Building a Ladder of Connection

 

It may seem odd to watch someone research the family history of the grandchildren of a second great-grandmother's brother, but this I do with one specific purpose. I'm building a ladder of connection between the generations in hopes that someone may reach up and grab on to the rung I've been dangling out in space, in hopes someone will catch on and climb up another generation, too. 

Using another analogy, that's what we call "cousin bait." I'm dangling the "bait" of ancestral names, and I'm hoping others out there will come fishing for that specific family name—a name which fits into both my tree and theirs. Hopefully, I'll provide the missing link which will help others move one step further in their own research progress on their direct lines.

Each time I go through this process, I inevitably hit a brick wall. Last time I revisited this stuck genealogy project, all I had was my second great-grandmother's name, Franziska Olejniczak. And that was only thanks to her daughter Marianna's 1879 marriage record, recorded in Żółków, then a town in Prussia. Since then—and discovery of such new documents seems to come in waves—I've found more on the Olejniczak family.

This time, researching the collateral line of Franziska's brother Bartholomaeus—or Bartłomiej in Polish—I've worked my way through records for one son, Walenty, and another possible son, Jan. But there the record sources dried up, and I am stuck at this new stopping point. If I am willing to revisit this research question again in a couple more years, more records will likely surface and I can push the generational line forward another step or two.

While trying my best to find more on Walenty's children ended in frustration, there are certainly other collateral lines to explore. After all, Walenty himself had four sisters whose records might already be available online. We'll explore those possibilities next week. In the meantime, whether that exploration brings success or not, I'll focus on the fact that every name added to these collateral lines will either help surface another distant cousin seeking the same roots, or at least help me make more connections, once additional records become available for researchers. It's all part of building a generational ladder of connection through collateral lines.