Straight to the Next Generation

 

Pursuing the details on some ancestors may leave us chasing empty promises, buried among the myriad pages of recorded history. Other records, thankfully, are rather straightforward in providing the details we seek. While I can't say there are even any promises in view for my second great-grandfather Jan Puchała, fortunately I've found information gleaned from a document on his wife.

The information listed in that one record I found was rather straightforward. Baby's name: Susanna Marciana. Mother's name: Marianna Nierswicka. Father's name: "Andr Radom."

Well, almost straightforward.

I can presume that the "Andr" stood for the Latin name, Andreas. After all, this was a baptismal record from the Catholic church in Lubichowo, Pomerania. Or perhaps the cleric meant to enter the Polish version, Andrzej. But Radom for a surname? I wasn't sure this was quite what I had seen in Susanna's own marriage record, where her maiden name was listed as Radomska, the traditional feminine form of her father's surname, which would have been Radomski.

Keeping in mind that this record set, only available in transcription form online at FamilySearch.org, would need to be confirmed by viewing the digitized handwritten entry. Since for this, I would need to go to a local FamilySearch Center, I thought I'd first look for corroboration from another transcription-only website. So I jumped over to the PTG site for the Pomeranian Genealogical Association, and looked up records for anyone named "Radom" who might have been baptized in Lubichowo in 1824.

Sure enough, there was one entry for a Susanna Marciana, whose father was named Andreas Radomski. And just to make sure, I noted that the entry also included a mother listed as Marianna Nierzwicka.

Just like that, I pushed back another generation, exactly as I had hoped when I listed Susanna as one of my Twelve Most Wanted for this year. Armed with this information, it was all too easy to pursue the couple named as her parents to see what siblings Susanna might have had.

There is a reason for this secondary pursuit. Since Susanna was my second great-grandmother, finding DNA matches with whom I'm mutually linked to Susanna would, in theory, be possible. The genetic distance for a third cousin is certainly within reach. Once I know the line of descent for the children of Susanna's siblings, I could even possibly find fourth cousins among my matches.

There is, however, a catch with all of that hopeful pursuit of siblings. To see what my possibilities actually are, let's first take a look at who else was descended from Susanna's parents, Andrzej Radomski and Marianna Nierzwicka.