CategoriesBig NewsSite

Seven Years

Posted on 17 January 2013by Brian Zalewski

TypewriterAccording to my list of posts, seven years ago today is the day I started blogging on this site. Some would call it my “blogiversary.” My first post wasn’t very exciting as it looks to just be a copy of a story about Irish genealogy. Though, I quickly found my way and started to write better, more interesting posts. It’s also neat as my birthday is on the 18th.

My site dashboard says I have 432 posts as of today (including this one) and it’s been 2557 days since my first post. Doing some quick math that would make it a post every 6 days or so. That’s not really a bad average taking into consideration some of the longer breaks I took.

It’s been seven years since the first post on this site, but I know for a fact that I blogged more about genealogy before this specific site came about. I was blogging in general back in about 2000-2001, back when Blogger was still owned by Pyra Labs, its creator.

I hope to go seven more years. I’ve done a lot in those seven years. Made lots of new connections, broke down a few brick walls, and found a nice community. Here’s to the future!

Here are some of the more interesting posts I’ve done in that time:

You can always find some of the best posts by visiting my “Featured Posts” section.

Photo: gecko4wd@flickr

CategoriesFamily TreeFunZalewski

The 5th Middle

Posted on 4 January 2013by Brian Zalewski

Middle ChildI didn’t actively think about this. It just popped into my head one day and after I looked into it I was pleasantly surprised.

If my wife and I have one more child, making our newest son, Xander, the middle child. He will then be (at least) the 5th generation of the male middle child going back to his great-great-grandfather.

I have only traced my ZALEWSKI line back to Frank Zalewski, but I only know of one of his siblings and nothing about the rest of his family. It is completely possible that he is also a middle child, but I don’t know, yet.

Frank’s son Joseph was the 5th child out of nine, born in 1893, making him the middle child. Frank’s 3rd child, Elsa, died within a year, so Joseph didn’t really grow up a true middle child.

Joseph and his wife Emily technically had four children, though one died stillborn, making three living children. Joseph’s son Richard was then the middle child, born in 1921.

My father, Richard’s son, was born a middle child between his brother and sister.

I was born a middle child surrounded by two brothers.

There are always neat things hiding in your family tree if you look for it.

CategoriesFamily Tree

December 8th

Posted on 15 December 2012by Brian Zalewski

Xander LeeAs I did with our daughter when she was born, I like to see which other ancestors or related individuals our newly born son, Xander, shares his birthday with on December 8th.

According to the “Dates and Anniversaries” page on my family tree site, these things happened on December 8th.

Born

  • Johanna THOMPSON – 1852 – She is his paternal 5th great aunt, the daughter of William & Francis (QUINET) THOMPSON.
  • Leocadia SZULTA – 1886 – His paternal 4th great aunt, daughter of Ignatz & Nepomuncena (SYLDAKT) SZULTA.
  • Charles M LAST – 1894 – His paternal 3rd great uncle, son of Carl & Augusta (LUEDTKE) LAST.

Died

  • Elisabeth FLECK – 1769 – His maternal 7th great aunt, daughter of Johann & Elisabetha (UHL) FLECK.
  • Mehitable NEWBURY – 1787 – His maternal 8th great grandmother, married to James ROGERS, III.

Married

CategoriesBig NewsFamily TreeFeaturedPersonal

Keepin’ The ZALEWSKI Line Going

Posted on 8 December 2012by Brian Zalewski

20121208-162158.jpgThe day finally came after a bit of waiting. After taking his sweet time and not being sure when he would decide to make his grand entrance, we welcomed Xander Lee Zalewski into the family. He was born at 3:15pm on December 8th weighing in at 7lb 4oz. His middle name, Lee, is taken from his grandfather’s (my father-in-law’s) middle name, like Aerissa’s middle name, Jean, is from the middle name of her grandmother (my mother) and great-grandmother.

Aerissa is excited to have a little brother. She wouldn’t stop talking about it in the days leading up to his birth. I’m excited to have a son to go along with my daughter. It will be a sort of new experience raising a boy (though I have some first-hand experience.) Up until now, raising Aerissa was pretty neutral in terms of gender as she is still quite young and hasn’t yet got into her “girly things” stage.

It’s nice to add another branch to my own family tree that will hopefully extend for many more generations. It’s also nice to keep the Zalewski name going down the line. I wrote a bit more about the next child on my wife’s website, if you want to read it.

CategoriesFamily TreePersonal

Memories of Tanta

Posted on 7 December 2012by Brian Zalewski
Tanta, 3rd from left. Click for larger.

The first funeral I remember attending was 25 years ago when I was 7 years old on December 7th, 1987.

My real great-grandmother passed away in May 1941 when my grandfather was only 20. My great-grandfather remarried a few years later to Agnes Pulshinski. I’m told she wasn’t much of a fan of the “step” prefix and since she wasn’t a true blood relative, she told her kids and grandkids to call her Tanta. From a previous post, commentors on the site helped me figure out that “Tanta” usually means “Aunt” in German, but is also sometimes used the way she used it.

