Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:35 pm
Post subject: Working Backwards From US Immigration Record (Polak Family)
Hello All, this is my first post on the forums so forgive me if I make any errors.
I am trying to get primary source confirmation of some aspects of the life of Vincent Casimer Polak.
Here is what I know and how I know it:
Birth: 25 March 1874 (on WW1 draft registration card and US naturalization card) in "German Poland"
Marriage: 18 Sep 1898 to Francis B. Gorski (Gorska?) (from family records, no independent verification)
Immigration: 25 Feb 1901 to Milwaukee via Baltimore, place of last residence Inowroclaw (Baltimore passenger list, Francis and their son Max came over at this time as well)
I would like to get my hands on Vincent's birth certificate, marriage certificate, possible Max's birth certificate, and any census records that may put the family in a certain part of German Poland. I assume he was born and raised in Posen but I can't be sure about that.
In addition, I would really like to find out about Vincent's time in the Prussian (I assume) Army. I know his son Max was in the US 32nd Division in WWI and was killed in action, and I would like to get some similar information for Vincent.
Thanks in advance for any info or tips you can provide!
Justin
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:07 pm
Post subject: Re: Working Backwards From US Immigration Record (Polak Fami
| JOVE23 wrote: | Hello All, this is my first post on the forums so forgive me if I make any errors.
I am trying to get primary source confirmation of some aspects of the life of Vincent Casimer Polak.
Here is what I know and how I know it:
Birth: 25 March 1874 (on WW1 draft registration card and US naturalization card) in "German Poland"
Marriage: 18 Sep 1898 to Francis B. Gorski (Gorska?) (from family records, no independent verification)
Immigration: 25 Feb 1901 to Milwaukee via Baltimore, place of last residence Inowroclaw (Baltimore passenger list, Francis and their son Max came over at this time as well)
I would like to get my hands on Vincent's birth certificate, marriage certificate, possible Max's birth certificate, and any census records that may put the family in a certain part of German Poland. I assume he was born and raised in Posen but I can't be sure about that.
In addition, I would really like to find out about Vincent's time in the Prussian (I assume) Army. I know his son Max was in the US 32nd Division in WWI and was killed in action, and I would like to get some similar information for Vincent.
Thanks in advance for any info or tips you can provide!
Justin |
Justin,
I see in your profile that you mentioned Parchanie. I have found a Polak couple (Piotr and Malgorzata) arriving at Ellis from Parchanie. Could they be Wincenty's parents?
Their ages would match the couple who married in:
Parafia katolicka Brudnia, wpis 2 / 1867
Petrus Polak (25 lat) 100%
Margaretha Klocek (20 lat)
Brudnia is just 5 miles East of Parchanie.
If Parchanie is his birth place you can request a copy of his birth certificate to:
Archiwum Państwowe w Bydgoszczy Oddział w Inowrocławiu
88-100 Inowrocław, ul. Narutowicza 58
email: [email protected]
They do not hold marriage records for 1898.
Gilberto
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:17 pm
Post subject:
Gilberto,
Thank you for the interesting leads!
I have as Wincenty's parents:
Peter Polak
Birth 23 Apr 1842
Death 21 Dec 1918 in Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Margaret Wisialowski
Born c.1843
I have as an uncle of Wincenty one Lorenz Wisialowski, who I assume is Margaret's brother but I could be totally wrong on Wincenty's mother and I'm more than open to changing her info if I get hard evidence to convince me.
EDIT: I will also add that I have as the mother of Wincenty's mother Francis a Julia Wisialowski, but I am not sure if that would provide the required "uncle" connection to Lorenz Wisialowski.
The Parchanie connection comes from Wincenty's brother Anton's wife, one Frances Ludwiczynski, who listed Parchanie as her last place of residence on her immigration form.
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:05 pm
Post subject:
| JOVE23 wrote: | Gilberto,
Thank you for the interesting leads!
