A Road Map for the Family Tree

 

As I had discovered last summer when puzzling over the many name twins in my father-in-law's Irish family tree, a road map is an indispensable tool when mapping out the family tree. I remember my delight when I pulled up Google Maps and discovered that the program could pinpoint a specific Irish townland I was seeking. Now that I'm struggling over my paternal grandfather's secret roots in Poland, I'm seeing how that same tool helps guide the way in this new-to-me research region.

Currently, I'm straddling two different records resources: transcriptions of the digitized Polish records at FamilySearch and transcriptions at the database of the Pomeranian Genealogical Association (PTG). When I find what appears to be the right record for someone in the collateral lines of my second great-grandmother, Marianna Wojtaś, I then enter that information, including a link back to the verifying online document, in each of the trees I'm updating.

Along the way in this process, I encounter discrepancies. In a long line of baptismal records for grandchildren of Marianna's sister Franciszka Wojtaś, for instance, I find one child born to Franciszka's namesake daughter and her husband Piotr Gracz, yet the next child born into the Gracz household has a mother named Barbara. What? Did Franciszka die before that point? But no, moving on to the baptismal record of Piotr's next child, lo and behold, Franciszka has been resurrected to her position as mother in the Gracz family once again. Chalk that up to clerical error.

Some discrepancies, however, keep me wondering. The main one is finding a couple by the same name, presenting their child for baptism in a different—and unexpected—Catholic parish than the one where the family's older children had been baptized. Could there be another couple known by the exact same names? Name twins from neighboring towns?

Running into that problem more than once, I decided to return to the process I had used when researching Ireland: pull up Google Maps and see how close the two locations might be. Only this time, there was a twist: baptismal records gave the then-current location of the town, based on Prussian names for those Polish villages. In today's records, those names are different. Nevertheless, a little exploration through online searches has pointed me in the right direction for each of the village names I needed to convert from their old Prussian identities.

It is so easy to fall into the mindset that, up until our "modern" times, people stayed relatively stationary in the one village where their parents grew up, and their parents lived before them. We forget that these were the same intrepid people who birthed emigrants willing to board creaky wooden ships to sail an ocean to a foreign land where no one spoke their language. Even with their limited methods of modality two centuries ago, moving to the next village couldn't be all that hard. 

Just to be sure though, pulling up a map to measure distances between two of those quaint Polish villages helps ease my mind that perhaps with those eight to ten baptismal records from two or three different villages, I'm still following the trail of the same couple. And that that couple is indeed part of my family line, and not someone else's family. 

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. 

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.

Measuring the Distances

 

One word of advice I've always appreciated receiving about researching Irish ancestors was to cross-check any possible marriage records with the distance between the townlands where the bride and groom were said to have lived. The question to consider would be to determine how the couple met. Given the typical modes of transportation in rural Ireland in the mid-1800s, if young people were to get out and meet each other, it would most likely have to be by foot.

Thus, the question becomes, how far a walk is that? The advice I learned was: no greater distance than the round trip which can be accomplished in one day. 

The most likely scenario for such travel would be a trip to market, whether to buy or to sell. Even if the potential couple were to meet up at market from homes in entirely opposite directions, each would still need to return home at the end of the day.

With the challenges of knowing just where all those tiny townlands are in Ireland, I accidentally discovered that Google Maps shows specific townlands in response to a user's inquiry. Having learned that, I simply set the app to get directions between two townlands, then indicate the mode of transportation I prefer to measure. In this case, of course, it would be transportation by foot; no trolley car rides for these inquiries.

Thus, if I found a couple with my ancestors' names, but living in a different townland than where I had last found them, this extra bit of information could help me determine whether I had found the right people, or simply stumbled upon name twins who would lead me astray.

As I go through records for possible Cullinane relatives descended from Gobnait (or "Debora") Falvey, I've been constantly popping back to check distances on Google Maps. Even when considering if the couple had moved from one location to another, it helps to see the distances measured. Townlands, after all, are rather small sections of property, so moving from one to another may be within reason—but moving far enough away to entail an all-day hike leads me to doubt the familial connection. 

Losing the Location

 

Sometimes, it seems the only way to locate our Irish ancestors would be to have some local guidance. That, at least, is how I felt after trying to find the location of the two Marys born to John Kelly and Johanna Falvey. Looking into Irish records from the outside, as a foreigner, may mean I'm missing something in the translation. It seems I've lost the locations mentioned in those Kelly baptismal records.

According to baptismal records in the parish of Killeentierna, the first Mary, born about September of 1864, was recorded as hailing from a place called Currow. The second Mary, arriving in March of 1867, was noted as being a resident of Barnfield.

All well and good—until I started looking for each location on a map. After all, there could have been a chance that we were seeing were two couples in the same time period, each with the husband named John Kelly—a very real possibility in Ireland—and the wife known as Johanna Falvey (again, in County Kerry, also likely). I needed to see how closely each location was situated to the other. If the two spots were distant from each other, the chance that these were baptismal records of two separate families would be much higher.

So much for plans. Since the tiniest of Irish geographic designations were classified as "townlands," I had expected Currow and Barnfield to be likewise within that classification. However, neither Currow nor Barnfield could be located on that oldies-but-goodies website I had mentioned last weekend. With a sigh of resignation, I turned to the much more modern resource for Irish land divisions, townlands.ie, but found no guidance there. So where was this place, Currow, after all?

I gave up and looked at Wikipedia. There, in an entry labeled—duh—Currow, I learned that, somehow, it was not considered a townland, but a village. Within County Kerry—at least I still have the right spot—it is part of the Electoral Division of Killeentierna, as well as being included in the Catholic parish of the same name.

