With apologies to Monty Python for using their famous catchphrase, I present something to make my family smile during a sad week. Classic Dad.
I was converting old home videos awhile back and also playing around making some animated GIFs, so I made this.
Fat Tuesday around here in Milwaukee, home to a large Polish heritage, is celebrated as PÄ…czki Day. The most popular local bakery in the area, National Bakery and Deli, expects to sell 45,000 of them.
A pÄ…czki is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. I bet you’re like, “Wait! Isn’t this just a donut?” According to Wikipedia, although they look like bismarcks or jelly doughnuts, pÄ…czki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar and sometimes milk.
Sadly, I didn’t get one today. No one brought any in to the office and I didn’t think driving that far for one was worth it. Though, I am always for any sort of ethnic celebration that includes eating lots of donut-like foods.
When I’m not researching my family history, I like to dabble in video games as I’ve posted about before. A recent game that was released the The Sims 3. The Sims games have been around for a few years, so most of you probably already know about them.
The Sims 3 is a strategic life simulation video game in the popular and critically acclaimed The Sims franchise, originally created by Maxis. The games in The Sims series lack any defined goals. The player creates virtual people called “Sims” and places them in houses and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires. Players can either place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build them themselves.
I know it doesn’t sound that fun to play, but it can be. Depending on which traits and personality you give your Sim, many crazy things can happen. Anyway, the game keeps track of the genealogy of your active family pretty well. Though, it doesn’t let you see other family’s genealogy unless you’re playing them, which I wish they would allow. I started by creating myself and my wife as Sims. It’s usually the first thing I do since it’s natural. I kept the game at normal speed, so it plays pretty quickly in terms of your Sim’s lifespan. I’m already into my 5th-generation, so my great-great-grandkids.
I took some screenshots of the genealogy, though I had to cut-and-paste some of it together since it doesn’t show you more than a few generations and once. It also changes based on your active Sim.
As you can see, my wife and I only had one child, Zeus (What? You don’t like his name?) It’s my fault we only had time for one child due to the way I created us and spent time learning the game. By the time he was born, we were both “Elders” in the game and couldn’t have any more children. Zeus had two twin daughters with his wife, Daisy and Violet. When it came time to choose a new active family, I went with Daisy. She went on to have two children, Alexis and Brian (named after his great-grandfather.) Currently, I am actively playing Alexis’ family and she now has three children, Odin, Ronnie, and Freya. (I seemed to have went with a Norse god theme, didn’t I?)
I’m going to try to see how far I can go and how far it will keep track. The other family in the tree (inside of the black box) are children of my character. See, I died a natural death (while I was making hot dogs for dinner, no less) and so did my wife. All of a sudden, my son gets a letter saying if he can bring the remains of a loved one to the Science Lab, they may be able to bring him back. Well, I tried it and even though it said it failed, there I was. I was a ghost, but there I was. It automatically moved me into my son’s house, but I moved that character into his own house. It turns out the game reproduces automatically to keep the city feeling more alive (no pun intended.) So, even though I “live” by myself, I somehow had two daughters. Plus, I don’t think I am going to die again. I’ve lived through like 4 more generations.
It’s interesting to say the least. I thought it was a clever tie in to genealogy when I saw that. I’ll keep you posted if any other neat things come up. You can see some other screenshots I posted over at our gaming blog, Sideshow & Syrana (though she posts much more than I do.)
I can even visit my ancestors in the cemetery. If I go at night, I may even be able to talk to their ghost. I have yet to try that in real life.
I went to the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee’s Golda Meir Library last week to spend some time looking through old newspapers for obituaries. UWM has all of the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal (and Journal-Sentinel) papers on microfilm back to about 1886 or so.
I found a few obituaries, the earliest being from 1939. I had looked in a few papers for obituaries from 1922 and 1925, but I did not find them. I know they died in Milwaukee, but I’m assuming that back then only more well-known people had their obituaries in the paper. They probably implemented the common “Death Notices” section later on.
While looking over the obituaries and the classifieds section that was around it, I noticed some interesting entries. These were probably normal back in the 30s and 40s, but they seem strange today.
YOUNG man, 19, wishes position with reliable concern.
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GIRL: over 20, general housework; no cooking; 1 baby; own room
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NOT responsible for any debts contracted by my wife, Anna Wurm, on or after Aug. 9, 1941.
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LEARN WHILE ASLEEP; Relaxation, memory and will-power; self-confidence, weight reduction, speech, typing, etc. FREE Literature M.P. INSTITUTE
I’m calling that last one for sure. I wonder if they can research my family tree while I sleep, too?
This topic is going around the genealogy blogosphere, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
I know for a fact that there are other people out there with the name Brian Zalewski and even including my middle name, James. I’m pretty sure there is even one in this state. Growing up the only Zalewski (besides family) in the area, you always thought there were no more. It turns out the Zalewski really isn’t an uncommon Polish surname. Milwaukee is filled with them and so is Detroit, Michigan. I have yet to connect to any of them, but that is another topic.
