The Spiraling Chains - The Spiraling Chains: Schroeder - Tumbush Family Trees

Foto Friday: When Vandalism Becomes History

10/19/2012

I was looking through a photo album the other day and came across this picture I took a few years ago when my husband and I visited Mammoth Cave. A long time ago (you can see the year '1839' in the corner of the photo) people exploring with candles burned their names into the ceiling of the cave. Surely, if you were to do this today, you would be in BIG trouble - we're talking felony because it's a National Park.

It reminds me of a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode in which Will carves his name in an old desk that the school founders carved their names in decades ago. At his discipline hearing, amongst the scolding and shame, he says something like, "They carved their names in it and got their pictures on the wall." Isn't amazing how something as simple as the passage of time changes our perspectives on whether graffiti is vandalism or history?

The word 'graffiti' comes from the Italian verb 'graffiare,' which means 'to scratch." Apparently, the term was first used around 1851 to describe stone inscriptions unearthed in the ancient city of Pompeii. Archaeologists today still use the term when referring to engravings found on ancient surfaces like columns, panels, or walls. And, just like some graffiti today, back then people wrote raunchy things and they gossipped and made fun of other people. This is the type of history, though perhaps "unimportant" in the grand scheme of things, that I think really gives people today a sense of connection with people in the past.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

What to Save???

10/17/2012

Like many of you fellow genealogists probably know, when you keep going further and further back through the generations, information pertaining to any particular person you may be researching gets more and more scarce. And, at some point, your family's history becomes more of just an impersonal paper trail of birth, marriage, and death records. You long to find something more personal, a photo or a journal, just to get a glimpse of what that person looked like or what nature of his/her personality was. You say to yourself, "If only they had saved more..."

I think about this question of "What to save?" a lot, because, just by my innate interest in family history and perserving memories, I have become the keeper of my family's memories. I am the photographer and the saver of momentos. I save receipts and ticket stubs from family vacations. I take photos of local signs and the places where we stay and eat along the way. I take extra brochures and business cards from tourist spots, so I can cut them up and include them in my scrapbooks. I understand that some people would see that as going a little overboard, but wouldn't you just LOVE it if your grandparents or great-grandparents had done that along the way?

My grandmother was somewhat like me, because she DID keep a receipt that meant a lot to her and we just recently found it in some of her old stuff:

Source: Personal Collection of Jennifer Bellan Kowalski

This is my grandparents' reservation receipt for their honeymoon. From a genealogical perspective, it's not all that valuable - it lists their names and city of residence, but that's it. The sentimental value is much higher, of course. This piece of paper represents the start of their life together - just the two of them. Due to my great-grandfather's social and business standings in the Italian-American community, my grandmother had a large and ostentatious wedding and reception, probably much against her wishes. I can almost hear her breathe a sigh of relief when she and my grandfather arrived at this little inn in rural Indiana. Nobody they knew or had to talk to, no place they had to be - just a week of relaxation and spending time with each other.

So, if you are a saver like me, I say, "Keep on saving!" My great-grandchildren will have all these digital photos and probably a bunch of government documents about me, but it's the little, seemingly mundane stuff like receipts, ticket stubs, recipes, etc. that will help them know what I valued and what was special to me.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

A Lovely Autumn Morning to Search Cemeteries

10/15/2012

We went out this morning to a couple of nearby cemeteries to search for several gravestones that had been requested through FindAGrave.com. It was a bit chilly, but the kiddos didn't mind one bit, especially since there were so many leaves to play in! (We live in a newer neighborhood with few large trees and virtually no fallen leaves in which to play.)

Our trip to this cemetery was successful: I found the gravestone of a woman who died in 1860 and the best part about it was that her stone, though broken, was still mostly readable! (If you've searched for old graves before, you know how common it is to find old graves unmarked or marked with gravestones that have been weathered beyond legibility.) Her husband's name was listed on the stone, along with the date of her death and her age at death - which is great, because then you can estimate when she was born.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Wait. Great-Grandpa Was Born WHERE??

10/14/2012

When you are studying your family's history, some of the most exciting documents you can come across in your research are immigration-related papers: Ship manifests and applications for citizenship. Not only do they tell you exactly where and when your ancestors entered the country, but they also contain important information about where your ancestor was from, which is absolutely vital if you want to start researching family lines in other countries.

