Missing Pieces

Searching for missing pieces of information is the definition of a family history project. I’m looking at another family jigsaw puzzle with many missing pieces.

In the past few months, via DNA matches, I’ve learned of two distant cousins in my Schipp line and I’m now down that particular “rabbit hole”.  The video project is on the back burner for now.

Both of these new cousins are descended from great aunts on my mother’s side – my great grandfather, Michael Schipp (Sip) is our MRCA (most recent common ancestor).  Even though I’d said that I’d put it aside for a while, I’m back looking for Sip families in Poland

Using BaSIA, I’ve found a treasure trove of Catholic church sacramental records at the State Archive inPoznan. Now the job is to get them matched up as best I can.  MS Excel is a great tool for this.  I’m building this spreadsheet

Once I get the information entered I’ll be able to sort it every which way to try to extract facts, matching parents with children and grandchildren, seeing local migration patterns, and more, I hope.  There are several families clustered with an area of about 3 square miles, but it seems that a few of them moved from one place to another.

The challenge here is reading the records. BaSIA gives most of the vital facts, but there should be more information in the record itself. Unlike later church records which were written in Latin, these older records are written in Polish.

I’ll be busy for a while.

Sip to Schipp: Evolution of a Surname

In June, 2015 I published apost with a theory about how my great grandfather, Michael Sip became Michael Schipp. Quoted from that post:

“How did Sip become Schipp?  Here’s my theory.

In the 19^th century, the Province of Poznan was in the Prussian partition of Poland. There was a concerted effort to erase Polish culture and impose German language and culture. Civil authority was German and all civil records were in German. Schools taught only the German language and classes were in German.

In Polish the name Sip would be pronounced: ship or szip. 

My current thinking is that the German civil authorities wrote the name as it was pronounced.  The family were farmers in the boondocks of a relatively small city. I have no idea whether they were at all literate at the time.  Did they not understand that the spelling had changed?  Did they simply submit to the authorities rather than make a fuss?  I’ll never know.”

I have finally found evidence in civil records in the State Archive in Poznan. Until recently I’d been focused on church records because, in Poland and then in Prussian Poland, there were no civil records before 1874.

Here is the birth record of Michael’s son Theodor from 1882.  The yellow highlight shows the father as Michael Sip.  The note on the left highlighted in blue says: “# Instead of "Sip" it has to read "Schip" in the sixth and tenth line.
The registrar
[Signature]”

Michael’s son Ludwig was born two years later in 1884.  His birth record shows the surname as Szyp. Theodor’s and Ludwig’s births were registered at the same registry office.

(Note to my cousins:  This is the first and only record I’ve found for Ludwig.  He did not come to the US with his mother and siblings. As of this writing, I have not found a death record for him, but still, my current thinking is that he died as a child.)

In between the two births above, in 1883, Michael’s half-sister, Magdalena, was born to his father and stepmother. Please note that this record shows Sip as the surname.

Other records for this family as late as 1886 show the name as Sip.

My only reasonable conclusion is that the spelling was dependent on the person who happened to be working in the registry office that day.

Unless someone has a better solution for this name quandary, I’m putting this question to rest for now.

Microfilm Monday

In my 10 March, 2017 post I described finding a connection in my Ganas line to a family that settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It gets even better.  Further research on BaSIA led me to records of other Ganas individuals in the same line – descended from my 3X great grandfather, Johann Ganas.  Looking at records on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org showed me additional US immigrants in Buffalo, New York, and Detroit, Michigan.

BaSIA gave me links to digitized records at the State Archive in Poznan, Poland where I was able to determine where some of Johann’s children were married; and where some of  his grandchildren were born and married.  But state archives began in 1874, and very few Catholic church records are online.  So, that sent me back to FamilySearch to look for microfilms from the specific towns for years before 1874.

The films are finally here!  I’m anxious to see what new information I can dig up.

The Dead Ones Are Easy

 It takes much more effort to find living cousins.

Now that I’ve established a connection with the Ganas family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I’ve begun trying to learn about them in hopes of finding living distant cousins.

I wish I’d had this information 30 or 40 years ago when I lived within easy driving distance from Milwaukee. These are relatives on my maternal side but I don’t think that my mother was aware of them.  It is a pretty distant relationship.

The low-hanging fruit is the first phase.  Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, and  Find A Grave yield a pretty good picture of the family in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  There are death records, some marriage records and some birth records. These are readily verifiable sources.

The next phase requires more effort. There are a few gems to be found on a few public trees on Ancestry.  There are images of newspaper obituaries that provide starting points for more research.  I’m grateful to the others who have put these clues out there for me to find.

Connecting a Shrub to my Tree?

I’m deep down a rabbit hole these days because Ancestry.com gave me hints about one of my lines from another public tree. Can I connect the Ganas family in Milwaukee to my Ganas family in St. Paul??

There are tantalizing similarities.  My 3^rd Great Uncle, Mathias Ganas was born in 1821.  I found his baptismal record on a FHL  (Familysearch.org) film.  I have not yet uncovered a marriage record for him.

But the other tree in question has a Matthias Ganas born in 1824 – maybe.  It’s a “maybe” because when I go to The Poznan Project searching for his marriages it shows that he was married twice.  His first marriage in 1852 gives his age as 28 which puts his birth year at 1824.  His second marriage (as a widower) in 1868 shows is age as 46, giving a birth year of 1822.  Are either of them correct?  I’ve ordered the appropriate FHL film so maybe I’ll find more information. If I find his birth record on this film, I’ll know that he’s not MY Mathias.

In the meantime, I’ve returned to the search for Ganas records in Poland.  The BaSIA database is another resource created by volunteers transcribing archived records. This database continues to grow as more records are being transcribed. Entering a surname results in a map showing where, in Poland, there are records for that name that have been transcribed.

To the right of the map are the names of the locations with a graphic that roughly indicates the number of records. Clicking on the location results in a list of the records there. 

At the right of each record citation is a link to the archive that hold the records including information to find that record if it has been filmed and digitized. In the case of the Poznan archives, the record images may be downloaded.     

So I’m busy filling up a new flash drive.   Even if I cannot connect the Milwaukee shrub to my tree, I’m learning more about this part of my family.                                      

Viewing Digitized Images on FamilySearch.org

The number of indexed digitized records at Familysearch.org is growing steadily. Just recently there was a huge volunteer indexing project.  But what if you don’t find what you’re looking for in the indexed records? Familysearch also has a vast collection of records that have been digitized but not yet indexed. 

 

The idea of browsing through these images can be intimidating but it need not be that way.  I am learning to enjoy browsing these records.

The title of this post is taken directly from a post byJames Tanner.  Apparently this is part one of a planned series.  James explains his topic clearly and thoroughly.  If you haven’t yet dived into this, you’ll want to follow his posts.