Thankfully, the Wikipedia article continued with a section labeled Townlands, in which it explained how "the names of Currow's townlands reflect the local history and landscape." However, in reviewing those fifty-plus townland names, I spotted several which were, in other sites, labeled as townlands of Killeentierna. Which way was it?

Bottom line: Barnfield was a townland included in that list. Somehow, somewhere in the vicinity of Currow lies a place called Barnfield. Wherever it is, it would surely have been close enough to have been the residence of a family who had previously been said to be a resident of Currow.

Until I can find more definitive resources for that location puzzle, I'll need to set aside the question of the two Marys. Besides, there are other baptismal records connected to the Kelly and Falvey families to pursue. After all, this particular quest's purpose is to gather the names of godparents for the Kelly children, godparents who would be the possible siblings of either John Kelly or his wife, Johanna Falvey.

Sometimes, Older is Better

When our family history takes us across the Atlantic to homes in other countries, we need reliable resources to achieve our research goals. As I work on the roots of my father-in-law's great-grandmother Johanna Falvey Kelly, I've been faced with a collection of place names in County Kerry but I'm lacking any sense of place. Especially when it comes to the concept of townlands, I have no way to relate. I need a map.

Fortunately, Google brought me back in time to a website resource which, years ago, I had known all too well. In its heyday, it was a go-to site for those of us chomping at the bit to use online resources for genealogy—before archives and other repositories were ready to technologically accommodate the deluge of our research demands.

That old resource was called RootsWeb. Originally a smorgasbord of family history tidbits submitted by users around the world in that each-one-help-another spirit, it is now hosted, years after it was launched, by Ancestry.com. Thankfully, many of the original submissions posted on the site are still preserved and accessible. Many of the pages put up by individuals and collectives included efforts which were not only helpful back then in the late 1990s and past the turn of the century, but useful today, as well. It's just that now the material is in read-only format.

Yes, it's been about thirty years since RootsWeb appeared on the online genealogy scene, but now that I'm puzzling over County Kerry townlands for my father-in-law's Falvey roots, what should appear in my Google search, but a link leading me to a wonderful old RootsWeb post on that very subject. And—this is the important part—it includes a series of maps.

Granted, for this month's research puzzle, I had been using the Irish website, townlands.ie, and it is indeed helpful. But frozen in time in the RootsWeb collection is a page explaining Civil Parishes of County Kerry, with links to townland lists and maps. Thus, scrolling down that page to the section containing the map of County Kerry's eighty seven civil parishes, I can click on Kilcummin, for instance, and find the Falvey family's former residence in Knockauncore, just as the church records had indicated. And when I start finding Johanna Falvey and her husband, John Kelly, appearing in townlands in other civil parishes—Killeentierna, for instance, as we'll see next week—I can see the location for myself, and determine the distance between each townland.

The RootsWeb website is now read-only, since its functionality has morphed over the years as computer technology requirements have, by necessity, had to change and upgrade. Seeing what has happened in the effort to preserve Rootsweb over the decades, I shudder to think that someday, that one section of the website with those helpful maps might disappear. My many thanks to those who worked to create those interlinking resources—and I hope those resources remain accessible. But just in case, I did print out a copy of the maps so I could make some handwritten notes as I follow the Falveys and Kellys about in County Kerry. This may be an "old" resource, but it certainly has not lost its usefulness. 

Where the Falvey Name Leads Us

 

While the search for other ancestors may eventually put us in a tailspin, looking for a surname like Falvey has one fortunate benefit: it points us straight to County Kerry, Ireland. Granted, I already know that fact from Johanna Falvey Kelly's obituary, published in Fort Wayne, Indiana, following her 1903 death. But even if I hadn't accessed that old newspaper article, the history of the Falvey surname would guide me in that direction.

It's not every surname which warrants an entry on Wikipedia, but there it is among all the digital entries: a brief overview of the history of the Falvey surname. While it is interesting to know about the long span of the surname's history—or at least its conjecture—descending from one of the High Kings of Ireland, what I want to zero in on this month will be far less regal. All I'm hoping for is the specific line involving my father-in-law's great-grandmother, Johanna. 

For that, just as the Wikipedia entry pointed out, I'm far more likely to find kin if I look at the region around the Lakes of Killarney, or the Dingle Peninsula, as the Wikipedia history surmises, though anywhere in County Kerry or nearby County Cork might be a reasonable target. And, as that article also noted, to look among the common folk in those more humble rural areas.

Sure enough, if we push our search closer to modern times—at least by the time of the still-existent 1901 or 1911 census enumerations—we can see the spread of Falvey residences across the southwestern part of Ireland in surname distribution maps.

Our task this week will be to push back as far as modern documentation can go, to see where the Falvey surname is listed. Granted, this will be a spotty picture, taking in only those on property records or tax rolls. As we do that, we'll also need to get up to speed on the lay of the land: the names and the locations of the townlands in County Kerry which contain mention of the Falvey surname. We have a lot to cover this week, but let's make those townland diagrams our next stop.

On the Streets Where we Live

 

Perhaps the reason First Families programs seem so interesting to me is that I've realized how history surrounds us. In all the sights around us are tokens of our location's past. Consider, for example, street signs. Those street names may well be bearing witness to the people who once lived in the very place they are marking.

I've taken an old plat map for our county—San Joaquin County in northern California—and stared at the names listed on the labeled boxes representing farmland ownership. The map is not very old—drawn up in 1895—but it is certainly old enough to be long before my time. Yet I recognize the names of former property owners in my neighborhood, thanks to those very street signs. These are names which can easily be catalogued in our register of First Families. Talk about local roots: if nothing else, that is a project which could help our neighbors recognize their county's heritage.

