Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Let's Make it a Pair

 

As common a surname as that of the ancestor I named yesterday as Ancestor #10 of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021, his wife's maiden name was entirely opposite. Franz Jankowski married a woman from a family by the name of Olejniczak.

Why not complete the pair and make Franziska Olejniczak Ancestor #11? With a surname like that, surely the search for this couple will come up with some helpful results.

What I know about Franziska so far is that she lived in the region once known as Poznan, or the province of Posen, in Prussia. She was my paternal grandmother's maternal grandmother—reachable not on the patriline, not on my matriline, but somewhere in the thick middle of all my autosomal DNA results.

And that's as far as I've gotten, even after all those years of family history research. Remember, this is the side of my family which was insistent about never revealing their roots, once they immigrated to America. It has only been in the last couple years—and mostly thanks to DNA matches—that I've discovered anything more on my father's family.

Since genetic genealogy is not only a key tool to unlock my family's secrets but a resource for connecting with distant cousins I never knew I had, of course I'm curious to see whether there are any other descendants of that Olejniczak line, as well. That's why I'll be building out that family line in as many directions as I can: ancestry, descendants, and collateral lines.

I'm presuming a name like that will surely stand out—or have, like so many other surnames I've researched, daughtered out or gone into oblivion for lack of descendants. I aim to discover what can be found on that surname with my research goals for Ancestor #11 this year.

No comments:

Post a Comment