1940 US Census Indexing Is Complete — #Genealogy, #Census, #1940

OK, Ancestry.com completed their indexing of the 1940 US Census and fast on their heels, FamilySearch.org also completed theirs — Stanczyk is not aware of the status of other 1940 Census providers’ status.

Prior To The Index

Prior to the indexes, I used Dr Stephen Morse’s One-Step website to figure out which Enumerated District (ED) I need to search sequentially, image-by-image. With most ED’s being between 35-50 images, this was not overly taxing and it yielded excellent results — after a week I had most of the people I most wanted to find.

State indexes rolled out, a few at a time. I found other high value targets in my index searches. Now that indexing is complete, I had thought to find the last few stragglers. I found some indexes as their was supposed to be in places that I had not suspected and hence the ED search did not yield them to me. A few had names that were slightly off in their transcription but none-the-less were easily findable. Some I had to get creative on imaging misspelling or mis-transcribing and I found a handful more.

I hope others did as I did in blazing my trail. When I found a badly indexed name, I used Ancestry.com’s View/Add Alternative Info. So when I finally found my Aunt Kitty (Catherine Eliasz, now married and a Perinoff), who was born as Casimiera Elijasz, but always used Catherine Eliasz in my lifetime. I entered the mis-transcribed name correctly so that other genealogists after me would be able to find my aunt Kitty more easily (and as a bonus they would also find me too).

Where’s Aunt Alice?

So, where is my Aunt Alice? I had correctly anticipated that both my aunt Alice (the eldest) and Catherine (2nd eldest) would be married and I knew the husband’s name. As you see I found my aunt Kitty. But my best efforts at locating my Aunt Alice have failed. I tried using only her first name or only the last name. I tried by other data points I knew (Detroit, MI, USA — I kept broadening the search, even though I “knew” she was in Detroit). I tried locating a woman living in Detroit born in 1910 +/- 1 year (then 2 and 5 years) who was born in Poland (and Russia, just in case they still referenced Russian-Poland partition in that way). No luck !!! I tried searching for her fist husband — not found either ??  So I tried locating her second husband — no luck, he was still single living at home with his parents. No Alice and no first husband — could they have been missed?

The Missing

So here is my list of most sought after ancestors: Aunt Alice (nee Eliasz), could be listed as some corrupted version of EPPERLY (although I tried a combination of this I could think of). My mother’s sister Helen McLean. My dad’s cousins: Emil Leszczynski, Stephen/Matthew/Stanley Sobieszczanski. I thought I would find Emil. I was prepared to find him living away at college (law school) — no luck. As for the Sobieszczanski boys I was surprised, that outside of their brother Henry, I could find none. Perhaps the three are in the US military — after all I had another uncle that served in the US Navy 1935-1938.

How about you? Do you have any AWOL ancestors from the 1940 Census too? Drop me a line (comment or email).

BigData means Backup … Security … Disaster Recovery … #RootsTech, #Backup

OK you have a laptop and / or a smartphone and / or a tablet and you also have data, perhaps a LOT of data. It creeps up on this hoarding of data / space. You need to be proactive to keep from losing your data. Primarily we speak of genealogy (or family / history) research and of course family photos and scans of documents, but perhaps you are a knowledge worker and use your computer equipment to produce works in your professional career too. I’ll speak of genealogical research / data and you can extend it to any other valuable data / files you may have.

Today’s blog came about from a cousin (alright second cousin, once removed), Robin. She was frustrated by losing files. So her family and friends had a nice debate over what she needs to do. Of course it is a very complex issue and needs to be customized to each person.

Let me state that designing a backup strategy that is free or low cost is almost impossible — unless you only have a small number of files (# and/or sizes) and can get by with the free: DropBox, GoogleDrive, Apple iCloud, etc.

You could conceivably cobble together a solution with enough “Cloud Services” and one account each for Robin and her husband on each service in order to build up a free usable amount of storage for backup on the Internet. OK, lets say that gets you “enough” space to do your backups. First off, you better hope the number/size of files do NOT increase — but industry studies says otherwise, that data more than doubles each and every year. You will therefore run out of “free” space. Also, you will now have to invent a bookkeeping system to keep track of which files are backed up on which service in which account. Is it getting complicated yet?

How much data do you have to backup? This is the first question you need to answer. If you have an Internet service that limits data transfers or subjects you to overcharge fees then you really need to think about using the cloud. Keep in mind that you need to backup and at some point  to recover a lost file(s) — now that recovery will double those overage fees. Most people can quickly generate 30-60GB of “data” from their music, videos, books, apps, and their pictures and when you throw in their work products (which actually are the smallest part of the critical space) 30-6oGB goes quickly. My wife’s tablet is almost full and we do not use much music or video.

How do you lose files? Inadvertent deletes/drops? Hardware failures? Accidental overwrites with something else? How about malware/viruses etc. ? All of the above probably. Then you need a backup solution to cover all of those eventualities. How about if you live in Florida (Hurricanes), New Orleans (Hurricanes/Floods), Oklahoma/Nebraska/Kansas (Twisters), California (Earthquakes/Mudslides), etc. or in an area where terrorism can cause catastrophic failures (NYC, DC, Seattle’s Space Needle)?

But Stanczyk, what about my sensitive or private data (financials, non-disclosure documents, personal identity, etc.)? Where do you back that up to? Is the cloud safe? Do they lose data in the cloud? Can the cloud data be stolen/hacked? What happens when the cloud crashes and is unavailable? More worries.

By now I hope you get an idea that backup is:

1. Complex
2. Involves Some Costs
3. Requires Planning
4. Custom to Each Individual / Company
5. Recovery Needs to be Accounted for
6. You Need Access to Backups
7. Disaster Recovery (offsite)
8. Need Security

You could be tempted to just rationalize that December 2012 is coming up and either the Mayan Calendar and /or the World will end and why tax your brain to do backups anyway.

