I have also found a marriage record for Heleena Paszkiewicz, in Milwaukee County in 1891. This could be my missing ancestor as well, however, according to her age on the ship records, she would have been 15 years old at the time of the marriage.

This would not be impossible, and I will not rule it out, since the ship records could be wrong. John is shown as 16 on the ship record, when he was actually 19 according to the birthdate given on the 1900 US Census.

I have also found a marriage of Helena Piszkiewicz in 1907. Again, this could easily be a misspelling. At fifteen dollars each, this verification of records will be very expensive.

More things to check out.

I had a visit by my mother, and my sister and her husband this week. They came in from Wisconsin. So, real family time takes precedence over ancestry research. I did take a little time to show my mother some of the documents I have discovered, and I asked her a few questions about our history.

I also took a little diversion, and checked out some Scharr-Hallock census documents.

Now I need to plan a new area of focus. The search for the missing daughters of Joseph and Julia has not turned up any new leads. I may go back to the Stanislaw, Frank, Harry, and Mamie question. Or not. We’ll see.

The copy of the record is quite blurry, but there is quite a bit of new information that is legible.

First, Anton, or Antoni, lists his name as Anthony. His wife Meta is listed as Mamey.

Anthony spells his wife’s last name wrong; Paskiewicz.

Anthony lists an address of 671 – 51st Ave., in West Allis, Wi. Apparently, they lived on their own before moving in with John and  Rose duringf the 1920 census.

Anthony lists his father’s homeland as Russia.

His eyes are blue and his hair is brown.

I found the naturalization documents for John and Joseph. There is not much on the page except the date of the event. For me, though, the prize was listed on the line; Witness. The witnesses were John Kostrzynski and Stanislaus Szymarek. This solidifies the thought that the marriage record for Stephania Paskiewicz is actually our Stephania. That is another question answered.

I can now fill in her death date from the information at St. Adelbert’s cemetery.

As for the naturalization records, I had photocopies made and left them at the library. I will expound on them tomorrow, as well as the other tidbit I found…

The 1890 US Census was destroyed by a fire. This would have been just two years after Julia and the girls arrived. It probably some key information in my quest for the missing girls, but there are apparently no census records for Wisconsin remaining from that year.

There was a state census done in Wisconsin in 1895. I hoped to find some sort of information that would tell me which of the girls died, and which were married and moved out of the house. The 1895 census only lists names, how many male and female, how many white or colored, and how many born in the US.

I did learn that Joseph was the only male living with five females. So now I know that all eight girls were living when they got off the boat in 1888. Four were living at home in 1895, three were living at home in 1900, and one was living at home in 1905.

Tracking them is going to be tough.

I now have the names and approximate ages of the five who were unknown to me. I also know that they were all female. And that is posing a bit of a problem. By 1900, the five girls were out of the house. The two who were still alive were probably married. They now have different names. The three who died should be buried somewhere. And if they were young and unmarried, there should be a record of their death that contains a variation of the name Paszkiewicz.

My next step is to search the 1895 Wisconsin Census. Joseph and Julia are listed in the 1905 Wisconsin Census, but I believe they are not showing up in 1895 because of a misspelled name.

The 1895 record will hopefully give me a hint as to who is still alive, so I know who to look for. This will be more tedious than some of the earlier research, but until I come up with something better, it will have to do.

I searched by ship, with no results, then by ship and a first name. I typed in Gothia, the ship name, and Stephania, and there she was: Stephanie Parzkewicz. A totally different name. Again. Doing the search for Parzkiewicz gave me the list of all nine of them.

Stephania is listed as a Male on castlegarden.org, but she is listed as a Female on the actual document. The two youngest girls, Wladislawa and Kaschmira, are listed as nine month old “babies.” So, they were actually twins.

If the age of the twins is correct, it raises a huge question. Is Joseph Paszkiewicz their father? At nine months old, they would have been conceived about 18 months prior to the arrival date of February 21, 1888. Joseph arrived in the United States, on January 19, 1886, about 25 months earlier. Maybe the age is wrong, Maybe Joseph went back. I don’t know. Another thing to investigate.

Children of John

This is a list I compiled of the Children of John Paszkiewicz, using the information from the US Census. This does not show the first two, Boleslaw and Stanislaw, who apparently died in infancy.

