Fast-Forward to the Past

 

When we can't find the more recent records for our ancestors, genealogists can still turn around and look deeper into the past. While I am stuck in pursuit of Aunt Rose, my paternal grandfather's sister, it is indeed in locating a death certificate and burial information on the woman who, as far as I can determine, finished life known as Rose Hassinger, where my research hits a roadblock. But that doesn't mean we can't do an about-face and look for further details on her younger years.

Granted, I've only been able to pursue Aunt Rose over her years in New York City back to the time of the 1910 census. Then, she was listed as married, but was not living with a husband. Instead, Rose "Muller" was living with her mother Anna. Both of them were listed as aliens arriving in the United States in 1884. While their native tongue was listed as Polish, their nationality had been given as German—a factor of the politically correct designation of that time period.

If the two women had arrived in New York back in 1884, of course the question becomes, "Where were they for the 1900 census?" That, I still can't locate—although seeing Rose's mother's name spelled "K-u-s-f-k-r" in the 1910 census makes me wonder how much worse the rendition might have looked, ten years earlier in their learning curve to acquire a new language in a foreign land.

Still, thanks to several DNA matches for the descendants of Rose's mother's siblings, I've been able to combine that strange error in the 1920 census, revealing Anna's origin in "Schwartzwald," with baptismal and marriage records from the region around a tiny village called Czarnylas near the Polish region known as Pomerania. Coupling that with a copy of a death certificate revealing Anna's maiden name—whether correct or incorrect—as Zegarska, I have been able to find some useful transcriptions of old Polish records.

The online resource where I found those records, and what information I'd still like to locate, will be this week's topic, as we review what needs to be done next to move further into Rose's past—and that of her ancestors, as well.