Concerning Conrad

 

There was something compelling about discovering that name, Conrad Snyder. Sure, that was a man who lived in the same county in Pennsylvania as my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather, Nicholas Snider—and it wasn't lost on me that Nicholas had named a son of his own by that same given name. But trying to flesh out more of the elder Conrad's story from an 1810 census just wasn't yielding enough information.

After all, the age brackets used for those early American enumerations could sometimes be a bit too generous. If you think that giving the age of a son as "under ten years" can be befuddling, let's just say it  doesn't help to pin an identity on the head of a large household by simply saying he was forty five or older. 

Older? How much older?

The Conrad Snyder I found in Adams County, Pennsylvania—living in the same township where Nicholas once lived—could have been forty five. Or forty six. Or fifty six. Or much older.

I did the math. Even if Conrad had been forty five at the time of the 1810 census, that would have meant a birth year of 1765. Every year older than that would push that date of birth earlier. Hmmm. Doing a bit more math, I realized the man's age could have had him hovering around a serviceable age for a significant date in American history: the American Revolutionary War.

Could this Conrad have been of a right age to have served in the war? I popped over to the website of the Daughters of the American Revolution to check. Sure enough, there were three Patriots listed in their files with that name—and all three of them served from Pennsylvania.

The first entry, a man who served as a captain in the army, was for someone born in Germany, a promising sign—until I realized he died by 1802. No appearance in the 1810 census for him.

The second entry—also a man who was born in Germany—brought back memories of the family story we had found earlier this month about Nicholas supposedly serving as a drummer boy during the war. Could this actually have been a story about a relative of Nicholas, mistakenly borrowed and ascribed to Nicholas, himself? After all, here was a man named Conrad Snyder, who had that same scenario ascribed to him. I was tempted to revisit that story we had run across.

But the third DAR entry seemed the most similar to what I had seen in the census entry—yet frustratingly an entry not quite cooperating with the scenario I had assumed would have been Nicholas' own story. Here was a man born about the same time as Nicholas—handy, for the possibility that this Conrad and Nicholas could have been brothers—and dying in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

That's where the similarities stopped short. This Conrad was said to have been born in Pennsylvania, not Germany. Worse, there may even be problems with his service record, providing us with less information on his biography than I would have hoped. About the only helpful detail on that man's DAR entry was that it provided the date of his death in Adams County—March 25, 1837.

Now having a date of death for this Conrad, it might be possible to examine his will—if he had one—to see what we can learn about his family constellation. While this research path may turn out to be a rabbit trail, at least it will be one we can set aside, knowing we have done what we could to examine the possibilities.  

Don't Believe Everything You Read

 

It began with a hint from Ancestry.com for my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather Nicholas Snider. Whether he actually spelled his surname that way—or Schneider, or Snyder, both of which I've also seen in records—I can't tell. But sometime during the year of his death, according to this hint, his heirs appeared in court to make a claim based on his Revolutionary War service.

Keeping in mind the Revolutionary War story I had already encountered from the biographical sketch of another descendant of Nicholas, I was all eyes to read the faded and blurry text of this handwritten court entry. Who wouldn't have appreciated a hint like that?!

Taking a first glance at the documents, I spotted some details which agreed with what I already knew about this ancestor: that by the 1855 date of that document, Nicholas was already deceased, as was his wife. Encouragingly, his wife's name on the court record was listed as Elizabeth—a detail which didn't initially disturb me, for the 1850 census had entered her name that same way, despite her full given name being Anna Elizabeth.

Even the son named as heir in this record, who was bringing his petition to court that day, was Jacob, same as our Nicholas Snider's eldest son. That, however, was where the similarities ended.

I've learned long ago that, despite the ease of genealogy websites' habit of providing the breadcrumbs of "hints" to guide us along our research path, one must always—repeat after me, "Always. Always. ALWAYS"—look at the document. With this instance, though, I'll provide an addendum: look at the entire document, not just the first few paragraphs. There are other families out there, believe it or not, who named their children the same names your own ancestors preferred.

I didn't need to read much further when I realized that having another son named Nicholas, while a likely choice for a father by that same name, was not in the records for our Nicholas. Yes, he had many sons—eight that I can find so far—but none of them became his father's namesake.

Furthermore, while our Nicholas did live in Pennsylvania at one point—the location where this petition was brought to court—he certainly didn't die there. As far as I can tell, of his sons who lived to adulthood, all traveled west with him to Perry County, Ohio.

So, the two sons of Nicholas and Elizabeth, who filed their complaint in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, on March 22, 1855? Though they claimed that their father was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, their father was certainly not our Nicholas Snider of Perry County, Ohio, even though he also once lived in Pennsylvania. 

How did that Ancestry hint find its way to my family tree? I suspect it's because several other Ancestry subscribers saw that same document and did the easy thing: click to add it to their tree without reading the thirty six pages of documentation appended to the case file inspecting the original pension claim.

Since I did take a look, I discovered a few interesting points. First discovery was that the Nicholas in question, who died in 1828, was neither of the Snyder Patriots listed in the DAR website. However, even in the packet of documents in the rejected pension file, it seemed that sometimes the applicant was confused with the DAR Patriot who died in 1786.

More to my current question was a letter in the pension packet written in 1916 to the Honorable Halvor Steenerson. At the time of the letter, Halvor Steenerson was a member of Congress representing Crookston in Polk County, Minnesota—the very place where Louis Edward Gossman of that 1897 biographical sketch which prompted this search also lived and worked. Apparently, at the time of the letter, Louis Gossman was then serving as judge.

The letter in response to the congressman's query on behalf of the judge confirmed the same details I had found by reading the entire pension packet: that the Nicholas whose rejected application was on file was a man who died in Pennsylvania in 1828. Apparently, by 1916 Judge Gossman had had second thoughts about that family tale as well, and was seeking some verification—long after, I might add, he had offered that family story for his published biographical sketch.

Just in case the Honorable Steenerson's status wasn't sufficient to round up some solid evidence, I did further reading on Revolutionary War pension applications and bounty land warrant records. A quick and easy index to applicants by state revealed no Nicholas Snyder mentioned from the state of Ohio—especially none from Perry County, home of our Nicholas Snider. But I suspect that even if the judge himself, a descendant of our Nicholas, came to seek verification of that family story in later years, perhaps it would serve us well to remember that old advice: don't believe everything you read—or hear. It may just be a family myth.