Solutions

Ideally, we want the following features in a solution:

1. 3 or 4 copies (counting the original copy)
2. 1 remote copy for disaster recovery (fire, hurricane, flood, theft/loss etc.)
3. Easy / Fast  recovery from the first backup (ergo 1st backup copy must be local)
4. Backups allow you to recover from accidental delete (assuming delete happens after the first backup)
5. If we backup data with privacy concerns then we WILL use encrypt / decrypt software before or as we make a copy
6. The Cloud can be used as the remote copy

Complexity. Just keep it simple, remember the acronym  KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Trying to do backups without spending money will add complexity. So complexity / time / money are your trade-offs. In my career, we used to say, “Good | Fast | Cheap;  Pick 2″. If you want a fast and cheap backup solution it will not be any good. If you want good and fast then it will not be cheap.

Lets say you have as your work product, family trees (gedcoms), scans of documents / pictures and notes / timelines (spreadsheets) / plans – lists. This is over and above your Apps, Pics, Music, Video, etc. How much space do these files all add up to? Is it 7ooMB, 1,400MB, 2,100MB then you can probably get away with burning CDs (or DVDs). CDs hold about 702MB. Make two (or better yet three copies). You need at least three copies (original plus 2 more).

Put one CD in your bank safety deposit box (if it fits). Send a second CD to one of your family members (preferably another genealogist who lives at least 90 miles away from you). The remote CDs provide for a disaster recovery in case of something catastrophic happens at your residence. You can always retrieve the CD from the bank or your family member who may be outside the area affected by the disaster. Obviously, the further away your other copies are, the longer it will be before you can gain access to them to begin recovery — but the securer the disaster copy will be. This is fairly cheap. The flaw is … you keep getting more data / files or the files keep growing. Your family tree changes repeatedly (additions and subtractions). Sometimes you can rewrite the CD (if there is still space) and sometimes you cannot rewrite because the CD does not allow for rewriting or the space is insufficient to handle the larger file. Also if you have 30 GB that needs to be backed up or more then CDs are not viable because you need too many CDs. It is also hard to keep track of multiple versions in case you need to recover from a version that is not the last backup version. I do not recommend CDs but it is fairly simple and fairly cheap.

You can also  substitute DVDs, USB drives (also called thumb drives) for CDs which provide greater space.

Monday - Backing-Up via backup software, external drives, and the Internet/Cloud.

US Presidents in the US Census — #US, #Census, #Genealogy, #History

 This year the 1940 Census came out. By law the census is released after 72 years. So anyone you may want to find in the US Census must be at least 72 years old this year.

Do you have the urge to peer at the Presidents in the census? Well then you are in luck! The National Archives has developed a web page on the US Presidents recorded in the US Census. George Walker Bush (#43) has only just turned 66 this month so he is not there. President Bill Clinton will turn 66 next month, ergo he too has not yet appeared in the US Census. So President George H. W. Bush (#41) is the last President to appear in the census. Here is the 1930 Census (CT, Fairfield, Greenwich, ED: 1-134, SHT 4A) in which the president is five years old. Now that is Ancestry.com so you need a membership to view the image.

NARA – Presidents in the Census  (click on the link to go to their website)

I had fun looking at Thomas Jefferson. Many of the Presidents are recorded in more than one census. The links open to a page of census images and even a picture of the President. This might be a novel add-on for K-12 History Curriculum. Also a nice way to work the genealogy subject  into history (or vice-versa). All in all, this genealogical slant on history may spur new ideas for research.

My thanks to the NARA librarians/researchers who provided such a valuable resource!

I also want to thank @NYPLMilstein (twitter) who posted this tidbit on twitter.

Much More Ado About Mitt … Its All True — #Bain, #Romney, #Presidential, #Politics

Today’s research is from SEC / EDGAR website …

Today a whole lot of comments about whether Mitt Romney was involved or not with Bain after February 1999 or not. I do not want to cover that ground but I recommend the following articles that cover the issues:

Boston Globe – “Mitt Romney stayed at Bain 3 years longer than he stated“

Yahoo News – “Report: Romney at Bain Three Years Longer Than He Claimed“

There were many other sources as well.

My motivation was the Romney campaign denying these reports and calling the President and his team misleading. This is another lie/inaccurate statement by the Romney Campaign team and Romney to deny the President and his campaign team and the Boston Globe report.

This jester went to the SEC website and looked at the EDGAR webpages listing the Bain SEC filings from 1999 through 2002. I have compiled a spreadsheet with links for any journalists or media types to follow or for you my blog followers/readers to follow.

The facts are as the Boston Globe and President Obama stated. The Bain companies’ SEC filings indicate that Mitt Romney had substantial involvement with Bain well beyond February 1999.

Romney had involvements with Bain as the various fillings state as:

• Has Mitt Romney signature as a preparer/submitter of the filing
• Title: CEO,   Principal Occupation: Managing Director Bain Capital Inc.
• Share voting and dispositive powers
• Mr W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital and thus is the controlling person of Bain Capital.

The above are lines directly from copied from the SEC filing text (see spreadsheet below). In many of the filings Mitt Romney’s name was listed many times in many capacities. But clearly he was involved for longer than he has stated. Maybe as much as three years into 2002. Definitely, my spreadsheet showed some level of involvement through at least May of 2001. I could not find any involvement as of  February 8th, 2002 and going forward (as indicated by SEC filings).

My Methodlogy was to only look at Bain Capital, Brookside or BCIP filings, but there were many more where Bain was involved with other companies that I did not examine. There were a total of 131 filings and I only examined 20 filings and document sixteen filings below in the spreadsheet table.

