Your Family Tree Tells a Story. Does it Make Sense?

Outlining the main events of your ancestors' lives on a pedigree chart may help to gain the big picture of where you've come from and how you got here. And creating that pedigree chart, essentially, is what we do, even if we use resources such as the major genealogy programs online. Pedigree charts and family group records, whether analog or digital, are handy for guiding us as we enter names and dates. Everything from birth through death has a designated line on the form. The routine of filling in these details, generation after generation, has a certain calming sense about it: we know what we should be looking for next.

That orderliness has a downside, too. It lulls us into losing sight of the big picture as it gently eases us along to the next step. The big picture, though, is that your family tree actually tells a story. It's a story about where each ancestor came from and where life brought them, in the end. It reveals gaps in the pedigree narrative which, jibed with history timelines, can make us realize the troubles our ancestors lived through—and survived to tell of it. 

The stories are, of course, the foundational aspect of family history that first drew me to begin writing this blog. I'm convinced that every family has a story to tell. I want to preserve those stories which have been passed down to me, first in the outline form of pedigree charts and family group records, but also through narratives, newspaper reports, documents, letters, and photographs.

As I'm struggling my way through a dearth of such tokens in my father's Polish heritage, I'm taking time to check out several details I wouldn't otherwise have given so much thought. I'm taking a closer look at DNA matches and even people whose trees, Ancestry.com tells me, contain the same ancestor as I'm attempting to research right now. I look, not because I want to copy any details from the tree itself, but to confirm whether we are indeed a match, and if so, whether the creator of that family map happens to be a DNA cousin of mine.

In the process, I've come to realize one thing. And no, it isn't that other people have messy trees. Just as much as that may be obvious in some cases from one single glance, it may also become apparent that another researcher has exquisitely taken pains to accurately reflect far more of that family's story than I'd ever hope to find.

The main detail I notice, as I take a look around publicly accessible trees at places like Ancestry or MyHeritage, is the disconnects apparent in a family tree's story. Yes, that family tree, just like mine, tells a story, but for some trees, the story simply does not make sense.

We can all agree that such glaring errors as the mother being born after the daughter's arrival in the family are obvious clerical errors. Not entering a married woman by her maiden name in a pedigree chart may just mean a newbie trying her best who still needs to learn a bit more—or perhaps missing the fact that a click on a document overlaid the married name on the field where we had previously inserted the correct entry.

But there are some other details in a family tree which simply don't make sense. The detail of a woman married in Germany who, less than a year later, gives birth in midwestern North America, and yet is back in Germany for the arrival of her second-born child needs some additional explanation. Sure, there might be a story there. We just want to know more about such details.

I'm struggling with that right now as I explore a Polish couple who became American immigrants before the arrival of their third child. Due to what I suspect is a case of name twins, the second born son, subsequently using an Americanized version of his Polish given name, showed up in records in two different states. The birth date given in each record is not exactly the same, but close enough to make one wonder about clerical errors in record keeping.

I spotted that detail, and it has given me grief ever since. Several breathlessly-arriving hints reveal trees which have the man in one state, other trees showing our name twin in the state where I have him, and a third set of trees trying to merge the two into one individual, a contortion which doesn't seem to work. Surely, there is a story for each of these name twins. But I'm not sure the "story" being told by some of the proposed matching family trees belongs to my relative. In some cases, the story just doesn't make sense.

The experience certainly sensitizes me to the inevitable result that each of our family trees, no matter how full or empty, can tell a story. And stories are great—at least, that's my opinion. Our pedigree chart guides us through an ancestor's life story, and, if we post a tree for others' eyes, that chart tells others that story, too. But there is one crucial detail to a story: no matter how wild or incredible the story arc about an ancestor's life may seem, in the end, it still needs to make sense to the reader.

Another Daughter Leaves Home

 

Sticking to one's research protocol may be a wise approach, but it doesn't always keep us busy for as long as we presumed. The end of the road came up so quickly when I stuck to my plan of following the one Jankowski daughter remaining in Poland. The task brought me to the early 1900s, following the documentation I could obtain through guidance from the Polish website BaSIA. In fact, Franciszek Jankowski's daughter Antonina gave birth to her youngest son, Victor Karcz, in 1913. And that was the last document I could find in the archival collection for that Jankowski daughter.