Take, for instance, the name of rancher Elias Hildreth. This was an immigrant to California from Rhode Island, but he was originally from Gardiner in Kennebec County, Maine. Like many young men in 1849, news of a gold rush launched him on a six month journey around the Horn, arriving in San Francisco on September 9 that same year. Like many, he found that augmenting his mining efforts—which he abandoned by 1851 to work his own trade as a blacksmith—proved to be more profitable in the long run, bringing him eventually to San Joaquin County, where his name can be found on the county's plat map—and on a street sign in the vicinity.

A similar story goes for another surname found on a county street sign: Ashley. Though there are several by this surname in our county, one such family by that name owes its residence in our county to another frantic chase after the gold in the California hills. Whether Jireh Perry Ashley from Massachusetts or any of his descendants were part of the family for which this California street was named, I can't yet tell, but I do see that name featured among those in the 1895 plat map for my county.

Likewise for another California gold rush arrival: a man by the name of L. U. Shippee. Arriving toward the end of the gold rush era in this state, L. U. Shippee found the prospects not as bright as anticipated, and returned to his launching off place in Stockton. There, he met up with a former acquaintance and began the first of several business ventures from which—at least according to one flowery biographical sketch—he eventually experienced a good measure of success. His name, too, appeared among those identified in the county's plat map, and his surname is still commemorated on a street sign as well.

These are just three early settlers in our county whose personal history could use augmentation with some family history, for those descendants who may be seeking more information on their local roots. We'll spend some additional time this week exploring those connections.

Map above: Portion of 1895 plat map of San Joaquin County, California, courtesy of the U. S. Library of Congress.

 

Researching, Map in Hand

 

The deeper I dig into my paternal grandmother's Polish roots, the more I realize that such research simply cannot be accomplished without proceeding with map in hand. It's not that I am unfamiliar with the names of Polish towns or cities. My main challenge came when I realized that the Polish had a penchant for falling in love with a town's name—and applying that same geographic designation to umpteen other spots scattered across their country.

We've already noticed that last month when searching for more information on a sister of my great-grandmother Marianna Jankowska. There were apparently eight different places which all claimed the same name for their town's identity. Trying to figure out which one was this relative's hometown called for some map work.

The same is happening now as I shift to another branch of my Polish ancestry. Working on my great-grandfather's brother Lorenz Laskowski, I had found his marriage to Anna Błaszczyk occurred in a Catholic parish called Żegocin, yet the civil record came from a different place—Czermin. Well, which place was the correct location? 

Not to make things any easier, but I discovered there were two places called Żegocin: one in Kalisz County, and the other in Pleszew County. Consulting a map, as always in these circumstances, showed two towns by that same name in the two different counties—but the distance between them and the Laskowski family home in Żerków was almost the same for each.

Next step: read up on each location to seek additional clues. Almost right away, I spotted the clincher on the entry for Żegocin in Pleszew County: a small village, its records are kept in the administrative district known as Gmina Czermin. And that was the reason for the civil record being given the location as the village of Czermin.

In a way, it's a good thing to be researching a country which uses a language I don't speak, and tends to bestow the same name on multiple locations. It prompts me to keep a map close at hand. And it reminds me to look up anything I don't already know for sure. The progress may seem slower, but it keeps me from being tempted to take the wrong turn in these geographic forks on the genealogical road.

From Jan to Johan to John: Let's Assume

 

Earlier this month, I had taken a peek at my only DNA match sharing the ancestral surname Olejniczak from the brother of my second great-grandmother Franziska Olejniczak. This cousin match, although distant at an estimated third cousin once removed, claimed as his direct ancestor someone named John Olejniczak. That John, born in 1869, had supposedly emigrated from Poland and ended up in the United States in the unlikely location of Harrison County, Ohio.

When he first showed up in American records, he had reported his name as Johan. Indeed, the three eldest of his children actually were born in Germany, according to the 1920 census, so perhaps he had come to this country by way of Germany, even if he had been born in Poland, where friends and neighbors would have been more likely to have called him Jan.

Of course, on my end, I am thinking about the son of Franziska's brother Bartholomaeus, whom he named Jan—or, as the Latin version of church baptismal records would put it, Joannes Olejniczak.

The difficulty in trying, from my end of the research puzzle in late 1800s Poland, to document my way forward in time from that baptismal record is far greater than retracing this DNA match's steps from his own parents back to his connection with his Olejniczak roots. Though his public tree posted online is supported with few records, let's assume that while this may seem like a doubtful jaunt down a rabbit trail, it may become a worthwhile chase, and begin the hunt.

It takes several steps to follow the documents to see that the name our immigrant of interest used at the point of his death in 1963—John Olenzak—still represented the man who for his naturalization records had reported his name as Johan Olejniczak. Yet the final reporting of his date of birth—June 8, 1869—lines up perfectly with our Joannes Olejniczak's baptismal record. And while a Belmont, Ohio, transcription of Johan's citizenship records indicated his place of birth in Poland was called Michałowo—a place which in today's maps looks to be on the other side of the country, certainly too far away for his family to get to Żerków for his baptism two days after birth—a quick consulting of the map at Meyer's Gazetteer shows us a likely village within walking distance of the church parish. And eases my mind that we are talking about the right person and the right place.

Next step: to build a tentative tree to test the connection between the Olejniczak lines.

Image above: Inset from map of Żerków showing Michałowo toward the top left side; image courtesy Meyers Gazetteer entry for Żerków (click tab labeled "map" on website for full image).

Irish Parishes: Civil and Catholic

 

Finding a source which has superimposed a map of County Mayo's civil parishes upon yet another map showing the county's Catholic parishes is not such a simple matter. One can find resources to show the one. And there are resources outlining the other. But finding a source which has put them together may be adding yet another needle-in-haystack to my research list.