Looking for Answers

The good thing about finding a relative in one of those old genealogy books is that we can always double-check the book's assertions. We have the tools for that now, unlike the limitations authors faced in those previous centuries, when all they had was wood-burning genealogy websites. When we're looking for answers to questions about brick wall ancestors, there's no need to shy away from publications from a previous age of genealogical research. It's okay; we can do this.

Thus, when I spotted a hundred-twenty-plus entry for a cousin on my mother-in-law's Snider line, there was no need to reject it out of hand. First, I could look up each of the assertions in the report. After all, the article spoke of Nicholas Schneider, my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather and the focus of this month's Twelve Most Wanted—and I did want to know something more about this founding immigrant on the Snider/Snyder side of her family.

The entry in question was a biographical sketch concerning Louis Edward Gossman in the 1897 book, Progressive Men of Minnesota. In that entry, we can find the assertion that Mr. Gossman's great-grandfather—called Nicholas Snyder—had come to America with a company of German immigrants in 1778, when he was just fourteen year of age. According to that narrative, Nicholas joined "Washington's army" in Pennsylvania as a drummer boy, and served for the remainder of the war, after which he returned—though only briefly—to Germany.

Well? Could that be so? That's when I started looking for those answers. The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution happen to host an online resource for looking up such details, so my first stop was to hop on over to their website. One sticking point about such a search was the variety of spellings used for this family's surname—I've seen Schneider, Snider, and Snyder—so I made sure to search using each of those versions.

Result? Schneider yielded nothing. Trying Snider generated a message directing me to use an alternate spelling, which the website handily suggested: Snyder. And for that third attempt, I was rewarded with two possibilities, both from Pennsylvania.

The only problem was that neither man was of the correct age. One was born in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania—rather than my Nicholas' birth somewhere in Germany—and the age was a bit older than the Progressive Men narrative had suggested. The other possibility was a man born in Germany, but my hopes were dashed when I saw the year of birth: 1732. That Nicholas' date of death in 1786 was sure to nix the possibility entirely.

So much for the tale of Revolutionary War service for my Nicholas, at least if we are relying on currently confirmed records of service. But what about the fact that Nicholas Snider eventually obtained land in Ohio, where he settled with his growing family? Could he have received Bounty Land? Checking for General Land Office records at the Bureau of Land Management, I noticed that Nicholas obtained his 160 acre parcel not by service in the war, but by the authority of the Harrison Land Act of 1800.

The ground-breaking virtue of that legislation was that it opened up settlement in "western" territorial locations by allowing people to purchase land with a credit feature: one-fourth down, with the remainder to be paid over a four year period. A subsequent change in that arrangement in 1804 reduced the minimum parcel size that could be purchased to 160 acres, which is what Nicholas and his son Jacob acquired as "tenants in common." Payment in full was made by March 27, 1820.

So was that drummer boy story a family myth? I wouldn't discount it entirely at this point. There may be more to the story, or it may have shreds of truth embedded within that more wobbly context of a fourteen year old marching to war. No matter what the eventual determination might be, as we proceed with this search for Nicholas' story in those early years, we need to be open to unexpected possibilities. After all, he didn't show up on American shores with a clearly marked itinerary for all to see. We likely will need to piece that story together through the shreds of documentation we can locate along the trail which brought him to Ohio from Germany.

Is That Really True?

 

As I've seen demonstrated so many times—even including last month's research project—it helps to check out every document that can be found on the siblings of a brick wall ancestor. After all, it's important to keep in mind that though we don't know specific details of our mystery ancestor, someone else might know. The key is to determine just how reliable that someone else's memory might have been.

As I work my way down the line of descendants of my mother-in-law's second great-grandfather Nicholas Schneider, I've been looking for any such breakthrough—and I found one, thanks to information linked to a man who was her own father's first cousin. The details were in one of those ubiquitous local history books that were prevalent in the late 1880s through the early 1900s. This particular book, Progressive Men of Minnesota, was published in 1897, over one hundred years after Nicholas was born, but within a few decades of his death. Someone, surely, would remember him and his stories—but the real question I have when reading that published report is, "Is that really true?"

The biographical insert in question from the Progressive Men book was for a man named Louis Edward Gossman. Like my mother-in-law, he descended from Nicholas' son, Jacob Snider. Louis' mother and my mother-in-law's paternal grandmother were sisters. You'd think that would be a relationship close enough that the stories Louis heard from his mother would be about the same as what his cousin heard from his own mother. After all, those moms were sisters.

At first, the exciting realization was that Louis' biographical sketch included information on his grandfather Jacob and his great-grandfather Nicholas. The book, for instance, reported that Louis' maternal grandparents (this would be Jacob and his wife) were natives of Pennsylvania. Furthermore, the report stretched back another generation to affirm that Nicholas came to America about 1778, at the age of fourteen.

The story stretched even further from that. According to the report, Nicholas was "brought to America by other Germans who came over to assist in the cause of the Colonies." Arriving in Pennsylvania, according to this report, young Nicholas joined "Washington's army" as a drummer boy, serving until the end of the war. After that, Nicholas returned home to Germany, but came back to Pennsylvania after a few years.

The article included what seemed to be a helpful detail: Nicholas' residence in Germany. According to the book, he came from "Mayence, Germany." However, a cursory check of locations in current day Germany yielded no leads—although one can't help but realize that if you stretch your imagination just a bit, the pronunciation of Mainz, one city in Germany, sounds somewhat similar to "Mayence."

Well, is that all true? You know I couldn't just sit there and accept that story wholesale, but neither could I reject it out of hand. I had to put some effort into fact checking first.

Burning Bridges

 

Speed-reading the genealogy of an extended family line can help spot patterns. In the case of my second great-grandmother's possible link to the line of William Laws of North Carolina, that pattern seemed to be skipping across the county line before the family's name was called in yet another court of law. Whether that was true or not, I can't yet say. I haven't followed up on the entries I found in Yancey County court records from North Carolina.

"Oh, but that would be the fun part," my daughter remarked when I told her what I had found—but she'll just have to wait until I can focus on solely tracing legal documents which, unfortunately, is not my forte. There is, however, another possibility driving the family's seeming disappearance during the time period I've been studying. For that, I needed to widen the lens to examine a broader view of history—not just the Laws family's own history, but that of the time period in which they lived. To put it in a nutshell, theirs was a time and a place for burning bridges.

So far, I had found William Laws' household in Yancey County, North Carolina, in the 1850s. Then it was  across the state line, first to Washington County, Tennessee, where daughter Sarah Catherine Laws married Thomas Davis in 1856, then onward again to Carter County. Finally, the family—along with my second great-grandmother's Davis household—appeared in Greene County, Tennessee.

