When "Uncle" Isn't Entirely Accurate

 

I should have caught on to this detail sooner, but my mind was thinking too literally. When I heard the term "uncle," I took it to mean exactly that: a parent's brother, or perhaps even a parent's brother-in-law. Gone from my mind was any remembrance of the parade of visiting adults in my childhood home whom I dutifully called "uncle" and "aunt" upon my parents' prompting. It was simply a term of respect, not relationship.

If not through that childhood memory, I should have realized that detail through my immigrant acquaintances from various ethnicities, especially when I was introduced to their many "aunts" and "uncles." I once asked a friend from India just how many aunts she had—to which she laughed and explained that whether they were family or friends, if older than she was, they were greeted with that deferential term of respect.

And how many of my friends in California would speak of their "tia" or "tio" and never once give up the detail that there was no relationship? Terms like aunt or uncle, while taken literally by genealogists, can so often mean otherwise.

So when I encountered the 1915 New York State census entry for my great-grandfather Anton Laskowski, listing Annie Gramlewicz among his household residents, I assumed she was indeed what he said she was: his niece.

Anton Laskowski, after all, was my source for his own mother's name. His death certificate reported her maiden name to be Elżbieta Gramlewicz. It would stand to reason that Annie Gramlewicz, logically, would be the daughter of Anton's mother's brother.

How wrong I was. When I did, years later, receive a message from a great-grandniece of Annie, she provided the rest of the family's story, which I've recounted here years ago. From that online contact, I was able to build out Annie's tree for a few more generations—and in that process, though not finding the correct Gramlewicz connection, I did discover a marriage between Annie's direct line Gramlewicz ancestor and another Laskowski relative.

The plot thickens.

Do you suppose that Laskowski ancestor would neatly fit into Anton's patriline? Of course not—not, at least, as far as I've been able to determine through limited access to Polish documentation. In the end—meaning the last time I worked on this puzzle—I set up Annie's side of the Gramlewicz family as a floating branch in my tree, still waiting to be connected to the rest of my Polish ancestry.

Just exactly how Annie could call Anton her uncle is my guiding motivation for selecting the Gramlewicz family as the focus of this month's Twelve Most Wanted. I want to discover more about Elżbieta's parents and siblings, yes, but this chase may go for generations beyond that, depending on just what prompted Anton to call Annie his niece.