F is for Facts - A to Z Challenge

We all know what a fact is:  Something than can be proven to be true.

Perhaps. 

In recent months, the phrase “alternative fact” has come into common usage having been coined by someone in Washington, DC.  That is nothing new to genealogists and family historians.

We deal with alternative facts on a regular basis.  How many ways can that surname be spelled or misspelled?  Are Sally and Sarah the same person? Is that person a biological parent or a step parent?  An official document states a birth year as 1885; but then another document, also “official”, pins the birth year as 1887. Just how many nicknames are there for Margaret?

Genealogy software and online genealogy sites have us record facts for each individual in our family trees.  I wish there was a better word. Sometimes a fact is just the best information we have at the time.  Unless we have absolute proof, there’s always the chance that our “fact” will be contradicted or disproved.

As frustrating as that can be, it is also what keeps us digging through old records and keeps us on our toes.

And that’s a fact.

E is for Emigration A to Z Challenge

All four of my grandparents emigrated from Poland in the 1880’s.

How does a family decide to leave their homeland? Extended family has probably lived in the same area for generations. Parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts are close enough to visit easily. Their support system is well established and reliable.

Why abandon this seemingly comfortable way of life to endure the indignities of weeks at sea in steerage, and the unknowns of a new home in a strange land?

The answer seems simple in some cases such as the Irish potato famine. It was a matter of survival.

Why did my Polish ancestors come to the US?  It’s not surprising that the answer has to do with politics and power. Heads of government who sought to expand their realms and control the populace.

In the 19^th century, my families were in Prussian Poland where the government was imposing strict Germanification on its provinces that were once Poland.  The Polish language was forbidden.  All civic offices and school classes were conducted in the German language.  It was forbidden to teach the Polish language even as a foreign language. German emigres to former Polish lands were given priority for jobs and land purchases. Poles were relegated to second-class citizens.

Although Poland did not exist on a map in the 19^th century, Poles still considered themselves to be Polish and chafed under Prussian rule.

I would love to know the family conversations that led to the decision to emigrate.  It must have been difficult.

I am grateful that they made those decisions.  I was born in 1942 in the USA. I cannot imagine being born in 1942 in Poland. 

A  most heartfelt thank you to my great grandparents who took the risk to come to a new country.  Words cannot express my gratitude.

D is for Dachtera - A to Z Challenge

D is for Dachtera, my maiden name.  Alternate spelling: B-R-I-C-K--W-A-L-L.

 

That’s an exaggeration. It’s probably more like a wooden blockade– a tall, thick wooden blockade.

Using BaSIA, I am able to see where that surname is concentrated in Poland.  Years ago I spent untold hours scouring FHL films looking for records of my great grandfather, Joseph Dachtera in Parkowo and Oborniki just northeast of Poznan.  I created a detailed spreadsheet listing almost 150 individuals with that surname and worked hard at trying to isolate my great grandfather with no success.  I gave up in frustration and went on to other research.

But that was more than 10 years ago when I was just beginning my genealogy journey. I’ve learned a lot since then about research techniques and 19^th century Polish surname conventions, or lack of conventions. 

Great Grandpa Joseph Dachtera is my next project.  Armed with better knowledge and capabilities, maybe I’ll find an open gate in that blockade.

C is for Collateral – 2017 A to Z Challenge

Until recently, my research on collateral lines has been limited to those living in the US – my great aunts and uncles   The discovery of distant Polish relatives in the US got me busy looking at collateral lines from a 3^rd great grandfather born in Poland in 1779.

I should have done this a long time ago!  On the other hand, the information I found may not have been easily available a long time ago.

Using information from The Poznan Project and BaSIA I was able to locate and download records from The State Archive in Poznan. Adding this data to my tree on Ancestry.com brought up a forest of shaky leaf hints.

My 3^rd great grandfather, Johann Ganas, lived in the small village of Czerlejno which was the estate of a Polish nobleman. Johann’s sons had to look elsewhere for work but they stayed within a 10-mile radius of their birthplace. In the next generation, some families moved farther away but still within 20 miles of Czerlejno.

The Ancestry hints showed me that 3 Ganas families came to the US between 1887 and 1891. Two of them settled in Buffalo, NY; and one in Milwaukee, WI. My grandfather, Ignatz Ganas arrived in 1893 as a single man and settled in St. Paul, MN.  Maximillian Ganas, a Roman Catholic priest, arrived in Detroit, MI in 1911.

WOW!!  What fun!  I have more Polish cousins in the US than I’d ever imagined.  With ongoing research, I hope to be able to find living distant cousins.

B is for Bronie – 2017 A to Z Challenge

Aunt Bro was my mother’s 2^nd oldest sister. Her mother called her Bronie.  Before I started doing genealogy, everything I ever saw about her said her name was Bernice.  Bernice = Bro?  Didn’t make sense to me.

It finally made sense when I was able to review the sacramental records at St. Adalberts church in St. Paul, Minnesota.  My mother’s parents gave their children Polish baptismal names.  They used American names thereafter but grandma always referred to Bronislawa as Bronie and she was Bro to everyone else.

One mystery remains:  why was Bro’s husband, Daniel Muccio, referred to as Uncle Jim?  I’m sure I’ll never know.

A is for Ancestors

Starting the A to Z Challenge with an easy one.

Some genealogists are little more than name collectors.  To some, what matters most is how many names are on their family tree.  But each of those names represents a person, a real human being who lived and worked, loved, laughed, cried, and felt all of the same emotions that we feel.

Let’s try to understand our ancestors. That gets more difficult as we go back in time, but if we learn about the times in which they lived, we can begin to understand the legacy they left to their immediate descendants, and to us living in the here and now.

2017 A to Z Writing Challenge

The idea is to write a post every day in April except Sundays, with the subject matter following the alphabet.  I did it last year; lets see if I can do it again. "A" will be a separate post.

A to Z