Mr Romney you need to apologize to the President and indeed to all of America. You definitely had involvement as documented by the legal filings with the SEC. Beyond apologies, I think Mitt Romney owes all Americans complete transparency to get beyond this controversy. Mitt Romney I call on you to be open and transparent on this controversy and any SEC investigation. The first step is to release all TAX RETURNS from 1999 through 2008 inclusive. This covers the period of concern in the Boston Globe investigative article, which said you did not finalize your severance until 2002 and then made it a ten year severance pact, retroactively starting from February 1999. Hence we need 1999 through 2008 TAX YEARS to examine your involvement and to clear up whether these “mistatements” on your or your campaign’s part were meant to deceive MA voters and/or the USA voters in this Presidential campaign (as well as 2008′s campaign too).

Now before I stop writing and paste my research, let me state that I am still a registered Republican. I even sent money to Mitt Romney for his 2008 campaign and still receive his mailings up to the present.

But I vote for Democrats since TEA Party, Grover Norquist pledgers seems to be dedicated to ruining this country by doing NOTHING in DC and by sowing the seeds of anarchy with their ignorant, made up facts and puerile focus on women’s health rights, gay marriages, suppressing voter rights, etc.  These are not intellectual Republicans. They are not small government/low tax Republicans — because they work on limiting civil rights instead of lowering taxes and creating jobs and solving the economic woes of our nation. You cannot be a small government/low tax government if you keep trying to get the Federal government involved in social issues of every American. Real Republicans do not want to enforce social mores by Big Brother-Big Government, they are merely fiscal conservatives and prize securing the blessings of America by utilizing the military in only just ways and to ensure our defense and protection of our liberties from all enemies foreign and domestic.

Here is the spreadsheet data(evidence) that will stop the Republican/Romney lies … [If you do not believe me, then click on every link and look at each document as I did.]

Filing Date	Link to SEC Filing	ROMNEY Involved	SEC File to Read	NOTES
4/13/1999	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1033683/0000950131-99-002266.txt	Yes	0000950131-99-002266.txt	has his signature
9/27/1999	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/830134/0000927016-99-003307.txt	Yes	0000927016-99-003307.txt
2/14/2000	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1027584/0000950131-00-001153.txt	Yes	0000950131-00-001153.txt	has his signature
2/14/2000	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1033683/0000950131-00-001151.txt	Yes	0000950131-00-001151.txt
7/6/2000	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1033683/000092701600002402/0000927016-00-002402.txt	Yes	0000927016-00-002402.txt
7/14/2000	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065042/000092701600002483/0000927016-00-002483-index.htm	Yes	0000927016-00-002483.txt
7/26/2000	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/6885/000092701600002587/0000927016-00-002587.txt	Yes	0000927016-00-002587.txt	Mr W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital and thus is the controlling person of Bain Capital.
11/6/2000	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1033683/000092701600003722/0000927016-00-003722-index.htm	Yes	0000927016-00-003722.txt	share voting and dispositive power
2/13/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874689/000092701601000754/0000927016-01-000754.txt	Yes	0000927016-01-000754.txt	has his signature
2/13/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065042/000092701601000764/0000927016-01-000764.txt	Yes	0000927016-01-000764.txt
2/14/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065042/000089843001000644/0000898430-01-000644.txt	Yes	0000898430-01-000644.txt	has his signature
2/20/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1054290/000092701601001009/0000927016-01-001009.txt	Yes	0000927016-01-001009.txt	Title: CEO,   Principal Occupation: Managing Director Bain Capital Inc.
2/22/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065042/000089843001000745/0000898430-01-000745.txt	Yes	0000898430-01-000745.txt	has his signature
5/14/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1033683/000092701601501004/0000927016-01-501004.txt	Yes	0000927016-01-501004.txt	share voting and dispositive power
5/14/2001	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1033683/000092701601500679/0000927016-01-500679.txt	Yes	0000927016-01-500679.txt	share voting and dispositive power
2/8/2002	www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874689/000104596902000154/0001045969-02-000154.txt	No	0001045969-02-000154.txt	After this no indication of Romney involvement in SEC filings
The above are for Bain Capital, BCIP, and Brookside. There were a total of 131 filings 1999-2002 that involved Bain entities. The remainder were listed under differing company names and were not examined

2012 – Year of the Census — #Genealogy, #Census, #State, #Territory

NY State Censuses: Colonial | State

2012 has certainly been a very good genealogical year for this jester. Recently, Ancestry.com completed the 1940 index for NY and I was thrilled to find my grand-uncle Frank Leszczynski ! Grand-Uncle Frank (aka Franciszek was 75 in 1940, and was the god-father at my aunt Catherine’s birth in 1914 and was from my great-grandfather Tomasz’s first wife, Julianna). He is a Naturalized citizen on/before 1940, after having filed in 1931 (Declaration of Intent). Why he is living with a family of Pawelczak as a lodger is a question. After all, he has two half-siblings living nearby, including my grand-uncle Michael whom he was living with when he filed the Declaration of Intent in 1931. So why live at 819 Oliver Street in North Tonawanda (Niagara County, NY) with the Pawelczaks — which he & the Pawelczaks did since 1935 according to the census data?

I still need to find Frank’s death certificate and death notice (if possible) and his Naturalization papers (Erie County or more likely Niagara County).

Ancestry on 5th-June-2012 also released indexes and images of the NY State Census for 1892, 1915, 1925 (previously they had done 1905, partially?).

NY Censuses & 1940 US Census both making my research in NY state a little more complete.

State Censuses

Family Tree Magazine had a nice “Cut & Save” chart on State Censuses (not the US Federal Census). Here is my Cut/Saved images of the States and their Colonial or Territorial or State Censuses that are available … somewhere.