True, there is Brian Mitchell's book, A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland, which could help—if only I had a copy. So today, we'll explore some online resources for virtually traipsing through County Mayo.

Our goal right now, as we explore the many possible Stevens surname variants appearing in the historic Griffith's Valuation, is to determine whether any of those governmental entries could also be mentioned in church records from that location. The trick, though, is converting the civil parish name to the Catholic Church parish name.

Right now, we've been looking at Stephens entries in Griffith's for County Mayo. While "Stephens" was not exactly how my husband's second great-grandfather spelled his name, I doubt he spelled it any way at all; when he signed his Declaration of Intent after arriving in Indiana, stating he came from County Mayo, he signed his name with an "X."

There are precious few entries in Griffith's for County Mayo under the name our family goes by: Stevens. There are, however, thirty six entries for the same county if we shift that spelling slightly to Stephens. It is now my task to determine how to convert those Stephens' civil parish names to Catholic parishes, so I can then search for possible church records. Simple, huh?

According to Griffith's, there are twelve civil parishes involved in this chase. As it turns out, I can find a handy listing of County Mayo's civil parishes at FamilySearch.org. And I can also locate a listing of the county's Catholic parishes. Thankfully, the civil parish entry also converts those parishes into their Catholic counterpart in a streamlined table.

Thinking it might be helpful to have more information on these civil parishes, I looked at Wikipedia. Sure enough, that resource also has a clickable listing of County Mayo's seventy three civil parishes, with the blue entries cross-referenced with a separate entry outlining more information on that specific parish. But here is where my luck runs out, once again: all but two of the parishes I'm interested in are coded by Wikipedia in red, meaning no entry has been drawn up on that specific location. Likewise, going back to the resources at FamilySearch, many of the parishes about which I'd appreciate more information contain only the boilerplate wording provided as a starting point for volunteers at that website's wiki. At least some give a smattering of details.

Not to be deterred, I wanted to locate maps of the area. After all, I know nothing about County Mayo. It would help, in researching my Stevens family line, to understand where the founding ancestor might have  originated. Maps can be a great way to start that learning process.

Once again for County Mayo, it turns out I can find a map of civil parishes. Or I can find a map of Catholic parishes. But not both at once. If I want to compare the parish boundaries, I apparently will need to find my own program to combine them.

Bottom line: it looks like a lot of grunt work to align the two jurisdictions, so why not cut to the chase and see if there are any entries in the Catholic Parish records for County Mayo at all? Searching that record set on Ancestry.com has always proven difficult for me. No matter how I set the parameters to search this record set, I either get that dreaded "zero good matches" message, or hits which include entries clearly not fitting my search terms. So I went for the gusto, took my chances, and searched for any church records in County Mayo.

There were, indeed, several entries which did apply to County Mayo. No Stephens, of course, no matter how I spelled it. But it did show me that there were some church records surviving from that time period and location.

There are many reasons why there might not have been any Stephens family members remaining in County Mayo. The first, of course, is that John Stevens might not have really come from County Mayo at all, and was reporting inaccurate—or misunderstood—information. The second reason, given the time period of his emigration, might be that his entire family was wiped out by the Irish famine. Beyond that, there could be several other reasons why this has become my research brick wall.

The question remaining now is, if the family John left behind had all perished, what could have caused their demise? Could they all have died of starvation? Or might there be other reasons why the family line didn't fare so well in County Mayo? This points me back to my original, suspected important goal: learn something more about the life and times of John Stevens' contemporaries, back in County Mayo.

People, Places, Property

 

When research on the people in our family comes to a standstill, we can sometimes take a detour around the roadblock to resume our momentum. Instead of looking directly at the history of the people in the pedigree, I take a look at the history of the places where those people lived, and—if it applies and I'm fortunate to find the records—at the history of the properties they claimed as their own.

Since I'm stalled on my way to discovering more about Maude Woodworth's family, that is exactly the strategy I'll use right now. Maude's father William came with his parents to the region of southern California once known as the Azusa valley (today considered the eastern part of the San Gabriel Valley). William Woodworth eventually raised oranges—a detail I gleaned from an article about Maude—on the property once owned by his father, Lafayette D. Woodworth.

Finding the exact location of the property, though, has been difficult, especially searching from a distance while relying only on online resources. Once I realized that available plat maps for the region wouldn't provide the information I was seeking, I moved to the next tactic: rather than researching a specific piece of property, I'd delve into the details of the history of the place where the property was located.

No matter which location I'm researching, in the midst of stalling out on my family history journey, researching the history of the place which that family once called home always provides helpful context. In the case of Maude's hometown—Covina in southern California—it helped to overlay the Woodworth timeline upon that of the broader Los Angeles County region, the former Mexican "rancho" land grants, and the development of the city of Covina.

Though the Woodworths arrived in southern California from Iowa in 1886—at least, if the report in William's obituary is accurate—to say that they came to Covina can be somewhat misleading. Though land developer Joseph Swift Phillips founded the town of Covina in 1882, the city was not officially incorporated until 1901.

That land, however, was obtained through a series of purchases from holdings of the original grantees of a Mexican land grant known as Rancho La Puente. Details of the many land exchanges are fortunately outlined in several documents I was able to find online, thanks to the search prowess of Google—everything from a brief history of the city to a detailed multi-century timeline included in the blog Covina Past and even to the "Covina Town Center Historic Resource Survey" posted on the city's website, where the historic account isn't taken up until page twelve of the fifty-four page document.

Somewhere along the way, talk of the "famed Boom of the Eighties," identified as occurring during 1886-1888, pointed directly to the year when the Woodworths arrived in the valley—presumably with plenty of company from their fellow midwesterners.

