This year, for a genealogical twelve days of Christmas, I've been celebrating my Twelve Most Wanted Ancestors for the upcoming year's research. I've laid out three ancestors I'd most like to find from each of the four family trees I've been steadily working on for decades. Today marks the last of not only the three choices from my father's next-to-impossible genealogy, but the final representative of the entire lot of twelve research projects for 2020. And yet, it's too hard to pick just one. There are so many more to follow.
Proper restraint prevails, though, and it will suffice me to focus on one—surname, that is. This surname connects through my paternal grandmother's Laskowski side, and represents the maiden name of my father's maternal grandfather's mother. I had known for a few years now that this woman's maiden name was Gramlewicz, but with a little zigging and zagging this past summer, I discovered Elżbieta Gramlewicz's parents names were Andrzej and Katarzyny.
While I did congratulate myself on finding that gem in one of the Polish websites that have been my recent mainstay, that elation was short-lived. My bubble was popped when I discovered there might be another Laskowski-Gramlewicz connections. Now, I have to wonder how Elżbieta might have been related to this other family. Even more concerning is the possibility that repeated naming patterns over the generations may have caused me to position someone of the same name—though the wrong generation—with the wrong spouse.
My final quest for 2020 will be to see where I can place Elżbieta, daughter of Andrzej, in relation to this other Gramlewicz family connected to my father's tree. In a town as small as Żerków, surely these two families were—at least at one point—closely related. Hopefully, there are enough online resources available now to help me track the answer to that question.
Above: "Kulig" (Sleigh Ride Party), by Polish realist Zygmunt Ajdukiewicz (1861-1917); image courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.
You are setting up for some serious research here!
ReplyDeleteRemember the elephant: anything is possible if you tackle it one bite at a time. Finding twelve ancestors in a year amounts to nothing more than dedicating one month to each of these candidates. And, if I can't find these slippery suspects in one year, Miss Merry, there is always next year!
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