When I look back now at the research plans I had drawn up a year ago for this month's project, I notice how circumstances at the time had led me to draw certain conclusions. Having struggled to find documentary proof of my Polish ancestors over the past few years before that point, I had come to the conclusion that there was likely not much more progress I'd be able to make when I revisited that challenge this November.
How much things have changed.
Not that any changes have been earth-shaking, but bit by bit, I'm finding resources linked to other resources, pointing me in the direction of those actual document scans I had been seeking. With last month's ancestor, I was able to build out the collateral lines for two Olejniczak siblings, including one for whom I've traced descendants to the early decades of the 1900s. Posting that information on several different online family trees has certainly added to my cousin bait potential—none of which I would have suspected I'd discover only a year prior to that.
The same may turn out to be true for this month's edition of my Twelve Most Wanted. Since my goal is to examine the collateral lines of my second great-grandfather Mateusz Laskowski, I will essentially be repeating the process I followed in October—this time with a different ancestor but in the same town where I've already been able to find additional records.
Just taking an initial peek at the possibilities this weekend has shown me that I might find far more than I had anticipated only one year ago. Some records may have been recently uploaded to the websites where I am finding them. Some records were surely there all along, but different search capabilities revealed their hiding places. Others may have evolved through cooperative efforts of volunteer groups and local repositories. No matter which way, the discoveries are serendipitous for me now, and renew hope that I'll be able to find what I'm looking for—and possibly even more than that.
It would be nice to push back another generation beyond my second great-grandfather. Finding his siblings and tracing their descendants might help me connect to some mystery DNA matches I have at either the company with the largest DNA database, or perhaps at the database with the largest number of DNA matches who currently live in Poland. Seeing how much more I had discovered last month gives me hope of that possibility.
Pushing one step forward in that direction would be a welcome addition to my goal for this month's research, as my ThruLines results at Ancestry.com only show ten confirmed matches who share Mateusz Laskowski as their ancestor. Surely, there have to be more than those fairly close relatives.
Tomorrow, we'll begin with a look at what I already have found on Mateusz Laskowski from prior years' research attempts. At that jumping off point, we'll start searching for additional records to add to his story, looking in both directions: backwards in time, and forward to all his descendants.
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