Finding Polish descendants still living in their native land is only one part of my goal for this coming month, though. Franciszek Jankowski actually had two other daughters who did emigrate. One, of course, was my own great-grandmother, Marianna, who left her home for New York City in 1889. The other daughter married and also sailed to New York, though that daughter headed for upstate New York and the western region around Buffalo.

That other immigrant daughter was Stanisława. Eight years younger than her sister Marianna, Stanisława married Franz Janczak in 1894, according to records kept at the government office at Żerków. Two of their children were born there, as well: Leon in 1899, and Władysław in 1901.

And then, they left home for America.

Tracing the Janczak branch of the Jankowski family has been far easier than seeking those descendants who remained in Poland. There was no telling what the Janczak family would face upon their decision to leave home—but then, there was no way of knowing what would befall those who stayed behind. When I fail to find any records for the Jankowskis remaining in Poland, my mind plays through all the possible results. Early death, succumbing to the many diseases which seemed to fall on so many of the young ones? Possible death through ravages of war, either before 1918 or in the 1940s? Deportation to work camps somewhere else in the region or even farther removed? (Hey, I just found a DNA match who lives in Uzbekistan!)

I'll still be pondering that question, searching for possibilities in newspapers and in DNA matches. But for now, I'll be considering the Janczak branch of the family, up in Buffalo, New York. Perhaps they weren't the only family members to migrate there.

Sticking to the Protocol

It's when we are deep within the tedium of a genealogical search that it seems as if we are cast into a vast vacuum. Like in outer space, there is no grab bar to reach for to steady our floundering steps. We are floating free, unanchored to any orienting document. And it's those documents we are so desperate to find.

As I walk my way through the process of searching for signs of documentation for the extended family of Franciszek Jankowski, I realize I do have one anchoring token. It is a process I adopted years ago, when I realized that adding descendants of collateral lines would help me place DNA matches in their correct family constellations. Starting with the chosen ancestor, I would first work on documentation for that ancestor's firstborn child. When marriages occurred and children were eventually born to that now grown firstborn, I added each one in order. 

Rather than skipping from firstborn immediately to second born of the target ancestor, I then slid down the ladder of that firstborn child's own children, then grandchildren, all the way to the present date, before moving back to the ancestor's second born child. I'd repeat the process for that firstborn child's own children, handling that child's firstborn all the way down the generations before coming back for the next-born child.

Now that I'm working my way through Franciszek Jankowski's nine known children, looking for confirming documentation through the BaSIA website in Poland, I'll be sticking to that same protocol. Granted, with so many of the Jankowski children dying in infancy, the process won't be as tedious as it sounds. (So far, I only have three Jankowski daughters identified as marrying and having children.)

The process, however, still will take time. Every person needs to be accounted for, whether through the baptismal and marriage records I found through FamilySearch.org, or by using the index at BaSIA to locate archived civil records in Poland.

There is nothing so helpful as seeing the digitized copies of records from the 1800s in Poland, something I could never hope to accomplish in person by myself. I'm grateful for the opportunity, but nearly holding my breath as I work my way through the process, hoping not to miss a single step through this extended family tree.

Let the Process Begin

 

Equipped with the index of Polish vital records at BaSIA, coupled with Google Translate to help me bounce back and forth from German language records to marginal notes in Polish, I've begun my quest to find civil records documenting the descendants of my second great-grandfather Franciszek Jankowski. The end goal is to trace all the lines of descent that I can find for this ancestor and his collateral branches. The reason for such an expanded search is that I want to be able to connect with possible DNA cousins linked to this family.

While that process has barely begun, I can already see it will be a tedious one. Thankfully, the steps at BaSIA to move from the index to the actual scans are straightforward. But taking the time to find each individual in each generation of the family, then confirming the details on that person by reading the document—who knew I could stumble my way through old German text?—and entering the information in my family tree is indeed time consuming.

Being painstakingly thorough is the goal. I'm surprised at the notes which sometimes pop up in the margins, with stern, hundred-plus year old German script in the body of the document embellished with the more rounded handwritten addenda entered alongside in Polish, capturing later details about the person's life.

