Ancestor #11: Another Polish Wish

 

What a bright new world this Polish genealogical research has become, now that I've found resources containing extended sets of pertinent records. Looking over my choices for my paternal Twelve Most Wanted for the past five years, I can see my former doubt showing in the conservative choices I had made. Several times for each year's last quarter—the time period I'd usually spend researching my father's roots—I'd choose options vaguely connected to my father's history, like friends of the family, or collateral lines I knew about, once the family made it to New York City. I was hedging my bets, anticipating the worst. Pushing back through time, past my dad's great-grandparents, seemed an impossibility.

Not so with this Ancestor #11 selection for my Twelve Most Wanted. Almost as if this process has changed into selecting an ancestral Polish wish list, I've selected another one of my father's great-grandparents, Marianna Wojtaś, to research this coming November. All I know about Marianna so far is that she died in the same village where my paternal grandfather's mother's roots originated: Czarnylas. But I'm hoping this year's attempt will yield far more than I had expected in the past.

Just even finding the identity of that hometown took years to accomplish, so I need to take that as a reminder that some research projects take time—like years—to evolve into a shape roughly comparable to an actual answer. If I arrive at the end of this coming November without an answer to my questions about Marianna's parents and siblings, I know I can return to this puzzle again in a future year—and that, eventually, more records will help guide me through the maze and point me in the right direction for my next step.

Keeping track of my progress over the years has helped in the encouragement department, as well. While I've been selecting my choices for Twelve Most Wanted in the past two weeks, I've also been wrapping up some unfinished projects from the past year. That helped me add another fifty nine documented family members to my parents' tree, and 179 to my in-laws' tree. But it's the fact that my tree now has a total of 38,811 such relatives, and my in-laws' tree has 37,223 reminds me that this is a process of "here a little, there a little" over many years that gets the job done.

Not that a family tree is ever "done." There are always additional questions prompting more discoveries, and more family mysteries probing into personal history of the farmers, trades people and merchants in our families' past. But every time I think I've hit the brick wall that signals the end of the line, I need to remind myself that with patience and skill—not to mention, excellent resources—there is always a way to continue that search.

Ancestor #10: a Polish Patriline

 

Approaching the last three of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors to research for the year of 2025, we move from the family lines of my father-in-law to those of my own dad. I have to smile to think that as I drew up these plans at this time last year, I had given up hope of finding anything further on my father's Polish roots. By the time I actually did the research this past fall, enough resources had opened up to enable me to progress far more than I had dreamed. Let's hope the same will hold true as I shift from last year's exploration of my father's maternal line to seeking his paternal roots next October.

First line of research for this coming fall will be on my dad's patriline, with his grandfather, Thomas Puchała. Thomas, of course, would be the English counterpart to whatever his given name actually might have been in Poland. I still have quite a bit of work to do to track down any actual documents to verify his existence.

But "Thomas" is not the only one I'll be seeking. I'd like to expand that search as wide as I can to determine if there were any of his siblings who survived to adulthood. At this point, I have not found any, but it would help to know, especially in the case of finding DNA cousins who are related to this line.

The search for the Puchała family this fall will take us to Lubichowo in northern Poland, in what once was the domain of the historic region of Pomerania. Hopefully, as happened last year, revisiting local genealogy websites will lead us to newer resources and, perhaps, additional documentation. I may have a skeletal sketch of my father's paternal family tree at this point, but it would be so beneficial to add collateral lines with some additional guidance on names, dates, and places for this extended Puchała family.

Ancestor #9: Finding the Flannery FAN Club

 

Sometimes, it takes a village to find an ancestor. In the case of my father-in-law's Ballina bunch from County Tipperary, Ireland, my only hope of isolating the right Flannery ancestral line for the wife of Denis Tully may be to explore the entire village. At least, the work will call for a re-examination of the F.A.N. Club—Family, Associates, and Neighbors—of Irish emigrants Margaret Flannery and her husband, Denis Tully.

