The Trial and Error of Collaboration

 

Yesterday, I mentioned getting together with a newfound cousin to compare family trees. We met at a coffee shop where we could spread out, equipped with two laptops and notebooks. This was not just a social get-together; this was a working session. We were on a mission.

Because we both are also involved in a locally-inspired continuing education program (similar to OLLI), we realized the possible application to future classes of what we were doing—the trial and error effort of collaborating to answer our own research question. We began discussing whether we could use that same approach for a small group learning project in genealogy.

Aside from the limitations of finding a hospitable space for several people and their laptops, such a workshop would need to begin with an agreement: that we'd be willing to be patient enough for the process to unfold organically as each member frames a research question or goal, and we collectively explore ways to resolve impasses.

As I mentioned last week, I believe that this part of the process is actually where learning begins. Not in sitting through lectures. Certainly not in studying for tests. But in the application of techniques as, by trial and error, we learn what works for our particular problem—and what doesn't work.

Launching such a program without testing it first would not be a good idea. It's an experiment; of course it would be messy. In our discussion of the possibilities last week, we talked about giving it an informal trial run. It's just a matter of gathering a few volunteers (and their laptops, of course) at a coffee or sandwich shop with wifi connection, seeing what works best for everyone. Even with just a few willing members from our local genealogical society, we should be able to try that—and then ask everyone what works best for them. What helps people make a breakthrough on their brick wall research problem?

Just hearing one person make a suggestion like this was validating. I've been teaching for a long time and frankly, it can be very disheartening to feel like a lesson is no more than so much "blah, blah, blah." The key is to find what makes a difference for the learner—and every learner is different. It is encouraging for the teacher and empowering for the learner to engage in an approach that becomes a catalyst to successful outcomes. I'm hoping we can find such a catalyst through this project.

Double, Double

 

Sometimes it helps to take a research break. To change things up in between two months of poring over Prussian documents, I thought I'd use this week leading up to Halloween for a different type of double, double, toil and trouble: I used the Ancestry ProTools to purge my in-laws' duplicate entries. Yep, I put my mother-in-law's family tree on a diet.

This particular family line is the one which inspired me to label it "endogamy lite." Over the generations, cousins from many branches of her family married other relatives, all within a specific geographic area. Since the extended family only has been in that region for the last two hundred years, it doesn't quite approach the technical term of endogamy, but I'd say the resultant family network is much more interrelated than mere pedigree collapse.

A while back, puzzling over my mother-in-law's ancestor Simon Rinehart and the will he left in Perry County, Ohio, the scorecard left from that ongoing courtroom battle between half-siblings prompted me to expand the collateral lines of that family in my own database. Well, that might sound like an easy project, but keeping in mind my second purpose in doing so—to help place DNA matches in the family tree—it was a task that took me months of work behind the scenes.

The problem with such tasks is that growing a family tree in both directions can result in duplicate entries. That's where the "double, double" comes in.

However, with a recent update to Ancestry.com graphics, I discovered that, just as I realized I needed it, I could no longer access the ability to "merge with duplicate" from the tools tab. Clicking on "Tools" simply jerked the profile page to the then-newly-added minimized header of the subject's name.

I waited. I tried again. I signed out and signed in. I updated every whizbang computer gizmo I could think of. I talked with chatbots. I complained. Twice. Nothing changed.

This week, I met with a fellow genealogical society member to follow up on the discovery that "Relatives Around Me" on FamilySearch.org's app thinks we are cousins. (Granted, we're actually seventh cousins twice removed, but hey, who's counting?)

We got together at a coffee shop, both lugging our laptops there to see if we could break through our respective brick walls to uncover just how this was possible. While I waited for my newfound cousin to locate a specific record on her computer, I couldn't resist poking on that malfunctioning "Tools" tab at Ancestry to see whether, after all this time, it might have started working again.

Surprise, like magic, it did. 

I promised myself then that I would take the next available free time to start clearing out my mother-in-law's double entries on the family tree—all those cousins who are cousins in more ways than one, complete with a different profile page for each direction in which they connect to the family.

That task, as the original ditty from Shakespeare implied, brewed toil and trouble. For each double entry thrown into the cauldron, the corresponding merge invoked more duplicates. Parents, spouses, children, and siblings seemed to multiply. Each time I clicked "merge" for one set of duplicates, it multiplied others.

I started out with a list forty three pages long of duplicate entries, but over the rest of the week, I've vanquished most of them. Along the way, though, I had to consult documents to confirm, say, that the single son of the couple in one profile was indeed the parentless spouse showing in another profile with no further details. Sometimes, it felt like I was adding more than I was taking away.

The tale will be told the next time I do my biweekly count, but in the meantime, it was a relief to attend to a task which long needed to be finished.  

Launch Pad for Next Research Go-Round

 

Sometimes, I just need to send a research problem deep into the future. That's when I write a note to my future self, explaining what I need to do the next time I grapple with this ancestral brick wall. For Thomas Puchała, today is that day. I'm packaging up my Puchała roots and putting them on the launch pad to send into a future year. Here's what I need to remember for next time.

First, patience is in order, if only for the frustration of searching for a name containing diacritical marks. Puchała, as I've discovered, is a name that comes packaged in many forms, thanks specifically to the "ł" as written by Prussian governmental drudges and Catholic priests from many European backgrounds who nevertheless must record their flock's life passages in the quite-dead Latin language. For this, I've found the Puchała surname rendered as Puchata—or even Puchatta—as well as variations on Puchała without the diacritic designation, such as Puchala and Puchalla. All this, combined with many search results serving up transcriptions of the actual records; to see them with my own eyes might reveal the original was written correctly all along.

I did, however, manage to find some records for Thomas' father, whom I suspect his fellow countrymen called Jan, though church records listed as Johann. Along with that, I found three sisters and two brothers for Jan. The next time the Puchała family becomes a focus of my Twelve Most Wanted, I need to pursue whether any of those siblings did indeed survive to adulthood, marry, and have children—descendants whose progeny might be among my Polish and European DNA matches at MyHeritage. While at this point, it seems most of those siblings died in childhood, it may be possible that at least his sister Marianna was married. Though one record's transcription indicated her age at marriage was fifteen, I noticed the ceremony was conducted in 1858, later in the same year in which her father had died. Perhaps that was a move of desperation for the bereft family.

Still missing is any record of what became of Thomas, himself. With a birth year of about 1844, it is certainly safe to say the man is deceased—but when, I can't determine. It is likely after my grandfather's birth in 1876, but I can't really be sure. If this man was indeed my grandfather's father, he could even have died toward the end of 1875. Whatever the actual date of death was, it is certain his widow Anastasia married again. Though I have no record for either of her supposed subsequent marriages, it is clear that she represented herself by two additional surnames, at least when she emigrated from her home in Poland to the United States.

Also on my to-do list for this family will be clarifying the three marriages for Thomas' daughter Rosalia. Along with that goes writing a proof statement so others can follow that chain of events in her life, including re-organizing the entries for the various names of Rose in the FamilySearch universal tree.

Someone needs to tell these stories. They are tales which take more than one paragraph to explain—and certainly several documents to piece together the full story. Rose's tale is not unusual; tomorrow, I'll explain another such research twist I've been following from another project, where it takes piecing together several records to identify the same woman through the name changes in her life. 

With that, we'll launch Thomas Puchała's research questions into the future for a subsequent try. Hopefully, by then, more records will be digitized and accessible on the Polish end of the equation, enabling Thomas and his forebears to be discovered and documented. And with the arrival of a new month, next week we'll step from one of my father's ancestors to someone on another branch of his family. 

Not Exhausted Yet

 

Well...let me amend that. The search possibilities have not yet been exhausted for finding our Anna and Rose in either immigration or marriage records—but I am! 

Finding Rose's second marriage documentation yesterday, which revealed that she considered her maiden name to be Krauss and not her birth name, Puchała, gave me a new impetus to search for other records listing her as Rose Krauss. Though I hoped to find documentation for her first marriage to a Mr. Miller—why couldn't she have chosen an eligible young bachelor with an unusual name?—using this newfound discovery of the alternate surname usage, I found nothing.