As I had hoped, the records at BaSIA reach much further into current times than what I had been able to find at FamilySearch.org. This is helpful on two counts. First, these digitized documents are civil records, not church records, also offering the actual scanned document rather than simply a transcription. This allows further inspection into details, such as the specific village where the child was born, rather than the diocesan headquarters where the baptismal records were kept. Second, the more recent records help me push forward in time to closer family connections, guiding me in guessing the nexus with DNA cousins. When I finally uncovered a family record dated in the mid 1920s, it really hit me how helpful this approach may become.

I've seen so many of these Prussian forms in the old German script that I almost want to draw up a translation of the pre-printed material as a guide. I certainly don't speak German, myself, but would like to know the specifics of the routine portions. Reading the handwritten portions is also challenging, but spotting names and dates is not much of a problem—unless the person in question is known by an alias.

Bit by bit, I'm working my way through the available records. So far, I've found a couple birth records for which I've not been able to find any baptismal record back at FamilySearch.org, perhaps lost in the transcription process at FamilySearch but thankfully flagged by native-speaking volunteers at BaSIA. Even finding a few confirmations like that are helpful, making me more determined to continue the step-by-step minutiae of the process. Not much to report on while in the midst of doing it, but rewarding to realize it is a more thorough approach.

Tedious But Necessary

 

There are some aspects of family history research that are, let's say, less than glamorous. No, let's put it more clearly: they are downright tedious. That's the rut I've been stuck in lately.

Now that it's time for my biweekly count, the numbers will be quite telling—but that isn't to say I haven't been researching. On the contrary, I've been scrolling through documentation at multiple websites, seeking  proof of those vital specifics of birth, marriage, and—sometimes far too early—deaths. The documents which confirm that story for my ancestors and their collateral lines are necessary, but finding the documents can be tedious, especially when the repositories which store them can be hard to access.

So, for the past week, and on into the future month, I'll be walking through a process of locating transcriptions of such documents for my Polish ancestors' descendants, then following the links or reference notes to confirm those details with my own eyes—preferably with a copy of the actual digitized document saved to my own computer.

The numbers on my biweekly count tell the story of this process rather starkly. In the past two weeks, while giving up closing out the search for my second great-grandmother Susanna Radomska's line and beginning that same task for second great-grandfather Franciszek Jankowski, I've managed to increase my tree to 42,030 documented individuals. Sound impressive? Not really: that means I only found four new names to add to my family tree in the past two weeks. This process is indeed moving along s-l-o-w-l-y.

With a pace of that speed, it will seemingly take an eternity to catch up with my in-laws' benchmark of 44,402 individuals, which has been holding steady since I wrapped up this year's search for my father-in-law's Irish forebears back in September.

Still, the process is necessary. There is no single place where I can go to both download actual digitized records and display my family tree. Not for Polish ancestry.

I want the online tree. But I also need to support every assertion that appears on that online tree. And those Polish records are not always readily available to descendants like me, whose ancestors left Poland generations ago. But I can't let that deter me. It may be tedious, but it is still necessary to document each assertion in that tree. If it means importing digitized copies of supporting documentation to my family trees, then that's what I'll need to do. 

Tracking DNA When the Trail Isn't Clear

 

Using DNA to point us in the right direction beyond the ancestral line we already know seems to be a logical step...until we hit a brick wall. When I work on my father's Polish ancestors, I already know I'll have that challenge. I've seen it this month as I worked on my second great-grandmother Susanna Radomska, and I'll be running into the same challenge, now that we're making an early transition to the November challenge for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026, Franciszek Jankowski.

Franciszek, my second great-grandfather on my paternal grandmother's mother's line, is yet another of those ancestors for whom I have very little documentation. In other words, the trail to that man's ancestry is not clear to me. Tools like Ancestry.com's ThruLines won't help much, despite the chart showing I am connected to the DNA tests of ten other subscribers who also claim this ancestor. 

