This is a photo of my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Troka, and his great-grandson (my father.) It was taken in May 1959, probably at my Dad’s first communion. You will notice that Joseph liked to wear his pants very high.
I am forgoing the normal “Weekly History” post this week for a special announcement. It’s now been 12 weeks into the 36 weeks of the pregnancy of our first child. A big announcement that was hard to keep a secret until this point. 12 weeks is usually the point when most couples make the large announcement. Obviously, we told family and some others previous to this point. Our parents are very excited and everything is coming at us so fast, but it’s also extremely wonderful.
As a genealogist, this has another layer of joy for me. Now, officially, my tree and my wife’s tree are merged into one. Now when I do research on her tree, I’m actually doing it for my own child. They will come into this world with a pretty solid family tree already made for them. I’ve now ruined any fun and mystery they may find looking into their family history (haha.)
From my wife’s description: I know, it’s hard to decipher this thing. Heck, it’s tough for me and it’s my baby’s first screenshot! (Well, it is a screenshot”¦) The big round part is NOT the baby, it’s the yolk sac. The tiny little blur between the arrows is the baby at 6 weeks. We’re 6 more beyond that and it has grown, but we haven’t had a new ultrasound yet. We did hear the heartbeat for the first time this week though!
Well, we’re taking this one day at a time and the mother is doing great. Completely prepared and also scared out of my mind of things to come, but in a good way.
This is a “4 Generations” shot of the Firmenich -> Corrigan -> Olsen line. Included is my 3rd-great-grandfather, Mathias FIRMENICH; his daughter and my great-great-grandmother, Emma Jane (FIRMENICH) CORRIGAN; her daughter, Clarice (CORRIGAN) OLSEN; and Clarice’s daughter, Renee. The photo was taken in 1924. Click the photo for a a larger view.
Here are these week’s important dates. As always, you can view these whenever you like on the Dates & Anniversaries page.
April 27th
Happy birthday to my grandmother, Mary Jane, and her twin brother, Tom!
April 28th
1941 – Died – Emma Jane FIRMENICH – Emma Jane is my great-great-grandmother on my father’s side. She was born on 23 Jun 1873 in Wrightstown, Brown Co., Wisconsin. She married Thomas CORRIGAN in 1892 and they had 9 children, including my great-grandfather, Maurice CORRIGAN. After Thomas died in 1915, she married twice more before her death. She died in Ashland, Ashland Co., Wisconsin and is buried there at St. Agnes Cemetery.
April 29th
1756 – Died – Laurence HENRY – Laurence is my 8th-great-grandfather on my father’s side. He was born about 1690 in Vaivre, Haute-Saône, France. He married Jacques GRANGIER in 1714. He passed away in Menoux, Haute-Saône, France.
April 30th
1866 – Born – Margaretha STEARNS – Born Barbara Margaretha Magdalena STEARNS, she is my great-great-grandmother on my father’s side. She was born in Württemberg, Germany and after immigrating with her family to Wisconsin, she married Frank F BRAATZ in 1891. Together they had 5 children, including my great-grandmother, Agnes BRAATZ. She passed away in 1943 in Ashland, Wisconsin.
May 1st
1941 – Died – Emily M TROKA – Emily is my great-grandmother on my father’s side. She was born on 5 Jan 1896 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Joseph & Clara (SZULTA) TROKA. She married Joseph ZALEWSKI on 25 Jun 1919 and they had 3 children. Emily died suddenly of a stroke on May 1st, 1941 at only 45 years of age.
UPDATE 5/24/12: This specific widget is no longer being used on my new template, though I am working on something similar.
I had some crazy idea earlier this week on something I wanted to develop for the site. I thought, what if people were able to hover over links that I have to my family tree section and get some basic information on that person without ever having to leave the post? Well, it went from idea to (almost) finished product in about 3 days. I know it’s not a perfect implementation and I plan on tweaking it to make it work better and more efficient.
So, now if you hover over a name on my posts that link to a person’s information page, like for example, Richard ZALEWSKI, it will show you basic information about my grandfather in a tooltip. If you want the full details, you can still click on the link and go to the family tree page. This only works on individuals right now and not family group sheets, but I don’t link to them that often.
I’ve tested the implementation in most of the major browsers including Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox 3.6, and Google Chrome 5. I’m pretty sure it works in just about everything as long as you have Javascript enabled, according to the tooltip code I used.
Let me know how you like it and if it’s too annoying or clunky. Constructive criticism is good so I can fix issues with it. So, you’re my beta testers! Enjoy.
For the technical mumbo-jumbo for all you geeks or if anyone is interested, keep reading.
This is a picture of the men of the Troka, Zalewski, Szulta, and other families. The photo includes both my great-grandfather and his father-in-law, my great-great-grandfather. Also included are some great uncles and some other family members. Here are the names of everyone in the photo. Back row: Joseph Zalewski (my great-grandfather), Leo Troka (my great-granduncle), Steve Kolasinski, John Szulta (my great-great-granduncle), Roman Troka (my great-granduncle) – Front row: Barney Kuszewski, Jos. Malzewski, Joseph Troka (my great-great-grandfather), Ignatz Urmanski.