I knew Tanta pretty well in my 7 years. I remember her as being a petite, white-haired old woman. She was very nice and I remember her small apartment having plastic on all of her furniture. I don’t remember really being that sad when she passed away as I was not extremely close to her and since I was 7, maybe I didn’t process it. It is interesting that I remember the date of her funeral 25 years later.

Rest in Peace, Tanta.

CategoriesMilitary

Happy Veterans Day

Posted on 11 November 2012by Brian Zalewski
Joseph Zalewski – WWI – Click for larger

I’d like to thank all of our ancestral military veterans in our family trees. Thanks for fighting for this country in any way you could, be it fighting in combat, fixing machinery, or defending our borders. Thanks for helping fight to allow me things like freedom of speech and the right to vote. Here is a (hopefully full) list of all of our veteran ancestors.

  • Carey TONEY – My wife’s 5th-great-grandfather – Stories say that he served with the Virginia Militia in Rev. War in 1781 and was an eyewitness to the surrender of Cornwallis
  • William J DAKINS – My wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather – His obituary states that he served in the Civil War with the 17th Wisconsin Infantry and was with Sherman on his famous march to the sea.
  • Johann LAST – My 3rd-great-grandfather – My research tells me that he served in the Civil War with the 50th Wisconsin Infantry. It seems he was stationed in what was the Dakota Territory at the time to protect the western front.
  • Jesse TONEY – My wife’s 3rd-great-grandfather and Carey’s grandson – Served in the Civil War as Corporal in Company G 33rd Wisconsin Infantry.
  • Joseph ZALEWSKI – My great-grandfather – Served in World War I with the 86th Division, Company B, 331st Machine Gun Battalion. That division was split apart into other divisions. I wrote a post about my findings. I have not found information on where he went after the split, but stories say he fought in combat in France near the end of the war.
  • Richard ZALEWSKI – My grandfather and Joseph’s son – Served in World War II, though didn’t see any combat. He was stationed with the US Navy in Hilo, Hawaii as an Aviation Machinist’s Mate.
  • Keith MORAN – My wife’s grandfather – Served in World War II. No documented information on his experience, but my father-in-law says he was involved in some combat in the colder areas of Europe, probably around the Belgium area.
  • LeRoy THIELKE – My grandfather – Served in World War II – I have recently posted a large amount of information from his experience in WWII. Though, he’s not the one who likes to talk about it. Hopefully, I can find more information to honor his service.

I may have possibly missed a few individuals. I think there were more Civil War veterans, but it’s tough to search my information for that. In any case, today is the day to honor them, though we should always honor their sacrifices for our freedom.

CategoriesTips & Tricks

Helpful Research Links

Posted on 9 November 2012by Brian Zalewski

I’ve collected a bunch of links over the years to help in my research. They’ve really only sat in my Google Chrome bookmarks. I have now moved most of them to my wiki so you can also use them.

Helpful Research Links

Along with those links, which cover all areas of my genealogy, there is also a page of links that may be helpful to anyone doing any Polish research. I helped set up a page on our local Milwaukee Area Polish Research Group wiki that contains a lot of Polish research links. The site itself also contains a list of surnames being researched by other members that may be helpful.

Milwaukee Area Polish Researchers Group Links

CategoriesFunNon-Genealogy

Pact With the Devil

Posted on 4 October 2012by Brian Zalewski

Reading through historical newspapers looking for stories relating to your ancestors is interesting not only on a historical level, sometimes it’s just plain fun. For example, while browsing through papers from 1919 looking for any mention of my great-grandfather’s return from the war, I ran across this gem in The Milwaukee Journal from May 5th, 1919.

Deal with Devil

Transcription:

Lives Century After Pact With Devil

St. Paul — St. Paul’s modern Faust is dead.

Edwin E. Fisher, 104, who gained notoriety four years ago by declaring he made a pact with the devil when a child that he should live a hundred years by consigning himself to hades after death, will be buried Sunday afternoon. April 11, 1915, he prepared for the end, scheduled at midnight. He continued at his cabinet maker trade for two years, and retired because of ill health.

CategoriesGenetic GenealogyTechnology

Accessing Your Ancestor’s Memories?

Posted on 2 October 2012by Brian Zalewski

I’m going to delve deep into theoretical things here, but it’s something that always sort of fascinated me. Since the completion of the human genome project and the advent of more accessible DNA testing for us “normal” people, there have been amazing things coming out of that area of science and genealogy.

Besides the standard health information and deep ancestry testing, I’ve always been curious about the possibility of our ancestors leaving traces of their memories in their DNA as it gets passed down. This idea has been used in some movies, like the 1980 movie Altered States, or in video games, like the Assassin’s Creed series.

