Category: News

Genealogy news and information

CategoriesFeaturedNewsTechnology

The 1940 Census Hunt Begins

Posted on 4 April 2012by Brian Zalewski

How can I go through this week without a post about the 1940 Census? The digital images were released on Monday, April 2nd free for everyone, though I personally never got to see them until late on Monday night. I don’t think they expected as much traffic as they got on day one. I heard somewhere around 37 million visits on Monday alone. It was no surprise to me. I wasn’t expecting to be able to view the images right away. I’ve been through my fair share of first day launches with things like MMORPGs and other websites to know not to expect much on the first day.

Since the 1940 Census was just released on Monday, there is no name index created, so you cannot search by name. There is currently a massive indexing project going on, that anyone (including you) can help with, that will hopefully bring us this index soon. You need to know the Enumeration District where your ancestors lived in 1940 and browse page by page through it. If you do not know the 1940 Census ED, the website has a nice little  form that will convert the ED from the 1930 Census to the ED in the 1940 Census. In my experience, most EDs are only 30 pages are so on average. Though, when I was able to access the images, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I could download the entire Enumeration District to browse via my own computer instead on needing to browse one-by-one online.

I was able to find all four of my grandparents pretty quickly since I knew where they lived in 1940 and also my great-grandparents at the same time due to the fact that my grandparents were all in their teens. I also ran across my great-great-grandmother from the same area as one of my grandparents. The first image I found is below.

Frank Zalewski; Ward 13, Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; ED 72-288; Household 172 - Click for larger version

The 1940 Census image for my great-grandfather, Frank ZALEWSKI. Frank’s wife, Anna, died in 1939 so he is listed alone in his specific “household.” His youngest son, Frank, Jr., is listed in the same building with his wife Louise. (This also proves the marriage I wrote about the other day.)

I found my grandfather, Richard ZALEWSKI, living near his grandfather, Frank, in Milwaukee, his dad working as a Milwaukee Police Officer. I found my grandmother, Mary Jane CORRIGAN, living in Kingsford, Michigan, her dad working as a machine operator at the Ford Motor Company. I found my other grandfather living in Grafton, Wisconsin and my other grandmother living in Port Washington, Wisconsin. I am currently trying to find my wife’s grandparents. Her paternal grandfather giving me some trouble since I didn’t find him in the ED he lived in in 1930. He was also 21 at the time, so he could be living as a boarder, etc if he is out on his own.

I’m just getting started digging for my family and I also hope to do some indexing soon enough. I know the indexes will help me in the future, why not help everyone else by creating it?

CategoriesFeaturedNews

Do You Know Anyone In It?

Posted on 6 March 2012by Brian Zalewski

In 27 days, on April 2nd, the sixteenth census of the United States, the 1940 US Census, will be released to the public. Due to privacy laws, the census reports are released to the public 72 years after they’ve been taken. The last one, the 1930 US Census, was released back in 2002. 1940 is not that long ago in terms of generations. Do you know anyone who is in it?

Unlike previous census years, images of the the 1940 US Census will be made available as free digital images on Day 1. While this is awesome, only the images are being released. The job of indexing these census records so they can be easily searched relies on us. Wonder how you can help or have more questions about the census? Visit the 1940 US Census Community Project website.

I’m not expecting to find any amazing, new information in this census since all 4 of my grandparents were in the 1930 Census. Though, there will be a few things that may be interesting. It’s the first census after my great-great grandmother passed away in 1939. There is also supposed to be some new questions for random individuals that may give us more info than normal. Hopefully, I have a few family members that answered those.

CategoriesNewsReview

Who Do You Think You Are?

Posted on 8 February 2010by Brian Zalewski

I wrote this for another site, so it may have more general genealogy info than I would have written if it was on this blog. But, you already know about all of this stuff.

As you know from other posts and podcasts, I do enjoy genealogy and the research that goes into unraveling my family tree. Last year, I came across a show on BBC Television in the UK called Who Do You Think You Are? I was able to watch most of the last (seventh) season and scattered other episodes from different seasons in the English and Australian versions via YouTube and other methods. (Since it’s only on British television and the DVDs are only Europe and UK region-coded, so I can’t watch them easily.) I have yet to watch an episode didn’t completely captivate me. Maybe it’s my love of Genealogy, or my love of hunting down a mystery, but the show grew on me.

