leon DeBROUX
5. Minnie May MUHM (12 Jul 1879 Norwood, Langlade Co., Wisconsin – 6 Jul 1959 Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin) married Pieter Fransiscus VAN PARIJS
6. Ida W SCHAVANDIE (6 Sep 1852 Germany – 12 Nov 1934 Antigo, Langlade Co., Wisconsin) married Peter MUHM
7. Anna RASCH (? in Germany – ??) married Lawrence SCHAVANDIE

Unfortunately, my matrilineal line is one of the few lines in my tree that is somewhat short, though I have not done a ton of research on it. I have done a DNA test, so I do have my mtDNA information. According to the latest 23AndMe info, my Maternal Haplogroup in H11a. I have made my 23AndMe Maternal Line page public, so you can view more details there. It does match the German ancestry that I find in my research.

Next is my father’s matrilineal line, though there is no mtDNA haplogroup info since my DNA does not have that information. Only his DNA (or his sibling’s) would show that.

Circa 1927 - Maurice Corrigan Family

Today’s Way Back Wednesday photo is from a recent scan from my grandmother’s photo collection. This is a photo of her family. Her parents, Maurice & Agnes (BRAATZ) CORRIGAN, along with her twin, Thomas, and her older sister, Shirley. The photo is probably from around 1927 or so based on the age of the twins.

What is on your Genealogy Bucket List? What research locations do you want to visit? Are there genea-people that you want to meet and share with? What do you want to accomplish with your genealogy research? List a minimum of three items – more if you want!

I was thinking about it this week and this is what I came up with right now.

1. I’d definitely like to visit one of my many ancestral homelands. There are a lot, though most of them seem to cluster around Germany and Poland, as you can see on my custom Google Map. The top three that I’d like to visit, in no particular order, are:
   1. Killeeshil Parish in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Origin location of my CORRIGAN ancestors. I just love Ireland and the history of the area.
   2. The origin location of my ZALEWSKI and LINDNER ancestors, which looks to be the Święte and Goczałki areas in modern north-central Poland. As with a lot of people, I feel a deeper connection to ancestors in my direct surname line, Zalewski. Plus, pictures I’ve seen of the area make it look beautiful.
   3. The origin location of most of my Belgian ancestors, DeBROUX, LAURENT, etc. They all came from the Walloon Brabant area of Belgium. Some of them came from the area of Chaumont-Gistoux, which during WWII was part of the famous defensive KW-Line.
2. I would like to publish some smaller books either based on a specific family or just my ancestry in general. Both, I think, could be helpful to future researchers.
3. I would like to become a certified/professional genealogist. I’d love to be able to help other people find their family history and hopefully spark the appreciation for everything that has come before them.
4. I would also love to attend a national genealogy conference of some sort. I have yet to meet any of the extremely friendly and helpful geneabloggers that I socialize with almost every day. Unfortunately, most of them are never around in this area, so I have yet to have a chance to attend one.

Anyone following the latest research into my ZALEWSKI line knows that I’ve run across the GWIAZDOWSKI surname on a few occasions. They have something to do with my ZALEWSKI family, but I’m still not 100% sure what it is. Research points to many conflicting options: These are Frank ZALEWSKI’s parents, these are Frank’s aunt and uncle, or maybe they’re just good friends. I have more research to do with the Polish/German church records I recently found at the FHL.

Above: More evidence that they’re related to me somehow is that (among other things) they’re buried with members of the Jacob ZALEWSKI family (the brother of Frank) at Holy Cross Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their plot is located at the back part of the GORALSKI stone (another family somehow related to me.)

[Find-A-Grave link]