Though that didn't reveal anything further to me about the Woodworths' own family history, it enabled me to put their decision to move into the context of the bigger picture of current trends, both back in Wisconsin and Iowa where they once lived, and in the vastly different terrain into which they were about to relocate.

I'll still want to track down a map detailing the location of the Woodworth property, but learning that the family settled in a once-agricultural valley which eventually boasted the rank of third largest orange producer in the world helps me understand the motivations which transformed a Wisconsin farming family into specialists in citrus fruit.

Above: Section of the 1877 "Map of the County of Los Angeles, California," showing the location of the former Mexican land grant known as Rancho La Puente, due east of the city of Los Angeles, from which the city of Covina was carved in 1882; courtesy of the United States Library of Congress.

"The Ranch on Vincent Street"

 

Nothing can make our ancestors' stories come to life quite like being able to walk on the actual land where they once lived. That is the sort of magic which will fuel a once-in-a-lifetime trip across continents and oceans to experience for ourselves just the slightest slice of life for our forebears.

Though I can't make the trip just now to the property in southern California where Maude Woodworth grew up—though it certainly is a closer journey than what our family planned in 2014 for our pursuit of my father-in-law's Irish roots—there is a next-best option available. We can look up the Woodworth property on plat maps of the county.

That, at least, was the idea I was pursuing when I read in Maude's father's obituary that he had settled with his parents in the region near Covina in 1886. In that 1928 obituary, the Covina Argus had called him "a pioneer of the Azusa valley" and mentioned that the family had farmed "the ranch on Vincent street" which sometime before William's passing had become property of a Reynolds family.

It just so happens that the United States Library of Congress has an extensive map collection which includes some plat maps for locations across the country. Since the Woodworths had settled in Los Angeles County, I felt chances were good that the Library of Congress would include such a map in their collection.

Rather than search directly through the Library of Congress website, I used Google to direct me to the closest possibilities. I found three: one map drawn in 1877, another in 1888, and a third in 1898.

I already knew from William Woodworth's obituary that the 1877 map would be of no use in answering my question, so I tried the 1888 map. Though there were surnames inserted on many of the properties, others were identified only by numbers or letters. Bottom line for me: no sign of any Woodworth property. Not even any familiar names on the few labeled streets.

Trying the 1898 map didn't yield any better results. By then, the map revealed just how much development was occurring in the area as even back then, the push to move to the "suburbs" was gaining headway.

That's when it occurred to me that I had, years ago, found an unlabeled photograph in the collection of Bill Bean, Maude's brother-in-law. It was one of many pictures he had of men working in rugged California terrain, which for some reason I long ago got into my head might have been the Woodworths working their land in the San Gabriel mountains of southern California. Of course, I have no basis for that assumption—Bill Bean wasn't even a relative of Maude's family—but that is just an example of how things get stuck in one's head. I kept looking on the plat maps for property closer to the hills, when Covina itself, their stated residence, was not as close to the mountains as are some other cities in Los Angeles County.

With that, it became obvious that, though I drive through the area with regularity on my visits down south, I can't let assumptions drive my research. It was time to stop pursuing the trail and take a research break to bone up on some local history of the area which eventually became the city of Covina.

 

Photograph above: undated picture of three unidentified men in work clothes (with a fourth seated behind them) stopping on a hillside in California. Though this photo was from the collection of Maude Woodworth Bean's brother-in-law William Bean, I often wondered whether this represented members of the Woodworth family.

The Trouble With Spelling

 

I don't suppose it would be entirely necessary to determine just who James Walls, heir of Anthony Carroll, actually was. I do have one reason for my search, however. Depending on who James Walls was—and how he was related to his benefactor—I might simultaneously uncover information which could help answer other research questions. For one, it might identify who Anthony Carroll's wife Temperance was, and if she had been previously married to someone named Walls. For another, it might straighten out yet another relationship mess I've stumbled upon. That, as it turns out, has to do with some spelling issues during that same time period of Anthony's will—the early 1800s.

I've searched for information on James Walls, believe me. And I've realized one thing: in the area of Monongalia County, the western region formerly part of the state of Virginia, there were several similar surnames to be found, all claiming James as a given name. In addition to James Walls, there was the predictable James Wells. Besides that, though, there was James Wills. And, in nearby Preston County, there was a James Wales—and yes, I looked, and can't excuse that as simply poor handwriting; it actually looks like Wales.

If that time period was rife with clever clerks who considered the knack of creative spelling to be a way to demonstrate their intelligence, how will I ever know I've found the right James Walls?

One thing I did find: Anthony Carroll—the one who named James Walls in his will—lived in what at the time was called the "Eastern District" of Monongalia County. He was easily spotted in the 1820 census under that heading. Of course, creative spelling rendered his surname as "Carrill." But we can use our imagination, too.

So, it would be no surprise to find, in the 1830 census, an entry in that same Eastern District for someone named James Walls. But trying to find him in the 1820 census, I can only come up with someone named James Wells. Same person? Impossible to tell from that entry alone.

Remembering our discovery that so much more was written on Anthony Carroll's family in the history book published for neighboring Preston County than for Monongalia County, itself, I wandered over to that neighboring county to see what could be found there for anyone named James Walls.

Fortunately, there was something to be found in A History of Preston County, West Virginia. The entry on one featured community member by the name of John Ormand Walls began with this promising observation on his family's roots: "The Walls family, of Grant District, are descendants from James Walls...."

Of course, we have to realize that, despite the nearness of the two counties, there was no guarantee that this James Walls was the same as the one we are seeking. However, the continuation of that sentence in the history book provided some insight: "...who settled in that part of the county before its separation from Monongalia."