All told, the time span stretched from 1850 to 1870, encapsulating a critical period in American history: the Civil War. While I don't know much about North Carolina history, I did know one thing about the counties where my maternal grandfather's line lived for generations: northeastern Tennessee, unlike the rest of the state, was pro-Union leading up to the vote regarding secession.

When the vote did not go the way the local populace wanted, there were enough of those independently-minded locals to take the path of the renegade. Perhaps the Laws family was of that same mind.

After reading several newspaper articles from that time period and region, it was clear to me that northeastern Tennessee might reveal some clues about the point of view of my own family if I dug deeper into the local history of those counties. Prime focus led to Greene County, where I found the family in the 1870 census—and where many of their descendants stayed, long after the close of that time period.

Newspapers would publish comments about "the whisky war at Greeneville," the county seat of Greene County, and other reports that gave an impression far removed from the bucolic ambience I might otherwise have ascribed to Tennessee. Greeneville, home of soon-to-be president Andrew Johnson, apparently had a long history of independent action, and was a hotbed of activity for a number of movements, such as the abolitionist movement of the early 1800s and, during the start of the Civil War, an effort to secede from the Confederate state of Tennessee to form a separate pro-Union state.

It was from that fertile ground that a Civil War era plot was hatched to—literally—burn bridges. The idea was shared by residents across several counties of northeastern Tennessee, and the nine bridges targeted were located along the eastern border of Tennessee, stretching from Bluff City near the Virginia border down to Chattanooga and even into Alabama. Among those targeted was one bridge in Greene County, as well as another in Carter and Washington Counties, home to Laws' relatives.

While I have no idea whether any of William Laws' sons were involved in the bridge-burning plot, just reviewing the history of the area points out the mindset that undoubtedly made the Laws family feel quite at home in the region during that era of American history.

Granted, I still want to pore over the original North Carolina court records to see just what incident inspired the Laws boys to step across the county line—and as a genealogist, I certainly am not appreciative of their history's shenanigans which have led me on such a paper chase. But this discovery about history's lesser-known local episodes aptly reminds me that we all are a product not only of our genes, but of our environment and culture, and it can sometimes help to take a step back and explore the headlines of our ancestors' own newspapers. 

When Everything Gets Translated

 

What do you do when every document involving your ancestors is in a foreign language you don't speak? You use Google Translate, of course.

What else was I supposed to do, when one of the few hints on Ancestry.com that popped up for my Polish family said: 

W Styczniu 1919 R. Wstąpił Jako Ochotnik Do Pleszewskiej Kompanii Powstańczej, Którą Dowodził Ppor. Pamin. Brał Udział W Walkach Pod Kobylą Górą, Czarnymlasem, Mijamnicami I O Miasto Kępno. Po Zawarciu Rozejmu Powrócił Do Domu.

Do you understand that? I didn't think so; neither do I.

The family member in particular was the son-in-law of one of Bartholomaeus Olejniczak's daughters, Franziska, whom we discussed just the other day, so I really wanted to know what those words meant. Finally—and quite unexpectedly—after poking around the details on this collateral line of my second great-grandmother, I had finally broken through the brick wall keeping me from twentieth century information—and I couldn't understand even one word of that information.

The route for the family connection was this: from Bartholomaeus, my second great-grandmother's brother, I examined what could be found on each of his children. We've already discussed how I had no clear leads for either of his sons. Right now, I am in the midst of exploring what can be found on each of his four daughters.

From the eldest daughter—Franziska, possibly named after my second great-grandmother—I found two marriage records. From the first marriage, to Adalbertus Kondoła (or possibly Kondeła), I then found a baptismal record for their daughter Catharina Agnes, which included an added line noting Catharina's subsequent marriage.

When I looked up the name of Catharina's husband, Joannes in church records, I again was treated to more information: that he was the son of Stanislaus Zajdel and a woman whose maiden name was by now quite familiar: Julianna Mikołajczak. I transcribed his parents' names and his date of birth—May 16, 1885—into my trees at Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and MyHeritage.com. 

Then other hints began popping up, finally bringing me into the world of records for the 1900s. Billion Graves gave the date of death for Jan Zajdel as October 26, 1969, with his date of birth in agreement with the record I had found previously. Billion Graves also mentioned that Katarzyna Zajdel died in 1961, and provided a date of birth in harmony with the date I had found for Catharina Kondoła, granddaughter of our Bartholomaeus Olejniczak.

Being careful to enter all this newfound information into each of my trees, I then returned to Jan's entry at Ancestry.com, and discovered another bonus in the hints there. It was the readout in Polish I had printed above. Since I had no idea what any of that passage said, I copied and pasted the entire paragraph into Google Translate, and learned something new about this small branch of my third great-grandparents' line. 

According to the translation, here is what the link at Ancestry was telling me about Jan Zajdel:

In January 1919, he joined the Pleszew Uprising Company as a volunteer, commanded by 2nd Lt. Pamin. He took part in the battles of Kobyla Góra, Czarnylas, Mijamnice and the town of Kępno. After the conclusion of the Armistice, he returned home.

Of course, I had no idea what the Pleszew Uprising Company might have been, so once again, I took my question to Google, and found this entry at Wikipedia, in which this particular uprising was noted to have been one of the two most successful uprisings in the long history of occupied Poland. For this, according to the hint at Ancestry.com, among others, Jan Zajdel became a recipient of the Greater Poland Uprising Cross.

That unexpected foray into one branch of my Polish roots finally brought me as close to present times as I had ever managed to go. While I certainly have a long, long way to go to find the rest of the family's story—let alone any Polish DNA cousins—it is encouraging to have found at least one token of what became of my ancestors' family members who chose to stay behind in Poland.

 

The Third Emperor

 

To understand the life of our ancestors, sometimes we cannot do so without understanding the history of the times in which they lived. Reading the obituary of Theresa Blaising Stevens' mother, it is plain to see a compelling story motivated her choice to move with her children to a new world. What actually happened—and when—in that bigger historical picture will help us form a timeline that either juxtaposes with our ancestor's lifespan, or doesn't.

Take that mention of "the third emperor" in the tale of what became of Mary Blaising's husband back in France. Who might that "third emperor" actually be? Since we already read that Mary brought her children to New Haven, Indiana, about 1866, one could presume that the emperor the obituary referred to was Napoleon. But a little fact checking reveals that the Napoleon in power at that time in France, while called Napoleon III, was technically France's second emperor, reigning as such from 1852 to 1870.