I had worked before on Margaret Flannery, my father-in-law's great-grandmother who married Denis Tully in Ballina, County Tipperary. It was far easier to find her with her family after they immigrated to Canada, but there were certainly signs that the Flannerys had lived in Ballina. The question still remains, though, about Margaret's parents and siblings—and who among them also made the voyage to Canada.

Fortunately, since the last time I worked on this ancestor for my Twelve Most Wanted in 2023, I've connected with two DNA matches researching the same surnames in the same county—an excellent bonus from genetic genealogy companies which provide the research tools to reach out to our distant DNA cousins. By the time I get to researching Ancestor #9 this fall, I will have covered quite a bit of background information through books and videos, thanks to a lively exchange of emails with these two researchers, in preparing to tackle this ninth challenge.

Unlike my goal for the other months during this Twelve Most Wanted sequence, September will enable me to broaden my horizons in searching for the parents of Margaret Flannery by taking into consideration those associates and neighbors whose names kept popping up along with hers, from Ireland to Canada. Even if we don't discover Margaret's parents' names, we'll hopefully build a network of relatives and other associates whose connections may help move the process forward another step or two. 

Ancestor #8: Hoping for D N A Clues

 

There are some ancestors for whom we can handily point to several records in confirmation of our connection. Not so with this one of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025. My father-in-law's great-grandmother Johanna Falvey, my choice for a research focus this coming August, had proven hard to find the last time I tried to pursue her story. That was five years ago. It's about time to see whether any further clues will turn up.

That said, I'm sorry to say it, but I don't think there will be much more in the way of paper confirmations. Johanna Falvey was an Irish immigrant who came to Fort Wayne, Indiana, with her husband, John Kelly. Now that's a name to try your research hand at. I would have just about given up the chase for John Kelly's wife, except for two things. One was that her obituary tantalizingly mentioned that she had left several sisters behind in Ireland—plus another sibling who had immigrated to New Zealand. The other detail? Well, I've found some DNA matches who lead to Falvey ancestors in New Zealand.

And yet, it can't really be just that easy. I've tried finding the connections before. Frustratingly, the chase always seems to lead back to the same records void in Ireland. Here's hoping that now, five years later, there will be more DNA matches leading to more possibilities of finding records pointing to the right location and family circle back home in Ireland. I may be clutching tightly to my positive attitude mantra for this ancestor, but I'll never know if I can find any more details on Johanna Falvey unless I give this brick wall pursuit another try.

Ancestor #7: Those Flanagans

 

At the turn of the second half of this year, attention for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025 will turn to the ancestors of my father-in-law. That means grappling with the shrouded identities of Irish men and women from before the time of the Great Famine. Worse, it means trying to trace the identities of Catholics in a land which by then had long become unfriendly towards Catholics.

Bottom line for all this: finding any clear direction regarding the roots of my father-in-law has long meant facing a struggle with lack of documentation. When it comes to finding his Flanagan ancestors, my approach has been to trace any collateral lines. This I had done in 2023, in hopes of finding a clue in the families of siblings—but those hopes have not yet materialized into anything helpful.

Still, I'm willing to give it another try. Reminded by the advances in search capabilities in programs like FamilySearch's Full Text and AI programs, I realize there may be more to come with such developments by next July. So I will not sell my goals short by limiting my research plans based on what is currently available at the beginning of January. This may, however, turn out to be a journey based on faith, not certain availability.

So, who are the Flanagans I hope to find? First is my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Anna Flanagan. She it was who received the enigmatic letter in 1849 from her husband Stephen Malloy with the message—likely an unexpected one—that he was sailing to America within hours. As you can imagine, it was not long after receiving that word that Anna, along with her toddler daughter Catherine in tow, set out to find her husband in America. 

In that quest, she never succeeded. Instead, she joined her bachelor brother in Chicago and raised her daughter there. Eventually, another Flanagan brother joined them in the Windy City, along with a niece and her family.

Who that mystery brother was, I can't yet say. But I suspect that, finding his name and learning more about his family will add to the collection of Flanagan names in that family circle which may point us to the right direction, back in Ireland.

While I can't vouch for Irish records from that time period in the suspected location of their home—County Limerick?—at least I can expand my search on the American side of the research equation for the relatives of Anna Flanagan Malloy.