Taking a Break Led to New Discoveries

After being so completely wrapped up in trying to connect my various Sip families, a short break was welcome and profitable.

I took time to read blogs that had been waiting for me get around to them. Found a lot of interesting stuff, but I hit paydirt with this tip about Google Books:  

 Genealogy Tip of the Day with Michael John Neill 

Because my own peasant ancestors are fairly recent immigrants, they’re not likely to appear in books except for city directories.  But I did search for one of my husband’s ancestors and one of my chlldren’s paternal ancestors.

My husband’s 7X GGfather came to The Colonies in 1702. It was a time when Britain was shipping convicts to the West Indies and The Colonies.  Library research[1] had told me That Francis Foxworthy was shipped to the colony of Virginia having been pardoned of his conviction for murder. A juicy detail like that demands more research but I set it aside at the time because I didn’t know where to look.

Search Google Books for Francis Foxworthy and here it is.  Now I know where to get more information.

I’ve struggled making the correct Rose family connections before 1812.  Search Google Books for Solomon Rose and find what may be the perfect resource: The Rose Family Bulletin

I found the Rose Family Association site which has a list of family reports available for purchase.  I’ve ordered Solomon Rose (w Mary/Polly) Oneida Co., NY; Rock Co., WI

If you haven’t used Google Books as a genealogy resource, you may be missing out on some good information.

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[1]
The complete book of emigrants in bondage, 1614-1775

by Coldham, Peter Wilson.

Wish List – Dear Genea Santa

 For Elizabeth O'Neal's December 2016 Blog Party

Where to begin!??

I have two lists.  One is for things that are either said to be coming in the near future; or are at least within the realm of possibility.  The other list is for those things that are unlikely or would involve a miracle of some sort.

Fantasy:

All Polish archives to be online and searchable

Complete and error-free synchronization among all online family tree providers.

Every state in the US to have vital records online and searchable

Adequate budget to support every research trip I’d like to take and to purchase every publication I’d like to have, (And the room to store all the publications.)

Instant fluency in the Polish language.  This is where the miracle part comes in.

Reality: (Could happen)

Verify my g gfather Joseph Dachtera’s birth place.

Figure out which Solomon Rose is the one I’m looking for.  (There are too many men named Solomon Rose in the same time and region.)

Find the ancestral village in Bohemia of the Filek family I’m looking for.

The return of the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. The Newberry Library says this will happen in early 2017.

Better organizational skills. (Possible but not likely. Comes under the heading of “teaching an old dog new tricks”.

C’mon, Santa. Do your stuff!

Genealogy Blog Pool Party: A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is…

A Rose is a Rose and its name is probably either John or Solomon

This month’s theme for Elizabeth O'Neal's Genealogy Blog Party is:

 Annoying Ancestor? Push 'Em in the Pool!   Well roses need water so here they go.

Researching my children’s paternal ancestors began easily enough with their grandmother, Mary Irene Rose; but it soon got complicated.

Mary Irene Rose (b1910) was the daughter of

John Rose (b1873) who was the son of

John Rose (b1842) who was the son of

John Rose (b1811) who was the son of

Solomon Rose (b1780) who was the son of

Solomon Rose (b1760) who was the son of

Solomon Rose (b 1731) who was probably the son of

Solomon Rose (Ross?)

At one time, there were 3 generations of Solomon Roses living in Pepperellborough (now Saco), Maine. And their wives were either Sarah, or Sarah called Sally, or Abigail perhaps misspelled as Abigil, or Mary known as Polly.  And, of course, the female names were also passed from one generation to the next.

Confusing?  Frustrating?  Annoying? all of the above.

At this point, I think I have them mostly figured out.  Maybe.

Tangled Trees

It’s been a while since my last post because I’m not inspired to blog when frustrated.  My double focus lately is trying to make sense of two families.  I alternate from one to the other when I get stuck or overwhelmed. 

 The Polish Genealogy group on Facebook has helped me better understand my dilemma with the Dachtera family.  Church sacramental records from the late 1600s through the 19^th century confused me with several variations of the name.

There was what I was looking for:  Dachtera.  But there were a number of others

Dachterzak

Dachterski

Dachterzakow

Dachterow

The Polish language is very complex.  I didn’t know whether these were likely to be different families or just variant spellings.

The responses to my Facebook query answered some questions but raised a few more. 

I now expect that these are all the same family.

The church records were handwritten in old fashioned European script in either Latin or in Polish.  Penmanship varies widely – some are extremely sloppy while others are picture perfect. The small sample below is more readable than most,

 And the names recorded were apparently at the discretion of the priest who wrote them. He wrote what he heard, or what he thought he heard or what he thought it should be.  (This happened in the US into the 1930’s when the priest at St. Adalbert’s in St. Paul decided that my Schipp relatives should be spelled Szyp.)