I took a look at a map. Sure enough, somewhat to the northwest of Preston County was what is the remainder of Monongalia County, now all in West Virginia. What we have, at least in this situation, could be someone who, at one point, lived in Monongalia County—until the county lines were redrawn, carving out the new county—and suddenly, he was a resident of Preston County.

That, apparently, was what happened. Preston County, formed in 1818 from Monongalia County, may well have included what had previously been claimed as part of the "Eastern District" of the former county. While James Walls was clearly listed in Monongalia County in the 1830 census, that doesn't necessarily preclude his owning property in what eventually became the other county.

Whether the James Walls in the History of Preston County turns out to be the same as the James Walls mentioned in Anthony Carroll's will, I can't yet determine. But stumbling upon this detail points up one condition to remember: boundaries change. In the case of the vast colonial region which once encompassed Monongalia County, not only was it affected by this relatively benign boundary change, but there also were other boundary disputes which may come into play as we continue to explore the possible relatives of Mary Carroll Gordon. The lesson to be learned: know your geography—even the minutiae of historical changes to those borders.    

The Trouble With Strategies

When it comes to tackling a research puzzle, it seems helpful to develop a strategy to test any hypothesis. It's essential to have a plan for how to test possible resources or relationships. The caveat, though, is to make sure your research strategy doesn't back you into a corner. Some corners land far from any possible answers. A researcher needs to be able to spot a false lead and know when to abandon those trails which lead nowhere.

In my case, pulling up the baptismal records for children of John Kelly and Johanna Falvey, I wondered whether my research idea was leading me nowhere, indeed. The thought was that, if godparents listed for a child's baptism, in the Irish tradition, were always either siblings of the parents, or their in-laws, one would expect a reciprocating arrangement: you stand in as sponsor for my baby, and I'll do the same for you—or your sibling.

Thus, it would seem reasonable that a researcher could ghost a family tree, just by looking at the sponsors for each baptism listed with the right parents' surnames. Likewise, by seeking any sponsors who were named either John Kelly or Johanna Falvey, it would likewise lead us to candidates for their family trees.

Only problem: of the nine years of baptismal records that I've scoured, so far, in the parish where John and Johanna had two children baptised, I haven't spotted their names showing as sponsors even once. What was up with that? They were present for baptisms in Killeentierna in County Kerry for one daughter's baptism in 1864, and the other in 1867. Did they not take on any community responsibilities even during the three year interval between those two births?

That was when I realized the glitch in my research thinking: I assumed that, back in those "good ol' fashioned" days, our ancestors never moved from town to town. We think they always stayed put in the same village where their grandparents grew up—and their grandparents before them.

That, possibly, is not so. Either that, or I have been tracking the information on two different sets of parents who, coincidentally, have the exact same names—and gave the same name to their daughter.

Here's what got me thinking. Take a look at the column headed "Domicile" in the entries below.

Our John Kelly and Johanna Falvey were listed with their daughter Mary on 25 September 1864 in this list of baptisms. Notice the listing for their domicile: Currow.

Now, fast forward to 1867, when the other Mary is baptised on March 24. One peek at that entry can tell you that the Kelly family did not live in Currow in 1867; they were listed as being from Barnfield.

Currow, I assumed, would be the name of their townland—at least, that is, in 1864. However, looking on this extensive list of townlands in County Kerry, I didn't see any entry for such a name. Nor did I find one for Barnfield—which, to me, sounded suspiciously more English than Irish.

Could it have been possible that our Kelly family had moved from one place to another in that three year interval? Or not even been a member of that parish where their daughter was baptised? Perhaps that was why I didn't see either of the parents' names pop up as sponsors for any other children in the parish.

Though it would seem reasonable to rely first on Irish records for direction on Irish matters, I was reassured when I simply went to Google Maps and entered the term, "Currow, County Kerry, Ireland." There actually was, as it turned out, a place called Currow in County Kerry.

Then, I tried my hand at another familiar resource: I googled that name and found some information on Wikipedia. Currow—at least, according to that resource—is a "rural village" in County Kerry, and apparently contains some townlands of its own. One of those townlands was called by that suspiciously English-sounding name Barnfield—at least during the era of the Tithe Applotment Books.

So, to say the Kelly family lived in Barnfield was simply a way to explain in what part of Currow the family once lived. And Barnfield—plus the surrounding Currow—was part of the Catholic parish of Killeentierna, exactly as the baptismal record showed. Theoretically, then, that meant I wouldn't have to look to another parish to find the remainder of baptismal records for the Kelly children, nor to find John or Johanna listed as a sponsor for their siblings' children. But why weren't they there in the records?

This is where it sometimes becomes necessary to re-evaluate a research strategy to see whether continuing to trudge onward on that same path will yield the answers necessary for the core mission: to construct the family constellation for John's Kelly family and Johanna's Falvey family. I'll keep at it a bit more to see what I can find by turning five to ten more pages of baptismal records, but it will be important to develop an alternate search plan, as well.

After all, we already know from Johanna's obituary many years later, that she had "several sisters" who still lived in County Kerry. Surely, at least one of those sisters had children who should have been listed in that baptismal catalog.

Here a Little, There a Little

One might have thought, in finding a 1917 photograph of a baby and her mother labeled from Bandon, Oregon, that the family could have been located there in the very next census.

Think again.

Apparently, Hallie Randall and her adorable infant Fayetta Mae were not in Oregon for long. I found them in the 1920 census, living in San Francisco, along with Hallie's husband, Charles. I couldn't, however, make out Charles' occupation—nor his age or address, for that matter, both entries having been muddied by strike-outs and overwritten—so I needed to turn to other resources for clarification.