I was excited when I found these sorts of documents belonging to my great-grandfather, Michael Bodziony. I had already known that he was ethnically Polish, obviously spoke Polish and settled in a very Polish community in Cleveland. However, nobody in the family knew where exactly he was from. I found his name on a 1910 ship manifest and looked across the sheet from his name to the three columns that read, "Nationality (country of which citizen or subject), Race of People, Country (of last residence.)" And in these columns is listed, "Austria, Polish, Austria." Ok, now I'm not an expert in 19th central European history, but I vaguely remember learning in history class about the extent and longevity of the Austrian Empire, so I am not surprised. I then was able to find Michael's citizenship papers. Here is his 1929 Declaration of Intention:

I also found a reference to Galicia as Michael and Sophie Bodziony's place of birth in the 1920 U.S. Census:

Source Citation: Year: 1920; Census Place: Cleveland Ward 14, Cuyahoga, Ohio; Roll: T625_1366; Page: 15A; Enumeration District: 272; Image: 37. Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

I do NOT remember learning anything about Galicia at any point in my schooling, so I was curious. Wikipedia to the rescue! The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was part of Austria-Hungary from 1772-1918, so my great-grandfather WAS technically born in Galicia, Austria and it WAS still part of Austria when he immigrated to America in 1910. (By the way, the name of his birthplace was spelled incorrectly - it should have read, 'Swiniarsko.') Here are Galicia's borders overlayed on a modern map of the region, and that red dot is the location of Michael's hometown. (Map from http://www.germangenealogist.com/2011/06/03/3331/)

Map from www.germangenealogist.com

Now, by the time Michael took his Oath of Allegiance to the U.S. in 1933, the area in which his birthplace was located had become part of the sovereign nation known as 'The Republic of Poland', which you can see on this form:

I enjoyed solving this little mystery for myself, probably because it involved looking at maps, which I love to do. Trying to understand the history behind all these name and border changes was a little more difficult, but I would like to someday read a (good) history of Poland. And I intend to write more blog posts in the future about how historical events in Europe may have influenced my and my husband's ancestors to make the decision to immigrate to America.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

The Ethnic Environment Of My Childhood

10/13/2012

Do you ever wonder WHY you are (or aren't) interested in where your family came from? Recently, I have been thinking about how the diversity of ethnicity in my childhood community influenced my interest in tracing my family's history.

I grew up in a large, predominantly white suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. There wasn't a lot of diversity in race, but in terms of European ethnicity, my town was about as diverse as you could get. In elementary school, I remember casually talking with classmates about the nationalities of our parents and grandparents a lot, and we all thought it was pretty interesting, probably because there was a lot of variety. We were Polish, Italian, Croatian, Serbian, Greek, Hungarian, French, German, Irish, and even Lebanese. And it wasn't just that we had ethnic surnames; several of the kids were actually children of immigrants, and many more of us were grandchildren of immigrants. When I got to high school, I met some kids of Ukrainian immigrants. (Our town had several Ukrainian Orthodox churches, as well as a Serbian Orthodox Church and a Russian Orthodox Church.) It was easy to buy authentic ethnic foods, like pierogi, at one of the local churches, restaurants, or ethnic markets. I was married in my hometown and our reception was held at one of the Ukrainian Church halls - we had a delicious, delicious dinner.

I think that this is one reason I am so interested in genealogy and tracing roots - I realized at a fairly early age that people in America came from many places, and I was able to experience first-hand differences in nationality and culture. I would overhear one of my friends talking to her grandmother in Italian; We would see Irish dancers and hear their traditional Celtic music in local parades; Many of us had last names full of 'czyn's' and 'ski's' and we thought nothing of it.

What kind of ethnic environment shaped YOU? Do you think it influenced your desire to study (or not study) your famiy's roots?

