wikitree Archives - Zalewski Family Genealogy

Zalewski Lines of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Posted on 31 October 2021by Brian Zalewski

During the research into my own ancestry, I ran across a few other Zalewski lines in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. As one does in genealogy research, I wondered if they were related to me. It turns out that at least one of those lines was related to mine, but the others have not yet been connected. Recently, I spent some time digging into those other lines a little bit and they are now somewhat better organized.

This also helped me start the Zalewski Name Study page over at WikiTree which will hopefully help Zalewski families connect to each other either through paper genealogy or DNA.

General

Cliff ‘Em All

Posted on 9 March 2021by Brian Zalewski

A few weeks ago, WikiTree sent out it’s weekly email. As always, it has a list of notable people that you can click on to view their ancestry. You can also see how you’re related to these people and other fun things. I’m almost always connected through my wife’s ancestry, so not directly genealogically.

That specific week it was notable musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. I was also curious about other musicians I enjoyed growing up. One that came to mind was Cliff Burton. He was the bassist in my favorite band of all time, Metallica. He played with them on their first three albums, but tragically died when Metallica’s tour bus crashed in rural Sweden during their 1986 Master of Puppets tour.

Milwaukee Photography

Milwaukee Orphaned Photos

Posted on 12 November 2020by Brian Zalewski

A few years back I happened to pop onto eBay and was just casually browsing and searching for genealogy-related items (like my surnames) and I ran across a collection of old cabinet card photos from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. Since it wasn’t too expensive, I bought it and then, as it sometimes happens, it sat with my genealogy stuff for a few years. This year I decided to look through them to see what I could find.

They may have been orphaned in many ways. More than likely they were held by an old family member who passed away and no one knew what the photos were and gave them to someone else or an antique shop, etc. I really enjoy the positive vibes of solving the mystery of these forgotten photos and returning them to family.

Fortunately, most of them had names written on the back. I spent some time sorting them and finding connections between some of them just based on their names and faces.

Family Tree Featured Mysteries

One More Generation

Posted on 21 February 2019by Brian Zalewski

I was just reading up on this week’s WikiTree member of the week. Sometimes I learn new things or find new people to talk to about certain locations or subjects. In the post, she mentions using a site called ofb.genealogy.net. I thought I’d check it out since it is supposed to be good for German ancestry, which I have a lot.

From there, I found their GEDBAS site, which is like a database of family trees submitted by people. I searched most of my German surnames until I tried my LAST family and saw an entry for my 3rd-great-grandfather, Johann LAST.

His entry didn’t have any more information than I had since it looked to be pulled from the parish registers of Batzwitz/Barkow where I originally found his baptismal record from 1825. The record showed that he was born illegitimate and only listed his mother, Dorothea Sophia LAST.

What caught my eye on this record is that it listed a father for him, a man named Johann Friedrich Gottlieb SCHMITT. Interesting.

Technology Thielke Wisconsin Research Zalewski

Coordinating All The Things

Posted on 9 August 2017by Brian Zalewski

For whatever reason in the last few weeks, I’ve dove straight into everything related to WikiTree. Once I started looking at all of the things that were possible with a huge, helpful, friendly community of users and a system that allows a lot of interconnectedness, I was able to find the power in the site. I’ve always used the site, but I picked up a bunch more responsibility with it recently.

Not only have I started up the Zalewski Name Study project on the site, I also started one up for the next largest surname in my tree, the Thielke Name Study. Those are still in their infancy, with the Zalewski one being a bit further. The Thielke one only has two lines on it so far, but it’s a start.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Technology Tips & Tricks

Updating The Single Family Tree

Posted on 26 July 2017by Brian Zalewski

I spent some time these last few days updating a lot of my ancestor’s profiles on WikiTree. WikiTree is constantly an amazing source for genealogy information. They consistently add really helpful new features and trying to make one big family tree is a big project. Features like the DNA connections, the genealogical relationships, and especially the community and the hundreds of helpful groups. It’s like one big family working on creating one big family.

One of the really cool parts of the WikiTree profiles is the biography area. By default, it just adds a little sentence to a profile when you add it, nothing too helpful. I did a bit with the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” projects over the years (I know, I need to get back to it this year.) I thought to myself, why not copy some of those posts over to my WikiTree profiles as biographies. I could interlink everything and source a lot of it and it would definitely help people who are not aware of my site. So, that’s what I’ve been doing. For example, the profile of my 3rd-great-grandfather, Johann Last. I’ve also done a lot of work, though not only recently, on my other great-great-grandfather Frank Zalewski’s profile over the years.

I’m still working my way through my 2014 52 Ancestors posts and as I post more for 2017’s project, I will try to add those. If you’re not using WikiTree, you really should look into it.

Family Tree Fun

I am a Cousin!

Posted on 18 February 2016by Brian Zalewski

AJ Jacobs made some headlines inside and outside of the genealogy community back in 2014-15 by setting out to have a Global Family Reunion. His mission is to connect everyone in the world to each other in one human family tree. He wrote a bit about it in a NY Times article.

On WikiTree, you can see how you connect to AJ (and many others) using their site since they built it to be one large tree. I recently finally connected my tree to his and no surprise that it was via my French-Canadian line. Once I connected my CLOUTIER ancestors to their father, my connection was complete. Now, this is not a direct “cousin” as we genealogists know it, but just a “degree of relationship” connection. It’s more like six-degrees of Kevin Bacon (whom you can also see if you connect to, I do, too.)

I am 29 degrees from AJ Jacobs, so “I am a cousin!” and I am unfortunately more than six-degrees from Kevin Bacon (27). If you want to know how you connect to them, or even me, start filling in your WikiTree lines. The site is very easy to use.