Fras | Frass | Frasowa | Frasskosz — #Genealogy, #Cousin, #NewLineOfResearch

A week or two ago, Stanczyk got a bolt out of the blue. It was another genealogist; She was inquiring after my Leszczynski lineage — specifically Agnieszka Leszczynski.

Well a long time ago I got used to the fact that there were so MANY Leszczynskich out there that the possibility that any were directly related was infinitesimally small. Now to be sure a few second cousins have re-connected and it was good to get updates on the American branches. But in my 17 years as a genealogist — I had not received an inquiry on the line of Leszczynskich from my great-grandfather, Tomasz Leszczynski’s first wife or their children.

Old Tomasz lived a long time … to be 104 years of age from about 1835 to 1939 (give or take). He had two wives and bless his heart he had 14 children by them. From his first wife, he started to have children in 1860. Agnieszka (or Agnes as the inquiry was for) was born 9th December 1866. I had her birth record from the church in that lovely Latin Box format and I had deciphered all that was written. But I had no idea if Agnes made it to adulthood or married or even when she died.

Well this genealogist said her-great-grandfather had a mother named Agnes Leszczynski (from his death certificate). Yes, I said, but there are so many Leszczynski families, where was your great-grandfather from. She had a vague idea of the area and the names seemed to be close to a village that I had ancestors from but it was horribly misspelled if it was from that area at all. I was still skeptical, but she sent me an Ellis Island ship manifest (actually a tiny bit of transcription from one). So I thought I would go take a look and see if I could decipher where her ancestor was from — it would be an RAOGK. I was going to help her out.

Well imagine my surprise! Her great-grandfather was from an ancestral village of mine, coming from his father Wladyslaw Fras in Piesciec [sic  -> Piestrzec, today; Piersiec back then, although I had seen it spelled Piersciec many times too]. Now I had never seen any Fras before in those villages, maybe some Franc (Frąc) which was close. But then I went to page two of the ship manifest and he was going to Depew, NY to his uncle, Teofil Lezczynski!!! That was my grand-uncle. OK, I was now getting interested in Jozef Fras.

Now, I had to do some research, but I found him with his family in Toledo, Ohio. Well I had some family from Toledo. In fact, my grandmother’s sister Antonina Leszczynska Sobieszczanski lived there. Well this jester had a few St Anthony, baptismal register images that I could peruse. Now I was even more amazed. Jozef Fras’ wife, BENIGNA (not a common name) was the god-mother of one of Antonina’s sons. Benigina Fras was god-mother to Matthew Sobieszczanski. Those percentages kept going up. I said, perhaps the Fras had children baptised in St Anthony too. I examined their birth years and looked in the register images and there was their first child Helen Fras whose god-mother was my Antonina Sobieszczanski (to Jozef and Benigna’s daughter). Ok, in my head, we are now at 99+% related.

1 Wladyslaw FRAS d: 11 Feb 1919
  + Agnieszka LESZCZYNSKI b: 12/9/1866
    2 Josef Edward FRAS b: 16 Mar 1893 d: 08 Aug 1935
      + Benigna PALICKI FRASS b: abt 1897
        3 Helen FRASS b: 25 October 1917 d: 23 May 1982
        3 Joseph Radislaus FRASS b: 25 March 1922 d: 14 March 1934
        3 Eleanor FRASS b: 15 Jan 1926 d: 25 Oct 1988
        3 Melvin R FRASS b: 15 Jun 1930 d: 10 Dec 2006

So now my next goal is to find the church marriage record of Wladyslaw Fras and Agnieszka Leszczynski (probably in Biechow parish), since Jozef Fras’ ship manifest said he was born in Piestrzec. This would give me the certain Genealogical Standard of Proof — but I have already added the above to my tree.

Thanks second cousin, twice removed, Mindy! By the way, this line of reasoning I am leaning on is again the Social Network Analysis (what Thomas MacEntee calls cluster genealogy).

Don’t you wish you could search Ellis Island by whom people were going to or coming from? Better database search capabilites are needed and the GEDCOM standard needs to be enhanced to handle these social network/cluster analyses

Martha Stewart … Are We Related ?

Stanczyk, took note of when my friend and noted professional genealogist Ceil Wendt Jensen did an article for Ancestry.com magazine(2009, #3) on Martha Stewart’s ancestry. For a long time, I knew her maiden name was Kostyra. So when I noticed that Ceil had done an article and detailed much of Martha’s family tree, I asked her is she from Pacanow too?  [Now you may not know that both Stanczyk and his friend Ceil have ancestors from Pacanow]. I had asked because, I had Kostyra in my family tree. Ceil told me, ‘No.’

So when I noticed that 5/6/2012 episode on Finding Your Roots,  was going to have a segment on Martha Stewart, I watched again. It was interesting that Martha’s roots (and DNA) include Tartars and again they mentioned Kostyra and a few village names, but not Pacanow.