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Foto Friday: Photos of the Unknown

10/12/2012

'Photos of the Unknown.' Sounds like a creepy psychological thriller - appropriate for this time of year, I guess. But today, I literally am talking about what I like to call 'phantom photos.' Every family has them - old photos in perhaps an old shoebox or yellowing photo album with NO LABELS. No dates, no names, no locations. Here is one from my mom's side of the family:

Now, this photo actually DOES have the name 'Parrazzini' written on the back, so we know it's from my mom's grandmother's side of the family. (Honestly, we probably would have figured that part out anyway, because the woman pictured looks a LOT like my great-grandmother.) But that's all we know. There isn't a date, and it's difficult to tell when it was taken just by the clothing they are wearing or their hairstyles. I like to assume that these are her parents, but we have no idea what their first names were, which is unfortunate because that information would have helped me find records of the family in Italy.

So the point of today's post is: Go through old photo albums with an older family member and WRITE DOWN anything they can remember - names, places, dates, stories...anything! I WISH I would have sat down with my Italian grandmother before she passed away and asked her who these people were and if she had any knowledge of where they had lived, but I was only a teenager then and hadn't been bitted yet by the genealogy bug. And even if you are somebody MY age, go through your parents' old photo albums/shoeboxes from the 70s and 80s and do the same thing. Those photos may not seem 'old' to us, but they will be to our children and grandchildren someday. (And, accept it people, 1972 was FORTY years ago.) And now, with digital photos, be sure to have an adequate data backup system for your hard drive, arrange the photo files in chronological folders, and try to include names in each individual photo file name. Your great-grandchildren will thank you some day.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

An Unintentional 'Experiment' in Family Tree Making

10/7/2012

Yesterday, I visited my undergraduate university for their annual Homecoming celebration. I stopped by my sorority's chapter room in my old dorm to take a look around and see how it has changed over the years. After talking with the (very kind) active member who let me in for a little while, she opened one of their storage benches and pulled out this posterboard:

It's a Big Sis/Little Sis ''family tree chart for several 'lineages' the in sorority. (Each member is given a big sis when they join the organization.) I was just so happy when I saw this, not only because I saw my name on it, but also because I was SO impressed that the active members of the group created this and kept it going for so long (It starts with women who graduated in the late 1990s and the current members are still adding to it). I posted it on Facebook and tagged a bunch of the women listed. There was a wonderful response to it, with many women "liking" it and posting comments to the effect of "This is cool!" "I can't believe they made this!" and "Now, I know who my gggg-grand big is!" BUT there were also comments like, "My name is spelled incorrectly," or "There's someone missing between her and her," or "Where is my branch?"

Then, I realized that this is exactly what happens when people try to trace back their real family trees. The omissions, name misspellings, and incorrect placements are a common part of researching family lines. The difference in this case is that we can try to track down and ASK these women for the truth. (Facebook is helpful for this.) Imagine how much easier putting together your family tree would be if you could go back and ASK your great-great-great-grandfather what his wife's maiden name was or how many children he had. Instead, we have to rely on oral stories from grandparents (who probably heard it from THEIR grandparents), sporadic (and often unreliable) paper trails, unlabeled photographs, and, if we are lucky, maybe an old diary or something. Obviously, it leaves much to be desired in terms of accuracy, but, hey, sometimes it's all we got.

So, I think that the process of creating and maintaining this sorority family tree is actually a very good 'experiment' of going through the real process of genealogy. When scientists try to study a certain phenomena or understand a pattern, they often attempt to accurately recreate the process and the variables on a smaller scale. In a real family tree, you usually have to wait 20+ years to add a new person to your lineage, and elders only live, at the most, 90-100 years. So, if you are lucky, you can grow up getting to know your grandparents and, hopefully, great-grandparents - that's three generations before you. The 'life span' of a college student is only 4-5 years, and these sorority trees are extended at least once, oftentimes twice a year. It perfectly recreates the growth of a family tree, just on a smaller scale. And the girls who created this tree obviously didn't know I would be thinking of this as an 'experiment' so it didn't make them try harder to make it accurate or research it more than they normally would have. We don't know what sources they used to make the tree - word of mouth? photos? Did previously graduated members actually write down the names of their big sis and grand sis? And now that us almunae know that they actually took the time to do this, I think we are going to try to help them correct this tree and create the others that are missing.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Foto Friday: Cousins

10/5/2012

My brother (in the 'Thriller' shirt, haha!) and I with some of our Kowalski side cousins. Circa 1984ish.