So far.

Likewise, trying to find Rose's mother Anna living in New York City with someone named Julius Krauss proved unsuccessful...so far. Not that there weren't any men by that name, mind you, but just none who lived with anyone named Anna. And considering how Rose always lived with her mother (or vice versa), that also provided us with a null set.

I'd like to say I'll keep trying for the remainder of this month. After all, the goal in locating marriage records for these two women was to help me find whatever became of Rose's birth father—and Anna's first husband—Thomas Puchała. At some time in the future, hopefully search engines or AI assistance may point me to those missing documents. But for the remaining few days this week, it's likely better to return to the Puchała line and wrap up what we know about Thomas and his ancestors, then draw up a plan for the next time I revisit this research puzzle.

Proving Rose is Rose

 

It's no wonder there are three different identities for Anastasia Zegarska's daughter Rosalia Puchała on the FamilySearch.org universal tree. Just locating all the records I've placed on Anastasia's timeline, mostly showing her relationship to and residence with her daughter, shows me that both Anastasia and Rosalia went by different identities at different times.

Take their names. In Poland, they were known as Anastasia and Rosalia. In America, they became Anna and Rose. Besides the changes in their married names, however, there were some other details that didn't seem quite right. For instance, consider the marriage certificate for Rose's second marriage in New York City. Though I can see, by following a cluster of documents concerning Rose and her mother, that I was trailing the same woman, I need a way to demonstrate that Rose was Rose was Rose. I need to compose a proof argument for these women's identities.

Let's take a look at that 1915 marriage record in Brooklyn, New York, as searchable through the Historical Vital Records Project via the website of the New York City Municipal Archives.

First, we learn the full name of the groom, George Washington Kober, and discover that, although this was his first marriage, he was already forty three years of age. Named after his father, the groom's mother was listed as Pauline Hutton. He was born in the borough of Manhattan.

Rose, on the other hand, had previously been married, then divorced. Her name on the license was listed as Rose Miller, though I still have no idea what the first husband's given name was, nor when that first marriage ceremony was conducted or ended. Her age was given as forty, which would yield a year of birth as 1875, not far from the September 1872 baptismal record I have for her from Schwarzwald.

From that point, the details veer toward the unexpected. Though I did note in yesterday's timeline that Anastasia Zegarska's married name was sometimes recorded as Anna Krauss (or spelling variations), I had never found any document I could ascertain tied the right Anna with the right Mr. Krauss. Yet on her daughter's marriage record, Rose gives her maiden name as Krauss, not Puchała as we'd expect it to be.

The possible gift that comes with this confusion is that her "father" was listed as Julius Krauss on this Kober-Miller marriage record. Admittedly, on the next line, Rose's mother was entered as Anna Zegar, not Zegarska, and even the entry of the maiden name Krauss was on a line only meant to be completed in the case of the bride being a widow, not a divorcee. But amidst these unexpected entries, perhaps we can extrapolate a few search terms which might help us, in turn, figure out a bit more about Anna, herself.

Granted, some of this involves speculation, but I have noticed that children who refer to a step-father as their "real" father often had that man enter their life at an early age. This might guide us in our search for widow Anna Puchała's second marriage. And of course, since this marriage license gives us our first glimpse of Anna's husband's given name, we now can search for someone named Julius Krauss, a most helpful balancing act when faced with multiple spelling variations of the common surname Krauss.

Then, too, if Rose considered her maiden name to be Krauss, perhaps that is the name under which she entered this country, helping to narrow the search for her appearance as well as Anna's in passenger records.

The main point, once having located such records, is to use them all together to tie up the three identities for Rose in the FamilySearch tree into one person, telling the whole of Rose's story under one heading. One document alone could never tell the whole of a story such as hers. 

Turning to Timelines

When puzzling over a brick wall ancestor, it sometimes helps to turn to timelines to ferret out the missing information. In Anastasia Zegarska's lifetime saga of many married names, I'm still trying to determine when she married which husband, and when the previous husband might have died. After all, I've run into some conflicting reports concerning her daughter Rosalia, giving me doubts about which husband came last—not to mention which husband's name Anastasia used when she left her home in Pomerania to sail for America.

In brief, today's my day to lay out the dates, with links back to the appropriate documents, where available. After we sort out the mess, tomorrow we'll take a hard look at the one document which has me all confused. There may be an explanation...if we can find some missing documents.

So, for Anastasia, a.k.a. Anna, here we go.

• 1848: Anastasia born in Schwarzwald (Czarnylas, Poland), as estimated from her marriage record
• 1868: Anastasia married Thomas Puchała in Schwarzwald
• 1872: Anastasia mentioned in baptismal record of daughter Rosalia in Lubichowo
• 1910: Anastasia entered as "Annie Kusfkr" in the Brooklyn, New York, household of daughter Rose Muller in U.S. Census
• 1915: Listed as Anna Krausse in Brooklyn household on Knickerbocker Avenue with daughter Rose Miller in New York State census enumerated on June 1
• 1915: November 15 marriage record of George W. Kober and Rose Miller identified Rose as a divorced woman for whom this was her second marriage; document identified Rose's current address in Brooklyn as Knickerbocker Avenue, but states her maiden name was Krauss and her mother's maiden name was Anna Zegar
• 1920: Anna "Krouse" was listed in the U. S. Census as mother-in-law in the household of George W. Kober and his wife Rose, now living at 729 96th Street in Woodhaven, part of the Borough of Queens in New York City
• 1921: A newspaper report of her death in The Brooklyn Standard Union on September 29, 1921—including the right house address and city (but not street) of the Kober household—listed her name as Anna "Kraus"
• 1921: Her death certificate listed her name as Anna Kusharvska on the front of the document, yet on the reverse, spelled that surname as Kusharvoska; with her daughter listed as "Mrs. Geo. W. Kober" and the place of death given as 729 96th Street in Richmond Hill 

There, like a sandwich, we have documents in both the earlier and latest segments of Anastasia's life in America listing her surname as some variation on what seems to be the unusual surname of Kusharvska. Yet, other records seem to hint that Anna went by the name Krauss in the earlier years of her residence in New York City. 

My main goal in ferreting out Anna's married names is not only finding the identity of these two men in her later life, but determining what name she chose to represent herself when entering this country as an immigrant. Her second and third marriage record plus that record of her passage to America would be useful to find. It may all come down to which surname she went by—and how she, or those officials documenting her identity, might have spelled it. 

Cousin Connections

 

Despite when work seems to barely move forward on family history discoveries, groundwork for the most significant discoveries may actually be happening behind the scenes. That, at least, is what I'm hoping as I review the progress made on my paternal grandfather's ancestors.

These past two weeks have all been about making cousin connections. The first goal in that arena has been to review my grandfather's maternal Zegarski line, of which those who left their roots behind in Poland also left an abundant family heritage in the United States. With quite a few DNA matches at both Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com, this Zegarski line has provided me with ample opportunities to reach out and make cousin connections.

In the process of adding those lines of descent to my family tree—ninety five new entries in the past two weeks—my tree has grown to 40,395 documented individuals. Most of those newly added names represent American children of the immigrants, the less challenging of this month's Zegarski quest.

Still to come will be children of the Zegarski siblings who remained in the Pomeranian villages of Lubichowo and Czarnylas back in the 1880s and beyond. That effort will be more challenging, for the search removes us from government documents recorded in English to church records in Latin or Prussian governmental records in old German script. With only one week remaining for this month's research challenge, I may need to return to this task in a future year.

Though I only gained three new DNA matches over the past two weeks, I now have 2,686 matches who are my fourth cousin or closer. From this total number, I'm still on the search to identify each Zegarski cousin and link them to their proper place in my family tree. At the same time, I've reached out to one cousin match who is also a prolific researcher, and we have begun collaborating on this Zegarski line of questions. Collaboration often accelerates research progress, so I am looking forward to reaping more discoveries with this process.

