Stepping Back Before Moving Forward

 

For a family history researcher working from the United States, it is sometimes difficult to access records from other countries. My problem this month lies in my choice to focus on my father's great-grandmother Franziska Olejniczak, who was born in Poland, and likely spent her entire life there. I also know that I have several DNA matches whose trees include the surname Olejniczak. By a brilliant process of deduction, I thus observed that I will somehow need to first find more information on Franziska's father—and likely also a listing of any brothers she might have had.

Thus, before we move forward to look at descendants of this family, we need to first take a step backwards in time. Fortunately, I was able to locate a transcription of Franziska's own marriage record from February 13, 1854, when as an eighteen year old daughter of Nicolai—likely Mikołaj in Polish—and Josepha Grzegorczyk Olejniczak, she married Franz Jankowski. Again, at the end of her life, her July 12, 1908, burial record confirmed those same parents' names, although the spelling of her mother's maiden name of Grzegorczyk was understandably mangled by what I'd assume was a non-native speaking priest.

Finding Franziska's parents opened the door for me to search for any possible siblings, especially brothers. Remembering that I have DNA matches carrying the surname Olejniczak, my next step will be to locate any brothers of Franziska and trace their line of descent. If that doesn't work, that means pushing back yet another generation. Hopefully the first step will yield us some answers when we resume this search next week. 

Catching Up With Matches

 

Out there, taunting me, are a handful of DNA matches who feature a surname as unusual as Olejniczak in their pedigree chart. It just so happens that this is the month which I've dedicated to learning more about my father's great-grandmother, Franziska Olejniczak. Coincidence? I can't make it any more specific than that—unless I can find a way to uncover the rest of the birth and marriage records for this family back in Poland.

Among those promising DNA matches are eight cousins of various relationship levels at Ancestry.com and seven more at MyHeritage. More promising is the fact that those MyHeritage matches all come from France, the United Kingdom, Poland, or other undesignated European locations, based on information provided by the matches. My challenge is to figure out a way to build a family tree that traces the descendants of Franziska and her husband—Franz Jankowski—who remained in Europe.

At this point, my information is spotty. Of course, it is far easier to trace those of the couple's children who migrated to the United States. And, given the gaps in age between the three I've found so far, I am surely missing some of the couple's children. Besides, since some DNA matches claim the same surname as my research target's maiden name, I will perhaps have to reach back yet another generation to find brothers who would have carried that surname forward through generations.

The first test is to see what records can be found online. Though I have a "World Explorer" subscription to Ancestry.com, I haven't found as many foreign records as I would like to see there, so I've switched most of my searching for this month's project to FamilySearch.org. Still, it's amazing to see how many people have exactly the same name, even coupled with other limiting search terms. Progress has been slower than I hoped, given the risk of chasing after incorrect name twins.

Since all I've had to work with in past years was the wonderful transcription websites built, in some cases, through volunteer efforts in Poland, the first step is to see what, of the information I had already found, can be corroborated with copies of actual documents. For this, I'm turning to FamilySearch.org, where, bit by bit, I'm connecting records with those previously-found transcriptions.

For Franziska and her husband—whom I had listed as Franz Jankowski—I had found three daughters last year: my direct line ancestor Marianna, her sister Stanisława, and the presumed youngest sister, Antonina. I have already researched the descendants of the elder two sisters. Now is my chance to explore what can be found online for Antonina and her own family. These may be the most likely ancestral sources for those foreign-born DNA matches who have me puzzled. If not, I'll next need to reach back another generation to Franciska's own possible Olejniczak siblings, whoever they might be.  

From Known to Unknown

 

It's a long, unwinding chain that leads us from our known ancestors to the next step beyond—at first, an unknown next step. That's where I am in seeking information on my father's great-grandmother Franziska Olejniczak. Here's what I know about her so far, mostly thanks to details sprinkled throughout the records of the children she left behind.

Franziska was born in Poland and, as far as I can tell so far, though some of her children did, she never left her homeland. It was only because of a daughter who did leave—Marianna—that I even knew what her name was. From a granddaughter she never met, I had the first clue of what her name might have been, further supported by what I could find on her daughter Marianna's records.

It was Marianna's own marriage record which confirmed her mother's maiden name—if, that is, you could actually read the handwriting on her marriage document. According to that 1879 record, Marianna's parents were Franz and Franziska Jankowski—with Franziska noted to have been born an Olejniczak.

Thanks to records at the Poznan Project and BaSIA, the Database of Archival Indexing System, I learned that Franz and Franziska had at least two other daughters: Stanisława, who, like Marianna, left for America, and Antonie, who didn't. There may be other children in this Jankowski family, but I have yet to find any documents to guide me on that issue.

Home for Franziska was the tiny town of Żerków in the central region of Poland. If it weren't for the few transcriptions and document scans shared online in those two websites mentioned above, I would have had no further way to trace her family. It was only through exploring those websites that I found information on Franziska's other daughters—and likely, this will be how I will find anything more on the family.

However, that will not stop me from exploring further on the one website which has been known to include digitized records from around the world: FamilySearch.org. Thus, one must-see stop I'll be making early in this month's exploration will be to check availability of records in Żerków for any further members of this family—and for any possible descendants who might have become my own mystery DNA matches.

Another Month, Another Ancestor

 

Some researchers may set out a single research question and wrestle it to the death, rather than give up gracefully when lacking access to records. In my case, I set a time limit to each research plan, knowing I am playing with hard-to-find ancestors. A few years ago, I designed a plan I call my Twelve Most Wanted—those twelve making up a list of the hard-to-find relatives I would devote one month each to pursuing for the coming year.

To further organize my research approach, I also divided up the year so that I would equitably pursue those ancestors: three months each for my mother's line, my father's line, and then each of my in-laws' ancestors.

Today marks the shift from the search for my father-in-law's ancestors to those of my own father. With that shift, we move from the stress of lack of records in Ireland for famine-era immigrants to the stress of having to decipher records in a language I don't speak and which appears to have far too many consonants per each vowel for my English-speaking mind.

With the start of October, that means we will now spend time exploring whatever records can be found from a place nearly six thousand miles from my home, written in a language which, for me, could just as well have been from a different universe. We'll head to Poland—virtually, of course—and see if we can find anything new about my second great-grandmother Franziska Olejniczak.

To pinpoint details more accurately, we'll be searching for information on my father's maternal grandmother's own mother. If I were fortunate enough to have a relative in this matriline willing to volunteer for a mitochondrial DNA test—an mtDNA test, as some people abbreviate the long name for the mother's mother's mother's ancestral line—perhaps I could learn more about the maternal side of Franziska Olejniczak's family, but I'll have to be satisfied with results from my own autosomal DNA test. That result, though I've waited for years to see increasing numbers, has only drawn in eight matches—all of whom are cousins I already have charted on paper. More are likely out there, but lacking the means to draw connections with previous generations in a foreign country, I have no way yet of knowing.

Tomorrow, we'll take a quick peek at what I already know about Franziska Olejniczak and her family line. Then we'll formulate a plan for next steps to take, in hopes of pushing that family tree further out—at least in search of more collateral lines and, eventually, distant cousins.