ShannonCreedon
Joined: 14 Jan 2026
Replies: 14
Location: CaliforniaBack to top |
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2026 1:11 pm
Post subject:
I'm having trouble attaching the marriage record. I'll have to try again later. And I will work on updating my records with all of this information!
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1575
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BarbOsloPO Top Contributor
Joined: 19 Nov 2022
Replies: 1631
Location: NorwayBack to top |
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2026 3:51 pm
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Sophia, would you be able to find Wiktoria’s marriage record? This could confirm who her parents were and help solve the Orzech mystery.
-Barb
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1575
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Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2026 4:08 pm
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| BarbOslo wrote: | Sophia, would you be able to find Wiktoria’s marriage record? This could confirm who her parents were and help solve the Orzech mystery.
-Barb |
Barb,
How about this one? Marriage #440. Father was John Wesoly, mother was Zofia Koczara.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N48X-BCV?lang=en
Sophia
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BarbOsloPO Top Contributor
Joined: 19 Nov 2022
Replies: 1631
Location: NorwayBack to top |
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2026 4:53 pm
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Sophia,
I believe it is her. The combination Wesoly–Koczera fits better. I have seen both surnames in Niebieszczany. The mother’s name is Zofia and the father’s name is Jan, which matches Anna’s marriage record. The age roughly matches. It would be nice to hear whether Shannon is familiar with this. Thank you, Sophia.
-Barb
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ShannonCreedon
Joined: 14 Jan 2026
Replies: 14
Location: CaliforniaBack to top |
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2026 6:57 pm
Post subject:
| Sophia wrote: | | BarbOslo wrote: | Sophia, would you be able to find Wiktoria’s marriage record? This could confirm who her parents were and help solve the Orzech mystery.
-Barb |
Barb,
How about this one? Marriage #440. Father was John Wesoly, mother was Zofia Koczara.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N48X-BCV?lang=en
Sophia |
I was just looking at this myself. This all makes sense to me, and I was able to trace Paul and Anna to Snowshoe, Pennsylvania, where I know my grandfather had cousins.
Anna and Jozef's marriage information is attached here. Given the amount of misspellings and errors in American documents when it comes to Polish names, it could be a transcription error. I have also encountered instances of individuals being identified by middle names or nicknames.
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1575
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Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2026 8:47 am
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| ShannonCreedon wrote: |
Anna and Jozef's marriage information is attached here. Given the amount of misspellings and errors in American documents when it comes to Polish names, it could be a transcription error. I have also encountered instances of individuals being identified by middle names or nicknames. |
Hi Shannon,
I think that Barb is on the right track here, using Wiktoria's marriage info to suggest the possibility that your Anna Wesola's mother's name was actually Zofia Koczera. To your point about the possibility of a transcription error, I will add this thought. Looking closely at the book of marriage records for Anna Wesola, I noticed something interesting. It is, of course, not the church book, it is a civil record. The priest who married Anna Wesola and Jozef Jozefek was providing the data for 12 marriages all at once. The marriages were performed between 23 September and 6 November, but Father Uminski provided all of that data to the city registrar on 15 November. I would suggest that he made an error with the name Orzech. If you were able to contact the church (or diocese?) to ask for the actual record of the marriage, you might be able to solve this question of Orzech vs. Koczera.
Best regards,
Sophia
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2959
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2026 2:13 pm
Post subject:
| Sophia wrote: | | ShannonCreedon wrote: |
Anna and Jozef's marriage information is attached here. Given the amount of misspellings and errors in American documents when it comes to Polish names, it could be a transcription error. I have also encountered instances of individuals being identified by middle names or nicknames. |
Hi Shannon,
I think that Barb is on the right track here, using Wiktoria's marriage info to suggest the possibility that your Anna Wesola's mother's name was actually Zofia Koczera. To your point about the possibility of a transcription error, I will add this thought. Looking closely at the book of marriage records for Anna Wesola, I noticed something interesting. It is, of course, not the church book, it is a civil record. The priest who married Anna Wesola and Jozef Jozefek was providing the data for 12 marriages all at once. The marriages were performed between 23 September and 6 November, but Father Uminski provided all of that data to the city registrar on 15 November. I would suggest that he made an error with the name Orzech. If you were able to contact the church (or diocese?) to ask for the actual record of the marriage, you might be able to solve this question of Orzech vs. Koczera.
