Double Indemnity

 

Now I've gone and done it. With less than a week to go before the close of this month, I've barely scratched the surface on my goal to find more information on Ancestor Number Ten of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2021. I'm literally drowning in Polish finding aids—lists of online resources to help me locate digitized records in Poland, or more accurately, Posen in Prussia, the land where my second great-grandfather Franz Jankowski once lived.

When the tedium of endless genealogical searching brings up little in the way of fascinating stories—or even helpful research tips—one tactic might be to fast-forward to the next month's goal. After all, it's only six days until the new month's arrival. But that's where my accidental research death doubles my dilemma: why, oh why, did I choose to couple the search for Franz's forebears with that of his wife?

Granted, though I have hardly another word to say about discoveries on Franz's background, there are a few details that can be wrung from Franziska Olejniczak's own story. That hardly will add up to a month of scintillating discussion, though. Time to look for Research Plan B—another research challenge worth enough discoveries to double for the two possibilities which, so far, have landed just beyond our grasp. In the meantime, though, it would be worth our while to reflect on the state of not finding what we hoped to find.

While I look through these Polish websites—wonderful resources I'm grateful to have in the dearth of records on our go-to American genealogical websites—I can't help but notice the section called "Last Added" at BaSIA. Just during the past twenty four hours, that section indicated almost five hundred records were uploaded. Granted, that dwarfs the ten thousand records added just the day before that. The key, though, is that while I may not be able to find the record I'm seeking this month, give it a year and maybe the picture will be much clearer then.

Patient researchers remember to revisit promising websites. I may not have found what I hoped to see concerning Franz Jankowski. I may not be able to find much more on his wife, Franziska Olejniczak, either—this time around. I'll discuss a bit about what I've found on her in the coming days, but then I'll be ready to pivot. Genealogical research always has another branch to attend to on the ever-growing family tree.