Now I read a column by the famous genealogist Megan Smolenyak (at Huffington Post??) on, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Martha Stewart’s Family Tree – Huffington Post” on Martha Stewart. What caught my eye was …

If you have any of the following surnames in your family tree, you could be a cousin of Ms. Stewart’s: Adamczyk, Albiniak, Baran, Ciman, Flis, Grab, Grosiewicz, Grysztar Kak, Kielar, Kisielinska, Kiszka, Kostyra, Krol, Krukar, Krulicka, Kulpa, Lach, Lazinska, Litwin, Macuga, Misiak, Okon, Oleszko, Orzeł, Penar, Rajchel, Ruszkowski, Rygiel, Rzad, Siwy, Skubik, Strzalinska, Tomczyk, Wasi, Wojtan, Wolyniec and Zukowsa.

Now if you notice, I BOLDED, some of the above family names (many of the others I am not certain of) in the list of possible cousins. I cannot speak to the commonness of those names, but each one is from my paternal grandparent’s (Eliasz/Leszczynski) parishes and some of those are actually in my family tree.

By all means go read Megan’s article. It is another interesting piece on Martha Stewart (aka Jadwiga Kostyra).

So Martha perhaps we are cousins (albeit very distant ones). Any Eliasz/Elijasz, Leszczynski, Ozarow, Major, Wlecial, Kedzierski in your tree (Martha)?

How about you readers? Any of you have those names in your tree? Do you research in Biechow or Pacanow (villages in the old Kielce wojewodztwo)? Email me!

1876 Marriage of Walenty Paluch to Magdalena Major – #Polish, #Genealogy

Genealogical Finds @RootsTech 2012

LDS Microfilm # 1192352 – Pacanów 1876-1877

Stanczyk’s, first find (after some time) was the 1876 Marriage of Walenty Paluch to Magdalena Major. I research mostly: Eliasz, Leszczynski, Solomon, and Wolf (my grandparent’s lines & my wife’s grandparents lines). Of a necessity, I record affiliated families and siblings in order to break through the brick walls, but mostly I trace direct lineage, with additions for lineages of 2nd/3rd cousins’ lines who are genealogists (since we work collaboratively and I wish to record these genealogists in the tree and preserve the connection to me). Also since my Social Network Analysis experiment proved out,  in my mind,  I keep an eye out for the affiliated families now.

Well when I saw a marriage record (Akt Małżeństwa/Брак запись) index in 1876 Pacanów parish (parafia) that names: Paluch & Major — I was very interested to see  who might be involved.

Record (in Russian/Cyrillic)

#15 – Paluch Walenty

Major Maryanna

Pacanów

The names are written in reverse order (fairly common in this parish, but not quite universally done).

On 15 March 1876 (Gregorian date, 2nd date of the double dates) there was a marriage between Walenty Paluch age 20 (born about 1856), born in Beszówa and the son of Jan & Agnieszka Paluch — wait a minute Jan & Agnieszka are my great-grandmother Maryanna Paluch Elijasz ‘s parents, therefore Walenty Paluch is my great-grandmother’s brother.

Ok so now this affiliated family name is of interest to me! Who is Walenty Paluch  marrying ?

Magdalena Major, age 18 (born about 1858), born in Dobrowodzie, but living in Pacanów parish, who is the daughter of Martin & Katarzyna Major — wait a minute these are my great-grandmother Aniela Major Leszczyński  ‘s parents. That means that Magdalena Major is my great-grandmother Aniela’s sister!  Wow this is amazing that two of my great-grandparent’s siblings are marrying each other!

OK so this is a marriage between an Elijasz great-grandfather’s affiliated  relative (brother-in-law) and a Leszczyński  great-grandfather’s affiliated relative (sister-in-law). I guess that Social Network Analysis pays another dividend to my research.

So how cool is that? If I had ignored Paluch and/or Major as not in my direct lineage, I would not have found this record and found two previously unknown siblings to my great-grandmothers. I also see that I need to research Beszówa parish for Paluch family data and that Dobrowodz village (I do not know this village or if it is a parish) is a place to go search for Major family data.

– RootsTech 2012 Treasure

#Polish #Genealogy – Blaziej Kalucki + Maryanna Plutow 1881 Marriage in Zborowek

This week Stanczyk is culling for Kalucki. My grandmother’s sister, Genowefa Leszczynska, married a man named Kalucki. I assume they got married in either Biechow or Pacanow or maybe Zborowek.

The only reason I know about Kalucki is that when my Grand-Uncle Michael Leszczynski passed away, his obituary listed his surviving sister Genowefa with a married name of Kalucki. Genowefa stayed in Poland with her brothers, Jozef, Szczepan and Wincenty.

I believe it was Genowefa who used to write to my aunt Alice (aka Aleksandra) Eliasz Stickney. So if anyone Knows a Kalucki or is related to Blaziej Kalucki (Zborowek) email me.