I have as Wincenty's parents:
Peter Polak
Birth 23 Apr 1842
Death 21 Dec 1918 in Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Margaret Wisialowski
Born c.1843
I have as an uncle of Wincenty one Lorenz Wisialowski, who I assume is Margaret's brother but I could be totally wrong on Wincenty's mother and I'm more than open to changing her info if I get hard evidence to convince me.
EDIT: I will also add that I have as the mother of Wincenty's mother Francis a Julia Wisialowski, but I am not sure if that would provide the required "uncle" connection to Lorenz Wisialowski.
The Parchanie connection comes from Wincenty's brother Anton's wife, one Frances Ludwiczynski, who listed Parchanie as her last place of residence on her immigration form. |
Justin,
Piotr and Malgorzata mentioned Anton as the nearest relative in the old country, in Parchanie. Unless we have two "Piotr and Malgorzata" and two "Anton" with the same surname, in the same village, I think it is the same family. However, your dates for Piotr and Malgorzata do not match with the couple who arrived at Ellis. They were born about 1849/1850.
Gilberto
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:10 pm
Post subject:
My date for Piotr is pretty concrete as I have his death certificate which lists the above dates. Margaret is very up in the air.
|
|
|
rsowaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 09 Nov 2013
Replies: 177
Location: Dundee, Michigan, USABack to top |
Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 8:18 am
Post subject:
Justin... I have found wildly different reported birth dates and ages for the exact same people in various documents...including death certificates. In fact, death certificates are often the most unreliable because the birth dates reported on them were reported by someone else. As I mentioned in another post, the most accurate birth dates (at least for my ancestors), were those reported by the living person early in their lives...ex: for their marriage license, naturalization, immigration, etc. If those all agree, then it's certainly the same person. If they don't agree, it still could be the same person. If the individual was illiterate (which most of mine were), there is no way they could verify the written record.
The most accurate records, of course, are the original parish church records, because they were recorded at the exact time of the event (birth/baptism, marriage, death). Just about everything else is prone to error, since we have no way of knowing who reported the data, nor who recorded it.
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 1:00 pm
Post subject:
Fair enough. Unfortunately I don't know where exactly these people were born so I can't get at the parish records, but for Peter I have the following information from the 1910 census:
68 yo (so 1842 date is in the ballpark)
Born in German Poland, so were both parents
Immigrated in 1905
And for Margareth the info is the same except she is 66
Peter can read but can't write, Margareth cannot do either
----
I think what would help me most is a census from the Grand Duchy in the year 1900 or close to it, or Vincent's birth records.
And I will dig out the death certificate again to see who the next of kin or information provider was.
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 12:22 am
Post subject:
Are Brudnia birth records for 1874 searchable online anywhere? I'd like to play a hunch that Wincenty was born there.
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 8:34 pm
Post subject:
Thanks! Does this site have books from 1874 for these areas? I am going down a generation to find records of Wincenty's birth (25 March 1874). If it helps, he listed his middle name as Casimer on the documents I have from the U.S., don't know if that was given to him at birth or if he adopted it when he immigrated.
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:58 am
Post subject:
| JOVE23 wrote: |
Thanks! Does this site have books from 1874 for these areas? I am going down a generation to find records of Wincenty's birth (25 March 1874). If it helps, he listed his middle name as Casimer on the documents I have from the U.S., don't know if that was given to him at birth or if he adopted it when he immigrated. |
Their collection for Brudnia can be seen here.
http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/search?q=brudnia
Note that it covers 1874, though the scanned images are not available yet. I have read a note somewhere that records from AP Bydgoszcz and Inowroclaw are expected to be available by the middle of 2015.
Gilberto
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:43 am
Post subject:
I remember a few months ago I sent an e-mail to the Archdiocesan Archive of Gniezno asking if they had any birth records on file for any of my people, but I never heard back from them. It may have been because I ran my request through Google Translate and it may have come out as gibberish on the other end. Does anyone have experience with that body?
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
Register