While I doubt that their specific experiences are burned into our DNA, but possibly certain memories related to their experiences. For example, an article that talks about this idea contains this:

Let’s say you have always had a significant fear of bears since you were a child. Even Smokey the Bear and other friendly Hollywood bears could not convince you to regard bears with anything but anxiety and fearful feelings.

Maybe it is possible that deep, deep within your DNA memory banks, your great-great-great-great-grandmother or great-great-great-great-grandfather had a very bad experience with a bear two hundred years ago. Maybe they saw someone be killed by a bear. Maybe they had to climb a tree to save themselves from being eaten by a bear.

Would a life-changing experience like this, resulting in knowledge very useful for survival, possibly be encoded in the DNA and passed on to future generations and you?

Who knows? I find that to be a fascinating idea. Though, I would find it even more fascinating if we could tap into these memories. Maybe then I can finally figure out my great-great-grandfather’s parent’s names.

 

CategoriesBig NewsEnglishFamily TreeFeatured

But, What Do Mayflowers Bring?

Posted on 1 October 2012by Brian Zalewski

Embarkation of the Pilgrims - Robert Walter Weir - Mayflower

It has been a bit quiet on the genealogy front. I haven’t had as much time to do any research, but recently I have come across some extra time and interest.

I recently added another individual to my “Everything I Know” site. This is the first person I did a site for on my wife’s ancestry. He is James COLLINS. I picked him because we previously had his information down and also information on his parents. Then we ran across a new census record that threw all of that out the window. I try to put together the info we have now (or lack thereof) and try to see if we can track down his real parents.

While researching James COLLINS and getting lost down other lines of my wife’s ancestry, I (tentatively) traced one of her maternal lines back to Plymouth Colony Governor and Mayflower passenger William Bradford. I say tentatively since most of the info I found was surprisingly located on Find-A-Grave entries (sidenote: glad they added those “Family Links” options.) Though, I did back a lot of it up using other sources. I just need to now source and confirm her line back to the more researched lines, though it looks pretty solid. This now adds the “Mayflower Descendant” title to her maternal line along with the other previous titles of “(Tentative) Royal Descendant” and “Daughter of the American Revolution.” All I have on my lines so far is “Sort Of Related to Robert Goulet.”

I’m hoping that if these connections stay true, this will hopefully help our children feel more connected to history. It’s a known fact that I’ve posted about earlier, I didn’t really enjoy History classes very much in school. Though, once I started genealogy and felt more connected to these places and events, I can’t get enough of it anymore. Now when my daughter starts learning about Thanksgiving in school (probably one of the first historical things kids learn) we can tell her that one of the Pilgrims is her 12th-great-grandfather.

Photo: Embarkation of the Pilgrims – Robert Walter Weir – Public Domain – Wikipedia

CategoriesFamily TreeTips & Tricks

1940 Census: Check Multiple Sources

Posted on 3 September 2012by Brian Zalewski

When the 1940 Census was released in April, I spent a couple of days browsing through them by hand to find my ancestors and my wife’s ancestors. I knew where they all lived (generally speaking) and I was finally able to find everyone, except a few. My wife’s grandmother, Barbara COLLINS, and her parents, Albert and Anna, were nowhere to be found. I personally looked through every enumeration district in the area that they had lived in 1930 (and 1941, based on a newspaper article.) When we visited my wife’s parents, I sat with my father-in-law and did the same thing. We couldn’t find them. We were stumped.

I decided to wait until some of the indexed versions of the Wisconsin censuses were relased. Once Ancestry.com released their indexed version, I tried searching. No matches. I tried every possible search combination using names, dates, places, but nothing. I was starting to think they were missed, which is very rare.

FamilySearch had not released an indexed Wisconsin census at the time. They had indexed their version separately from Ancestry. Once the Wisconsin census index was released, I searched FamilySearch’s version. I found them on my first try in Scott Township, Crawford County, Wisconsin. I honestly don’t know how we missed them in our manual search, since I know we checked Scott Township.

The other big, important lesson to take from this is to always check multiple sources. A few of the major genealogy sites indexes the 1940 Census themselves, so different people indexed them. Once I found their entry on the Ancestry version of the 1940 Census, I could see why I missed it.

The individuals who transcribed this entry on Ancestry marked Barbara down as 19, instead of 16 (which to me is obvious) so when I searched based on her birth year, it didn’t help. They made the same mistake with her father, Albert, though it was further off. Ancestry had him indexed as 44, and not 64 (which, again, is obvious to me.) The other issue I had, which wasn’t the indexer’s fault, is that Anna is marked down as Emma. All three of these things made it almost impossible for me to search for this family based on the info I knew about them.

Always, always, always check multiple sources. Different people transcribe differently. Also, look again at the pages you’ve already looked at. You may have missed something the first time.