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Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
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Location: virginia usa
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 11:32 am Post subject: open to ideas

Hi again! I was considering a thought in my head earlier in the day and i thought no better place to ask then to ask here. I've been having a hard time finding a common ancestor between a 4th cousin and I, which i need in order to start on my grandmothers tree. I have to go backwards and start from here because she was adopted and no records for her are public or exist with parental info. But i also believe she was adopted in family and just didn't know it. My 6th great grandparent on her side is the common ancestor between my cousin and I. I have been using my great uncle right below the common ancestor to try and find more, but I feel i'm running into dead ends. Then today I considered 2 things, 1 being if i can't find the grandparent i can still possibly try to find his children through my great uncle. This would be enough information to continue down and find my grandmothers parents and line but i'm not sure how i can go about it. I'm not sure if its possible to find his siblings with just his information known. It has also been hard to narrow down an exact birth year for my great uncle. He had multiple children and each record had a different age for him but the years didn't add up properly with the birth year I thought was correct. This has left me with a 6 year period in which he could have been born. I've also noticed one of his witnesses is considered to be 70 years old for all the birth records of his children when mentioned. I can't figure that part out, especially since it would be at least a five year gap from first to last record. Because of all these slight issues it has been difficult to find a proper birth year for my great uncle, which gives me less to work with when trying to find the common ancestor. If anyone knows of any ways to find his siblings with the information i have i would love to hear it, i feel like im at a stand still with that. My second thought was on my great uncle himself, i considered the idea of him being the child that continued the line which one day brought me my grandmother. The only reason i'm not so sure about this is because me and my 4th cousin are predicted to share less than 1% of DNA. If my great uncle was actually my great grandfather wouldn't me and my fourth cousins DNA be predicted to be more than that? As you can tell all of this is very confusing, im hoping someone might have a good idea or thought to pass along. If anyone knows i think my best shot is here. Thank you so much for reading!
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marissa sears

Sophia
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 1:25 pm Post subject: Re: open to ideas

Marissalolxoxo wrote:

Hi Marissa,
Let's leave DNA testing aside for a moment. Fourth cousins may not share enough genetically for you to answer your question with any certainty.
If you try to approach your puzzle by building a solid family tree through available documents, you may be more successful. That depends, of course, on where you are searching. If your ancestors were stable, in one place, and that place has an uninterrupted set of vital records, you will be quite lucky. Other places are impossible, with several decades' worth of records no longer existing. Also, if the surnames you are searching a fairly rare, you will be better off than if the surnames are common. You don't know until you get into the thick of it.
If you'd like to post a diagram, or give us a link to a family tree that you've posted on FamilySearch or some similar website, maybe we can help you. It seems like you will need to begin with your fourth cousin*, work backwards in time, and then select ancestors from whom you can work forward in time. Then you may be able to see if your grandmother fits logically into place. It will be a patience game, for sure, but good genealogy always is.
Best regards,
Sophia

* that is if I understood you correctly. It was your grandmother who was adopted, right? And not your fourth cousin who was adopted?

Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
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Location: virginia usa
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 1:53 pm Post subject:

Thank you for the reply, i try to make sure everything i look at is verified or at least makes sense with these documents. It's my grandmother that was adopted. Yet I'm not so sure she was adopted out of her own family. I don't know much about her since she died when i was only 9, and from what ive heard she never liked to discuss her childhood. Because of this it makes it much more difficult to track down anything on her at all. I have been using ancestery.com to try and find more and explore her line from her own wishes. But whenever i put in her name and what information i do have the only thing i see is a few records of her death, one marriage record, and a few small addresses that i could confirm were hers. At one point i finally saw a match somewhere which is how my 4th cousin has gotten involved in my search. When my grandmother married her first husband her last name was Chrzanowski, then i found my 4th cousin peter chrzanowski. I've been trying to follow his line up and build off of that. I ended up at my great uncle stanislaw chrzanowski. That's where things have been tricky, in order to find my grandmothers line i've had to start really far back in time to find anyone for her. Unfortunetly i have not been able to find a birth record with stanislaw's parents names on it that i can confirm for sure is his. And in his death record none of the witnesses knew the names of his parents. Because of this i thought of possibly turning my search to find a sibling of his instead of his parents and it would connect all the same. I've also tried looking for cousins in earlier times to try to connect to but I haven't found any yet. I can't tell yet if my ancestors were completely stable because i have no basis for my grandmother to even go off of. The only information i have for her is she was born in NJ, and married there as well. Anything involving her parents or childhood has not been found. When i look at peter's tree (my 4th cousin) i see that his family was very consistent in Poland, and in the area's of biezun, osowka, and stanislaw i believe was born in a village called dabrowki. I'm starting to believe the name Chrzanowski was actually pretty big at the time, and i saw something with nobility involved with the name once. Im not sure if it helps but i can try to link my tree? and if any of this new information sparks a thought im always open to hear it! Thank you again for your help!
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marissa sears

Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
Replies: 7
Location: virginia usa
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 1:54 pm Post subject:

Sophia
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Joined: 05 Oct 2014
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 2:20 pm Post subject:

Hi Marissa,
OK, so Chrzanowski is not the rarest name in Poland, but thankfully it is not Nowak!
Can you tell me your grandmother's first name and do you know her birth date?
Fear not, there are resources other than Ancestry.com that we can look at.
Sophia

BarbOslo
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 3:24 pm Post subject:

Hi Marissa and Sophia,
Follow Sophia's advice. Give us concrete names, places, years and we will try to help you. I remember that earlier I helped someone who was also researching Chrzanowski, and if I remembered correctly his family came from the village of Osowka, Zielona, Kuczbork. "His" Stanislaw Chrzanowski was married to Marianna Rybicka. Are the places and names familiar to you?

-Barb

Last edited by BarbOslo on Wed Oct 09, 2024 1:26 am; edited 1 time in total

Sophia
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 5:51 pm Post subject:

Also, could you just clarify please, was Chrzanowski the name of the family who adopted your grandmother? And you do not know her surname at birth?

Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
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Location: virginia usa
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Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2024 6:51 pm Post subject:

Hi again! haha yea i've noticed that Chrzanowski is quite common after going through genteka and some of ancestory's documents. I'll give you everything i know if it will help! Starting off with her name and info. Her name was June Marion Chrzanowski before any marriages. She was born 02/24/1948 in NJ, USA from what i've been told. She died 12/14/2013 in Virginia Beach Va, USA. Her spouses that i know of (2/3) is George Spohn and Carl Sears. I think i may have found a class photo of her at East Orange High School in NJ class of 1960's i believe. I narrowed that down to Essex NJ where she was also married. As for her parents or family no one seems to have a name floating around anywhere. As i mentioned before she was extremely cut off to the topic but i to this day am not sure why. I was told that she did have a mother and father, along with at least 1 brother and 1 sister. All of which were said to be her adopted family. However I have put together that this adoption may not have been one at all, and instead she was given to a close family member to be raised by. I'm not sure if she had another name during birth, i haven't found a single birth certificate or anything on her since i started my search. It's like she never existed until she was married the first time. I'm not sure if this detail helps any but i was also told her biological mother was believed to be the one who gave her up, and was a "street worker". There are a lot of unknowns with her case, which is why its been so difficult to find much of anything. I also see that Ms. Barb may be familiar with my cousins family tree, all of those things are exactly what i have been studying into in order to find the common ancestor for my grandmothers tree. I've never heard the name Hans before but stanislaw is exactly it. Marianna Rybicka was indeed his wife, and they had what i believe to be 4 children together. Stanislaw's childrens birth records is where i see the mix up in which birth year is truly his and i haven't been able to pin point an exact date for him. I am familiar with the locations listed as well except kuczbork, i don't know if i've seen that before. Lastly i am 99.9% sure my grandmothers adoptive family had the last name Chrzanowski, my grandfather, her last husband, said he remembered her name being Chrzanowski before and he is almost certain it was the same name as her parents. If it could be any other name im not sure what it would be. I hope this can help a little? And thank you all again for all your input and help!
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marissa sears

Sophia
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Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2024 5:18 am Post subject:

Hi Marissa,

June Marion Chrzanowski was born in 1948. That changes everything. She is simply too recently born to be included in most of the resources that I had hoped to use.