Over at Behind the Name, it says:
BRIAN, m Irish, English. The meaning of this name is not known for certain but it is possibly related to the old Celtic element bre meaning “hill”, or by extension “high, noble”. It was borne by the semi-legendary Irish king Brian Boru, who thwarted Viking attempts to conquer Ireland in the 11th century. He was slain in the Battle of Clontarf, though his forces were decisively victorious. The name was common in Ireland before his time, and even more so afterwards. It came into use in England in the Middle Ages, introduced by Breton settlers. It subsequently became rare, but was revived in the 20th century.
That probably explains why I haven’t seen many Brians in my genealogy research. More information over at Is This Your Name? says:
According to the US Census Bureau, 0.737% of US residents have the first name ‘Brian’ and 0.0016% have the surname ‘Zalewski’. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there are 35 Americans who go by the name ‘Brian Zalewski’.
I’m not sure how I was given my name. I doubt I was named after any family members, since I have no people with the name Brian or even James in my research. I do know that if I was born a girl my name would’ve been Sarah.
Here is a neat idea. Someone had found an old diary from a family member that was written as a small sentence a day. It turned out to be perfect for a twitter account. It’s a very cool idea where old meets new.
Late last year, my family found a line-a-day diary maintained by my great-aunt from 1937 to 1941. She was in her early teens, living on a small farm in rural Illinois with her two brothers, one of which was my grandfather.
It’s a fascinating account of life in a bygone era, a time when my family’s only connections to the world were schoolhouse chatter and a neighbor’s radio.
Check it out the full introduction or go ahead a follow the twitter feed.
This Carnival of Genealogy has to do with “The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy. Almost everyone has experienced it. Tell us about the first time, or the last time, or the best time. What event, what document, what special find has caused you to stand up and cheer, to go crazy with joy? If you haven’t ever done the Happy Dance, tell us what you think it would take for you to do so.”
Let’s see. I had a few and, if my thought process works, you probably get more of them as you first start your genealogy research. But, they get much more exciting as your research goes on. I have only been researching for slightly under ten years now (so I’m a bit young in the process) but I’ve had a few of these pop up.
I know I’ve had more joyous moments and I hope I will have many more. This is one of the things that keeps me plugging away at some of these not-so-exciting documents day after day. All it takes is that one little piece of information to blow open a cavern of new information to dig through. And, boy, is that good feeling.
Found this over at GenBlog, a 99 (really 104) Things Meme and with a genealogy twist. Thought I’d give it a shot.
The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (color optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
Well, I was going to write an article asking for some help, but I think I found my answer. When I was a kid, we used to visit my great grandmother (or who I thought was my great grandmother at the time.) As far as I can remember, we always called her “Tanta.” I always thought this was her name, but was told later on that this meant “Grandma” in German. My dad also used to call her this.
It turns out that Tanta was not my actual great grandmother, but my step-great grandmother. My real great grandmother had passed away in the early 1940s and my great grandfather remarried later on. Tanta was Agnes (Pulchinski) Zalewski.I was going to ask if anyone could verify that Tanta meant “Grandma.” I did a Google search a bit ago and found nothing of interest, but right before writing this post I had an idea. I did a search for “Tanta” on the German Google, google.de. The first few entries were for a city called “Tanta,” but then I found a few entries using Tanta to describe a family member. It looks like Tanta is also used for Aunt along with Grandma. I also found entries for the male version, Tante.
Now, is there anyone out there that has better verification than a few people using it on their websites? I’d like to know, since I was using it for most of my childhood. Thanks.
I saw a post over at The Genetic Genealogist about this and I thought it’d be interesting to check my information.Though, it’s kind of a downer since I don’t really know exactly where my Y-DNA or my mtDNA was in 1808. I can only trace my Zalewski line back to about 1858 with Frank J. Zalewski, in what I think is Prussia (which could be many things.) I’d guess it was in the same general area, so it turns out to be about 4487 miles away traveling at about 22.5 miles per year.
My mtDNA line only goes back to about 1852 with the birth of Ida Schwinte, also in Prussia. I’m guessing the German part of Prussia on this one compared to the Russian/Polish part for my Y-DNA. I can really only assume it’s about the same distance, give or take a few hundred miles.
Well, this didn’t turn out to be as exciting as I though, but it’s still interesting to think about. I have many other lines traced back much further, but just not these two. Maybe it will help spark me to work more on these lines (though I’ve always had an urge to research my Zalewski line more.)
So, how about you? Where was your Y-DNA and mtDNA in 1808?
Ah…winter is here. Actually..technically, it’s not here, yet. But, from the looks of things up here in Wisconsin, winter is in full force. Thank goodness for neighbors with snowblowers. (Oooh, that’s a good band name – “Neighbors with Snowblowers”) Here are some photos from yesterdays ice/snow/rain storm. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Oklahoma received on Monday.
Click more for some other snow photos..