It also doesn’t answer the question of Frank having the same birthdate as Stanislaw, in some of the records. Apparently Annie also died young, as she does not show in the 1910 census. New questions arise, and other questions remain.

Ages listed in the census do not always seem accurate. It is possible that people didn’t know how old they were. It could be with all those children, the parents gave wrong information. It could have been that the census takers just got it wrong. also, the language barrier probably contributed to mistakes.

The pre-1907 birth, marriage and death records that I have been able to find seem to be incomplete. This could be because of misspelled names. I hope to find the actual records for all of the Paszkiewicz family members that I am aware of.

In the 1920 record, I have Frank in parentheses because he was married and not living with John and Rose. The 1930 census shows Frank back at home and divorced, which must have been quite scandalous back in 1930. The 1930 census lists Tony, however is age is not quite right for Anton. Also, Anton is shown living with his wife, Meta on Kimberly Ave. in the Town of Lake. It’s possible all the children were named, even though they were not all living there.

In the 1930 US Census, Harry is listed as 23 years old. According to the other censuses, he should be 25. Also in 1930 there is a Harry Paszkiewicz listed in Wauwatosa. He is 22 years old and a patient at the Milwaukee Hospital for Insane. Enumeration District 40-385). It will be interesting to see if this is the same Harry.

My conclusion?  Misspelling again. I did a search for Paskiewicz in the Wisconsin records, and found Stephania, daughter of Joseph and Julia getting married on October 19, 1904. Apparently to Stanislaus Syzmarek. I will find Frank. The question is, how do you track down misspellings?

I am still looking.

The Wisconsin Birth records show Stanislaw being born July 14, 1892, The same as the info that my cousin Amy uncovered in the days B.C. (before computers). I also found a record for Bolestaw with the birth date of June 15, 1891. This too, is the same as the information from Amy.  But there is no record of a birth for Frank. Not yet.

Now for the exciting news. There was a death record for a Poleslaw Passkewicz on September 10, 1891. If this who I am looking for, it means Boleslaw (Bolestaw) (Poleslaw) died as an infant at three months old. This would fit, since the census records show Julia as having two children who didn’t live.

There was also another death record for Paszkiewicz with no first name, on March 31, 1893. My guess would be that this would be a newborn that was never named. I don’t know if the actual physical record shows the age, parents, etc., but I have the address in Madison and I am going to find out.

Update: There are two Frank Paszkiewicz’s buried in St. Adelbert’s Cemetery in Milwaukee. However, one of them is Frank A. Paskiewicz, born in 1899. Most likely this is where the incorrect information came from.

The  1920 US Census shows Anton living with his wife Meta, who is listed as Mamie. They are at the same address as John and Rose. This census also shows a six year old daughter named Mamie. I have no record of anyone named Mamie. That doesn’t mean she isn’t real. It just means I have never heard of her.

The 1930 US Census shows a 32 year old Tony living with John and Rose. In 1930 Anton was living with Meta in the town of Lake. I don’t know if Anton got counted twice, or if this is a clild of Rose from another marriage.

Surprisingly, there is also a Mamie listed in the 1930 census. She is living with John and Rose, and is listed as 16 years old. This makes me think she is real, but again, I have no previous record of her. One more thing to check out.

As I look at the data I have accumulated, through census records, ship documents and the like, I have to ask how important ages and years were to the people of the 1800′s.

I know that with the census, some had a birthday before and some after the census date. This can explain a variation of a year or two. But I am finding dates that are off by three to five years.

Did the census takers just hear or record the wrong info? Did my ancestors actually not know how old their children were? Did they not remember when they were married, or when they arrived in America?

I know that any and all of these could be true. This shows the importance of finding primary documents. A birth certificate should have the correct date of birth. A passenger list should have the correct date of departure and arrival.

Unfortunately, I have found they are not guaranteed to have the names spelled correctly.

In my pages for Jerome, Anton, John and Joseph, I will highlight in bold letters, the source of my information. This way if there is a discrepancy, anyone with questions or other information can at least know where I got my information. Hopefully this can prevent a lot of duplicate research.

I also added the year of their birth to help differentiate them from any other Paszkiewicz’s out there on the internet. Believe me, there are a lot of Johns, Josephs and Anthonys out there.

I will be adding to each of these biographies as I sort out the information I have and as I receive new information, so check back.