Since my focus has now been on my father's side of the family tree, it will probably come as no surprise to learn that my in-laws' tree only grew by thirteen additional documented profiles in the past two weeks. Still, that tree now holds 41,826 documented profiles from my husband's ancestors. I will likely not return to work on that tree until next spring, but there are the occasional discoveries, questions, or cousin contacts which prompt me to step to that side of the family branches and add some information. This biweekly report brought me one such time.

There are still several Zegarski cousins to plug into this family tree from my list of DNA matches, so that will be the task this next week holds for me, as we wrap up another month of seeking one of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors from the paternal side of my family.

Documenting Anna and her Daughter

 

Now, as I'm turning back to create a timeline of name changes for both Anastasia Zegarska and her daughter Rosalia, I'm reminded of how thankful I am to be able to access online versions of such documents. The fact that I can, despite being on a business trip far from home this past week, pull up virtual copies of hundred-year-old records from New York City for both Anna and her daughter is all thanks to the efforts of one nonprofit organization called Reclaim the Records.

If you have been following their ten-plus year saga—yes, Reclaim the Records received some of the first fruits of their labor from the city almost exactly ten years ago, on October 14, 2015—you know there have been several updates, as well as setbacks. But eventually, they won.

And so did we: with several ways to access government records concerning our ancestors living in New York City.

The other day, in my new ongoing collaboration with another Zegarski researcher, I noticed this cousin mention accessing these historical vital records via a New York City website. Sure enough, I could jump right on that latest research goal to harvest the details from the digital copies of marriage and death records for my New York City ancestors. Sure, I could wait until I got home and pull out the paper copies I had paid for—but this is now, and I didn't want to wait to start the review. Patience, apparently, is no longer a virtue for an online research project.

With that, I'm beginning to construct that name-change timeline for both Anastasia and Rosalia—or, as they were known in New York, Anna and Rose. And all the while, I'm appreciating some intrepid attorneys back in the Big Apple who wouldn't take "No!" for an answer.

Tracing Rose to Find Anna

 

What if a family member's life story is too long to fit into those neat little boxes on a family tree? That's the problem I'm facing as I consider how to follow Anastasia Zegarska through her three marriages, the death of at least six children and the life of her surviving two: my father's Aunt Rose and his own father, Rose's brother.

It was a snap to determine that tracing Aunt Rose was one sure way to spot her mother through the decades in which they lived in New York City. I'm presuming the same may be the key to finding the family's immigration records, and possibly even the documentation on Anastasia's second and third marriage record. But when I try to share that paper trail on the one publicly-accessible free family tree used internationally by so many, I run into a problem: there is not one single entry for Aunt Rose.

There are three.

The story, as we've already partially discovered, spans decades and involves several documents, each of which cannot be added to my Rose without extracting them from the "other" Rose. On top of that, a careful reading of Rose's first married name—clearly written as Muller, according to the 1910 census—was somehow revised to show as Miller for her second marriage license to George Kober. How do I know that was the same Rose? Simple: her mother was still living with her in the next census.

To complicate matters, that same Kober marriage record for Aunt Rose gave a different maiden name: Krauss. This opens my eyes to some possible complications. Could the original Rose I found, baptized in Poland as Rosalia Puchała, be one of the six children her mother Anastasia lost? Could this Rose be a child born after her mother's marriage to the second husband named Krauss? But if that were so, then my grandfather, four years younger than Rose, would also have been a Krauss, rather than keep any variation on the Puchała name, as he did well into his adult years. Yet that could be a hint as to when Anastasia married this second husband: most likely when her children were still young enough to consider Mr. Krauss as their surrogate father.

The trouble with facing complicated extractions from the FamilySearch tree is that I just would rather throw up my hands and walk away. After all, I have that information all documented on my other online family trees. It's just that, considering the international reach of FamilySearch, I'm still hoping someone back in Poland might also be researching that family line and spot it on that publicly-accessible website. And reach out to connect. Collaboration can be very helpful.

There is, however, more to be accomplished with Rose's mother, Anastasia. Knowing, first, that in America Anastasia went by the shortened name Anna helps guide the process. But I still lack any proof of Anna's subsequent marriages to anyone called Kusharvski, let alone someone else named Krauss. It was only in the shock of the moment of discovering her mother's suicide that Rose blurted out the name Kusharvski to emergency personnel; I hadn't even known of it before finding that death record. I still can't find Anna's burial marker. And though, in retrospect, that bungled entry for immigrant Anna in 1910—her name spelled Kusfkr by the enumerator that year—seems to indicate she was once known as Anna Kusharvski, it isn't exactly a document; it's merely an error-ridden notation.

The best thing to do at this point is go back and re-assemble all the documents I have for this family, including both front and back of each record, for some details are handwritten on the reverse and in the margins.

Then, I need to put them in date order for one reason: I need to see the gaps in each person's story. Creating a "timeline" of name changes may help, despite not having the actual documents. I can infer from each surname's appearance when it might have become part of the family's story. Even now, as I begin this process, I'm spotting some details in the flow of information that may rearrange my own understanding of the history. We'll see, first, what we can unearth by putting that process to use on the American side of the equation, then create a timeline hypothesis to test.

Widowed, Times Three

 

Some ancestors present more twists and turns to their life story. Anastasia Zegarska was one of those hard-to-trace ancestors. But it was her husband, Thomas Puchała, who lost me as I tried to trace his own life story. With that, I was left with following the only family members remaining to him: his widow, Anastasia, and her two surviving children, Rosalia and Teodor.

Even then, finding Anastasia and her two children in any further Polish records—not to mention, her disappearing husband Thomas—has been, so far, an unsuccessful pursuit. Obviously, though, the three surviving family members did show up in New York, but the gap between their last written appearance in what was then Prussia and their discovery in New York City cost me the years between 1872 and (possibly) 1910. In the meantime, Anastasia appeared in records with two additional surnames: Kusharvski and Krauss (also recorded as Krouse). To count it all up, when looking for Anastasia, we are looking for a woman who was widowed three times. Where are the records?

It would be nice to find those missing marriage records, of course, but what would be even more helpful would be to find Anastasia as she moved from 1870s "Schwarzwald" in Prussia through her immigration passage to New York City. The search would also cement details not only about the two other men she called her husband, but would also help to narrow down the year and location of her first husband's death. If those records are even still in existence and not a casualty of a subsequent war, it would be helpful to find solid documentation of this widow's life trajectory.

Checking the Mundane Details of Life

When I wake up, my morning routine often includes grabbing my phone and checking the upcoming day's weather. After all, it can become a helpful guide in cementing the day's plans. It occurred to me that, hungry as I am to know more about what my Polish ancestors' day to day life was like, I could try checking the same mundane record sets for them, so I pulled up my weather report and entered Lubichowo, Poland, to add to my weather site.

Yes, it's a first step, and only a tiny one. I could see that there was a slight chance of rain this morning, and more to come for the following four days. Seeing their high temperatures in the fifties (Fahrenheit) in Lubichowo and overnight lows trailing not far behind, I could compare their weather with mine—it was colder but milder, and far more humid there—and spot differences in other details. Sunrise came later in the morning and sunset about an hour earlier than ours, reminding me that Lubichowo was in a location much more to the north than my current home.

I thought I'd do a bit more exploration of local details. For a town as small as Lubichowo, it is not easy to find many resources about that location in English, although I suspect if I used Google Chrome for translation services, I'd discover more detailed information. Still, I could see that Lubichowo is in a rural part of Pomerania, as the local administrative district includes twenty four villages and "settlements" which combine to represent a total population of under six thousand people. In contrast, just one of the cities in the rural county where I live includes over three hundred thousand people.

I did discover that the territory is a low-lying area, with altitude somewhere between one hundred and three hundred feet above sea level. The ground is said to be poor, sandy soil, so it makes sense to learn that the principal crops there are potatoes or such cereal grains as wheat, barley, oats, or rye. Some small family farms also raised livestock. Perhaps this is as it was when my ancestors called that place their home.