Alabama .. Minnesota

Mississippi .. Wyoming

Big Data – Every Minute Of Every Day …

     Every minute of Every day,  you and I and the rest of the Internati produce data, big data in some kind of Internet colony. We email or blog or even a Facebook post or a 140 character tweet. Being genealogists we search databases and post trees with their connections and images like the 1940 US Census pages that hold our family members. And every day we post more data to the Internet. That is what the picture shows.

The pace of Big Data is increasing too.

Who backs up the Internet? Who archives the web? The “Wayback Machine” seems to record our civilization’s record so this work may last as long as Babylon’s cuneiform or Egypts hieroglyphs. Or will it? I know the Library of Congress is wrestling with Archival Issues of Digital works.

What is the disaster recovery plan of a sun spot interference or another magnetic burst? Books will survive and be immediately available but what about digital works? How do we backup all of this data exlposion?

Post Office Department – Stanczyk’s Mailbag — #Polish, #Genealogy, Kuc, Kucz, Swiniary

From the Post Office Department

From Stanczyk’s Mail Bag …

Email From:   Barbara

I have been trying to do research in Pacanow but have not been very successful.  My Grandmother — Maryanna Kuc(z) is from Oblekon.  I wrote to the parish there — Parafia p.w. Najswietszej Maryi Panny Krolowej Swiata but never received a reply.  Perhaps they just couldn’t find any information.

My Grandmother:      Maryanna Kuc(z)

Born:                        March 15, 1886

Baptized                   March  25, 1887

Immigrated to USA:    September 1912

Father:                      Benedict Ku(z)

Mother’s first name:    Marianna

She had a sister Eva (born 1895)

 & a brother Jozef  (born 1893) both came to America.

I think she had other siblings but have not been able to find any records from Poland at all i.e. Marriage of parents, birth or baptisms or death of her parents.  I know her father was alive in 1912 when she came to America.

If you can help or shed any light on how I could obtain the information I am seeking, I would be extremely grateful.

Keep up the excellent work on your blog.

Thank you for any information in can provide and Thank you for your blog,  I learn a lot from it.

Barbara

I had told Barbara that I would search the Swiniary indexes that I have pictures of to see if I could find anything for her. When I searched my indexes, I found that her family name is spelled most as she had it: Kucz, but I did find one example where the priest wrote Kuć. There was also another family Kuzon, but I do NOT feel like they are the same family as her Kucz/ Kuć. Since this was from the era 1829-1852 the records were in Polish. I found one marriage index in the Swiniary parish:

1836 Franciszek Kuć marries Maryanna Duponką   [this is not your great-grandparents, but probably related]. 1836 was the only year that I had a marriage index picture.

1830-1840 no Kucz/ Kuć births in the indexes.

1841 Jozef Kucz birth record #23

1842 Maciej Kucz birth record #21

1843-1845 no Kucz/ Kuć births in the indexes.

1846-1849 I had no indexes (or pictures thereof)

1850 no Kucz/ Kuć births in the indexes.

1851 I had no indexes (or pictures thereof)

1852 Stanislaw Kucz birth record #28

I think I have seen Kuc in the surrounding parishes (Biechow & Pacanow).

First off, I checked the LDS website (FamilySearch.org). I wanted to see what microfilm they had. Your birthdates: 1886, 1893, 1895 are rather late (most LDS microfilm stop around 1884). Here is their inventory for Swiniary (you want “Akta urodzeń“, for births):

Family History Library Catalog (Place Search): Swiniary

Akta urodzeń 1686-1811 — małżeństw 1668-1863 — zgonów 1686-1811 -  INTL Film [ 939952 ]
Akta urodzeń 1797-1811, 1826-1865 -  INTL Film [ 939951 ]
Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów 1812-1816, 1818-1825 -  INTL Film [ 939949 ]
Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów 1878-1884 -  INTL Film [ 1808854 Items 9-15 ]

Akta zgonów 1797-1839 -  INTL Film [ 939950 ]

–

That is all the LDS (aka Mormons) have in their Family History Library that you can rent microfilm from. Next I checked the Polish National Archives via PRADZIAD . They did have books/microfilm for the date range you are seeking. Here is the contact info for the archive that has the data you seek. You would need to write them in Polish and they will write you back with their findings and instructions for wiring their bank the money they require (all in Polish).

PRADZIAD:

http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.php?l=en&mode=showopis&id=14781&miejscowosc=swiniary

Archive:

Archiwum Państwowe w Kielcach Oddział w Pińczowie – akta przeniesione do AP w Kielcach
28-400 Pińczów, ul. Batalionów Chłopskich 32
tel: (41) 357-20-02
fax: 357-20-02
email: pinczow@kielce.ap.gov.pl

I hope this helps you out!

–Stanczyk

BIG Genealogy — #Genealogy, #FamilyTree, #GEDCOM

When Stanczyk, wrote the title, he was not referring to Ancestry.com or any other endeavor by genealogical companies from the western USA. No, Stanczyk is fascinated with numbers .. of people.

Yesterday, this jester wrote about the Confuscius Family Tree. It is commonly accepted to be the largest genealogy (family tree). But I had to wonder … Why?

It is an old genealogy, dating back to Confucius’ birth in 551 BCE. It is now 2012, so we have a genealogy that is 2,563 years old. My much beloved wife/kids are Jewish. In the Hebrew calendar we are presently in the year 5772. Despite my having been to a Jewish Genealogical Conference and meeting a man who told me his genealogy went back to King David. [This jester resisted the rude/snarky comment that if he researched using both Old & New Testaments he could push his research back to Adam.]