Still, there are a few things that you can try. First of all, she is listed in the Social Security Death Index, so you may consider requesting a copy of her application. When she applied, she would have had to provide her parents' names. If the names she provided are those of her adoptive parents, then you will not have learned much. We don't really know if she was adopted as an infant or as a child, and we don't really know whether she herself knew the names of her biological parents. Anyway, here is a link to a genealogy blog about how to get the social security application:
https://www.legacytree.com/blog/using-social-security-administration-records-genealogy
You should note that since she was born less than 100 years ago, there is the risk that the names of her parents will be redacted on the copy they send you (follow the link the author provides to a second blog article that talks about redacted info), so you may want to try convincing them that she was an orphan. She may well have been.

Another approach you can take is to look at the 1950 census, when your grandmother was 2 years old. I looked, for example, for all people with first name of June M* (that is, I used the asterisk as a wildcard so that it would find everyone whose first name was June and whose middle name begins with M) and I did not specify a last name. Then I limited the results to people born between 1947 and 1949 and I again limited the results to people living in New Jersey. Among the results is a "June M. Garscki" living in Kearny, the 2 year old daughter of Thomas and Anna. This June had a 1 year old brother named Thomas Jr. You don't need to follow my search strategy exactly, but you get the idea. What if there was some family tragedy after this census was taken and this little girl was adopted? All that goes out the window if you actually have the 1950 census showing your grandmother with her adoptive parents. But if you don't, then you can look at the various names that come up and see if you can trace them forward. If you find death records for Thomas and Anna Garscki, then maybe you've got something here. I didn't look. I'm just trying to give you a search strategy.

One more thought. Have you considered the possibility that Marion, rather than being her middle name, is her birth surname? The 1950 census does show families with that surname in Essex County. Also, from what you wrote, it looks like you are saying George Spohn was her second husband. So could Marion be the surname of her first husband? So you might see if you can find marriage records for a June Marion or for a June Garscki (try spelling that one a few different ways, maybe Garski or Gorski or even Gorecki, as the name might have been transcribed incorrectly when the 1950 census was indexed on Family Search).

In the meantime, I will see if I can come up with any better approach.

Best regards,
Sophia

BarbOslo
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Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2024 12:18 pm Post subject:

Hi,
All cases involving adopted children are difficult to resolve. Rare information about biological parents can be found in church records. Sophia, you hit on several possibilities, but it won't be easy. We must begin in the United States. Later we can look for it in Polish church books. But as you said birth in 1948 is simply too recent.

Marissa, exactly what you wrote. Stanislaw was not named Hans Stanislaw. It's my fault. On a daily basis, I speak Norwegian, and it happens that I think too fast. Or better to say not thinking, hehe. And then simple Norwegian words come when I write English. "Hans" in Norwegian means "his". Since it was the first word in this sentence, it was written with a capital letter. And it became the first name Hans.

-Barb

Trish
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2024 11:28 am Post subject:

Hi Marissa, Sophia, and Barb,

I am an adoptee, so I know how frustrating it is to find information on your biological family. I have to go through the posts and see what everyone has written. I just wanted to share the following information with you.

Some States like Pennsylvania and New Jersey started to allow adoptees access to a "copy" of their original birth record. However, the records can get sealed again at any time. An example is Pennsylvania opened these records in 2017. The last time the records were open was 1985. New Jersey's records are now available also.

https://www.nj.gov/health/vital/adoption/

Scroll to the bottom of the link and click on "Instructions". Look for the following:

EG-41 Application for an Uncertified Copy of an Adopted Person's Original Birth Record
pdf (18k) Instructions (pdf 16k)
doc (41k) Instructions (doc 38k)

Hope this link works. It is the instruction on how to obtain the record.
https://www.nj.gov/health/forms/reg-41instr_1.pdf

Regards,
Trish

Trish
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2024 1:13 pm Post subject:

Marissalolxoxo wrote:

Hi Marissa,
Sophia had a good idea with trying to obtain June's Social Security application.