There was a slight stroke of good fortune in even finding that detail. On the transcription for the 1854 marriage record of Franciszek and his wife, Franciszka Olejniczak—whom we'll be studying for the last month of this year—both the bride and groom had their parents' names listed. So technically, when I say I have ten results on my ThruLines for the Jankowski family, I'm really looking at ten people who also claim Franciszek's father, Jan, as their ancestor. 

But clicking through to see who those ten DNA cousins are, I don't see anything particularly helpful. Why? Those ten people are relatives who are much closer than the anticipated third or fourth cousins linked to Franciszek or his father. I already know who those people are. They are relatives who are more immediately connected to me as descendants of cousins or even half-siblings.

How to find DNA matches who descend from, say, third great-grandfather Jan Jankowski, is the real question. No one else has shown up on Ancestry's ThruLines. At first, this made me wonder whether those diseases and wars that cut short the lives of so many descendants in the Jankowski family—in fact, most of the rest of my father's Polish ancestors—had made a thorough job of the demolition of these people groups.  But I'm finding signs that there were, somehow, additional survivors.

In a zigzagging route from one DNA match to shared matches, and then beyond to their shared matches, I'm finding distant cousins whose immigrant ancestors settled in places like Chicago or Michigan or Wisconsin, much like I had found when researching other parts of my paternal line. Seemingly disconnected from the rest of their family—or perhaps without any concept of how large the distance between one American city and another for these immigrants—these immigrants began life after their journey and stayed in that one place for generations.

The trees of their descendants show such a story, but rarely seem to explain how they connect back to Poland. I'm wondering whether DNA will ever be able to explain the story. In combination with the use of multiple Polish websites, partnered with what can be found at FamilySearch.org, double-checking the assertions and assumptions displayed on each match's tree may be one way to find the answer. But with such small matches, the risk of telescoping results—is it this fourth generation which produces the match, or one even farther beyond that?—makes me heed the warning to proceed with caution.

Hopefully, a first step this coming week of cross checking family records at FamilySearch with archival records linked to the BaSIA transcription project will shed some light on missing generations in the Jankowski lines of descent.

Where to Look

 

It definitely helps to know where to look when you're researching your roots in Poland. This country presents some research challenges, being a prime example of what I mean when I say that genealogy can no longer be a case of one-stop shopping.

I found that to be especially true while I was working on my paternal ancestors from Pomerania, that northern region stretching across both Germany and Poland. While working on the Radomski line this month, I've relied on one particular website which zeroed in on records from Pomerania. That website, hosted by the Pomeranian Genealogical Association—the acronym PTG referring to the organization's name in Polish—held a database of transcriptions having one unifying detail in common: they all were records from the region of Pomerania.

While countrywide resources like Geneteka may be helpful in finding your Polish roots, I've come to appreciate the specialization of such a narrow scope as I find at PTG. But now that the coming month's research focus moves us away from Pomerania to the old Prussian region, then called the Province of Posen (the Germanisation of the Polish place name Poznań), I'll need to switch to another regional resource.

Actually, over the years, I've used two different websites for my long-distance quest to discover more about my Polish ancestors. At first, I began checking transcriptions of marriage records through the Poznań Project website. That resource was helpful, but left out details cataloguing the rest of life. To find birth and death records, as well as marriage details, the Poznań Project pointed me to BaSIA.

BaSIA—the website's Polish name is translated as Database of Archival Indexing System—provides indexed material from what was once called Greater Poland, from the eighteenth century onward. Significantly, records stretch well into the 1900s, which will help me with my upcoming goal to trace the lines of descent for all the Jankowski children.

The BaSIA system, powered by volunteers, gleans key details from both church and governmental archived records from the region, which is then put into a searchable system online. From those entries, links to the actual archived records enable a researcher to pull up the corresponding images, which can then be downloaded to the user's own computer.

While I've been able to access many records from this region for my Jankowski family through digitized records, there have been several children in that line for whom I can find no record at FamilySearch.org, my primary resource for Polish research so far. The process from this point forward will be to cross check what I've found—or not found—at FamilySearch with what I can access at BaSIA. A tedious process, indeed, but a necessary one to fill in the many blanks on this branch of my family tree. With access to records up into the twentieth century, I'm hoping the process will enable me to push forward another generation on this family group.