Continue reading

CategoriesMilitaryNewsTips & Tricks

Extra! Extra!

Posted on 25 January 2009by Brian Zalewski

20090125

After going out to dinner for our birthday (my wife & I) with my parents last night, we got to talking a bit about genealogy and some stories about my grandparents. It was mentioned that my maternal grandfather was in World War II. I was never sure on this subject since I’ve heard nothing about. I’m told that he doesn’t talk about it for reasons unknown to my parents. He’s never even mentioned it to my mother. I completely respect his decision. Who knows what he may have experienced in Europe in the 1940s.

I’m aware of all of the documents available for World War II either at Ancestry or Footnote, so I thought I’d look around. I have yet to find any mention of my grandfather in any documentation available. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I saw it mentioned that some documents have yet to be released due to privacy. My mom and dad mentioned that they think he was a Sergeant since my grandmother sometimes calls him “Sarge.” Does anyone know of any other places to check?

My search for that information turned into finding a nice collection of newspaper articles on my maternal family line. I happened to find my grandfather in an article from the Sheboygan Press in 1941 mentioning that he came in 3rd place in some sort of kite contest. I also found their wedding announcement, a mention of a speeding ticket he got in 1968 and a bunch of other neat articles. I also found some other obituaries and wedding announcements. Don’t underestimate the information in some of these old newspapers. Ancestry has a lot of newspapers on file that are mostly searchable. Footnote doesn’t have a lot yet, but knowing them they’ll be getting a lot more and I like their system a bit better.

Here are some examples of what I found:

Just find a local paper on one of these sites, if there is one available, and just browse around by searching for last names. You’ll find some cool stuff.

CategoriesCemeteriesHistoryNews

Remains of the Unknown

Posted on 3 May 2007by Brian Zalewski

Remains of four people that were found about a decade ago in my home town, while adding on to a local church, were finally laid to rest this week. According to the news article about this, they are believed to be over 100 years old. Over the last decade, they’ve been trying to figure out who these remains belonged to, even going as far as contacting a forensic pathologist to conduct a bone analysis. All he could say was the they were probably of European descent.

Eisenberg told the crowd gathered Tuesday that it’s not even clear whether all four were originally buried together. What’s known is that one of the four was a male and another was a female. The child was buried with one of the adults – whose gender couldn’t be determined – in a brick crypt.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t find out who these remains belonged to, but it’s good to see them finally laid to rest again.

Read one of the articles here at JSOnline.com.

CategoriesNewsTips & TricksZalewski

Create your own family website

Posted on 18 April 2006by Brian Zalewski

I ran across this via Lifehacker. It looks to be a website that allows you to create a “family website” including family trees, photos, calendar, and maps. It’s called JotSpot Family Site.

Use our quick family tree builder to see all the family generations at a glance. Never forget the names of your cousins’ children again.

It looks like a neat site. The design is very clean and easy-to-use. I have not signed up for a site, since..obviously..I already have a site. But, for the novice family researcher, this may be a great way to get everyone involved and up-to-date. If any of you start a seperate Zalewski site, let me know and I’ll link to it.

Speaking of Zalewski’s, there haven’t been any signups to the Zalewski Surname Study. If you’re a Zalewski, please read all about it. This could help many family’s research into the Zalewski surname origins.

CategoriesNews

It bites back..

Posted on 22 February 2006by Brian Zalewski

It’s about time something like this happened. The world needs less of these jerks. I remember when I was a kid, we used to sled down a hill in our local cemetery. It had no headstones on it, it was an empty hill. But, there were always knocked down headstones and stories about kids who used to do it. I really don’t see the fun in it. Turns out, neither does this kid…
Police: Vandal Trapped By Tombstone

Authorities said it took four firefighters to lift a 600-pound gravestone off the 16-year-old boy’s leg early Tuesday after he helped knock over that headstone and dozens others.

Though, it does make me smile a little bit.