Going back a generation to John Paszkiewicz, my great-grandfather, there was a marriage date, a death date, information on the wife and children, as well as information on the second wife and children. There were several gaps, but enough information to work with.

Going back another generation, to Joseph Paszkiewicz,  my great-great-grandfather, all I had was his name, and the name of his wife Julianna, or Julia.

Until now.

While browsing the 1900 census, I found Joseph and Julia living at 773 Burnham St. in Milwaukee. The census gave a partial birthdate of March 1841. Joseph and Julia were living with three of their daughters. The census showed that the Paszkiewicz’s had six children living out of nine.

There was other information that I will share when I do a biography on Joseph and Julia. The person taking the census data had the last name spelled Paskewich, yet entering that spelling into the Heritage Quest search gives no results. Apparently, whoever transcribed the data from the original saw something different.

This is going to be a challenge, but it is already very satisfying. To be able to fill in some blanks is truly the genealogist’s dream come true.

I may never have to get that paid subscription to ancestry.com that I thought I needed. I may need to learn how to read Polish. But I have digressed. I am supposed to be researching John.

There are numerous Paszkiewicz records on file. The problem I had on this visit was keeping track of people. There was more than one John Paskiewicz and more than one  Joseph. I lost track of dates, and in the end I didn’t know if any of the notes I made were useful to me.

Again, I have to stick to the plan. I will only search for John, the father of my grandfather. He died in 1935. He was born in Poland, unknown year, although his wife was born in 1873. He was married in Milwaukee in 1890. That, and the other information I have about hs wife’s family should get me going.

Here is the link for Castle Garden.

Recently I have begun to transfer this information to www.myheritage.com. My efforts have been a bit haphazard to this point, so I am attempting to develop a plan. Starting with myself, I will update each person in the tree. I will not move forward until I have filled in the blanks with all the information that I have.

Once I get the info on the website, I will go back and begin my research to fill in the blanks. Since I am looking for the roots of the Paskiewicz family tree, I will try to focus on that branch. I have some information on the Kanthak family (my father’s mother’s family) and Kurt Hahn has traced a branch of my mother’s family tree back to 1695. That is pretty awesome, but for now, I have to stay focused on Paskiewicz/Paszkiewicz.

When I get my data on the website I will begin to pay the monthly fee to get the information I am missing, if it is indeed out there.

Misspellings

Familysearch.org is a great website. I have been able to verify most of the information that I had been given regarding the Paszkiewicz roots. The most startling information I’ve found is that you can’t trust the spelling in the official records.

This picture is a snapshot from familysearch.org. The name I thought was Kaminski, is Kaminska  here. (although her father was Kaminski) Valentine is Valentin.  Krzyzanowski is Krzyzanowska.  Now, it’s possible that Polish female names change and end in “a.” I will check on that.  But worst of all, John  Paszkiewicz has become John Pasckriwiez. That is just plain misspelling. How am I going to track my family with this kind of inattention to detail?

This takes me back to paying for the information that is available. I guess I need to see the documents for myself. There is only one “Pasckriwiez” listed on familysearch.org so that trail is going nowhere. I say it’s time to pay.

My question in the previous post was, “How did my ancestors pronounce their last name?” The answer? I’m working on it.

The answer is the missing ‘z.’ Pask would be pronounced “pask” in Polish, but Paszk would be pronounced “pashk.” So the Paszkiewicz boys were the Pashe brothers. So the next question would be, “How did my ancestors pronounce their name?”

As I was growing up, I appreciated the fact that our name had been simplified. In Wisconsin, where I grew up, people had a hard time with the name, even though there were Sliwinskis and Rutkowskis and Perzyks and Kleczkas all around.

So now, at the age of 54, I am trying to trace my heritage, and right off the bat I have to deal with the fact that my father was born with a different name. The family tree I am growing will not have anyone on it with my last name. (All right, my parents and sisters, and of course my uncle Tony and his family), But you get my point.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still very exited about finding my roots. I just find myself occasionally missing that “z.”

I know I have heard it mentioned, but I don’t know if it was the Army that changed his name, or if he did it on his own. Either way, my father was Jerome Paskiewicz. He was aware of the Russian general, Ivan Fedorovich Paskiewicz, and maybe he wanted to (pretend to) be a descendent.  I don’t think there was an official name change. That is one more thing to investigate.

Some of the immediate family use Paskiewicz, some use Paszkiewicz. One generation removed and already problems.