Category: Weekly

CategoriesCorriganSaturday Genealogy Fun

SNGF: Ancestral Roulette

Posted on 15 January 2011by Brian Zalewski

This week on Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is Ancestral Name List Roulette. The rules are as follows:

  1. How old is one of your grandfathers now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your “roulette number.”
  2. Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an “ahnentafel”). Who is that person?
  3. Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the “roulette number.”
  4. Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.
  5. If you do not have a person’s name for your “roulette number” then spin the wheel again – pick a grandmother, or yourself, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!

For my grandfather, I chose my maternal grandfather who is still living. As of today, he is 85 years old. Divided by 4 that is 21.25, so rounded to 21.

Emma Jane Firmenich

Number 21 in my Ancestral Name List is Emma Jane Firmenich, my paternal great-great-grandmother. She was born 23 Jun 1873 in Wrightstown, Brown Co., Wisconsin, married Thomas Corrigan on 18 Apr 1892, and passed away on 28 Apr 1941 in Ashland, Ashland Co., Wisconsin. Here are three things I know about her:

  1. She lost 4 of her younger siblings in September 1885 due to a Diphtheria epidemic that hit Wisconsin.
  2. She was married three times. To my great-great grandfather, Thomas Corrigan, and then to T E Martin and George S Cook. She did not have more children besides the ones born during her first marriage.
  3. She lived in Milwaukee for a short time with 4 of her adult children according to the 1930 census, then moved back north to Ashland by 1932 after her second husband died.
CategoriesWeekly History

Weekly History: November 28th – December 4th

Posted on 28 November 2010by Brian Zalewski

The weekly history from our family trees for this week. I plan on getting back to this since I’ve been so busy lately. As always you can browse the history by date on the Dates & Anniversaries page.

November 28th

1841 – Died – Constant Joseph LAURENT – Constant is Brian’s 4th-great-grandfather on his mother’s side. He was born 14 Oct 1777 in Grez-Doiceau, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. In 1809, he married his wife Marie Josèphe BERO. He passed away in Biez, Chaumont-Gistoux, Waloon Brabant, Belgium.

November 29th

1716 – Born – Rachel (BURLSON) WARNER – Rachel is Darcy’s 7th-great-grandmother on her mother’s side. She was born in Suffield, Hartford Co., Connecticut. She married her husband, John WARNER, in 1741 and passed away in an unknown year at Pittsford, Rutland Co., Vermont.

1821 – Married – Antoine Joseph CALONNE & Marie Eleanore Joseph ETIENNE – Antoine and Marie are Darcy’s 4th-great-grandparents on her mother’s side. They were married at Dhuy, Namur, Belgium and together had 13 children.

November 30th

1854 – Married – Jean Joseph Désiré DEBROUX & Marie Desiree LOOD – Jean and Marie are Brian’s 3rd-great-grandparents on his mother’s side. They were married at Piétrebais, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. Together they had 7 children, only one was born in Belgium before they traveled to the US and settled in Wisconsin.

December 1st

1828 – Died – Marie Catherine LOUIS – Marie is Darcy’s 6th-great-grandmother on her mother’s side. She was born in about 1747 in Thorembais-les-Beguines, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. She married Jean Francois RENIER in 1774 and passed away at Thorembais-les-Beguines, Walloon Brabant, Belgium.

December 4th

1842 – Born – Barbara (REINDL) HUIZEL – Barbara is Darcy’s great-great-grandmother on her father’s side. She was born in Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. She married John HUIZEL in about 1864. She passed away on 6 Feb 1905 in Plymouth, Cerro Gordo Co., Iowa.

CategoriesBelgianDutchSurname Saturday

Surname Saturday: VAN PRICE

Posted on 27 November 2010by Brian Zalewski
Photo from Charles' Passport. Note his name listed as just "Price."

By the time the VAN PRICE surname ended in my ancestry, it had already been changed at least once. My great-grandmother, Mildred Vida (DEBROUX) VAN PRICE, was the last to have the surname before she married my great-grandfather. Her father, as he is listed on later documents and his headstone, was Peter VAN PRICE. Though, he wasn’t born with that name. His name when he was born was Pieter Franciscus VAN PARIJS.

For years, I didn’t have much more info on the VAN PRICE surname in my tree besides the two people listed above, and I didn’t have anything on Peter except for his name. That all changed on day when searching for information using Google. I was looking for information on the Van Price line, but I always hit a brick wall. I had happened to find something that mentioned that “Parijs” was sometimes written as “Price” in America. So, I searched for Van Parijs and ran across a Dutch Genealogy website, Zeeuwen Gezocht [Zeeland Archives]. It turns out that the VAN PARIJS family is from the Zeeland area of the Netherlands and this website was a treasure trove of information. From there I found information going back many generations. I know that “Van Parijs” roughly translates into “of Paris” in French, so I’m wondering if this family came from France, since I have traced them back into Belgium.