One would think, having appeared in the 1920 census, that an identical entry in the local city directory would reflect the proper address. But, no; the San Francisco city directory for 1920 showed a dentist by that name living on Pierce Street, and another man with the same name—though coupled with a wife named Hazel, not Hallie—living on Hayes. Nothing looked similar to the overwritten entries on the census for street name or occupation.

Perhaps our Randall family was new to town and had arrived after the directory was published for the year. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and looked up their name in the 1921 directory. Still no likely entry, making me begin to lose faith in the governmental enumeration system.

Or perhaps the Randalls just left town before the next directory could be published.

Best I could tell from attempts to decipher the census record, Charles and Hallie—and, of course, their adorable baby Fay—lived in a neighborhood bordered by Fulton and Fillmore, the two street names I was able to read on their census page. Being ever grateful for the instant accessibility to almost everything in our currently connected cyberworld, I learned from Google maps that the likely two missing street names on the census page were McAllister and Steiner.

With that, I confirmed that those city directories—if, at least, they got the addresses correct—did not include our Charles and Hallie Randall.

So, where did they go? In Oregon in 1917 and California in 1920, what was next? Thankfully, a transcription of a marriage record, along with information gleaned from the subsequent census, showed a family which had traveled full circle from where they first became man and wife. The Randalls' next stop in life was Nevada, not far from the address Hallie had entered on that 1917 postcard featuring her darling baby.


Above: Map of the Randalls' San Francisco neighborhood  at the time of the 1920 census; map courtesy Google Maps.

Retracing Those Tentative Research Steps

Sometimes, researching one's ancestry over the years can bring an avalanche of information. It is easy to forget, toward the end of the search, what had been discovered at the beginning. At first, hints seem to dribble out, one by one, and the going seems glacially slow. That, however, can be deceptive; those clues add up—enough to bury the first ones in an avalanche of eventual resources.

So it is with my quest to find the roots of my Laskowski family and the related line with that easily-identifiable surname Gramlewicz. In puzzling over the possible home town for the Gramlewicz family, back in Poland, it's true I've been poking through several surname distribution maps in hopes of finding a golden key to open this research door—but it seems I've encountered conflicting information.

Maybe learning a bit more about the region may help. I've already discovered that there was a grand-scale redrawing of the map in 1998, so the provinces and counties have taken shape in ways that likely differ from the time, back in the 1890s, when my family left town—wherever it was.

Another difficulty is that much more has taken place since that time period when the Gramlewicz and Laskowski families immigrated to America. For one thing, there have been two world wars. Ideological changes and governmental impact. But even before that era, Poland had seen itself change hands geopolitically from Prussians to Germans. Regions and cities were sometimes known by one name, then by another. It's hard to keep up.

Still, I have to remember what I've already found. In addition to what seems to be conflicting information on those surname mappers, I can reach far back in my slush pile of research notes to confirm one thing: Żerków is looking better, each time I review the findings.

Whether you've been following along at A Family Tapestry from the beginning or not, you may recall my discovery, a few years ago, of the census enumerator's error in which the land from which my Laskowski great grandparents emigrated from was listed not as the country of origin (which the instructions required), but the actual region they once called home. It was listed as Posen—the German name for the region and city now known as Poznań.

One helpful timeline of how the designation of Poznań has changed over the centuries brings us from the fourteenth century up to the time of this most recent redesignation in 1998, when it was incorporated into the larger Wielkopolska Province. You will probably not be surprised to discover that, at least in this century, this newer province includes not only the city of Poznań, but the tiny village of Żerków, as well.

Not only had I found that my great grandparents once hailed from Poznań, however, but I had already found a confirmation that the town of Żerków should be on my radar. Remember my grandmother's brother—the man who had married into that other rare surname (Aktabowski) I'm trying to trace right now? When I finally found John Laskowski's naturalization papers, that was the very location he pinpointed for the place where he was born: Żerków. It said so, right on his Declaration of Intention.

With all this, can I presume that the reference to Posen in the early twentieth century can correspond to the same plot of land that encompasses that village where my ancestors once lived? Sounds reasonable to me, of course. But let's take another stop, next week, to revisit what my Polish cousin remembered of her own family history, which started from the point at which our Gramlewicz family left New York to return to Poland, just before the first World War. For, you see, in addition to all the Gramlewicz children who returned with their parents to Poland, there was one more child added to the family after their arrival back home. That new baby became the ancestor of my Polish cousin, a grandfather she never met.

Above: "The Favorite," 1890 painting by Georgios Jakobides; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Tapping Into That Root System

Sometimes, the answer to our genealogical questions seems so close, we can almost feel it. And yet, delving deeper, we realize how tangled in myriad details the answer seems to be—almost as if we are no closer than when we first began.

When I realized that, in 1998, Poland redrew their boundaries for their counterpart of what we call provinces, those leads from the helpful Herby website didn't seem so promising, after all. Now I had to figure out where those locations might be in the current scheme of geo-political things.

There were some other tools to use, of course. I took my hint from the surname mapping entry on ISOGG's wiki, and headed to the resource they listed under the heading for Poland. This brought me to a website's page called...um...Mapa nazwisk.

Okay, so that's "Map names." Thank you, Google Translate. You are my Best Friend Forever.

By now, I had already learned that "Szukaj" means "Search," so I entered "Gramlewicz" in the dialog box beside that term, and came up with the results at moikrewni.pl.

They weren't helpful. While I had already learned at Herby that my key targets in Poland would be Katowice and Bydgoszcz (if you have no idea how to pronounce that jawbreaker, you can listen in to a quick demonstration here), this new site advised me to look to Warsaw and Żnin.

With all these new Polish city names swirling in my head—and twisting my tongue—I didn't feel like I was making any headway. I did, though, take the time to read up on each place in hopes of gaining a sense of their relative location in respect to each other within the boundaries of Poland. And I noticed one thing: there might be something in common between some of the regions that were popping up.