Since I discovered Lubichowo lies on the fifty third parallel north, I decided to take a whirlwind tour of the world to see which other locations are as far north as my Puchała ancestors' native village. Of course, sections of the Netherlands, Wales, and England are located just as far north as Lubichowo is. Surprisingly, Lough Derg, the lake so close to my father-in-law's Tully ancestral home, also is on that parallel. Across the Atlantic, Newfoundland and Labrador lie on that same northern pathway, and the parallel runs through the city of Edmonton in the province of Alberta. The closest that parallel comes to touching the United States is among the Alaskan islands in the Bering Sea, a considerable distance north of my current home.

To begin to understand more of what life was like for my Puchała and Zegarski forebears, I suppose I could conduct some experiments with Artificial Intelligence like fellow genea-blogger Randy Seaver has done concerning his own ancestors, such as the narrative about his third great-grandmother who lived in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, in 1845. But I suspect a more useful tool for me would be a system which could find resources in Polish, then accurately translate them into English so I could assemble the details into my own narrative.

Mostly, what I'm curious about is, first, what made these family members choose to leave their homeland, and next, why did this one lone branch of the family head for New York when everyone else went to Wisconsin? Surely, there is a story that I am missing.  

Friends in the Family

 

When it comes to reconstructing what life was like for the ancestors we are researching, those who lived in the same country as we do likely present little trouble for us in accessing the answers we seek. We can simply look up historic details about our location and find ample resources in our own language. Researching ancestors who emigrated from a foreign country, however, presents us with challenges, especially if the people in the originating country spoke a language different than ours.

Oftentimes in those cases, I turn to friends within the extended family for help. Older relatives can sometimes infuse a family history with stories of their own lived experience, adding insight—and sometimes even humor—into the genealogical narrative.

When it comes to my Puchała and Zegarski roots from Poland, however, I run into roadblocks. For one thing, my paternal grandfather made sure no one among his descendants would have any idea of his Polish roots—at least, that's the story from my older siblings and cousins who knew him personally.

So who can I turn to among those living relatives to find any inside observations about these Polish forebears? There certainly weren't any relatives from the Puchała side of the family to consult—at least, none that I have discovered so far. But the Zegarski side? Now, that's a different matter.

Thanks to DNA testing, I've discovered a number of third cousins on that side of the family. The first one I had found, years ago, was the one who pointed me to online resources in the country of Poland, which gave me a great head start. But this month, I've been wondering whether I could find anyone who actually knew any of those immigrant Zegarskis, or at least remembered their children or grandchildren. I've been on a hunt to connect with a recipient of the stories from the old country.

I noticed one distant relative (and DNA match) whose research kept popping up online, so I reached out to see if I could glean any insight on this extended family. While in 2025, the time is too distant to find anyone who personally remembered any of the immigrant Zegarskis, this researcher and I have started collaborating, an encouraging step. 

It's often beneficial to make friends from among the members of the extended family. These second and third cousins are not people I've ever met, but we have a common goal to learn about what our ancestors were really like. Yes, the hurdle of messaging someone who is essentially a stranger can seem daunting—after all, what if he or she doesn't answer?—but if we don't reach out and try to connect, we'll never attain our goal.

Granted, some people who take DNA tests only do so for specific, limited reasons—to learn about their ethnic roots, for instance, but if we look more closely at potential contacts from among our DNA matches, we can identify the most likely candidates who'd potentially respond to our message or, even better, collaborate with us.

If, in our brief introductory message to such candidates, we can identify the specific family line we are curious about, it helps to make a connection. But if we also scope out that individual's research history on that same website, we can get a better idea about who has been at this work consistently over time. Researchers who take the time to not only add documentation to their family tree, but to go out of their way to upload specific family mementos—photographs, or a letter written by an ancestor, for instance—show us the care they take to pursue those mystery roots. Unless people like these turn out to be proprietary about their research—the "don't touch my stuff" types who are, unfortunately, also out there—they may become the perfect research partner for delving into the unknown about our family history together.

Back before we had the wealth of documentation available to us online now, we used to rely far more upon connecting with other researchers. Queries on the forums of the past were full of people searching for anyone else who knew something about their brick wall ancestor. Friends in the family, back then, became a valuable research tool. With the abundance of records now at our fingertips with a click of the mouse, we seem to have forgotten the utility of reaching out and connecting with our own relatives who are seeking the same family history answers. I'm hoping that making an about-face on this trend may recharge this lagging search effort.

Overreach

 

"Bit off more than I can chew" would be something my parents might use to rebuke me for overreaching on those grandiose plans. But when I decided, last Friday, to wrap up my work in a tidy basket—complete the work of connecting all my Zegarski DNA matches at Ancestry.com, then harvest all the Zegarski documents I could find on FamilySearch.org—and be done over the weekend, well...yeah, overreach. 

Update: I'm far from finishing the DNA match connection process at Ancestry. The more DNA cousins I find there, the more I realize I need to update the Zegarski branch on my family tree. Considering how prolific that Wisconsin branch of this immigrant line has been, I'd say this will call for far more work than a weekend's diversion.

Regardless, I went exploring at FamilySearch.org as well. My goal has been to trace the line of descent for all the collateral lines of my Puchała roots. After all, I've got several Polish DNA cousins over at MyHeritage for whom I'd love to establish a connection. Finding the documentation between my ancestors in 1840s Pomerania and current generations across the European continent might be a challenge, but—talk about overreach—I'll give it a try.

In the meantime, I started trying another approach. Put this one in the "oldies but goodies" category: I'm reaching out to those distant Zegarski cousins who are researching the same family lines. Maybe one of them knows more about what the people in our ancestry were like than what we can find from dull, dry documents.

Grunt Work and the Genealogy Guinea Pig

 

You know me: the genealogy guinea pig. I'll try anything to burrow around an ancestral brick wall. Many of those attempts lead to dead ends, but for some, I come out in victory. Experiment successful!

With experiences like that, you might not be surprised to hear that I spend a lot of time helping others wander through their own genealogical maze, hunting for the ancestral big cheese. Some of that time is in formal classroom settings and through teaching lessons on specific topics, but other times, I'm just as likely to be meeting one on one with friends at a coffee shop (with a decent wifi connection, of course) or even via online sessions, chasing our ancestral mysteries.

Considering that, I was rather crestfallen to see a Substack article recommended by other bloggers on "Why Most Genealogy Advice Wastes Your Time." Well, I certainly hope my advice doesn't waste others' time; if it does, it wastes my time, also. 

I had to give that one some thought. During that same week, it so happened that I ended up involved with  several such advice-giving sessions, not just in genealogy, but in other realms as well. I met with a fellow researcher one on one to tackle some problems, held an online DNA special interest group meeting, joined with other researchers in a family history writing group, made a presentation to members of a genealogy society, and led my own society's meeting, in addition to wandering around the back corners of Polish records at FamilySearch.org.

But did that help anybody? That's the key question I glean from the Substack article posed by Denyse Allen. I've got to admit, after all the genealogical effort of the past week—in addition to observing a class taught by someone else—I have to concede she has a point. But not, perhaps, in the exact way she means it.

Over this weekend, I watched someone else teach a class on self-improvement which was free to attend. Being held on a sunny Saturday morning, perhaps it was no surprise to see the event was sparsely attended. I watched as people sat, taking notes, and wondered how many would take a look at those notes again, let alone actually put the advice into practice. I think we've all been dulled by the traditional classroom experience, lulled into listening, then thinking the end of class equates with reaching the finish line.

On the contrary, it's just the beginning. It's what we do next that determines whether we've learned or not.

Stepping back and taking a sweeping view of the evolution of educational techniques—at least for adult learning styles—we are far more suited to collaborative attempts at problem solving. The main reason for this, though, is not that we thrive on chaos, but that we can coach each other as we move, step by step, through that dark tunnel towards the light at the end.

We don't, as it turns out, learn as much from massive data dumps—where our brains hardly get the space to burp—as we do from incremental experiments in progress. We try this, test it out. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't—and then we try something else to solve that same problem.