From the archive website  I found Peter’s parents, Charles Ludovicus VAN PARIJS and Johanna Maria KREBBEKX. Then Charles’ father was found as Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS, then Phillipus Jacobus Bernardus VAN PARIJS, and finally Joannis VAN PARIJS. This is as far back as I’ve been able to find, though I haven’t dug in and done much research in a few years. By this time, the VAN PARIJS family was located in the East Flanders, Belgium area.

CategoriesMilitaryWay Back Wednesday

Way Back Wednesday: US Navy

Posted on 10 November 2010by Brian Zalewski

Hilo, HawaiiFor Wayback Wednesday, I’m going to give you more than just the one photo shown here. I’m going to give you a whole collection of 119 photos. I recently uploaded my grandfather’s Navy photo collection to Flickr. I was hoping that maybe somebody from the photos, or their families, will find them. It would just be nice to let them see the photos. He has a lot of photos of his fellow navymen from when he was stationed in the Hilo, Hawaii area from about 1942 to 1946. There is also a lot of Hawaiian history in some of his photos, like of old Honolulu.

I’d love for you to visit the Flickr photo set and enjoy the history.

CategoriesWay Back Wednesday

Way Back Wednesday: Surrounded

Posted on 20 October 2010by Brian Zalewski

Nepomuncena & Kids

A photo from 1921 that includes my 3rd-great grandmother, Nepomuncena (SYLDATK) SZULTA, in the middle. This is a photo of her with a bunch of her grandchildren. Since it seems to be sometime in Summer or Spring 1921, my grandfather would not have been born yet. Though, the little girl in her lap on the right looks an awful lot like my grandfather’s sister, Irene, who was born in 1920.

CategoriesFeaturedPersonalSaturday Genealogy Fun

Who’s To Blame?

Posted on 16 October 2010by Brian Zalewski

Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings has posted this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. The prompt for this week is as follows:

1) Read Brenda Joyce Jerome’s post Who or What Do You Blame? on the Western Kentucky Genealogy blog. She asks these questions:

* Can you identify person or event that started you on this search for family information?

* Did you pick up researching where a relative had left off?

* Did your interest stem from your child’s school project on genealogy?

* If you have been researching many years, it may be hard to pinpoint one reason for this journey.

2) Write your responses on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a note or comment on Facebook.

I can’t exactly identify one person who started my interest in genealogy. I remember going to family reunions for my paternal grandmother’s family, the descendants of Thomas J CORRIGAN, and meeting all kinds of people who were supposedly related to me. I never really took interest in the family tree stuff there, but I was pretty young at the time. Problem solving, for some reason, has always been somewhat easy for me and depending on what problem I’m solving it can also be fun. This is probably the main reason I enjoy genealogy so much. It’s a very personal problem to solve and it involves lots of information and logic. To be honest, I don’t remember a genealogy project in school. If I did do one, I guess I didn’t save it. When looking through some of the files my mother gave me, I also don’t see any trees my brothers did. Maybe our school district didn’t do it.

I became interested specifically in genealogy in about 1999. Two different events prompted me to look more into my personal history. First, my grandfather, Richard ZALEWSKI, passed away in April 1999 and then a few weeks later I read an article in our local paper about FamilySearch.org. It was about how much traffic the site received when it first opened, which took the site offline. This event is also mentioned on the FamilySearch Wikipedia entry, “May 1999: Website first opened to the public. It almost immediately went off-line, overloaded because of extreme popularity.”

Those two events happening pretty close to each other made me think of my personal history and how I should probably at least do some basic digging before I lose my other grandparents. Thankfully, all three of my other grandparents are still with us. As with most genealogists, this basic digging just wasn’t enough. I opened Pandora’s Box, so to speak.

On my paternal grandmother’s CORRIGAN side of the tree, I did receive a lot of research that was already done by my great-granduncle, Edwin CORRIGAN, and other family members for the family reunions we had. My paternal ZALEWSKI line was barely touched as was my maternal side of the tree, so I did have a lot of work cut out for me. Many thanks to my parents and grandparents for giving me the information I needed. It turns out a lot of it was around, just not organized like it is now.

Now, it’s my job to plant the seed into my daughter’s life (and possibly other children if that happens) and let them run with it. Maybe in 20 years she’ll do a blog post, or whatever crazy thing is around then, about me.

CategoriesWay Back WednesdayZalewski

Way Back Wednesday: St. Casimir’s School

Posted on 6 October 2010by Brian Zalewski

My Aunt and Uncle let me scan this photo from my grandfather’s collection. It’s a photo of his 8th grade class at St. Casimir’s School in northeast Milwaukee in February 1936. As you can tell by the names, if you can see them, it was a very Polish-heavy area. I’ve magnified my grandfather’s photograph. The original image is very large, so I didn’t want to put the whole thing on the site. The girls got the top area of the photo, the boys on the bottom, and the teachers in the middle.