I also did not ask him to show me his documentation, but assuming he could, his genealogy would have been another 500 years earlier (~ 1050BCE) and therefore this tree mathematically speaking (assuming there are other Judeo-Christian couplings before I & my wife) his tree had the potential if you could/would follow all/many branches and not just the direct lineal trunk you have a tree with approximately 100 generations (adding another 17 generations to the 83 for Confucius). This assumes a generation is 30 years. Now if we look at Confucius and see 2560 years = 83 generations, we see an average of 30.84 years per generation — so 30 years per generation is not a bad estimate.

What genealogy could be older still? Well according to the Bible we record the Jewish peoples in Babylonia. So perhaps we can extend King David and/or one of his citizens back to King Hammurabi of Babylonia — that would yield another 650 years (~1700BCE) or about another 22 generations. Let me see if Confucius’ family tree is about 2 Million for 83 generations we get about 24,096 people per generation. So by adding 39 more generations then Hammurabi’s Family Tree should contain approximately another 940,000 people. So come on Iraq produce your family tree of nearly 3 Million people!

What genealogy could be older than that? There is a quote that goes something like, “History knows no time when the Egyptians were not highly developed both physically and intellectually.” True enough, recorded history does go back furthest in the Pharaohnic dynasties. That takes genealogy back to the first dynasty King (Pharoah) Menes, who sure enough had a son who wrote about Astronomy [source: Timechart History Of The World, ISBN 0-7607-6534-0 ]. That takes us to approximately, 3,000 BCE, another 1300 years/44 generations/1.06Million people! Ok, since there is no recorded history earlier than that, we will not have a properly sourced genealogy older than this. So people who are Elizabeth Shown Mills devotees turn your heads away …

What genealogy could possibly be older than that? I read that the indigenous peoples of Australia have an oral history of 48,000 generations! The aboriginal people of Australia date back to about 50,000 BCE, which would be 52,000 years ago/1734 generations/41.8Million people in their family tree. That’s not 48,000 generations, but that is more than twice as much as genealogy researchers test using their FAN24.ged file which has 24 completely full generations with 16.8Million pseudo people.

Now that is what I call BIG Genealogy. But where is that family tree (not FAN24.ged)? Why has no genealogy older than Confucius’ genealogy been found and carried forward to the present day? Is it possible that such a family tree exists?

–Email me!

Related Blog Articles …

“Random Musings” (10-March-2010, see musing #2)

Greenland, China – Where Are You? — #Genealogy, #Blog, #Map

The map you see is this blog’s reach since some time in February.

My hope with this blog is to reach Greenland and China (中国).

My blog is connected to Greenland in this one way…

My first cousin Stephen E. Eliasz (whom we always called “Butchy”) was stationed in Greenland. I remember my father’s comments about the pictures of his from Greenland — which from my dad’s comments I pictured as icy. True, enough the Thule Air Base is the US base closest to the North Pole. I hope there is another Polish genealogist in Greenland who searches/finds this blog. I am trying to fill in the above map with as many genealogists from all over the globe.

My only connection to China – who are avid genealogists is my fascination with GEDCOM and family trees. I used to think that if you were related to Genghis Khan (born circa 1162) then you would have the largest family tree, because he had a vast empire and many wives. However, time works its wonder in many ways. The people with the largest family trees are those related to Confucius (551-479 BC, the religous/philosopher founder).

The Confucius Genealogy, originally recorded by hand, was first printed in 1080 AD [80+ years before Genghis Khan's birth]. Now the latest compilation of which there is a Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee that is responsible for collecting, collating and publishing the 2,500 years worth of genealogical data. According to a web post by Tamura Jones (2/17/2008),

Confucius family tree, last updated in 1930. Back then, the tree already had 560,000 members Today, it has more than 2 million. The longest lines in the tree span 83 generations.

Tamura’s article was written just before the last time the Confucius Genealogy published in September 24, 2009  (as a pre-announcement). That 2009 publishing was the first time, the Confucius Genealogy included female descendants. So I guess the extra 1,700 years of Confucius ( 孔子) trumps the extra wives that Genghis Khan had. That is my only connection to Chinese Genealogy (家谱).

Does anyone have more than 83 generations (with citations documenting your lineage)?

Genealogy Top 125 Websites (2012 2nd Qtr) Released ! — #Genealogy, #Website, #Rankings, #Metrics

The Latest Top 125 GENEALOGY Websites are out !

Not surprisingly, all things Ancestry.com or owned by them are in the top 20.

The 1940 US Census that came out on April 2nd, had a profound impact on the rankings. Obviously any web site related to the 1940 US Census had a boost in their ranking (except Ancestry which was already number 1). Here are the Top 125 Genealogy Websites (or click the image) !

SteveMorse.org

SteveMorse.org, the One-Step Website that is a king of Swiss knife of genealogy actually dropped about 100K in the ranking and rising nine places on the list to become the 19th highest rated website ! This impressive improvement is related to the 1940 US Census, even though this is not one of the four websites with actual census pages.

Dr. Morse’s http://www.stevemorse.org/census/unified web page which helps you find the best Enumeration District (ED) to browse (until indexes are created) by utilizing an address or the 1930 ED to point you at the valid 1940 ED(s) that you should begin your search with.

Mocavo.com

Mocavo is the new genealogy search engine. You can think of this as a Google for genealogy web pages and databases. This is a fairly new launched service and was a big splash at this year’s RootsTech (2012). Mocavo too, was up nine places on the list and is now the 17th highest rated website.

Looking 4 Kin

This relatively unknown website jumped an astounding 38 spots (now #47) on the top 125 and this jester thought that kind of improvement had to be mentioned.

New Additions

Louis Kessler‘s two websites: BeholdGenealogy.com (#87) and GenealogySoftReviews.com (#74) were new additions. I also added Archives.com to the list because it was one of the four websites hosting the 1940 US Census images. So Archives.com cracked the list at #6. Well done! You may also recognize this website as the newest acquisition by Ancestry.com.