We're guinea pigs at work, testing the limits of our hypotheses, one by one, to follow the trail to the answer we seek. As I've mentioned in the past when explaining my position as unofficial genealogy guinea pig, learning can be awkward, especially when it is observed in real time. After all, to make progress, you have to admit you don't know something. That's the realization where learning begins.

I've often wished I could change the format of some of the teaching sessions I've done for genealogy. If I could have my way—meaning space to experiment, and resources to make it possible—I'd much prefer putting learning into an engaging environment. A place where we had the luxury of testing ideas out and failing—and then taking the time to make adjustments and try again.

Traditional learning has one assumption baked into the formula: you learn in class; where you apply it is on you, at some other time. Just not now.

Whether I can replicate the genealogy guinea pig in such an experimental classroom, I don't know. It does, for instance, call for participants who are willing to take the time to try new things in real time, right there while we're meeting. And then share, reflecting on what went wrong, and what can be done instead—always moving forward.

Maybe that type of experimental lab needs to not be called a classroom. Nor should the session be called a class. Workshop, maybe. Or perhaps something entirely new. Whatever it turns out to be, hopefully it will be the catalyst to get people out of that listening-only mode into a doing mindset.

Genealogy, after all, can truly turn out to be grunt work. And we all need some encouragement to get through those rough spots in the genealogy puzzle. But on the other side, finding that answer! That's the reward which inspires the genealogy happy dance, and we really need someone to share that moment with us. Why not the people who've been working through the process with us all along?

Not on my Bookshelf Yet: Rosie Grant's "To Die For"

 

I'd presumed that every genealogist who appreciates the work of Find A Grave volunteers had heard about Rosie Grant's new book by now, but when I first read about it months ago, I made a mental note to buy a copy when it came out—and then promptly forgot the planned date of publication.

Well, that's now. Actually, To Die For launched on October 7. The author, who has been active on TikTok and Instagram as @GhostlyArchive, assembled forty of her favorite recipes for this book from highly unusual resources: headstones in cemeteries.

This book, however, is not just about cooking good food. Each of those recipes comes with a story baked into it. Harvested from the very memorials serving as the last reminders of someone's loved one, these recipes come presented in this book along with the author's trademark mix of personal and local history, and family interviews—not unlike what we genealogists hope to do with our family history pursuits. It's not just dry facts drawn from researching documents, but recipes with the life breathed into them from remembrances by family members.

Perhaps I'm a little behind on my reading to-do list, but this one just might become part of some advanced holiday shopping, as well.

Collecting Zegarski Connections

 

While my great-grandfather's Puchała ancestors didn't seem to leave many descendants—at least, if I go by what can be found among my DNA matches—Thomas Puchała's in-laws certainly did. Anastasia Zegarska, my misfortune-plagued great-grandmother of the two surviving children, turned out to have many siblings, nieces and nephews who also migrated to the New World. I would never have known it, judging by the very few relatives I remember from my childhood, but there was a reason for this dearth of paternal kin. For whatever reason, while Anastasia chose to settle in New York City, her Zegarski relatives all headed for Wisconsin.

I never knew that information until just recently, after having taken my DNA test at five different genetic genealogy companies. MyHeritage was the first to pinpoint the Zegarski connections through their AutoClusters tool, but since some genealogy enthusiasts test at multiple places—and keep trees at more than one company, too—I eventually discovered one of those DNA matches also kept a family tree at Ancestry.com. 

That was a fortunate connection. Thankfully, this DNA match was quite willing to answer messages from other DNA matches. Not only that, but the information she provided was very helpful. That contact became my first baby steps into a world of genealogy research I had never tried before: researching Polish roots.

As it turns out, over time—well over a century, now—those Polish immigrants have yielded more relatives than I've been able to count. Still, I'm trying to keep track. Thanks to the ThruLines tool at Ancestry, plus the Shared Matches option from Ancestry's ProTools, I've been connecting the dots between those many unknown distant cousins and my Zegarski ancestry.

It's all adding up. And there's more to find. Sometimes, research can seem monotonous, but this repetition is forming a network of descendants I never knew existed. Perhaps I'm in awe over what can be found through DNA—at least when we have effective tools for organizing these many unknown people.

This weekend, I'll be taking time to see how many more unidentified relatives I can connect to this Zegarski line of descent, using the tools at Ancestry.com. Then, I'll turn to FamilySearch records to see whether I can spot any further collateral lines to document for each Puchała generation in Poland and the lines of their in-laws, then trace their descendants. Once equipped with further documentation on the lines of these newly-discovered descendants, on Monday, we'll see what connections can be made with the DNA matches listed at MyHeritage.  

Can't Push Forward, Can't Move Backward

 

When it comes to my Puchała line, I guess I've got to admit I'm stuck. I can't move that line backwards one more generation from my second great-grandfather Jan Puchała, and it sure looks like I can't even push forward in time to discover anything more about his son Thomas, my great-grandfather.

Stuck: I hate to admit it. Worse yet, I can't find any explanation for what became of Thomas Puchała. He simply seems to have disappeared. Thomas' wife Anastasia Zegarska traveled with her two surviving children, eventually ending up in that vast entry point for countless immigrants, New York City—but she certainly didn't appear to arrive under that same married name.

When Anastasia arrived in New York, the first appearance I can find for her is a woman with a different married name. That name was so different that it seemed to stump the local enumerator for the 1910 census, who simply wrote it as "Annie Kusfkr."

Whatever Anastasia's name had become, it was clear that it was a different married name, certainly not any variation on Puchała. It wasn't until I followed a long and winding trail for her daughter—now going by the shortened given name Rose—who had also apparently married by 1910.

From married names "Muller" to Kober to Hassinger I followed Rose. Somewhere in the middle of that chase, when Rose was still married to George Kober and Anastasia was "widowed" and living with them, one devastating morning Rose found that unusual married name blurting out from her trembling lips when she called for help after discovering that her mother had taken her own life. Whatever that name was from the 1910 census, I found it—or at least a closer approximation—in Anastasia's death certificate, even though the accompanying news report from her residence in Queens borough in New York City identified her as Anna Kraus.

One thing was clear, though, from tracing Anastasia from her maiden name to Puchała, to Krauss, and to  Kusharvski: something must have happened to Thomas Puchała long before Anastasia took her two children, Rosalia and Teodor, aboard a boat sailing for America. That record will still be on my research list for a long time, I suspect.

In the meantime, there is much more that can be done on this extended Puchała line. For one thing, I have the aggravation of cleaning up resources and plugging them into the universal tree at FamilySearch.org, complete with proof arguments to explain the convoluted story of what's been found. Rose, in her own several permutations, has appeared in at least two other family tree identities, though in none of them does she show any descendants of her own. Anastasia, as well, could use some explanation, at least for the missing marriage records, wherever those events occurred.

In addition to that, since one goal this month was to examine my paternal grandfather's patriline, that calls for seeking DNA matches who connect to that line. The difficulty is in finding the connections to those descendants who still remain in Poland—or even those who may have emigrated, but now have descendants in other European countries. The DNA may reveal some clues, but the documentation, once again, will be key—if I can find it.

While we're stuck in this tight loop, searching for missing documentation, I'll take some time to examine what can be found through DNA tests, especially at the one resource for the most international test results: MyHeritage.com. 

Another Generation, Another Location?

 

Why is it that we see our ancestors as people who lived in the same location, generation after generation? I don't know about you, but when I think of great-grandparents and the generations beyond that, I'm surprised to learn that they moved on to new locations from the place where they were born.

In my current experiment—finding how far I can go on the lines associated with my paternal grandfather's Polish Puchała roots—I'm seeing my ancestors stay in one town for maybe a generation or two. Then, onward the trail leads me to another location—if, at least, I am still following the same line.

Now that we've pushed back from Thomas Puchała to his father Jan and his wife Susanna Radomska, I thought I'd try my hand at finding Susanna's Radomski roots. It was no surprise to discover that Susanna was born in the same town as the one where she married Jan Puchała. The daughter of Andrzej Radomski and Marianna Nierzwicka, Susanna was born in Lubichowo, as we can surmise from her baptismal record in the Catholic Church there on New Year's Day in 1824.