So now I have to figure whether out whether “Marcin” is correct, or should be “Martin”.  If Marcin’s wife is shown as Maria in one record and as Marianna in another, are they the same woman? Both were extremely common – a couple may have named one daughter Maria, and another Marianna.

 Trying to follow the Rose family from Maine to New York state to Wisconsin has proven a real challenge.  In New York they lived in counties that were absorbed into other counties.  Without the ability to travel to the courthouses to review the records, I’m dependent on online records and the materials at my library. They have a huge collection of material from New York that I’m sifting through. 

Fortunately, Chicago’s Newberry Library has a wonderful online resource in their Atlas of HistoricalCounty Boundaries.  Its interactive map shows  boundaries for any given year in any given county in the US.

Of course, it is always possible that I’m trying to connect two different Rose families.  Its slow, but I am making some progress.

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose…………….???

But I’m beginning to wonder if all the Roses I’ve found are of the same family.  I’m up to my neck in Roses and trying to make sense of it all.

The Roses got from Maine, to New York state, to Wisconsin.  But how? Why?  Based on census and land records, I have some idea of when they moved west and then west again. 

I am truly grateful for online resources such as the Atlas of Historical CountyBoundaries at Chicago’s Newberry library. They have an interactive map that shows how county boundaries changed over time. New counties were formed from old ones; and larger counties swallowed up smaller ones. 

I’m also grateful for historians who so carefully logged people and events and published their findings, especially before states began official recordings of vital statistics.

No doubt it will all come together eventually, but I’m in overload just now.

Heading back to the library.

A Fork in the Road: Bohemia or Maine?

I’ve opted for Maine for now – at least until I hit the brick wall that’s bound to be there.

My focus had been on Poland for my ancestors and on Bohemia for my children’s paternal ancestors.  Bohemia is a tough nut to crack if you have no idea where to look for ancestral villages.  I’d done some research on their paternal grandmother’s ancestors in Maine (as noted in my blog post of Jan 13, 2013), but put that aside to concentrate on the more difficult Bohemia connection. I figured the Maine part would be easier so I’d save that as a reward for my first Bohemia success.  It’s a long wait.  Who knows if I’ll ever get anywhere there.

Then I mentioned to my son that one of his ancestors from Maine had fought in the Revolutionary War.  That really sparked his interest which, in turn, has motivated me to give the Bohemia quest a rest for a while and dig into the Maine folks.

Like most, the typical response I get from family when I talk about genealogy is: “That’s nice”.  So  his interest is a BIG deal.

I’m fortunate that the Indian River County Library has an outstanding genealogy department.  Because of our seasonal snowbird population, we seem to have much more interest in the northeastern part of the US than in Florida.  (Like California, most folks here are from someplace else. It’s always surprising to find a native Floridian who is older than 30.)  The collection about Maine is huge including vital records for every county and many cities.  And I’m looking at online resources I hadn’t used before now.

It’s always fun to start off on a new tangent. Finding new information is great fun. Even finding earlier mistakes is fun because it means progress.  And there are new problems to solve.  In my earlier post I asked: Just how many Solomon Rose’s can there be?  At least four in Maine.

It turns out that Solomon Jr. is really the third.  The fourth Solomon broke the chain but started a new one when his son John set in motion a string of Johns who begat more Johns.  Got to try to keep them straight.  Who’s on first?

In the meantime, I’m rereading microfilms from Polish churches in order to make digital copies that I can make somewhat readable so that I can work at making connections.  Keeps me off the street.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

While again waiting for LDS films to arrive, I took a short break from family history.  But it’s always lurking in the back of my mind.  After a few days of gen-inactivity, I thought I’d see what I could find on another line on the Family Search site.

I’ve been stuck on John Rose born in New York state in 1812, but moved to Wisconsin where he died in 1891.  There seem to have been hundreds of John Roses born in New York around that date. (OK so I exaggerate; but there were several.)  I had only the birth year and location as shown in census records.

On the family search site, I keyed in his name, birth year and death years and locations.  He popped right up. Data from Wisconsin Deaths and Burials gave me his correct date of birth PLUS the names of his parents, Solomon and Polly Rose. 

It only got better from there, because when I searched on Solomon giving a range of possible birth years I found him and his father who was also Solomon.

WOW!!

Now I’m surprised to find just how many men named Solomon Rose lived in New England in the late 1700s.  So the search continues but this was a huge piece of the Rose puzzle.

Thanks, LDS