Best regards,
Sophia |
Sophia,
What you suggest about the data which the priest was providing it’s not exactly accurate. What the city clerk did was he transcribed information found in marriage licenses and recorded the return of the license with the name of the priest who officiated at the wedding. The only information the priest provided was the date of the wedding and his signature. Everything else was provided by the couple when they applied for the marriage license. Of course it was not unusual for there to be a failure to accurately communicate between the couple and the clerk who issued the license since English was the clerk's primary language and Polish was the primary language of the couple. The priest would simply have copied the information from the top of the license onto his certificate of return without making any corrections. The reason he would not correct any errors in spelling was that since this was a legal document and he was signing off on it he had to enter the names on the return portion of the License exactly as they appeared on the top portion. All the clerk was listing were the marriage returns which had accumulated in his office and thus it appears that the priest was providing information for a significant number of marriages when in reality all he was doing was returning the licenses with his signature and the date of the wedding. The clerk was simply transcribing information and as all good bureaucrats do he did it all at once, probably before some sort of deadline.
Shannon, You are correct about the spelling errors which occurred in civil documents where immigrants were providing the information. Thus I would heartily recommend that you obtain a copy of the ecclesiastical marriage register from the parish where your grandparents married. There were three Polish speaking Catholic parishes in New Bedford: Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Casimir, and St. Hedwig. All three have closed and/or merged. I would recommend that you contact the diocese in order to find out where are the records of closed and merged parishes our housed. The ecclesiastical copy of the marriage entry with most likely have the correct spelling of the names of the parents of the couple and possibly the name and location of the parish in Europe where they were born and baptized. Link to the website of the Diocese of Fall River: https://www.fallriverdiocese.org/
It is none of my business but I wouldn’t consider the information about your great-grandfather being in Europe in 1914 as Gospel without some additional verification such as a passenger list for his return to the USA. It is much too possible that there was another person of the same name in Europe at that point in time. According to the 1930 census your family was residing in Illinois in 1914 since that is where two of their children are listed as having been born. Granted that Joseph did not need to be present at the birth of his child in 1914 but it would seem that he would have made an effort to be there for the birth. Not that anyone would care, but...Being there for the birth reminds me of one of the epigrams of St. Thomas More, who had been the Lord Chancellor of England during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII. Since I’m not looking at the actual text a free translation of the Latin would be: “Hurry home. Sibidius your wife is about to give birth and you don’t want to be late. You may not have been there for the conception but make sure that you’re there on time for the birth”. The most famous works of Thomas More are “Utopia” and “In Praise of Folly” but his lesser known epigrams also are quite good. A well-known flick about him is the 1966 “A Man For All Seasons”.
Wishing you successful research,
Dave
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1575
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Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2026 2:21 pm
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| dnowicki wrote: |
It is none of my business but I wouldn’t consider the information about your great-grandfather being in Europe in 1914 as Gospel without some additional verification such as a passenger list for his return to the USA. It is much too possible that there was another person of the same name in Europe at that point in time.
Dave |
Hi Dave,
The record from the Vác archive gives the name of the soldier Jozef Jozefek's father as "Jozefek Matyas" and his mother as "Vessely Anna." This is certainly Shannon's Jozef Jozefek in Europe in 1914.
Best regards,
Sophia
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BarbOsloPO Top Contributor
Joined: 19 Nov 2022
Replies: 1631
Location: NorwayBack to top |
Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2026 9:25 am
Post subject:
Hi Shannon,
I have sent a reply to your MyHeritage account. Here is the diagram.
-Barb
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Józefek.pdf |
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