Stanczyk has had to give his own website a honorary spot, as my blog has dropped out of the top 125??? I am bit surprised, as last year when my popularity increased 4-fold I gained 5M in the ranking and had a nice #120 spot. In 2012, thanks to you my faithful readers, my popularity increased between 2.5-3-fold again. Surprisingly, I dropped 5M in my rankings and I had to remove my website from the top 125. Alexa.com are you sure?

This jester is sorely puzzled as my website stats are off the charts this year and I have already matched last year’s unique reader count and it is only the end of April! Another indicator that my readership is up 3-fold. However, I yield to the methodology and look forward to making the list next quarter.

Alytus / Olita – Udrija / Baksiai — #Polish, #Lithuanian, #Genealogy

Recently, Stanczyk was asked about a Pennsylvania family and if I could find their ancestral villages, so they could make a family pilgrimage to get in touch with their Genealogical Roots.

See the red annotation (circle / underline) near the map center. This is region as shown from a 1757 map of the Polish / Lithuanian Commonwealth.

One of the immediate points of this region needs to be made explicit. Obviously, it was a part of the Lithuanian Duchy before, then Part of Poland, it became part of Prussian-Poland partition, then part of the Russian Empire, before becoming Lithuania in modern times.

That much border re-drawing causes a lot of languages / archives to come into play. Records can be expected to be found in Latin, Lithuanian, Polish, German, Hebrew/Yiddish and Russian.

The region is known in various languages. So I sought out JewishGen ShtetlSeeker to help me learn all of the various names and here is the pop-up if you hover over the Alytus name:

Most researchers will want to take note of it as Olita in Suwalki wojewodztwo (when in the Polish Kingdom) or as Oлита (Russian/Cyrillic) in Troki uyezd, Vilna gubernia.

Family Search has microfilm for both Catholic and Jewish metrical books:

Lithuania, Alytus – Church records ₍₁₎
Metrical books, 1797-1873
Lithuania, Alytus – Jewish records ₍₁₎
Metrical books, 1835-1914

Pradziad has some archival records too. Their records are for Jewish metrical records in the year range: 1835-1872 .

Obviously, if you visit the locale, then parish records may exist in Udrija or Baksiai parishes/synagogues in the Alytus region of Lithuania. Besides the Catholic records, there may also be Lutheran records too.

A more modern map (Olita/Alytus) can be found on the Polish map site mapywig.org . Please NOTE this is a large / detailed map. The area of this article is in the left-center area on the river.

1940 US Census Finds … — #Genealogy, #1940, #Census

Yesterday, Stanczyk wrote about some of the questions he was able to answer and also some of the interesting new pieces of information too. Today I wanted to list my finds:

1. 1940Census_ED15_35_SHT9A_MrozekAlbert.jpg
2. 1940Census_ED15_37_SHT6A_LeszczynskiMichael.jpg
3. 1940Census_ED15_37_SHT8B_LeszczynskiTheophilus.jpg
4. 1940Census_ED51_22_SHT10A_SolomonBenjamin.jpg
5. 1940Census_ED64_208_SHT13A_LeszczynskiJohnBuffalo.jpg
6. 1940Census_ED74_29_SHT8A_GronekFamily_PortHuron.jpg
7. 1940Census_ED82_100_SHT19B_GawlikowskiCatherineWidow.jpg
8. 1940Census_ED84_1246_SHT5A_Vespek_Family.jpg
9. 1940Census_ED84_583_SHT7A_GawlikowskiAdamRose_page1.jpg
10. 1940Census_ED84_583_SHT7B_GawlikowskiAdamRose_page2_also_SarotteFamily.jpg
11. 1940Census_ED84_586_SHT3B_KedzierskiMI.jpg
12. 1940Census_ED84_710_SHT5A_EliaszFamily_page1.jpg
13. 1940Census_ED84_710_SHT5B_EliaszFamily_page2.jpg
14. 1940Census_ED92_353_SHT16B_HajekFamily.jpg
15. 1940Census_ED95_217_SHT17A_NadolnyRose.jpg
16. 1940Census_ED95_217_SHT1B_SobieszczanskiFamily.jpg
17. 1940Census_ED95_221_SHT3A_EliaszVincent.jpg
18. 1940Census_ED95_221_SHT3B_MylekFamily.jpg

So I found: Eliasz, Gawlik, Gronek, Hajek, Kedzierski, Leszczynski, Mylek, Nadolny, Sobieszczanski, Solomon and Vespek.

The Locales involved so far are: Detroit, Toledo, Buffalo/Depew, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.

I have a folder on my computer titled, Source Documents. Within that folder, I have many sub folders for a wide variety of genealogical sources (Birth, Marriage, Death, etc.) and also a Census sub folder too. Some of those folders also have sub folders to organize like kinds of documents.

I have settled on a naming convention for these 1940 Census records that I wanted to point out:

1940Census,  ED, District_SubDistrict, Sheet#, DescriptiveOf Person(s)

This naming standard is really meta-data about the picture of the document.

I use ‘jpg’ despite its flaws because it can be posted to the Internet. The file name is also a kind of source documentation. I can easily go back to the source from the file name and get a new copy. Also if you are a related genealogist, the above list can aid you to go get your own copy (from Ancestry, MyHeritage, Archives.com, or FamilySearch).

What are you doing? How are you doing? Any great surprises?  Researching the Same People? Do tell — email me.

1940 US #Census, A Week Later — #Genealogy, #Results

Here’s a Post Mortem of Stanczyk’s 1940 US Census research …

Remember I had some questions that needed answering? So how did I actually do?

Questions

Will I find Rose Wlecial Gawlik’s brothers living with her?

Answer:  Boleslaw Wlecialowski was living with Adam & Rosa Gawlikowski family. I wonder why he was listed as a lodger (not brother/brother-in-law)? Rosa was the provider of the answers; Ergo, I would have expected her to say my brother Boleslaw. No Leon though. Is he in a VA Hospital (from WWI injuries).

Why have I had such a hard time locating her borthers (Boleslaw & Leon) in city directories?

No Answer.

Is Anthony Gawlick alive or dead?

Answer: Dead. No uncertainty now. He was alive in 1939 City Directory and now is found deceased in April 1940. Ergo, he must have died between mid-1939 and April 1940. At least the range os possibilities are small.

Is my grandmother’s older half-brother Frank Leszczynski still alive in 1940 ?

No Answer. He was not located, but I now need indexes to determine if he died since 1931 Declaration of Intent.

Is Frank Leszczynski living with Michael Leszczynski in Buffalo/Depew at 257 Broadway in the 1940 Census?

No Answer. 

 

Surprises

• William Gawlik was in the US Navy in 1935. This lead to finding his BIRL data and learning his range of enlistment.
• Mary Lou Sarotte was five doors down from Adam & Rosa. I guess this was how Uncle Joe Eliasz met aunt Mary Lou.

Misplaced Ancestors

Alice Eliasz “Epperly” – not found at any previous address. Catherine Eliasz did she marry and is that why she flew the nest? Is she married to Steve Perinoff and will her last name be Perinoff? Emil Leszczynski is the reason he is not at the family home because he is away at college (Fordham, I assume)? I still need to find a few Sobieszczanskis too — again the indexes will be required to find them. Where are my wife’s parents?

 

That is how Stanczyk has done so far.    How are you doing? Puzzled over my grandmother’s continued experimentation with “V” names in the US Censuses.  Verna, Violet, …  what was wrong with Valeria/Walerya?

Happy Easter – A Dziennik Polski Cache From Steven Kalemkiewicz

fellow genealogist, Steve Kalemkiewicz was doing some research using the Dziennik Polski – Detroit, Historical Newspapers. He discovered, Stanczyk’s paean to that newspaper (at the preceding link) and graciously provided this jester with a slew of new data/funeral cards. He had collected a funeral card of his ancestor (Marta Dłubisz) and he thought to gather others as well from his research efforts and pass them along to my ever growing database of Detroit Polonia, as chronicled in the former daily newspaper, Dziennik Polski (Detroit). The new funeral cards (all from 1963) can be found with some already existing samples at the follow web address:

http://goo.gl/FYHPt

Here are the names of the new files (Funeral Cards):

Wrobel, JozefSr.jpg

Szwed, Teofila.jpg

Zysk, Stella.jpg

Zajaczkowski, JanK.jpg

Sitek, Katarzyna.jpg

Glowczewski, AntoniP.jpg

Kopycki, Franciszek.jpg

Switaj, Aleksander.jpg

Banka, Klara.jpg

Kosinska, CeciliaR.jpg

Rataj, EugeniuszV.jpg

Pawczuk, Kazimierz.jpg

Zamlynska, Wiktoria.jpg

Dlubisz, Marta.jpg

1940 Census Preparations – Pays 1st Dividend

Stanczyk,

Found his grand-uncle Michael Leszczynski (deputy sheriff) at 5071 Broadyway, Depew, Erie County, NY in the 1940 US Census. He was in ED 15-37, on SHT 6-A (line 4 was Michael and his wife Felicia was on line 5). Click on the link if you have access to Ancestry.com.

Kudos to Ancestry.com for getting their 1940 US Census working in short order. Their Image Viewer is excellent, very fast.

1940 US Census – Here’s What Enumeration Districts I’m Researching

2nd-April-2012 (72 years are up)

Here is Stanczyk’s initial research list before there are complete indexes.

Enumeration Districts (EDs)

By State/County:

MI-Wayne-Detroit — 84-590,  84-710,   84-583,  84-584,  84-586,  84-1246,  84-1471

MI-Macomb — 50-70A

MI-St Clair — 74-14

NY-Erie-Depew — 15-37

OH-Lucas-Toledo — 95-217,  95-221

PA-Philadelphia — 51-22

Families

MI — Eliasz, Epperly, Gawlik/Gawlikowski, Gronek, Kedzierski, Vespek, Wlecial/Wlecialowski

NY — Leszczynski (Frank, Michael, Teofil)

OH — Eliasz, Mylek, Sobieszczanski

PA — Solomon

Related Spreadsheet

http://mikeeliasz.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/1940-us-census-9-days-away-genealogy-preparation/

Related 1940 Census Info (EDs, etc)

http://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/finding-aids.html#maps

Ancestry Adds 1940 US Census ED Maps — #Genealogy, #1940, #Census

Stanczyk, saw that Ancestry.com released/updated the 1940 US Census, Enumeration District Maps. It actually says ‘and Descriptions’ in its database title, but for the life of me I did not see any textual descriptions nor any images of words other than Legends and stray comments on hospitals, asylums, nunneries, etc (which were interleaved in the whitespace of the maps).

I queried on the ED I got from Steve Morse’s One-Step website (unified census page) that let me convert 1930 EDs into 1940 EDs. I used ED 84-590 (where I expect to find my grandmother and her children — including my father).

I did an exact search on 84-590 and Ancestry showed me an option for either the city map or the county map. While the county map was interesting, the city map of Detroit was what I was after. I clicked on the link to view the city map for ED 84-590, but what I got was page 1 of 46 pages (not the page where 84-590 was). Well I “gutted it out” and browsed sequentially through all of the pages searches from one corner to the opposing corner reading each and every ED until I found ED 84-590 on page number 40.