A key turning point in Napoleon III's reign did turn out to be that same year the Blaising family was said to have emigrated: 1866. At that point, tensions between neighboring Prussia and Austria caused the French emperor, through his foreign minister, to expect a long war ahead, precipitating Napoleon III's proposal the next year for a form of universal military service. 

Perhaps that period of uncertainty, at least for those already involved in the French military as Mary Blaising's husband supposedly was, could have been the impetus to send loved ones far from harm's way. It would make sense for someone in the military to use inside knowledge as a springboard for such decisions. But looking ahead in the timeline of France's history, we can see the emperor's military proposal failing—in fact, his overall political success waning. Napoleon III's reign came to an end not much afterwards; he was deposed in 1870.

Checking this timeline of France's history seems to correspond handily with the story the Blaising family offered for their mother's obituary in 1907. But if the Laurent Blaising whose 1882 death record we found in Paris was Mary's long-lost husband, why didn't he join his family after the war came to a close? Or did Mary only presume her husband, so far away after her arrival in Indiana, had died in battle?

Finding military records, or death records for any other French men by that same name will help sort out some of these questions. Whether I can access them online is a question still needing an answer. The story in the obituary seems plausible enough—but the fact that details in Laurent Blaising's death record don't align with the other end of the story is troubling.

  

At Harry and Mabel's Place

 

It was Harry and Mabel's place which was the only eatery in the neighborhood, ever since the new development, called Rego Park, went in back in 1925. Rego Park—a mashup of the name of the builders, the Real Good Construction Company—had plenty of new homes alright, but not many other conveniences at first.

Harry and Mabel called their new place Le Vay's Restaurant—not very inventive, considering that was their last name. Right across the street on Queens Boulevard, the boundary of the new development, the restaurant was technically situated in neighboring Elmhurst. It took them four years after ground was first broken for the development for Harry and Mabel to realize their opportunity, but by 1929, they were in business.

It was only a few years later when everything changed. December 5, 1933—yesterday marked the ninetieth anniversary of that date—was the effective date reversing national prohibition laws. Not long afterwards, Harry and Mabel applied for a liquor license for their restaurant, and made some major changes to their business plan. They expanded their facilities—big enough, eventually, to host wedding parties and even conferences—and scheduled nightly floor shows along with their dinner fare.

To note their new image, Harry and Mabel also changed the restaurant's name. Now they called it, simply, The Boulevard.

Over the years, the place's popularity grew. It became the spot for those in the know to gather. The wedding reception for actor Martin Landau, for instance, was held at The Boulevard. During his campaign for the presidency, John F. Kennedy met with party leaders at The Boulevard. But long before that, when only the residents of the local area knew about it, The Boulevard was a place to have a great evening out, taking in a show with dinner and dancing to some great music supplied live—at least for a time—by Val McCann and his orchestra.

"More good news from the same spot," the "Night Spot Notes" from the Long Island Star-Journal would continue to report: "Val McCann and his band have had their contract renewed." It was almost as if the reviewers were keeping track of how long the band would continue their stay at The Boulevard.

Toward the end of 1942—months after the news broke of the contract renewal—another headline announced the band would be the "first to play song hit," a piece called "Three Terrific Guys." Written by then well known twins Kay and Sue Werner, who years before were the creatives behind the hit "Rock it For Me" featuring Ella Fitzgerald, the buzz on their latest piece was that it was headed for the best musical number of the week status.

Granted, the song was designed to resonate with the times. The "Three Terrific Guys" referred to the soldier, the sailor, and the marine, three details on the minds of many Americans during those war years. Apparently, Kay and Sue Werner had been to The Boulevard to take in the "Varieties on Ice" revue. Impressed with my dad's band—a "smooth organization"—when the sisters sold the rights to their song, they stipulated that "Val's outfit...get first crack at it."

As the reviewer concluded, "So that's what Val's got that Kay [Kyser], Benny Goodman and Sammy Kaye haven't got—as yet."

Above: Ad placed in the November 7, 1942, issue of The Billboard on page 25, featuring two war-time songs from the National Music Corporation of New York City. 

New Year's Eve, 1942 Style

 

Planning your New Year's Eve celebration yet? How about an evening of dinner and dancing—plus an ice show—at The Boulevard for six dollars? And that's for the prime seats in the house.

That would be the going price for an evening out on December 31, 1942, when my dad's orchestra was the featured music for that evening out on the dance floor. The price, incidentally, included a steak dinner. According to an article only a day before in The New York Sun, reviewing all the celebration events "in the suburbs" of New York City, The Boulevard was only one of many options listed. 

We learn more, according to another such insert in the New York Post for the same December day. The Boulevard was located in Elmhurst, hardly what would be considered a "suburb" today. Part of the New York City borough of Queens, it is definitely within city limits.

An evening at The Boulevard ringing in the New Year promised to include a ten course steak dinner, noise  makers, souvenirs, plus a revue, "New Varieties on Ice." Oh, and Val McCann and his orchestra. 

Being 1942, the country was by then in the midst of war. New Year's Eve on December 31, 1942, was barely one year in from the attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December 7, 1941. Not only might the local entertainment venues be wondering how business would fare that holiday season, but the entertainment staff was feeling the effect just as much. 

Noted one entertainment columnist for the Post earlier in November of that war-torn year:

The case of Val McCann, in his fourth month at the Boulevard in Elmhurst, Long Island, is pretty unique these days; he's about the only band leader we know of who thus far hasn't been affected by the draft—all of his boys are either in 3A or 4F, and the crew has remained intact ever since the war started, quite in contrast to some one like Tommy Dorsey, who has lost seventeen men to Uncle Sam in recent months.

Continuing that commentary after the new year of 1943 was duly rung in, a blip in the Long Island Star-Journal's "Night Spot Notes" on Saturday, January 9, noted that "Val McCann and his orchestra are fast approaching the long-time record of Art Mooney, now in the armed forces."

The writer went on to mention that "Val is entering his fifth month at the Boulevard."

I'd like to think my dad's band enjoyed such a long run because of their great music, but taking social history into consideration can sometimes alter the impact of a family story.

I can remember from childhood wondering why my friends always had stories of their dads in World War II for their school displays and writing assignments while my dad had none to share. I figured he was too young for the First World War, and assumed he was too old for the second one. Still, his draft registration card, completed in 1940, indicated that he could have been called up for service. Somehow, that never happened.