But the daisy chain of family connections bids us push just one generation further to find her parents. While looking for the Latin version of their names in church documents, a marriage record for Andream Radomski and Maryanna Nierzwicka showed up for November 13, 1814.

Only problem: the church record was not kept in Lubichowo, but in a Prussian town known as Hoch Stüblau. Now what?

Straight to that trusty search engine I went, where the Meyer's Gazetteer pointed out a place by that same name. At the same time, Google redirected me to a place called Zblewo. Sure enough, if you click on the "map" tab under the Meyer's Gazetteer entry for Hoch Stüblau, in smaller print, you can see the word Zblewo.

Back to Google Maps to double check distances and feasibility. 

Sure enough, if taking the most direct route between the two locations, the distance made sense. Though more of a walk than the towns I had checked before, Zblewo is still a reasonable distance at about seven and a half miles from Lubichowo.

On the other hand, looking more closely at the handwritten record itself, the location of the ceremony looked vaguely like it was written as "Libichowo." Perhaps the marriage ceremony was held in Lubichowo, but the record was kept in Zblewo? Something to check for more information on typical clerical procedures in the Catholic Churches in that place and time. 

The Problem With Diacritics

 

The search for my father's Polish Puchała ancestors runs into a problem: the surname requires use of a diacritical mark. Depending on who was writing the record concerning any of his key life events, my great-grandfather Thomas Puchała's name could show up in the document containing a "t" instead of an "ł"—or double that, in either case. Or the official could just as easily disregarded use of any diacritics and simply written the name with a plain, unembellished "l." Wildcards, by necessity, become my best search engine friend in such cases. Whether documented by a Prussian official in German, or a church cleric in Latin, that "ł" could end up being my research downfall.

Still, I'm hoping I pinpointed the right parents when I located a baptismal record for a "weiblich" named Thomas Puchała, born November 20 in 1844 (despite the translation from German being rendered as "female"). The transcription indicated Thomas' surname as "Puchata"—a slight pen stroke which, once I see the actual handwritten document, will surely be more accurately transcribed as "Puchała."

Those parents, by the way, were listed in the transcription as Johann "Puchata" and Susanna "Damska." But I can't just accept the transcriber's word for that. Until I can make it to a FamilySearch Center to view the actual document—access to that record set is currently limited—I can at least double check with similar records.

Sure enough, the transcription of an 1842 marriage record for the same Johann "Puchata" indicated his bride's name to actually be Susanna Radomska. And not that many years later, Johann's own death record in 1858 indicated the same maiden name for his widow. In between those two dates, there were baptismal records for their children, supporting that same name for the mother, and, sadly, confirming that same maiden name in death records for some of those unfortunate children, as well.

So far, all records for the Puchała line showed them remaining in Lubichowo, but I'm wondering whether that detail will remain constant for yet another generation. To double check, let's push back another generation and see whether we can find any indication where that leads.

Drilling Deeper Into Ethnicity

 

Let's just say I was influenced by the recent ethnicity update for DNA tests at Ancestry.com. The boast there, only a few days ago, was an increase in granularity of results, now linked to data drilling deeper into about 3,600 separate ethnic regions around the world. During this update, every DNA customer's results were re-analyzed, further refining the update.

On my side of the equation, having just made some discoveries furthering my understanding of my Polish roots, I wondered how well the Ancestry updates could drill down to my specific level. After all, having discovered the marriage record for the parents of Thomas Puchała's wife, Anastasia Zegarska, I now had a third Polish city to call my family's ancestral home. Known in Prussia as Ponschau, the place in Poland is now known as Pączewo. 

Pączewo, as it turns out, had a slightly different historical background than Czarnylas, where Anastasia was baptized, or Lubichowo, where she and Thomas eventually lived. While all three towns were located in the region of Pomerania, Pączewo was a bit different. It was noted to be part of a separate ethnocultural region known as Kociewie. 

The Kocievians, as I'm learning, were perhaps the Polish equivalent of an indigenous population. While their modern language is not that different from Polish, it is considered a separate dialect. 

But does a region like that show up in this newest Ancestry update? I was encouraged to see that the latest DNA readout does break down the region around Poland into smaller geographical areas. For my father's side of my results, I show genetic heritage from what Ancestry now calls Northeastern Poland and Southern Poland. Also included are the more broad-based North Central Europe, plus the smaller Estonia and Latvia. But no Kociewie. Not even any Pomerania.

As I'm delving deeper into my ancestral roots and simultaneously endeavoring to learn the local history, I may be gaining a greater appreciation for the variations in ethnicity in a place now as remote to me as Poland. There are, however, limitations to what a company even as large as Ancestry may be able to accomplish.

For one thing, though they are expanding their reach, Ancestry.com is mostly a North-American-centric organization. In my personal experience, I have far better results with finding Polish DNA matches at MyHeritage than at Ancestry. Though Poland is currently not as impacted by restrictive regulations regarding direct-to-consumer DNA testing as, say, Germany or France, use of such options does not seem to be as widespread in Poland as here. Based on how this latest Ancestry DNA study was conducted, it's no surprise that regions as specific as what I'm now exploring did not make an appearance in their update.

Not now, perhaps, but someday....

In the meantime, whether making a showing in convenient scientific reviews at big genealogy companies or not, I can grow my appreciation for my roots by learning more about my ancestors' homelands and lives through the ample online resources providing such information. Document by document, as I uncover more details, I can then turn to Internet searches and queries to answer questions as they pop up. It's an ever-expanding exploration that broadens the boundaries of genealogy.

A Pause to Count

The last couple months have been rough on genealogical research results. Battling Covid for one month, then dealing with the dismay over access to Polish records this month, admittedly I haven't made much progress. But it's time for that biweekly tally. Regardless of the excuses, it's time to take the pause to count the progress.

In the past two weeks, that Polish challenge has yielded forty one new relatives entered on my family tree. It's been a hard-won minor victory, though truth be told, those were mainly descendants added to the immigrant lines I've already discovered. Some of them were added, thanks to connection to DNA matches I've already known about. But hey, progress is progress. I now have 40,300 people on my side of the family tree.

Granted, the past two weeks included a few days from the previous month's goal, when I was trying to do penance for not finding anything further on those Flannery ancestors back in County Tipperary, Ireland. Mostly, that work was again focused on DNA matches who descend from immigrant Flannery and Tully descendants from my father-in-law's tree. The 139 new individuals added to that tree push the total count for my in-laws' tree to 41,813.

I suspect the next two weeks will progress about as slowly as the results for today's report. I'll be back to that research question about my father's patriline. I'm mostly jumping between my tree, posted on Ancestry.com, and Prussian records digitized at FamilySearch.org, to slowly—painfully slowly—push my way back in time with actual documents. If not for speed in progress, at least it's encouraging to focus on the thoroughness of results. Finding documents for this family's previous generations has been rewarding in its own way. 

Adrift in my Own Personal Sargasso Sea

 

Today was one of those days when I just couldn't muster the resolve to hit the research trail where I had left off. Perhaps my mind was all awash with binding, slimy seaweed. I needed a break, a chance to shake loose of research frustration. Instead of pursuing those aggravating, elusive Polish ancestors of the Puchała persuasion, I set that goal aside for something a bit more mindless.

I worked on my DNA matches.

Yes, I know DNA can also be frustrating, and no, I wasn't fixated on finding cousins on the Puchała side of the family equation. I just decided to take my ProTools Shared Matches superpower out for a spin.

You can blame that little detour on an inspiration from a recent post by Dr. Rick Wilson of MyFamilyPattern.com. He urged: "Take a Genealogy Pause." I sure needed one.

The Wilson article drew from research on creativity. Since Dr. Wilson's academic focus is marketing, he did relate the blog post to his field, but I have spent nearly a lifetime pursuing just what it takes to make one "creative." And sometimes, its elusiveness is just what makes it seem so magical when we do find it.