Did you try getting June's 1966 marriage record to Geroge Spohn? You want the marriage application, not just the marriage certificate. The application could list her parents names.

Here is the information for Essex County, New Jersey. On the right hand side is the phone number for Livingston. I would call and ask how to obtain June's marriage record to George.

https://essexcountynj.org/birth-certificate/

Name June M Chrzanowski
Maiden Name Chrzanowski
Gender Female
Marriage Date Jul 1965
Marriage Place Livingston Township, Essex, New Jersey, USA
Spouse
George J Spohn
Certificate Number 22215

Do you have a copy of the marriage record between June and Carl Sears? You want the marriage application which could list her parents' names. The application might also list how many times she was married.

In June's Obituary, there is a surname of Snipe. Do you believe this is a possible spouse for June?

These are all just some ideas as to how to get information on June.

Regards,
Trish

Sophia
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2024 1:24 pm Post subject:

Trish wrote:

Hi Trish,
Thanks so much for posting this! Your suggestion is so practical and straightforward. I had no idea that these records could be obtained.
Sophia

Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
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Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2024 2:45 pm Post subject:

Thank you all so much for the links and different suggestions, i didn't expect so many different answers haha. I was worried because it was so recent in time this would be a issue. I never thought to look into some of these options, from what i do remember my grandmother tried to obtain a copy of her adoption record when she was still alive and i was told she was denied. I wasn't sure if my application for it would do much but since she passed i had considered this idea but had no idea where to start. The links provided are extremely helpful and i thank all of you for them. After this reply i plan to use each one to see what i can find. As for carl and june's records i have found nothing on the both of them being married or having any sort of application together. I know for a fact they were married at some point though, yet my grandfather is still alive so im not sure how easy it would be to try and get those records if for confidentiality reasons. If i have any luck at all with these links or request i'll make sure to update this post. Thank you again!
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marissa sears

Trish
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Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2024 9:26 am Post subject:

Hi Marissa,
I am going to elaborate on a few things.

Quote:

I never thought to look into some of these options, from what i do remember my grandmother tried to obtain a copy of her adoption record when she was still alive and i was told she was denied.

Actual adoption records are sealed in most States unless it was an open adoption. However, some States are allowing adoptees access to obtain their “non-certified” original birth record. This record cannot be used for anything legal. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are allowing this access including several other States.

You being a direct descendant and grandmother already is deceased allows you to obtain her “original” birth record. If your grandmother was alive, she would be the only one able to access the record.

Adoptees have two birth records. The first record is the “original” birth record with their original name. Most times the biological mother’s name is listed. The biological father’s name is optional. The second birth record is known as an “amended” birth record. This is where some adoptees have their name changed. Their adoptive parents are then listed on the record as the parents along with the child's new name. An “amended” birth record is also used when people legally change their name. An example would be when someone wants to be called Walter instead of Wladyslaw and they legally change their name to do so.

Quote:

As for carl and june's records i have found nothing on the both of them being married or having any sort of application together. I know for a fact they were married at some point though, yet my grandfather is still alive so im not sure how easy it would be to try and get those records if for confidentiality reasons.
In most States, marriage records are open to the public. This means you can obtain a record of your grandmother’s marriage record.

You want to ask for the “marriage application” along with the “marriage certificate”. The “marriage certificate” only lists the bride’s name, the groom’s name, and the date they were married.

The “marriage application” will list the bride’s name, the groom’s names and information about the couple such as: date of birth, place of birth, parents’ names, the parents’ place of birth, whether or not the parents were alive or deceased at the time of the marriage. It might list occupations for the spouses and the parents. Some records might actually state “unknown” listed in several areas.

It is worth trying to get the New Jersey Marriage record for your grandmother since you have the names of the couple, the location of the marriage, the marriage certificate number, and an approximate marriage date of July 1966.

Quote:

About the DNA matches

Did you try doing a Leeds Method Chart? Here is a YouTube video about the Leed's Method Chart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-74LJyjqo9c

Creating the spreadsheet does help see how your DNA matches connect to different surnames.

Question:
Do you need your grandmother's obituary? I have a copy of it that I can post if you need it.

Keep us posted as to how you make out.
Trish

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