I posted this photo on Facebook a couple of years ago, but I saw it in my "old family pics" photo album on the computer and I just had to make it part of my blog. I was pretty close with my cousins growing up. We saw each a lot for birthdays, holidays, baptisms, first communions, weddings, random visits, etc. I didn't have many cousins; four on my Dad's side and only one on my Mom's side. My husband, whose parents had more siblings than mine, has many MORE cousins, but he was never as close to them as I seemed to be with mine. I now have more appreciation for my cousins, for the 25 yr old inside jokes we share at holidays, and for the good-natured jesting we direct at our elders at family get-togethers. :)

I recently came into contact with a couple of Tony's 'cousins' through Ancestry.com. I say 'cousins' because they are not his plain-old first cousins as I was discussing above. I learned early on in my family tree research that figuring out the difference between first cousins, second cousins, removed cousins, etc. is tough! So, one 'cousin' with whom I exchanged emails is actually first cousins with Tony's DAD, so that means he is Tony's first cousin once removed, because one generation separates them. The other cousin is actually a first cousin of Tony's GRANDMOTHER, so she is Tony's first cousin twice removed because two generations separate them. Confused yet? Yeah, I thought so.

What about second cousins? Second cousins share the same great-grandparents, but not the same grandparents. So, for example, my mom has a first cousin named Ginger. Ginger is my first cousin once removed. Ginger's children, Tom and Steven, are my second cousins. Adele and Louis Licciardi were their great-grandparents AND my great-grandparents. Similarly, third cousins have common great-great-grandparents, and so on.

Because I am a very visual person, I found this chart helpful to understanding these relationships. (From Genealogy.com)

So, pick one set of ancestors, start in the top left corner and label them "parents". Then, you can find the relationship between two of their descendants by seeing where the row and column meet for those two particular people. It takes a little practice to become comfortable with all of the terms and what they mean. But, in the end, it's kind of fun, especially if you are interested in genealogy.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

At The Intersection of History and Technology

10/1/2012

The other day, I found a website called WhatWasThere.com. It overlays historical photographs onto present-day Google Map streetviews, so that you can "see" what places looked like in the past. The database includes photographs and streetviews from all over the world. I could easily waste hour after enjoyable hour browsing through this website.

The homepage gives you the option of entering a city, state, country name, or zip code. At any point, you can easily zoom in or out using the scroll button on your mouse. Click one of the little orange bubbles, and a sidebar pops up showing you which photos are available for overlay.

Click on any image in the sidebar, and it will pop up on the map. Then, you have the choice of "View Photo Details" or "Google Street View."

Select "Google Street View" and watch what happens. The photo is placed on a modern-day Google street view scene in about the same place in which it was located years ago. But wait, there's more! You can FADE the old photo in and out of the scene to see what the area looks like today! (second picture below)

I chose this photo from Downtown Cincinnati to use as my example in this post because it has special meaning to me and my kids. My daughter's one year photos were taken in that little park enclosed by the columns. It was a ridiculously hot and humid early September evening (the heat index was around 100F) so we were battling sweat beads and overly red faces in these photos. I also learned that, after business hours, there are no public toilets within a 2 block radius of this portion of East 5th Street between Sycamore and Broadway. Thank you, Mr. Bub, for helping me figure that one out :)

The website also allows you to upload your own photos to add to its database. I found a photo of our 2007 trip to Vegas, in which I was looking down The Strip from the northern end (excellent IHOP, by the way). I decided to try my hand at adding and overlaying a photo. Uploading was very quick and easy, but overlaying it onto the Google Street View took me longer. Because Google Streets only let you turn and move, well, along the streets, it's almost impossible to match up the angle of your photo and Google's photos. I thought this would be a cool photo to upload, though, because The Sahara Hotel and Casino was closed down in 2011, so, in a way, this photo IS historical. (Turns out, this Google Street photo was taken in 2009, so that Sahara sign is still there, it's just behind a palm tree and down the street a little farther so you can't see it.) But, one day, when Google updates its images, my photo will be there still to remind people of the old Sahara Casino. I think that's pretty neat :)

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder