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sunhair

Joined: 14 Jul 2008
Replies: 3
Location: Philadelphia,Pa
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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:38 pm Post subject: What to do when hitting a dead end??

Greetings~

I am new researching my family I really don't have much info as my grandmother didn't talk about her family we never even met them the info that I do have is down below

my great grand parents I know that my great grandfather is polish and from Poland I don't know where in Poland he came from or when I know that is was before WWI his name is Sobieslaw Lesnewski. My great grandmother was German her name was Mabel Kaiser my grandmother was born in Eugene Oregon 1913. Her name is Vera Mellyne Lesnewski I have tried searching the census records and immigration records but it makes i even harder cause I don't know what port they came in it was all null for Ellis Island

I have even gone to the extent of ordering her original copy of her SS5 application It was issued in Washington State 1942 her parents have completely different names from what was on her birth cert her fathers first name changed to Jack M Lesnewski and her mothers surname changed as well from Kaiser to Kloster.

Anyone have any ideas where I can go from here

NancyM
PolishOrigins Matka Chrzestna

Joined: 14 Dec 2007
Replies: 185
Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject:

Hello sunhair,

Welcome to the forum! Very Happy

Were you able to find your G-Gparents in the census records? Did they have other children besides your grandmother?

Have you looked for:

1. marriage records for your great-grandparents (church as well as civil records)

2. birth certificate for your grandmother (and any siblings) (and baptism records from a church)

3. death certificates for your great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts uncles, etc

4. if your GGfather changed his name legally, there will be records of that

5. naturalization records of your GGfather?

Any of those records might provide additional information as to the town of their origin, or give you clues to follow.

Some of the other posts in this forum might give you other ideas of where to search, check out this one
http://polishorigins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40

Let us know if you are able to find anything, or if none of those avenues work.

sunhair

Joined: 14 Jul 2008
Replies: 3
Location: Philadelphia,Pa
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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:48 pm Post subject:

hiya nancy~

Thanks for the Welcome Very Happy

I have tried searching through the census the 1920,1930's for both Oregon and Washington State

this is the thing I do not even know if my grandmother had any siblings she never talked about her family at all. we never even met any of them Sad

So I don't even know if we have any relatives from my grandmothers siblings if she had any

My grandmother is Jewish and my mother had heard that they came to America before WWI . I have tried searching through the Jewish Gen to see if they would be there.

I have even tried searching through Ellis Island records as well as San Fran and other major ports

I have contacted a Genealogist in my grandmothers home town I am hoping that I can get somewhere with this the only info I have are their names that are on my grandmothers birth cert and her ss5 original application it is very weird her ss5 as it has a completely different year for her DOB and her parents names had changed from Sobieslaw Lesnewski to Jack M Lesnewski and from Mabel Kaiser to Mabel Kloster

My grandmother was living in Seattle Washington in 1942 as Vera Mellyne Rush but her name given name at birth was listed as Vera Mellyne Lesnewski

I am wondering if it could be possible that my great grandparents returned to their home countries at a later date as I have found null info on them Confused

I will try to see happens

NancyM
PolishOrigins Matka Chrzestna

Joined: 14 Dec 2007
Replies: 185
Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject:

Hi again sunhair,

Hopefully the genealogist that you have contacted will be able to track down some new info for you.

I don't think it is too strange that your GGfather's first name was anglicized - a lot of people did that so they would "fit in" better.

Don't know about changing "Kaiser" to Kloster" although maybe she was feeling a little sensitive about the name during the war years. Doesn't it seem unlikely that your GGparents would have returned to Europe after WWII?

There are lots of reasons why you might not be finding them in the census records - one thing is that there are often huge spelling errors (either the census taker could not understand the name, or it was incorrectly transcribed into the database). I was searching for "Maciolek" (I was positive of the address/date, etc) and finally found it recorded as "Maccoca" Rolling Eyes

- Had to go page by page through the census, as the Soundex system did not find it.

Zenon
PolishOrigins Team Leader

Joined: 28 Apr 2007
Replies: 1532
Location: Poland
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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:14 pm Post subject:

Nancy made a very good point about common problem with name changes. For example, in Polish your surname Lesnewski is spelled Leśniewski.

I don't know how it is in Ellis Island website but in ancestry.com you can put, for example, just three first letters of given surname ended by * mark and you will get results of all surnames starting with the letters. In your case it could be 'Les*'

At the same time, Sobieslaw is rather not common first name. Thus, what just came to my mind - why don't try combination: First name 'Sobieslaw', Surname 'Les*'?

Good luck Exclamation

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