Time to use one more surname mapper, though. I had found this third resource while researching my husband's Irish surnames and realized that it was a site that was international in its scope. So, trying Public Profiler's World Names site, I compared the other results with this third option.

Entering Gramlewicz in their search bar, I saw results showing me that there was no other country on earth boasting that surname other than Poland—a surprise, considering so many former residents of Poland now live in North America, not to mention those recently emigrated to other nations within the EU.

I clicked through on the map of Poland to zoom in on the specific regions in the country with highest frequency of occurrence of my target surname. According to the World Names utility, there were three regions of interest, although only one of them had a moderately high incidence of the surname.

That region was called—get ready for another jawbreaker here—Kujawsko-Pomorskie. Of course, I copied and pasted that one right into my search engine to see what I could find. Besides my customary stop to read up on the topic at Wikipedia, I discovered that the State University of New York at Buffalo hosts a website called infoPoland, which includes a section on that very (unpronounceable) region.

According to infoPoland, Kujawsko-Pomorskie is a province which includes a region known as Kujavy—hence the reason the place is also known as the Kuyavian-Pomeranian province. You can imagine my ecstasy when, checking into this location further, I stumbled upon the name Bydgoszcz once again, and realized all these different—and very unfamiliar—names all were encircling that same city in Poland. Could this be the location for my family's roots?

Another encouraging sign was when I clicked further into the website at the Public Profiler's surname utility and brought up yet another page in their resources: a listing of the top surnames in Kujawsko-Pomorskie. Among them was Zielinski, yet another surname on this side of my family tree—one which had intermarried into my Laskowski line more than once, apparently.

All this might seem quite exciting, except for one thing. Remember that distant Gramlewicz cousin who found me online and with whom I had exchanged quite a bit of family research? Well, according to her, the family was actually from another location: Żerków. Whether that city was within the shifting boundaries of any of these other locations or not, it was a sure thing that I needed to brush up some more on my Polish geography. Or try to uncover whatever the discrepancy might have been.

     
Above: The map from the Public Profiler readout for the name Gramlewicz, showing the highest concentration of that surname (in the darker blue) in the province of Kujawsko-Pomorskie.
  

Tracking Family Immigration Patterns

Behind all the patter here on A Family Tapestry this past week, I've been working on my mother-in-law's lines. You may recall that's the family that made the move to what eventually became Perry County, Ohio, sometime after they staked their claim to territory there.

Though the immediate Flowers, Gordon, Snider and Metzger lines of our family seemed to stay put in Perry County for generations, that wasn't the case with the entire extended family.

Now that I'm tracing all the descendants of each earliest Perry County ancestor, I'm finding one interesting trend from observing both of our families: those who headed south kept heading further south; those who headed north kept heading further north.

In the case of the Sniders, it was a story of the northerners heading further north.

Fortunately, these families tended to move in groups and settle in the same community. Not only that, but when they decided to pick up and move yet another time, the whole bunch of them made the move as a community. Again.

That made for some easy tracking—at least on my part. Perhaps they all decided to scout out better farm land, settled on an area where the extended family could all buy a sizeable portion, and plotted their move that way. For the genealogist, that simply meant when the family disappeared from Perry County, Ohio, they showed up in Winneshiek County, Iowa. And when they were through with Iowa, they picked up and moved on to Fillmore County, Minnesota.

Right now, I'm following a genealogical paper trail through various counties in Minnesota. Personally, having never been there in my life—well, once, when our Christmas flight home from Ohio was cancelled due to a snow storm and we were re-routed through, of all places to avoid in the snow, Minneapolis—I've had to depend on maps to let me know about all the places these people were tromping through.

Using maps in new genealogical territory is a no-brainer. How else could you get a sense of exactly where your ancestors were moving? Once the Snider descendants made their move from Iowa to Minnesota, it seemed they kept zooming from one county to another—until I looked on the map and saw each move was actually quite incremental. Even the move from Iowa to Minnesota was merely a hop across the county line.

Life in Iowa and Minnesota must have treated these people well, for as all good Catholics were supposed to do, they took to heart that Biblical injunction to "be fruitful and multiply." However, unlike past generations, it seemed many iterations of the Snider line, there in Iowa and Minnesota, lived to see all their children survive to adulthood.

Yet, there were some other throwbacks to prior generations in their tendency to intermarry. I saw several Snider marriages to people from a Gossman surname—then a couple generations later, a Gossman descendant might, again, end up marrying a Snider. I can't wait to see how this cousin amplification will hit the DNA test analysis process.

Meanwhile, as my mother-in-law's extended family headed further and further north, my own maternal line began the long trek southward after the Revolutionary War, moving first from Virginia to South Carolina and Georgia, then to Alabama and Mississippi, and eventually to Texas—and some even to New Mexico—the southerners heading even further south.

Is it just techniques of farming particular to certain weather patterns that inspires people to seek out similar terrain and climate? I can understand snowbirds of our current era ditching the rigors of winter in Minnesota for some fun in the sun in Arizona's January—but then, that doesn't involve the hard work of farming. But I also didn't see any Nebraskan farmers forsaking their annual livelihood for easier plowing, planting and harvesting in, say, Louisiana.

Once again, I suspect that pursuing the story of our family history will lead to revelations along the lines of the hazards of daily living, 1800s style and even in pre-war 1900s. Learning our family history is so much more than just entering names, dates and places on the pedigree chart's blank lines. It becomes a whirlwind tour of the minutiae of daily living—the stuff of everyday life that we all take for granted because everyone knows it, until a new era dawns and it suddenly becomes forgotten.

Above: "Country Road in Front of a Wood," by Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.