It's times like that shower first thing in the morning, when our mind is still foggy from the previous night's dreams and we think we just let our brain wander on autopilot while we get ready for the day's events—when suddenly, this creative idea pops into our head. Taking our mind off the pressing details that drive us can become the time when our mind can thrive with creativity. Whether it's the drone of the white noise of a shower—or the ocean during a walk on the beach—somehow, when our mind disassociates itself from the rigors of work, it somehow simultaneously comes up with just the direction we need, the solution we were seeking.

My own genealogical "white noise" is cleaning up the neglected branches on my family tree. Often, it's also when I plug in new DNA cousins into their rightful place in the family constellation. It combines with a routine I've repeated so often, it now comes naturally. Other than checking verification from documentation, the process takes on a formulaic series of steps. Like knitting for some, I find it relaxing. Certainly much less taxing than pushing the limit on records availability for 1800s Poland—and then trying to decipher the foreign handwriting.

Though I've not much news to share for the effort, it's been a relaxing break, and I'll be ready to tackle those Puchałas after the weekend is over. In the meantime, a lot of new DNA matches have found their place in my family tree, a refreshing result, indeed.

Add One More for the Road

 

As I'm examining the road connecting the two Polish towns where my great-grandparents, Thomas Puchała and Anastasia Zegarska once lived, I'm also pushing back the branches on their family tree. Since I am having trouble identifying the previous generation on the Puchała side, I've turned to track his wife in hopes of discovering any collateral clues.

It didn't take long, in tracing the Zegarski side of the family, to realize there was a third town I could add to this proximity equation. Anastasia's parents, Jan and Marianna, had a large family, which included a number of Anastasia's siblings who eventually also migrated to the United States as Anastasia did, herself. Though those Zegarski children were all born in Czarnylas, as was Anastasia, their parents apparently were not.

The elder Zegarskis were married in 1833 in a town called Ponschau. Not knowing where that location was, I wanted to repeat the mapping exercise I had done yesterday. But first, I thought I'd look up some information about the place called Ponschau. 

Surprise! The Prussian name for the place where Jan Zegarski married Marianna Wojtaś was no longer called by that German-language designation. The search engine assured me that the current name for that location is now Pączewo.

It was encouraging to discover that Pączewo lies in the same county and province as Czarnylas and Lubichowo, the two towns we've already mapped. Just in case, though, I decided to pull up Pączewo on a map to compare distances. After all, besides concern over the risk of selecting the wrong one of two towns by the same name, just as we'd expect for the courtship of Thomas and Anastasia, we need to assume the same transportation limitations would impact whether their parents would meet.

The map certainly relieved my concerns about selecting the right location, both for this newer discovery of  Pączewo, as well as for the two towns I had checked yesterday. 

Feeling a little bolder, I also tried my hand at locating the three towns—by their Prussian names, mind you—in the Meyers Gazetteer. Better yet, I requested the online version of the gazetteer to pin all the Catholic parishes in the area during that era. As you can see by clicking the "map" tab for this readout, the three towns formed a rather neat route, all within reasonable walking distances, and each being home to the three Catholic parishes in the area.

Whether Thomas had decided, after his marriage, to move westward to settle in Lubichowo, I can't yet tell. I'll likely take some time to explore records in Lubichowo to see if I can find any further signs of Thomas' parents—or even siblings—there. Wherever Thomas originated from, though, we'll still need to check the local geography to see whether the distances make sense.

Mapping Where They Met in the Middle

 

Maps, whether historic or modern versions instantly accessible online, are a wonderful addition to the toolbox we use to uncover the life details of our ancestors. Since I had had such good fortune using online maps to determine the feasibility of courtship connections for my father-in-law's Irish ancestors, I thought I'd turn to Google Maps once again to pinpoint the location of the towns in Poland where my paternal ancestors Thomas Puchała and Anastasia Zegarska once lived.

I had been amazed—and quite pleased—to discover that I could enter the name of a townland in Ireland and have it come up in the search results on Google Maps. If it worked for townlands in Ireland, it should work for obscure places everywhere else in the world, right?

Records I had found online for Thomas Puchała mentioned a town called Lubichowo. For Anastasia, I had found mention of a place now called Czarnylas. I plugged those two names into Google Maps, just to double check that they were within a reasonable distance for traveling by foot or even by horse. After all, it was unlikely, at the time they were married in 1868, that two people would even meet if the distance between their homes was prohibitively long.

The first result to my maps query, however, puzzled me. 

Even if they met in the middle, this trip of nearly 185 miles would take over thirty hours of walking for this potential couple. Hardly a reasonable commitment, even for star-crossed lovers.

I went back to my search terms to double check parameters. Looking back to entries at Wikipedia for each of the towns, I noticed the maps included coordinates for each location. This time, I returned to Google Maps and plugged in the coordinates I had found at Wikipedia, rather than entering the town names.

This result seemed more likely.

This time, Lubichowo and Czarnylas were a more reasonable hike of about two and a half hours, if one took the shortcut. If a couple met in the middle, they could arrive at their destination in little over one hour.

This, however, pointed out the obvious: Google Maps wasn't exactly wrong, per se, in outlining the first trip. As we find in more familiar territory back in our own country, sometimes there are two towns with the same name—maybe even within the same state. Frustrating, yes, but a reminder to ensure that when we research our family history, we've found the right town for the right ancestor, for surely, that other town might oblige us by featuring another search result with the very same names as the relatives we're seeking.

This little map-drawing experiment calls me to go back and double check my research on yet another detail. If there are two Polish towns with the same name, what if I've selected the wrong one? There's a reason for that question besides the unexpected results on this mapping experiment: the fact that, as the territory changed hands from one governmental entity to another, the names for the towns also changed. In this case, the revision was from the names the towns are called in Poland today to the German names imposed upon those locations during the Prussian rule. We need to go back and double check what we had found about that town of Czarnylas.

Above maps courtesy of Google Maps.

The Wife's Side of the Story

 

Using Y-DNA to uncover more about my great-grandfather's patriline may not have revealed much, as we mentioned yesterday, but what if we looked at the story revealed by his wife's DNA? Thomas Puchała, being my great-grandfather, was a close enough relative to be identified through autosomal DNA matches. But when I looked at my DNA matches using Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool, both Thomas and his wife, Anastasia Zegarska, yielded me only two matches. Problem: I know them both. This is no revelation.

Yet, if I move back one more generation and, rather than looking at the DNA matches showing for Thomas' father Jan—no surprise here, just the same two I already know—I look at Thomas' wife Anastasia Zegarska's parents, suddenly that match count jumps. For that couple, my second great-grandparents Jan Zegarski and Marianna Wojtaś, I now have twenty four DNA cousins to research. And twenty four more advocates for examining our jointly-held roots.

In this case, the exercise serves to provide one more data point to zero in on just who the Puchała men were. Granted, using autosomal DNA to track Thomas' wife's siblings' descendants—hint: these were the families who mostly emigrated from Poland to Wisconsin in the United States—did find me some cousins in the current generation. After spending a lifetime feeling like I had hardly any relatives, I like that sense of familial connection.

But tracing Thomas' in-laws did unearth one puzzling question. Having found a few documents on the two families, Puchałan and Zegarski, I now had the name of two villages of origin in Poland. Problem: entering that information on a map told me that the two families lived approximately 185 miles apart from each other. Not exactly a quick stroll to the marketplace.

That's simply not a likely scenario for courtship, 1860s style. Obviously, I need to turn back to those maps, add some additional information, and get a solid picture of where, exactly, the two towns were actually located. A distance like that might be a deal-breaker for a budding Polish romance in that century—not to mention, the accuracy of a pedigree chart.

A Targeted Testing Attempt

 

Though I started my DNA journey to confirm that closely-held family secret that we were, after all, Polish—and not Irish, as my grandfather had insisted—the very first DNA test I submitted didn't yield me much information at all.

That test was a targeted testing attempt on my part: I asked my brother if he would be willing to take a Y-DNA test. That test, currently offered by only one genetic genealogy company—Family Tree DNA in Houston, Texas—can reveal a deep ancestry, but only on one specific family line. That line, known as the patriline, belongs to the male test subject's father's father's father's ancestors on that one specific family line. Reaching much farther back in generations than the autosomal test can accurately reveal, its results are not wide as far as DNA cousins may go, but those results go deep.