That kind of brute force search was not a total waste. I did confirm 84-590 was correct ED that I should search on Monday when they release the 1940 US Census. I was also able to confirm my Vespeks ED as either  84-1246 or less likely (since it is for the prior address) 84-1252. Perhaps my dedicated readers will note that this is the one ED (it gave 84-1244 or 84-1245 — which were close) that was wrong in Steve Morse’s webpage lookup. The fault as I said before was not Steve Morse, but the US government providing inaccurate mapping of the 1930 ED to the 1940 ED, but the description of the EDs on Steve Morse’s lookup image did give me a look at the other descriptions nearby and I was able to divine that 84-1246 should be the one I search. Well this also points out the value of Ancestry’s new database. I was able to look at ED Map and confirm that 84-1246 was correct ED and that 84-1244/1245 EDs were near misses to the known address I had.

I was also able to verify that ED 84-583/584 would probably contain my Galiwks and Wlecials [assuming they are in enumerated in Detroit and not at the Macomb county farm address]. I could see how close they were to  St. Adalbertus church and the the last known addresses I had and how they were all closely clustered in the same area (not obvious from the addresses).

My only complain is that Ancestry should take you to the correct page for your ED and not force you to do a brute force, page-by-page search. Detroit was a LARGE city in 1940 — imagine NYC, LA, Chicago or Philadelphia where were (and still are) larger than Detroit; Those would be awful searches.  For my friends that have Polish family in Hamtramck, not to fear, there are only four pages to comb through. For the few people that I have emailed through the last few months about CHENE St project, just go to image/page 40 of Detroit (or click on the link) you are near my grandmother’s ED.

Archives.gov says you have 2 days and about 16 hours (and counting) to ready yourself for the 1940 US Census. Good Luck!

1940 US Census – 9 Days Away — #Genealogy, #Preparation

Stanczyk has finished his preparations for the 1940 US Census (sans index). After the index is finally transcribed, I will query widely for years. But for 2012, I needed to be able to search via the Enumeration District.

As I said before, I made extensive use of Drs:  Steve Morse & Joel Weintraub 1940 Census Tool .

I created a spreadsheet. I listed the most important people I wanted to find in 1940. I used the 1930 US Census and recorded their Enumerated District (ED). This is a necessary precursor to looking up the ED’s for 1940. The only other way is to start from a street address. Now use the link to the 1940 Census Tool [see above] to convert your 1930 EDs to 1940 EDs (or your last known address to 1940 EDs). I made sure that when I got a long list of possible 1940 EDs that I used their ED descriptions and the Google Map to highlight the most likely ED (or EDs) to start with.

I also used the Ancestry.com City Directories (Beta) to finalize my analysis. While doing that I got the idea to pose and hopefully to answer with the 1940 Census some questions. I noticed in a 1941 City Directory that one of my Gawlik/Gawlikowski families started using, Gawlick . In fact due to emails with another genealogist I was prepared to accept Gawlick for this family already.

Well there they were using Gawlick for their family name. There was also another detail in the city directory. It showed that Kath (the wife) was a widow (of Anthony) in 1941. OK, so now I had a boundary for the last possible year for Anthony Gawlick (aka Gawlik) as 1941. I tried to use Ancestry.com’s older city directories and I noticed that they were sparse (not all years) and also when they had a year, it was not always a complete scan of that city directory so my use of Historical City directories was hit or miss for some families and/or streets. But none the less, I was able to find Anthony alive in the 1939 city directory! Ok So now I had a short range: alive in 1939 … to dead in 1941. So maybe the 1940 will tell me is,  ”Anthony alive or dead in 1940″? I added that question to my list of questions.

Questions

Will I find Rose Wlecial Gawlik’s brothers living with her? Why have I had such a hard time locating her borthers (Boleslaw & Leon) in city directories? Is Anthony Gawlick alive or dead? Is my grandmother’s older half-brother Frank Leszczynski still alive in 1940 (he declared his intent to be a US Citizen in 1931)? He’d be about 75 years old in 1940. I wonder what age he use (70 or 75) since I have multiple birth years for him? Also, I learned in my preparations that he used a younger half-brother’s address in 1931. So I wonder is Frank Leszczynski living with Michael Leszczynski in Buffalo/Depew at 257 Broadway in the 1940 Census? Until I had access to historical city directories, I had never realized that Michael and Frank had both lived at the same address — nobody ever mentioned that in any interview or email.

So beyond the facts that the US Census will provide about who is where and how old they are and whether they are US citizens or not, I am hoping to see what the older men were veterans of which US conflicts. The questions related to the Great Depression will also be interesting for all and will certainly be relevant to the political discourse of today — particularly as we march onward to the November elections.

Most of my immigrant Eliasz (aka Elijasz) forebears are deceased before 1940. My grandfather (Joseph) died in 1930 and my grand-uncle (John) died in 1936. So only Mary Eliasz Gronek can be found. Will I get any clues about Detroit Stanley Elyasz (a 1st cousin of my grandfather) and how about Buffalo Stanley Eliasz (is he a cousin or a sibling of my grandfather)?

The suspense and the anticipation is growing. Good thing we had WDYTYA last night and tomorrow night we will get the first episode of Henry Louis Gate’s genealogy show on PBS. Those can help ease the suspense for now until a week from Monday.

How are you preparing? Are you done yet? Are you doing something similar to what I am doing? This is what I am using (email me please) …

Related articles

• Help for the 1940 Census
• The Release of the 1940 US Census
• 1940 US Census - Blank Forms — #Genealogy, #US, #Census
• 1940 US Census Website – #Genealogy, #1940
• Preparing for 1940 Census
• 1940 US Census – 16 days away!