St. Casimir's School

On a side note, I plan to start posting more often again. I’ve been busy recently, with a new baby on the way and all, and have also not had the genealogy bug for a bit.

CategoriesWeekly History

Weekly History: August 22nd – 28th

Posted on 22 August 2010by Brian Zalewski

Weekly History for our family for this week. As always, you can find any date on the Dates & Anniversaries page.

Nathaniel Shannon
Nathaniel Shannon's Headstone in Boston. Click for larger.

August 23rd

1714 – Married – Nathaniel SHANNON & Abigail VAUGHAN – Nathaniel and Abigail are my wife’s 8th-great-grandparents on her mother’s side. Nathaniel was born in Boston, Suffolk Co., Massachusetts in 1689. Abigail was born in Portsmouth, Rockingham Co., New Hampshire in 1683. They were married at Ipswitch, Essex Co., Massachusetts. Nathaniel passed away in 1723 in the West Indies. It is not known why he was there exactly, maybe on business. Abigail lived much longer and passed away in 1762.

August 26th

1869 – Born – Felix BANNACH – Felix is my wife’s great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side. He was born in German Poland, in what is now probably Poland. He married Mary WOJACK in 1894 in Portage Co., Wisconsin. Felix passed away on 31 Oct 1943 in Waukegan, Lake Co., Illinois.

August 27th

1723 – Died – Nathaniel SHANNON – Nathaniel is my wife’s 9th-great-grandfather on her mother’s side. He is the father of the Nathaniel mentioned above. He was born around 1655 in Londonderry, Ulster County, Ireland. In around 1688, he married a woman named Elizabeth, surname unknown. He is buried at the famous Old Granary Burial Ground on Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts; burial location of people such as Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

1778 – Born – Jonathan WARNER – Jonathan is my wife’s 5th-great-grandfather on her mother’s side. He was born in Pittsford, Rutland Co., Vermont. He married Anna RIPLEY sometime before 1802. Together they had 7 children. It is unknown when Jonathan passed away.

CategoriesWeekly History

Weekly History: August 8th – 14th

Posted on 8 August 2010by Brian Zalewski

Important dates in our family history for this week. As always, you can find this info on the Dates & Anniversaries page.

Frank Zalewski
Frank J Zalewski, Sr - Unknown Year

August 8th

1941 – Died – Frank J ZALEWSKI, Sr – Frank is my great-great-grandfather on my father’s side. He was born somewhere in Germany or Poland on 4 Sep 1858. He married Anna LINDNER in January 1885. They had 3 children in Europe before emigrating to America via Baltimore and then settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in about 1892. They had 6 more children here. He passed away in Milwaukee and is buried with his family at Holy Cross Cemetery. Frank is the subject of my “Everything I Know About Frank Zalewski” website.

August 9th

1671 – Married – Nicolaes van CRAYBECK & Helena WAGEMANS – Nicolaes and Helena are my 9th-great-grandparents on my mother’s side. They were both born in Belgium in the mid-1600s. They were married at Kuringen, Belgium. Nicolaes passed away in 1671 and Helena in 1678, both in Kuringen.

1748 – Born – Sarah ROGERS – Sarah is my wife’s 6th-great-grandmother on her mother’s side. She was born in New London, New London Co., Connecticut. In 1776, she married William MOORE II and together they had 4 children. It is unknown when Sarah passed away.

August 10th

1782 – Married – Carey TONEY & Elizabeth DOREN – Carey & Elizabeth are my wife’s 5th-great-grandparents on her father’s side. They were married at Bedford Co., Virginia. Together, they had 10 children including her ancestor, William TONEY. They both lived to be over 100 years of age when they passed away in Preble Co., Ohio.

August 11th

1990 – Died – Norma (POWELL) MORAN – Norma is my wife’s great-grandmother on her father’s side. She was born 24 Dec 1892 in Crawford Co., Wisconsin. She married Frederick H MORAN in about 1915. Together, they had two children, Vivian and Keith. Norma passed away in Madison, Dane Co., Wisconsin and is buried at Boscobel Cemetery in Boscobel, Grant Co., Wisconsin.

August 14th

1872 – Died – Johann W G LAST – Johann is my 3rd-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born in Prussia in about 1820. He married Charlotte STRASSMAN in Prussia and they had three children before leaving for America. Their last child, Amelia, was born in Wisconsin. Johann fought in the Civil War for Co. K in the 50th Wisconsin Infantry. He survived the war, but passed away a bit later in 1872 in Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin. He is buried with a Civil War headstone at Union Cemetery in Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin.