Second Sister Marianna

 

Sometimes, research forays bestow some positive benefits, even after years of struggle. After having had past difficulties finding records verifying the collateral lines of my second great-grandmother Franziska Olejniczak, it turns out that her brother's daughters have all showed up in now-digitized documents. Yesterday, we discussed Franziska's niece of the same name; today we'll look at the second-oldest of the sisters, Marianna.

In the case of this daughter of Bartholomaeus Olejniczak and his wife Catharina Orszulak, I actually found her name in two records. At her baptism at the Catholic Church in Żerków, Marianna's date of birth was recorded as July 27, 1871—seven years after the arrival of her older sister Franziska.

Almost like clockwork, twenty years later on November 16, 1891, Marianna Olejniczak married Adalbertus Marecki. Though not unusual for that time period, he was a man ten years her senior. As we've already learned from Marianna's older sister, who also married someone named Adalbertus, Marianna's husband was more likely called Wojciech at home, a far different name than that rendered in his Latin church records.

Unfortunately, unlike her sister's marriage record, this later version from their home church's marriage records did not include the name of the couple's parents. What appeared to be an entry listing the witnesses included one named Franz Jankowski, who would have been husband to Marianna's paternal aunt.

Piecing together documents and transcriptions from various Polish websites, I was able to find mention of eleven children for this couple, who were born between 1893 and 1910. Among those many children were at least two who died in infancy and another daughter, Josepha, who died as a teenager. My next task for this branch of the family is to pursue any sign of documentation for those children of Marianna and Wojciech Marecki who lived to adulthood, married, and welcomed in another generation of the extended Olejniczak family, presumably all still living in Poland into the early 1900s.  

Finding Another Franziska

 

Working through the line of descent from ancestors and then combining that with a search through all the family's collateral lines can begin to reveal patterns. I have yet to determine just who it was whose name Franziska echoed down through namesakes in the generations of my paternal grandmother's matriline, but I am finding that name repeated. Surely this is a sign that someone, somewhere in my family's past, had a favorite ancestor to be honored that way.

Whether Bartholomaeus Olejniczak decided to honor his sister—my second great-grandmother—by naming his oldest daughter after her, I can't yet be sure. Perhaps Bartholomaeus and his sister Franziska had a grandmother by that name—a generation which is, so far, beyond my research reach.

Thankfully, Bartholomaeus' daughter Franziska can be traced through a couple records from the now-nonexistent country of Prussia. According to a transcription found at the Polish website BaSIA, I was led to the scan (#86) of the actual 1889 marriage document for a twenty-five year old Franziska Olejniczak, daughter of Bartholomaeus and Katharina Orszulak Olejniczak.

In that record, I learned that this Franziska's husband was known by two possible surnames: either Kondoła or  Kądala. To complicate matters, his given name—Adalbertus in Catholic church records—was not exactly a Polish name. That Latin version appears to have been the substitution of choice for Prussian sons known in Polish as Wojciech. Thus, the search for the couple's seven (or more) descendants gets complicated—until, of course, Franziska's husband died and she married, next, a man known as Anton Bogaczyński, with whom she had three more children.

Did any of these ten children live to adulthood? So far, I know that at least one child did. Born to Franziska and her first husband on March 22, 1892, in Ludwinow, the child was baptized Catharina. A note below her record on the top line of the page in the register for the parish in Żerków revealed that her full name was Catharina Agnes Kondoła and that she was subsequently married to Joannes—or Jan—Zajdel.

Following documentation and links on various online resources led me to the Billion Graves website, where an entry for someone with that same identity—Jan Zajdel, born May 16, 1885—showed his death on October 26, 1969, and burial in western Poland in Grodzisk Wielkopolskie. 

That makes this the first person related to descendants of my father's Polish line whom I've been able to trace into relatively modern times. Whether he was indeed the husband of Catharina, and whether this couple ever had children, I have yet to discover—if I find out anything at all.

Progress for such a research goal—finding descendants of my Polish ancestors' collateral lines—seems so incremental and piecemeal. Here a little, there a little, each breadcrumb of information preserved eventually will add up to substantial information. But so slowly it unfolds.

Finding Four Sisters

 

When struggling to find information on a brick wall ancestor, I turn aside to the mystery ancestor's collateral lines. In that way, I often can coax out information on my direct line which might not otherwise become apparent. Yet I generally find more success in that method when I look to the brothers in any given line—not the sisters. But in the case of my second great-grandmother Franziska Olejniczak, when I sidestepped her line to explore her brother's line, it was his four daughters who led me to additional records, not his two sons.

Finding those sisters of the less-than-helpful brothers may have been easier for many reasons. Perhaps, in a place with such a history as war-torn Europe, the brothers might have been drafted to do what young men are expected to do for their country. Or perhaps they just died young, yet left no paper trail for me to find.

Regardless of the cause, I'm glad to have the opportunity to trace the family of this collateral line of my second great-grandmother. Cousin bait, remember, can lead me to possible DNA matches, those descendants of such mystery ancestors who are living in our current time.

With that, I have four options to pursue. Bartholomaeus' eldest child, a daughter with that now-familiar family name Franziska, was born about 1864, as I gratefully discovered through transcriptions at one Polish website, BaSIA. After Bartholomaeus' two sons were born, Franziska finally got a sister: Marianna. Again, thanks to Polish websites, I learned her date of birth was July 27, 1871. Third daughter, making her appearance on November 6, 1873, was Catharina. And the apparent baby of the family, Josepha, arrived on February 3, 1876.

The good news—at least for my DNA testing purposes—was that each of these sisters eventually married, producing documentation which enabled me to follow their stories a bit further. And in that continuing story, some of their children also helped point the way for me through their own baptismal records.

Is that as much as I'd hoped? Of course not. I'm still wrestling with a gap in records, falling far short of any privacy protections that might have been instituted on behalf of the living. But at least with these lines of descent from my second great-grandmother's brother, I can begin to trace connections.

We'll take some time this week to trace each sister's family connections, just in case that leads to any future serendipitous encounters with long lost family. Cousin bait candidate number one: Bartholomaeus' eldest daughter Franziska.

Breathless Breakthroughs and Puzzling Polish Ancestors

 

The other day, I got one of those breathless emails from MyHeritage, the kind that heralds one of those big breakthrough discoveries of documents for mystery ancestors. They had found signs of my puzzling Polish ancestors, the Olejniczak family.

That might have been good news. After all, it was MyHeritage which unearthed the legal notice in a New York City newspaper announcing the fait accompli of my paternal grandfather's name change—finally, a fact I can list as duly documented instead of merely family legend.

But in this case, the discovery of Olejniczak documentation was simply the addition of those same family members in someone's family tree. Only problem was: it was my family tree!

Since I've been jumping back and forth between several tree-building services in my process to add the facts from Polish websites to my American trees, I've decided I can't simply lock those details behind the paywall on my one favored genealogical company. Thus, I've been careful to add what I'm finding to my branches of the universal tree at FamilySearch.org—which is where MyHeritage spotted the entry. In addition, I've also been building those details into my tree at MyHeritage—which prompted them to send me the notification. It goes without saying that, ditto, I've done the same at Ancestry.com. Still waiting, but soon to be accomplished, will be the same process on WikiTree. If anyone is out there—a distant cousin just waiting to be discovered—I want that fellow family history researcher to find me. We need to compare notes.

It sometimes leaves me awestruck to realize that apparently not many people—translation: no people I can find—have been researching these family lines. I wonder: did those that stayed in Poland get wiped out in the 1939 Intelligenzaktion? Or did their sons and grandsons get drafted to the other side of two of the worst wars the world has known in modern history?

As I've worked my way through the collateral lines in the Olejniczak family, I've run full speed into an invisible brick wall—not just for one person, but for a time frame after which records are simply not available to me. Perhaps, if I were able to read the Polish language, I could find my way around this records silence by searching for family names in local newspapers, but that skill is far beyond me.

In the meantime, I'm rounding out what few details I can find for each collateral line by putting them in each of these online tree-building services, linking them to any records or transcriptions I can find. While that may be a small step, it is indeed a step. Small cousin bait, of course, but something. I'm already beginning to see signs of possible Polish cousins in newer DNA matches and tree entries. The process may feel like trying to walk in hip waders with fifteen additional legs attached, but at least I'm walking forward through the muck and the mire of forsaken old records.

Rescuing Disappearing Generations

 

A horrible thought struck me this past week while tying together the names which belong in my father's family tree: by doing this work, I am essentially rescuing names from what would otherwise be disappearing generations. For those of us whose parents or grandparents came to this country feeling less than welcome upon their arrival, I can understand why they might have wished to conceal their family background: it helped them get ahead—or at least avoid more discrimination—by acting like someone whom they weren't. 

What they've left for us, however, is a blank slate when it should have been a pedigree filled with names from faraway places. And it is our job now, with the tools we have, to recreate those ancestral stories—the stories which should have been, but weren't presented to us as part of our heritage.

This month, as I work on my goal of discovering more about Franziska Olejniczak, my second great-grandmother, I want to counter-balance that secrecy by putting her family's names out there in as many places as possible. I've been jumping from tree to tree, in the several websites where I've posted information on my family, to ensure that she and her family are represented, despite the difficulty in finding documentation.

It's been slow going. Since today is the time for my biweekly count, I realized that these two weeks straddle my goal last month—focused on my father-in-law's family—and this month's quest for my own father's roots. Still, a gain of thirty six new family names is not that bad. My family tree stands at 38,457 with that small advance.

Yes, there were some additions to my father-in-law's tree, as well, coming in at the tail end of the previous month. Forty four new names in my in-laws' tree grows their tree to 36,843 documented individuals.

I am fairly certain the growth spurt from earlier this year will come to a near halt with the difficulty of researching my Polish ancestry, but it will keep moving forward, nonetheless. As we tackle the collateral lines of the Olejniczak family next week, we will hopefully make some gains right then—and explore online resources in Poland which can help move progress further.

No matter how progress seems to bog down during this month, the main goal is to keep focused on the bigger picture: rescuing the names and dates of family members who would otherwise be lost to time. If it sounds like I am on a mission, that is indeed so. There are currently gaps in records from some countries. There are some problems with access through distance or difficulties with languages. But it is still possible to at least do something. And that is what I intend to do.

Ancestry's "Largest Ever" DNA Update

 

Just as I was musing over my DNA matches and wishing I could find a way to connect with more Polish cousins—especially those who could explain my Olejniczak roots—here comes another AncestryDNA update. Though many of the changes involve ethnicity estimates—an always evolving segment of the science—the changes come with a fresher look.

At the top of my reading list yesterday was John Reid's announcement in his blog, Anglo-Celtic Connections, of Ancestry's latest changes. I followed the links to get more of the story. The Ancestry corporate blog provided the big overview, complete with a description of the "new user experience" on this "largest ever update." Apparently, Ancestry incorporated more individuals into each of the reference panels they use, which resulted in the addition of twenty four new ancestral regions from around the world.

Those additional regions include eight in Africa, five in Europe, three in west Asia, and eight more in south and Southeast Asia. Besides that, a companion release details what Ancestry calls "subregions," including fifty four specific to Europe with this current update.

With all the changes and additions—not to mention alterations in the terms we've become used to at Ancestry—the company has included a one-page summary of what is involved with this latest update. And for those of us who are more curious than the average customer, Ancestry has provided links to white papers to explain the science behind their "ancestral regions" and the changes in terminology—such as relabeling Genetic Communities as Ancestral Journeys—and more features of this revision.

Will this help me better address how to figure out the connections to my Polish ancestors? Hardly. After spending a good chunk of the day reviewing the new material and changes in my personal account and those of family members for whose DNA tests I serve as administrator, that aspect of my Polish ancestry looks to be unchanged. No big "aha!" moments for those ancestors in my father's roots—just a big call to keep seeking out sources for Polish records for the regions which they once called home.

For some, I imagine the expanded regions and journeys topics will help guide their future research. And we want a company dedicated to periodically upgrading their DNA services. What I'm hoping for now is that more people who still live in those regions will begin testing their DNA so that they show up as matches for the rest of us who are curious about our connections in those far-flung places. 

Building a Ladder of Connection

 

It may seem odd to watch someone research the family history of the grandchildren of a second great-grandmother's brother, but this I do with one specific purpose. I'm building a ladder of connection between the generations in hopes that someone may reach up and grab on to the rung I've been dangling out in space, in hopes someone will catch on and climb up another generation, too. 

Using another analogy, that's what we call "cousin bait." I'm dangling the "bait" of ancestral names, and I'm hoping others out there will come fishing for that specific family name—a name which fits into both my tree and theirs. Hopefully, I'll provide the missing link which will help others move one step further in their own research progress on their direct lines.

Each time I go through this process, I inevitably hit a brick wall. Last time I revisited this stuck genealogy project, all I had was my second great-grandmother's name, Franziska Olejniczak. And that was only thanks to her daughter Marianna's 1879 marriage record, recorded in Żółków, then a town in Prussia. Since then—and discovery of such new documents seems to come in waves—I've found more on the Olejniczak family.

This time, researching the collateral line of Franziska's brother Bartholomaeus—or Bartłomiej in Polish—I've worked my way through records for one son, Walenty, and another possible son, Jan. But there the record sources dried up, and I am stuck at this new stopping point. If I am willing to revisit this research question again in a couple more years, more records will likely surface and I can push the generational line forward another step or two.

While trying my best to find more on Walenty's children ended in frustration, there are certainly other collateral lines to explore. After all, Walenty himself had four sisters whose records might already be available online. We'll explore those possibilities next week. In the meantime, whether that exploration brings success or not, I'll focus on the fact that every name added to these collateral lines will either help surface another distant cousin seeking the same roots, or at least help me make more connections, once additional records become available for researchers. It's all part of building a generational ladder of connection through collateral lines.