Last night I actually found myself with no obligations...I didn't have to cook, the kids had their homework done (no school on Monday), and chores were done. I had some time to do what I wanted. Of course, you know that meant working on my genealogy.....
For the past year I have been working exclusively on my Ball and Sommer relatives and have met with a little success. Thanks to a distant cousin who contacted me I also have the names of my gggreat grandparents. However, I ran into a lot of brick walls and then I got discouraged. This time I picked a different family to work on.
My father, Norbert Wozniak was Polish, so I have a lot of Polish relatives. Unfortunately, I have very little information on their history. I do know the names of my fathers parents -Steven and Cecilia (Sawicki) Wozniak, his father's parents -Joseph and Mary (Ziolkowski) Wozniak,and his mothers parents -Louis and Stella (Wieczorek) Sawicki. Thanks to the census records (and longevity) I also have the name of a paternal great great great grandmother - Regina Polus.
So, I decided to work on my Sawicki family history. It is my hope to some day connect with a cousin or two. After reviewing the information I already had, I began working with some free online databases; Cook County Genealogy, Illinois State Archives, Social Security Death Index, and the Polish Genealogical Society of America. I discovered the dates of quite a few marriages, births and deaths of my relatives. Using the Chicago Tribune Historical Archives database from the public library that I work at, I was able to access obituaries that confirmed the death information that I just discovered. Not only did I find out funeral home information but also church and cemetery information. In a number of cases the obituary also gave me the names of siblings and grandchildren! The obituary definitely confirmed the information I had gathered.
I wasn't done yet. It was almost midnight when I accessed Heritage Quest from home (using my local public library) and played around with the census records. Imagine my delight when I added a number of names and addresses to quite a few of my relatives to my family tree program.
Wow, I could hardly keep my eyes open any longer but I was in my glory! I actually met with some success in discovering and confirming some of my Polish relatives. I was definitely doing the genealogy dance!! Oh what a night I had....
3 comments:
Although 99% of my ancestors are Acadian/French Canadian, I can identify with you because at one point I was researching one of my cousin's marriages to someone known in my records as Catherine Bernice VAIKCASAS, but whom I found out might actually be a VAISIKCAUSLCAS,
Of course,in the end, these challenging names really just add to the fun!
Evelyn in Montreal
www.acanadianfamily.wordpress.com
Why is it that we always find the good stuff really late at night when our eyes are barely open?
Thank you Evelyn and Amy. I really felt a sense of accomplishment in this branch of my family tree. I can't wait for this weekend so I can search some more! pam
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