Perhaps it was the musical ability after all which sustained his contract at The Boulevard. After all, noted the Star-Journal, he was "one of the fastest-rising band leaders in the East."

Above: Ad insertion for The Boulevard in Elmhurst, New York, in the August 29, 1942, Long Island Star-Journal. 

An "International Romance"

 

Would spotting an article attributed to The New York Times and featuring your family member tempt you to check it out? How about a World War era story billed as an "international romance" and mentioning that relative by name?

Searching for distant cousins—those relatives we discover while exploring the collateral lines in our family tree—can lead us to some fascinating stories. Now that I'm connecting the relationships between my mother-in-law and the descendants of her third great-grandfather, Mathias Ambrose, I've stumbled upon another such unexpected story.

It all started when I reviewed documents suggested by the "hints" at Ancestry.com for John Francis Spearman. Born in 1889, John Francis was connected to Mathias by his paternal grandfather's mother, Elizabeth Ambrose. Elizabeth, in turn, was a daughter of Mathias' oldest son, Jacob. This research routine, which I partially described yesterday, is a practice I engage in simply to help me identify where DNA matches belong in the family tree.

While almost every DNA relative's discovery is accompanied by the usual search for census records as well as birth and death records, occasionally other documents will show up which merit consideration. In John Francis Spearman's case, the first such document which grabbed my attention was his passport application.

Drawn up in August of 1916, Spearman's application caught my eye for one point: the reason he gave for taking an international trip during that time. According to the record, John Francis Spearman was requesting to travel to Germany, oddly enough during a time of war—and not just any war, but one reputed to be among the deadliest global conflicts in history. His reason for traveling during that dangerous time? "To be married."

I could hardly believe my eyes when I read that. This was no time for love and marriage, particularly in Germany. I had to read further.

As it turned out, John Francis Spearman—born in Steubenville, Ohio, so obviously a United States citizen—had been serving in Germany as part of the Red Cross since the outbreak of the war. He was a physician and surgeon, according to a later application for a reciprocal license from the state of Wisconsin. That later document provided his dates of service in Germany as August of 1914 through November of 1915. The fourth page of that occupational application even included a photograph of Dr. Spearman in his uniform, including Red Cross armband.

This second trip to Germany was not just a return to service at the war front. As he explained in a letter included with his passport application, Spearman was engaged to marry a German woman, and the date for the wedding was approaching that fall. As the certificate of marriage, issued by the American Consulate at Breslau, Germany—now part of Poland, known as Wrocław—indicated, Spearman's bride-to-be was Marie Hedwig von Raczeck, a resident of Preiswitz (now also part of Poland). 

A 1915 newspaper article published in Topeka, Kansas—home of John Francis' cousin—filled in the blanks on the romance with details which supposedly originally appeared in The New York Times. Apparently, when Dr. Spearman stepped up for wartime service with the Red Cross in Germany, he knew little German. At his post in the foreign country, a local volunteer nurse by the name of Marie was assigned to serve as his interpreter, not only on rounds but also as his assistant when writing up case histories. As the newspaper article observed, "From history to romance proved only a short step."

Of course, having discovered such an unusual story concerning one of my mother-in-law's distant cousins, I wanted to learn more—at least to discover what became of the couple. I did locate a 1920 census entry for John F. and May Spearman in Illinois—Marie went by the nickname May—but not long after, the young couple must have divorced. That, at least, was what was indicated on her death certificate in Pennsylvania in 1924, making that international romance a short-lived loved story. She was only thirty when she succumbed to a suspected heart ailment.

As for John Francis Spearman, his, too, was a short-lived story, for only a couple years later, he died at the age of thirty six. With what seemed like barely a blip on the radar of life, theirs was a story which, having discovered it, left me wondering how to read between the lines in this family history vignette.

If This, Then That

 

When it comes to sorting out research challenges like connecting John Jay Jackson's descendants with his Patriot father, Lyman Jackson, we can try to deconstruct the documentation tangle using one simple device: the concept, "If this, then that."

If, for instance, John Jay Jackson's future wife—William and Elizabeth Howard Ijams' daughter Sarah—were living with her parents in Fairfield County, Ohio, then one would think that her wedding would be held somewhere near her Ohio home.

If, on the other hand, John Jay Jackson were still serving in the military subsequent to his enlistment during the War of 1812, we might assume he wouldn't be free to travel long distances from the post to which he had been assigned. If that post were not in Ohio, then we can assume there would be some challenges to getting bride and groom in the same place at the same time.

If, however, that potential groom happened to be stationed at the same fort as the bride's brother, then we could perhaps expect some match-making action taking place.

And yet, if the bride's father died unexpectedly in the midst of that same time period, then there might be some change in plans.

All those details may have fallen into place to create the unlikely scenario that seems to have happened: that bride and her mother traveled through the wilderness—perhaps down the Ohio River, then up the Mississippi—for over five hundred miles. And upon their arrival at Fort Belle Fontaine, both widowed mother and daughter were married to military men stationed there.

If that is the supposed story, then even after all these years, I still have not found documentation to support that. Somehow, before I connect our family's current generation of DAR hopefuls to their Patriot ancestor, an explanation will have to be reconstructed with solid documentation.

Can't Touch This

 

So all fingers are pointing toward southwestern Virginia for the eventual landing place of itinerant soldier William Tilson after his service in Canada during the French and Indian War. There's only one problem with that story: if he settled in Virginia, William just walked away from the family farm in Massachusetts, which he had just been handed by his grandfather only a few years earlier. Are we sure we are talking about the same William Tilson in published stories like this?

Actually, I'm finding several problems with this scenario, as we'll see over the next few days. But for now, let's just discuss one detail at a time. Today, let's look at the history of the war in which William Tilson served, the French and Indian War. If we rely on history to fill in our blanks, we'll realize that the land William chose to make his new home was territory with a clear sign: Can't Touch This.

If you grew up somewhere in North America, you might remember that war as the one in which the British—and their colonial subjects in the New World—used their military muscle to evict the French from their claims on land in the continent. To strengthen their numbers, each side solicited the allegiance of various Native American tribes across the eastern half of the continent. What is not as widely realized is that this was one set of battles encased within a larger war between the two colonizing powers which also raged across their own European continent.

The first salvos fired in North America, however, began in 1754, two years before Britain officially declared war on France in 1756, the opening shots of which became called the Seven Years' War. At the close of the entire war across all theaters, the concluding Treaty of Paris of 1763, drawn up that year in February, formally ended the conflict between Britain and France over control of North America.

However, because both sides had relied on Native American nations to strengthen their numbers, the many tribes involved also wanted recognition for their efforts—and concessions for their participation. Some of those details were subsequently worked out later that year in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Pertinent to our pursuit of William Tilson's story is one consequence of the king's proclamation: that no British subjects were to settle in lands west of the Appalachians. Those were now reserved solely for their Native American allies. 

If, as our story goes, William Tilson settled in southwestern Virginia in that same year—1763—can we rely on such a report? Let's check some other local accounts, tomorrow, to see whether we can find any verification of that assertion.

Wandering William

 

If you were gifted with the most important part of your family's heritage—the family farm—would you have simply walked away from it? I'm not sure I would. There would have to be some extremely weighty extenuating circumstances to make me wander from such a legacy.

And yet, William, father of my fourth great-grandfather Peleg Tilson, apparently did just that. Why?

As we saw yesterday in the will of William's own maternal grandfather, John Murdock, not only was William handily identified by his grandfather as son of Stephen "Tillson," but in the first item listed in John Murdock's will, William was specifically given his grandfather's farm.

The farm was located, presumably, in the same county where John Murdock drew up his September 16, 1756, will: "Plimouth." While the farm was in the New England colony, however, grandson William Tilson may soon have been somewhere far distant. Here's where I need to connect the dots.

There are a few Ancestry.com subscribers who have included an unidentified printed narrative which provides the supposed explanation of the wanderings of William Tilson. I have seen this printed page in family trees in the past, but have yet to identify the source. Of course, if this is true, I'll need to locate documentation to verify each of the assertions about William's history.

According to that information, William Tilson served during the battles comprising what was called, at least in North America, the French and Indian War. He became part of Captain Josiah Thatcher's company, of the regiment led by Colonel John Thomas. By early May of 1759, less than two months after entering the service on March 29, 1759, William landed at Halifax in Nova Scotia, serving there until November 1 of that same year. He again was noted to have served in Nova Scotia beginning in 1760, from January 1 through December 18, 1761.

From that point, this unsourced report notes that William Tilson left Nova Scotia, but ultimately not to reside at his inherited property in Massachusetts, but to settle in southwest Virginia. When I have read of other men who had, subsequent to their military service, settled in locations other than their home colony, it has generally been because they personally observed the benefits of their new location due to previous military action there. Furthermore, the other ancestors I've studied who had relocated often moved with others of their company, sometimes following the officer of their unit, in peacetime just as they had done in battle.

So how did Virginia enter the equation for this New Englander? Even if William Tilson did obtain bounty land for his service in this new-to-him location, the laws of that post-war decade would have gone against him. And yet, this report states that William Tilson "migrated to the western part of Virginia" by 1763. Comparing this report with history, though, we run into problems, which we'll see tomorrow.

Looking for Patriots

 

As the month comes to a close and I realize I have far more research to do than days to do it in, I thought of one possible project to undertake. In the books I found this month which included my Taliaferro ancestors, I had noted that many mentioned a Taliaferro man who served in the American Revolution. However, when I go to the source to check such assertions, I sometimes cannot find any supporting documentation. Why not reverse the process and take a quick glance through all the brothers named in the family of my fifth great-grandfather Zachariah Taliaferro, to see if any of them are Patriots?

I already know that my fifth great-grandfather was among the Patriots. After all, that's how I gained membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. But what about his brothers? There could be five possibilities: John, Charles, Peter, Francis, and Richard.

Richard, the youngest of those siblings I've been able to find, had already been mentioned in at least one genealogy book as having served in the war. However, when I checked the D.A.R. Ancestors records, I could not find anyone with the right year of birth. He might still be one of the Richards mentioned; I just can't tell at this point.

That realization reminded me to be much more wary about claims published in genealogy books. Hence, my project to research the rest of those brothers, as they were all of an age to be involved in making history.

Starting from John, the eldest of the Taliaferro brothers still alive during the 1770s, I was rewarded for my efforts by finding his entry in the D.A.R. website. His service description was listed as "Minute Men." He served from Caroline County, Virginia.

Next of the brothers was Charles, born in 1735, who was also in the D.A.R. Patriot file. His service was identified as "provided supplies." He, too, was resident in Caroline County at the time.

When I stepped down to the next Taliaferro brother, Peter, I couldn't find any entry. While I had a year of birth for him in 1740, I haven't yet located a date of death for him. It could be possible that he had already died before the beginning of the war. However, I had a note in my genealogical database that Peter was father of a son whom he named, predictably, Richard, born in 1762. When I had looked for D.A.R. entries on the youngest brother of Zachariah—also named Richard—I had spotted that 1762 date of birth for one of the other Patriots with that same name. As it turns out, that Patriot would be Peter's son Richard.

As for the two youngest brothers of my Zachariah Taliaferro, Francis and Richard, I did not have success in finding either of them listed among the D.A.R. Patriots. There are two entries for a Francis Taliaferro, but neither aligns with my Francis' date of birth in 1745. I had the same difficulty with entries for Richard Taliaferro, as I had already mentioned. That isn't to say they didn't serve or at least support the war effort. I just haven't yet gotten enough information to adequately identify them.

Now that I've located those siblings' war records, I used Ancestry.com's labeling system to create a custom tree tag labeled D.A.R. Patriot for each of their profile pages. Even though those Taliaferro brothers aren't in my direct line, I like to visually note their participation, no matter how small, in a key event in our nation's history.

But What About Benjamin?

 

There is a name which, due to its owner's brush with history, has been memorialized through the various positions he held and roles he played in the early years of our country's existence. That name was Benjamin Taliaferro.

As far as I've been able to see through occasional research on the Taliaferro family over the years, that Benjamin belonged to the same immediate family as my fourth great-grandfather, Zachariah Taliaferro. But when we look at their father's will, I have to wait until almost the last line of the document to find Zachariah mentioned, but not once do I find Benjamin named in that record.

Is Benjamin part of that family or not? Did I enter him into a family tree to which he has no relation? Let's review what can be found about this Benjamin, starting with the reports from history.

Benjamin Taliaferro was known as an attorney, a politician, and a judge. Born in 1750 in Amherst County, Virginia, he came of age with the dawning of his own nation, serving in the Revolutionary War. After the war, he married the daughter of another longstanding colonial family, Martha Meriwether, and they moved from their native Virginia to the newly-formed state of Georgia.

A few years after their move to Georgia, Benjamin served in the Georgia General Assembly, and eventually was elected to the state senate, where he served as the senate president.  He later served two separate terms in the United States Congress, before returning to Georgia to serve in another capacity as a judge of the Georgia Superior Court, and later, as a trustee for the University of Georgia. It is no surprise to learn that a county, Taliaferro County, was named in his honor.

Though the retelling of Benjamin Taliaferro's history sometimes includes the names of his parents—the senior Zachariah and Mary Boutwell Taliaferro—I find it odd that Benjamin is not mentioned in his father's will. As a Patriot due to his service, Benjamin Taliaferro has his own entry in the listings provided by the Daughters of the American Revolution, as one would expect. But he also is included in the descendants listed in the DAR entry for his father Zachariah.

If that is so, why was Benjamin not mentioned in his father's will? It certainly couldn't be owing to Benjamin's choice to move from his family home in Virginia to the pioneer settlement where he lived in Georgia. His brother Richard did the same thing. It appears that at least one of his sisters—Ann Watkins—and possibly his sister Frances Penn, did likewise. And another brother, the younger Zachariah, lived not far from Georgia, being just over the state line in South Carolina.

As it turns out, there may have been another reason for this omission, though I can only guess at the cause. Relying only on stories from printed genealogies of generations past, I might have found a reason. At least, it makes me wonder what is at the root of the omission. We'll explore those old family stories tomorrow.

What Happened to Demilia's Husband

 

While finding documentation on a woman in frontier America in the mid-1700s may be challenging, in the case of Demilia Broyles, I'm hard pressed to even find her husband.

As we saw yesterday, Adam Broyles' daughter "Milla"—or Demilia—married a man who attended the old Hebron Lutheran Church located then in Culpeper County, in part of Virginia now claimed by Madison County. His first name was most likely Adam, though at least one record showed his given name as Edom.

As for his surname, Adam was recorded under several names, both in Virginia and after his move to northeastern Tennessee. I listed several of those recorded versions yesterday, based on government documents spotted by Cathi Clore Frost, author of The Broyles Family: The First Four Generations.

Complicating matters in trying to pursue this Adam Bender—or Painter, or Panther—was that even he didn't know his own date of birth. For this last discrepancy, however, he had a good reason. That reason, it turns out, perhaps illustrates what many families pressing the frontier boundaries in that era risked facing.

It was during the French and Indian War, when Adam lived with his parents in the Shenandoah Valley, that the family's home was attacked and burned. A news report, carried by The New York Mercury on July 31, 1758 (see here for one version), and shared in the Broyles book, seemed to refer to this same  attack:

Last night a messenger arrived from Augusta County, with advice that the Indians had lately killed and captivated 16 people between Winchester and Augusta Court House; and that a large body of the inhabitants, to the number of 300, were removing into Culpepper [sic], and the other counties on this side the Blue Ridge.

Among those killed, apparently, was Adam's father. According to his pension application filed many years afterwards, his family's home was burned in that attack, destroying Adam's only record of his birth. Added to that in the pension application was the mention that Adam, himself, was among the captives held for two years after that attack.

After his release—and, presumably, that of his mother and sisters, who were also captured—Adam settled in Culpeper County. Eventually, under either the name Addam or Adam, and either Panter or Painter, Adam was selected as a draft to serve in the Revolutionary War.

When it came time for Adam to file his pension application for his service, even then he was plagued with unexplained name variations. Receiving his certificate of pension on January 23, 1830, it was incorrectly reported on a list of pensioners as "Edom" Panter. Although the Fold3.com website now shows his Revolutionary War pension file labeled as VA S.1923 under the name Adam Panter, cross-checking that information with the National Daughters of the Revolution Ancestor listing shows nothing under that Panter surname. However, the entry for Adam Painter does produce the same pension number—with caveats.

In bold capital letters across the DAR entry is the warning that "problems have been discovered." That, however, is not our only challenge. Looking further down the DAR website entry, it is clear that neither of the two women listed as this Adam's wives was our Demilia Broyles. There is, indeed, a problem here.

A further note on the DAR website reports: "Unable to [identify] correct mother of children." Looking back to the entry for Demilia and Adam in Cathi Clore Frost's Broyles book, there were entries for ten children: Ezekiel, John, William, Adam, David, Sarah (Sally), Philip, Jesse, Samuel, and Mary. Looking more closely, however, for four of those children listed in the Frost book, their entry was followed by a parenthetical note, "presumed child."

With that ominous note, it seems time to move more cautiously in this pursuit of Adam Broyles' grandchildren—or, at least, the ones descending from his daughter Demilia. We have, fortunately, one other avenue to consult as we dig deeper into the Frost book's endnotes. Remember, I have Broyles family DNA matches, and a few of them claim to descend from Demilia Broyles. We'll see whether those Broyles matches will be of any help to us tomorrow as we try to untangle this messy knot in the Broyles family line.

 

Maps: a Researcher's Indispensable Friend

 

The more I delve into family history, the more I realize that maps are a researcher's indispensable friend. Here's why: remember the Schneider family I've been researching? After that German immigrant family arrived in the New World—and long before their move to Perry County, Ohio, before 1820—they lived in both Pennsylvania and Maryland.

My, I thought upon learning that, how very mobile they were, for an era in which travel presented so many hazards and few conveniences. After all, the width of a state such as Pennsylvania would try any traveler's patience. Add to that the fact that the Schneider family detoured to take in a residency in yet another state, and I begin to wonder about the accuracy of family assertions.

Once I discovered the family history web page posted by a distant cousin in 2008, I found some clues regarding the Schneider travels. Now, instead of searching for Schneider—or Snider, or Snyder—in Pennsylvania, I learned to look for the family in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Add to that the clue to look not only in the broad region of Maryland, but to look specifically in Emmitsburg. That's where I spotted something only a study of maps could have revealed.

As it turns out, Emmitsburg is located less than a mile south of the state border—a critical distance realized by students of the much-later Civil War battle at Gettysburg, which was located just on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line. Predating all that, back during the time period in which Nicholas Schneider was moving his family residence, he likely traveled little more than twenty miles distance.

What is also interesting about the move was the significance of church locations in and around Emmitsburg. The town is now the location of two Catholic pilgrimage destinations, which got their start only a few years prior to the Schneiders' arrival. One of those sites is where Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph in 1809. The other, established in 1805, is the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

While national recognition of those two religious sites occurred long after the Schneiders' residence there, their establishment during the time period in which Nicholas and his family arrived at Emmitsburg gives an idea of the religious atmosphere of that time period. Being a devout Catholic, perhaps this mattered deeply to Nicholas, especially if he knew he had to leave his family while attending to military duties.

But did he leave for the just-declared War of 1812? After all, by that point, he would have been forty six years of age. Though it would be hard to determine—from our perspective, two hundred years later—just what the reason was for the Schneider family's move from Pennsylvania to Maryland during 1812, I discovered one other family tradition regarding Nicholas which may lend credence to the possibility that he served in some capacity for that war.

 

Map above, showing current driving distance between Emmitsburg, Maryland, and Conewago Township in Adams County, Pennsylvania, courtesy Google Maps.

Checking the Precise Date

 

When did the War of 1812 begin?

I realize that question is somewhat like asking, "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" Although there's actually a twist to the original riddle, the answer to that question seems self-evident.

However, I do have a reason for wondering about the precise date for the start of the War of 1812: the unexplained disappearance of Nicholas Schneider at a time when one would most expect a father's presence at his child's baptism. Born on April 22, 1812, Maria Augusta Schneider was baptised nearly two months later, an unusual gap in time. And by the time of that June 20 event, the only parent listed in attendance at the Conewago Chapel event was Nicholas' wife Elizabeth.

We've already followed the Schneider family's trail well into the future—Nicholas died in Perry County, Ohio, about 1855—so his absence at his daughter's 1812 baptism in Adams County, Pennsylvania, wasn't due to his tragic loss. But there was that other incident occurring in 1812 which got me wondering: could Nicholas, at his age, have served in the War of 1812?

Thus, the search for some precise information. Thanks to the ample resources online regarding that American struggle, it was easy to discover that the United States declared war against Great Britain on June 18, 1812.

While a June 20 baptism would have followed such a declaration by a mere two days, we need to disabuse ourselves of any notion stemming from a modern way of thinking. With no cell phones, Internet access, or even newswire services accessible to them, it is doubtful that the folks in Adams County, Pennsylvania, would even have been aware of the momentous events that unfolded barely forty eight hours preceding their celebration of the baptismal sacrament.

So what could have caused Nicholas' absence at his daughter's baptism? Once again, a modern mind might wonder whether the couple had separated, but that would not be as likely during that time period. If the declaration of war, half a state's length away from the Schneider home, had occurred two days prior to the baptism, it was not likely the cause of his absence—but another military reason might come into play.

Since the Schneider family lived in Pennsylvania, I wondered whether Nicholas was serving with the state militia at the time. Thankfully, there are many online resources available to check for Pennsylvania—for the state in general, or the war in particular.

There was, however, that other little detail which had puzzled me in researching the migration trail of the Schneider family: the assertion by some descendants that the family had, at one time, lived in Maryland. While one resource mentioned that the trail led from Maryland first, then subsequently to Adams County, Pennsylvania, there was that simple detail of the place of birth for two of the younger Schneider sons: Maryland.

Could the Pennsylvania militia have been on alert that the war was soon to unfold? Or could the Schneider family have already been planning to remove to Maryland, leaving Elizabeth and her newborn child behind while her husband and oldest sons prepared a new home in Maryland?

Knowing the challenge of searching for a surname like Schneider—in addition to being misspelled, often anglicized to either Snider or Snyder—I resorted to searching for Nicholas by his first name and using the letter "S" and a wildcard symbol "*" for the surname. Using that search technique, I scoured a listing of all service records for the War of 1812 at Ancestry.com. On the third page of seven in the resulting readout, I located one sole possibility by the name of Nicholas Snider: a lieutenant who served in Henry Stembel's regiment of the Maryland Militia.

Could our German immigrant Nicholas have served as a lieutenant for the Maryland Militia during the War of 1812? Though that is the only listing for the name I could find, I could not access any further information on that man's service, or even any additional information on the man who led the regiment.

On the other hand, the next child born to Nicholas and Elizabeth was a son—Simon—born not in Pennsylvania, but in Maryland. Still, Simon's December 3, 1813, arrival seems too soon for a family with an absent dad, away for military maneuvers. Yet, there were two details about the family during that timeline that give me pause to wonder. The first is a little fact I stumbled upon while researching the Conewago Chapel in Pennsylania and the family's likely residence in Maryland. The second has to do with what, to me, is an as-yet unsubstantiated claim about Nicholas' own past, long before he and his bride immigrated to America.  

 

Image above from the baptismal records of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in Conewago, Adams County, Pennsylvania; image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Fingerprints of History Show up in D N A Ethnicity Estimates

 

When puzzled by the strange results on your DNA ethnicity estimate, it might help to review the history of the land from which your ancestors emerged. In the case of Thomas Puchała, whose baptismal record pointed me to the current Polish village of Lubichowo, there was much to learn from the history of the region once known as Pomerania.

Lubichowo is a village of about two thousand people, located in the Pomeranian Voivodeship (think province) of northern Poland. That is its current geopolitical designation. However, the region known as Pomerania has an extensive history.

That depth of history, extending back much farther than any genealogical paper trail I'll hope to find, includes a "rich and complicated political and demographic history at the intersection of several cultures." Considering that very description could be used for the American city where I now choose to live—Stockton in California—it makes me wonder whether my choice of residence can be chalked up to a multi-ethnic message emanating from deep within my genetic roots.

Starting with the "Old Prussians" of the tenth century, Polish and German rulers attempted to subjugate this Baltic people group of the region, which eventually meant that it was assimilated by the time of the fifteenth century. Thus, though I have yet to figure out which ancestor might have emigrated from what is now one of the Baltic republics to northern Poland, these facts from the history of the broader region may explain how that trace of Baltic ethnicity landed in my own DNA readout.

Likewise, learning that that same time period was followed by international struggles which eventually saw portions of Pomerania overtaken by the Swedish Empire, I now am no longer surprised to see that small percentage of Swedish ethnicity in my DNA results. It didn't mean that any of my ancestors came from Sweden, but it certainly could have hinted at Swedish military attaches before 1648 temporarily residing in the part of Pomerania now claimed by Poland.

Meanwhile, back to the reality of whatever genealogical documentation can be found in Lubichowo—or any other town nearby—I need to examine what can be found for the names Puchała or Radomski, the surnames linked to my great-grandfather Thomas. Next, I'll gather a cluster of all entries—baptismal, marriage, or death—transcribed for either of those surnames, which we then can sort into possible family groupings.

Hopefully, a pattern will emerge to suggest which family members belonged to Thomas Puchała's own immediate family. After all, if I can't discover anything new about Thomas himself, perhaps his collateral lines will give up his secrets to me.