While I'm grateful for my brother's willingness to serve as my proxy in seeking the truth about our father's genetic heritage—after all, women cannot test the Y-chromosome they don't have—his test has yet to provide me any solid leads. When I thought about this after the fact, I realized that not only was he my father's only son, but my dad—by then, long since passed away—had no brothers. Neither did his father, apparently. And I suspect that was the case in the generation preceding him.

Because this research question involves some generations relatively close to the present time, autosomal DNA testing could be the perfect tool for such a case. While I'm glad I have the results to my brother's Y-DNA test—with matches still being added over time as more people test—I asked my brother to also take the autosomal test. And I took one, too—at every genealogy company that offered such kits. I didn't want to miss any possible matches.

Perhaps it was serendipity that I discovered a lead. It was thanks to the auto-clusters program added to the tools at MyHeritage, which pointed out some unexpected Polish-American DNA cousins—in Wisconsin, of all places. It didn't, at first, make sense for someone whose immigrant family had settled not far from the docks of the New York City port where they first arrived in America. Of course, reviewing the details I had shared yesterday about the most likely locations for Polish immigrants to settle, that would make sense in hindsight.

Because I went overboard and tested at five different DNA companies, I checked for Polish matches at each of those testing locations. Apparently, I had company, for someone from that same Wisconsin line also tested at Ancestry.com. That connection turned out to be a godsend, for the administrator for that DNA cousin's test was quite knowledgeable about the family line, at least in the Wisconsin area, and also had found online resources back in Poland.

Where would we be in our research, if it weren't for other researchers willing to share what they have learned? When I first discovered these DNA matches, I had no clue how they connected to my family. There was certainly no sign of any geographic connection. Though I should have suspected it, that sleight of hand in slightly changing surnames came into play once again—from Zegarski descendants in Wisconsin to the surname Zegars in my New York City family's case. It took a leap of faith to make the first assumption, but as the DNA matches started piling up, it became far more obvious that I had found the connection.

But even so, those DNA matches didn't link with my research focus for this month—Thomas Puchała—but with his wife, Anastasia Zegarska. In fact, over ten years after my DNA test was taken, I've had many DNA matches added to the list of cousins connected to that Zegarski line of Thomas' wife. But for Thomas himself, I still have the same two DNA matches I've always had. Even if I step back a generation to Thomas' father Jan, I only have those two DNA matches—and they are close relatives to me, whom I know personally. There just aren't that many Puchała descendants to match, apparently.

Still, the question is: if we can't find any direct matches with the Puchała line, can we learn anything about the men in this patriline by inferring details from what we can discover about their wives? Let's take some time to check whether the DNA can lead us to any helpful records there. 

Not Many People Talking About it

 

Research on Polish family history doesn't seem to be as popular as, say, pursuing Irish or Italian roots. It's certainly not as widespread as interest in German genealogy, with an international society devoted to such a purpose. When it comes to looking for help in seeking those Polish forebears, it seems there are not that many people who are talking about it. But that doesn't mean there isn't any help out there for those who claim that ancestry.

Considering that, at least in the United States, there are 2.6 million direct descendants of Polish immigrants—not to mention another 8.6 million who claim partial Polish ancestry—you'd think there'd be a sizable group of potential researchers clamoring for more information on how to start their search. After all, that adds up to three percent of the American population, according to results from the 2020 census.

Perhaps the silence is deafening for someone like me, living out on the west coast, considering that most Polish immigrants to the United States settled around the Great Lakes area, or simply remained in the tri-state area surrounding the port of entry in New York City, as can be seen in one color-coded map based on data from the U. S. census bureau in 2019.

There are, after all, some resources for researching Polish ancestry, including the yearly RootsTech conference, which compiles recorded past sessions and still shares them on their website. There are a few sessions focused on Polish research, including An Introduction to Polish Genealogy by blogger Julie Roberts Szczepankiewicz to help people get started pursuing their Polish roots. And there are some organizations dedicated to helping others research their Polish ancestry, such as the Polish Genealogical Society of America, which offers a free subscription to their monthly e-newsletter.

For the most part, though, when I peruse the offerings of various local genealogical societies, it would be a rare moment, indeed, if I found an upcoming presentation promoted for Polish research. It is far easier, at least from my west coast vantage point, to find meetings discussing Irish or Italian or German research. When it comes to Polish research, there are just not that many people talking about it.

So what does one do in that situation? Thankfully, now we have internet connections to meetings across the country—and even around the world. Perhaps someone in those Great Lakes regions is teaching about researching Polish records.

Better yet, I've discovered websites created by and powered by volunteers in Poland who are working to bring their historical documents to light for an international audience, linking them to their distant cousins in the Polish diaspora. For this, I am most thankful—and hope to spread the word so others can access these missing links to connect their brick wall Polish forebears to their proper place in their homeland.

The advent of the most helpful connection, at least in my case, comes from the now-widespread usage of DNA testing. What I couldn't find in past years from online documents, I can at least discover through a hint from the distant cousins I'm connected with, thanks to DNA. In anticipation of some DNA updates due out later this month, we'll take some time this week to review what DNA has shared about my family's once-secret connection to their Polish ancestry.

Pursuing the Patriline

After visiting with genealogy friends who are pursuing their American Revolution Patriots—or, even more impressive, their Mayflower roots—spending a month to discover more about my father's own grandfather seems rather uninspiring. After all, many people have even met their own great-grandfather in person, but I'm still wandering through a paper maze, trying to learn who this person is.

For this month's goal from my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025, I'll make the switch from a summer season of exploring my father-in-law's roots to discovering more about my own father's ancestry during this fall. This, however, is not an easy task; remember, this was the man who was tight-lipped about his background. Like father, like son, it's been said, and in this case it applies well: my father had his own father as an example of how to keep a family secret.

In past years, I've worked on this patrilineal puzzle. Five years ago, Thomas Puchała claimed the featured spot for my goal in November, and the following year, I explored records showing his father to be either Johann Puchała—according to church records in Latin—or, more likely, Jan Puchała in the vernacular.

Though I have discovered Thomas' father's name, thus pushing the patriline back another generation, there is still so much to learn about this branch of my family. I have found that Thomas once lived in Lubichowo, a small village in Pomerania, where he was likely born in 1844. I also have found mention of his marriage to Anastasia Zegarska in 1868 in the nearby village of Czarnylas, also in what was at that time the country known as Prussia. The difficulty is that those details only came to me, thanks to transcriptions of documents posted on websites in Poland. I have yet to locate and download copies of the actual documents, a task to include in this month's research goals.

In pursuit of this patriline, thankfully I've had some DNA help, mostly through my brother's willingness to take a Y-DNA test, but also through the few matches we've found through autosomal testing. This month will call for closer examination of the updated cousin matches as well as ethnicity updates due out this month at Ancestry.com. And I'll still keep a close eye on those Y-DNA test results, in case an exact match pops up in a timely manner for this month's exploration.

From Ireland to Poland

 

No, this is not about a text received from one of my traveling friends, laying out the itinerary while abroad for holiday in Europe. Having exhausted the resources for Irish research on my father-in-law's great-grandmother Margaret Flannery, I am giving up and moving on to my plans for October's research project.

That move is made with misgivings, however. It's not that finding my own father's ancestors in Poland will be any easier than pushing against the research brick wall in Ireland. But at least it is a new—or at least newer—project. Perhaps that will infuse some energy into the search.

For this month, my plan is to delve into what records can be found in the small village of Lubichowo, part of the Pomeranian Voivodeship—or province—in the northern coastal region of Poland. Not that we haven't wandered in that direction before; I've struggled over my father's roots for nearly my whole life. It's only been in recent years that breaking through that closely-held secret of my paternal ancestry—that we were not Irish, after all, but Polish—has enabled me to explore the truth of the matter.

For the remainder of this month, we'll review what we've already learned about my father's paternal grandfather, Thomas Puchała, and begin exploring what else can be found about his life in Poland during the mid-1800s.