I plan on adding major events for both my family tree and my wife’s family tree from now on. That should help some of those less busy weeks. As always, you can find all of this information yourself on the Dates & Anniversaries page.
April 18th
1892 – Married – Thomas J CORRIGAN & Emma Jane FIRMENICH – Thomas and Emma are my great-great-grandparents on my father’s side. They were married at Sanborn, Ashland Co., Wisconsin. This was Thomas’ second marriage as his first wife died in about 1890. Thomas and Emma had 9 children, including my great-grandfather, Maurice CORRIGAN. Thomas passed away just before their last child, Sadie, was born in 1915. Emma later re-married 2 more times before she died in 1941.
1999 – Died – Richard ZALEWSKI – Richard is my grandfather on my father’s side. He was born 9 Dec 1921 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Joseph & Emily (TROKA) ZALEWSKI. He married my grandmother, Mary Jane CORRIGAN, on 11 Oct 1947 in Milwaukee. He passed away in Cedarburg, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin and is buried there at St. Francis-Borgia Cemetery. His death was one of the main reasons I got into genealogy in the first place.
April 19th
1678 – Born – Anna Maria LUDWIG – Anna Maria is my wife’s 8th-great-grandmother on her father’s side. She was born in Kurnbach, Baden, Germany. She married Johann Phillip NAST in 1703 and had 7 children. She passed away on 3 May 1748 at Kurnbach, Baden, Germany.
April 20th
1740 – Born – Nathaniel SHANNON – Nathaniel is my wife’s 6th-great-grandfather on her mother’s side. He was born in Portsmouth, Rockingham Co., New Hampshire to Nathaniel & Alice (FROST) SHANNON. He married Ann B CARD in February 1761. He passed away in September 1792 is Portsmouth.
1800 – Born – Antoine Joseph CALONNE – Antoine is my wife’s 4th-great-grandfather on her mother’s side. He was born in Grand-Leez, Namur, Belgium. He married Marie Eleanore Josephe ETIENNE in 1821. He passed away on 9 Dec 1870 in Grand-Leez.
1900 – Died – Charlotte STRASSMAN – Charlotte is my 3rd-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. She was born 20 Jul 1817 in Germany. She married Johann W G LAST sometime before 1850 in Germany before emigrating in 1857. She passed away at Grafton, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin and is buried at Union Cemetery in Port Washington, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin.
April 21st
1722 – Born – Thérèse DARD – Thérèse is my 7th-great-grandmother of my father’s side. She was born at Menoux, Haute-Saône, France. She married Pierre Francois QUINET in 1751 and had 7 children. She presumably passed away in France, as did her husband.
April 24th
1927 – Died – Johann THIELKE – Johann is my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born 26 Oct 1843 in Schwerin, Mecklenburg, Germany. He immigrated with his family in about 1854. He married Wilomene C RATHKE in 1891 and had one child, Arthur. He passed away at Grafton, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin and is buried there at St. Paul’s Cemetery.
I recently re-installed the Family Tree area of my website. You won’t really notice anything different, but I had to do some back-end stuff. It’s been awhile since I had originally installed the site, so it became pretty confusing. A clean install is much nicer.
But, along with this new install, I also uploaded a ton of photos, documents, and headstone pictures that I had been wanting to take care of. It’s not everything that I have, but there is a lot more than there was before. Plus, everything is linked to the people in the photos! I’m working on getting some of the “Places” set correctly so that you can see interactive maps of all of these places. It’s a very powerful system that I never fully used before.
Note that some of the info may be wrong, sometimes my tree export picks a non-primary date from the list (like a date that was different from most records, but I entered it as alternate data.) Also, some special characters in certain locations and names may show up as a “?” or another weird character. I’ve worked out most of those, but there may be a few rogue ones. I have only exported my direct ancestors (and their children) and the same for my wife, Darcy. I used to export everything in my tree, but then I got a lot of weird emails asking me for info about some 18th cousin that I only had a name entered for. I plan on exporting some other non-direct individuals that I deem interesting, but I have not yet gone through that process.
Thanks to everyone who helped me build this. Take a look.
An early spring photo from St. Mary’s Cemetery in Port Washington, Wisconsin. With the leafless trees and gentle blue sky, it’s a mix between beautiful and a sinister this time of the year.
Thanks for everyone who sent me an “Ancestor Approved” award.
In recognition for receiving this award, I will follow the directions and list ten things about my ancestors that have “inspired, surprised, humbled, or enlightened me and to then pass the award along to ten other bloggers whom I feel are doing their ancestors proud.” Though, I will not be passing it along to ten other bloggers since almost everyone I read has already received the award, but thank you to everyone.
Thanks again to Laura Ann at Dreaming About Home, Theresa at Tangled Trees, Julie at GenBlog, and Miriam at Ancestories for giving me this award.
Calvary Cemetery in Milwaukee is one of the city’s most famous cemeteries. Though, I have no family buried there, Laura Ann at “Dreaming About Home” wrote up a nice post about her trip to Calvary Cemetery.
