For several years now, I have been in love with the BBC TV series Call the Midwife. The show documents both secular and religious order midwives as they serve London's working-class East End community during the 1950s and 60s. Call the Midwife is wonderful, because it gives you a sense of just how important midwifery was to the health and overall well-being of the entire community. I've always loved looking at my family's Catholic baptism records from the "Old Country," because they sometimes list the midwife who delivered each baby. In this 1845 baptism record from Brzezna, Poland, my great-great-grandmother, Sophia Golonka, was delivered by Marianna Golonka, who was her paternal aunt.

Despite my fascination with these Old Country midwives, I had never really thought about the midwifery networks in my ancestors American neighborhoods. All that changed, however, when I started doing some genealogy research for my sister-in-law's family. Like mine, her ancestors were late 19th - early 20th century immigrants who came to Cleveland to work in the booming industrial factories and foundries. I located her great-grandfather's 1900 birth return. His parents were Polish immigrants.

I immediately thought that something looked familiar about this birth return. The handwriting looked very distinctive to me. I went back and looked at some of the birth returns on MY mom's side of the family. This is my great-uncle's birth return, also from 1900. His parents were Croatian immigrants.

The same midwife, Bertha Ullrich, delivered both babies. So, of course, I searched for her in the 1900 census to try to learn more about her. She is in her 40s, married, has one living child, and immigrated from Germany around 1890. She has indicated that she can speak English.

So, here are two babies, from two recently-immigrated families of completely different nationalities and languages, neither of which is the same as Bertha's. Both mothers indicated in their respective 1900 censuses that they cannot speak English. Can you imagine trying to guide a person through childbirth without words? How frightening must it have been for these immigrant women to realize that the one person assigned to help them in this difficult and dangerous task may not be able understand their needs? Did Bertha speak any languages besides English and German? Did she perhaps study key words and phrases in the languages of immigrants most common in her neighborhood to try to be prepared? Or perhaps she was able to arrange translators before the birth to assist her and the mother when the time came.

I ask myself these types of questions, because it helps me add a certain amount of humanity to the factual information found within these genealogical records. When (If) I ever get around to writing a complete family history, I want to be able to write about these types of situations and about these people who came in and out of my ancestors' lives and helped them navigate through the trials and joys of life.

By the way, midwives often have their own section in city directories. Here is Bertha and a slew of other midwives from the 1903 Cleveland City Directory, p. 1643:

Sophia Golonka Baptism Record: "Poland, Tarnow Roman Catholic Diocese Church Books, 1612-1900," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XPYN-L77 : accessed 17 Jul 2014), Anna Bawotek in entry for Sophia Golonka, 15 Feb 1845, Baptism; citing p. 27, Brzezna, Brzezna, Kraków, Poland; FHL microfilm 1895995.

Gawryszewski Birth Return: "Ohio, County Births, 1841-2003," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-23317-12804-61?cc=1932106 : 21 May 2014), Cuyahoga > Birth returns 1900 > image 1 of 9030; county courthouses, Ohio.

Bellan Birth Return: "Ohio, County Births, 1841-2003," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-23316-98739-26?cc=1932106 : 24 May 2016), Cuyahoga > Birth returns 1900 > image 7678 of 9030; county courthouses, Ohio.

Ullrich 1900 U.S. Census: Year: 1900; Census Place: Cleveland Ward 23, Cuyahoga, Ohio; Roll: 1256; Page: 21A; Enumeration District: 0112; FHL microfilm: 1241256

©2016 Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Have you ever found an ancestor in an unexpected location and wondered what the heck he/she was doing there?  The other day, I was reviewing two December 1910 passenger ship lists on which my great-grandmother, Sophie Krupa, is listed - a German departure passenger list from Hamburg and a New York arrival list.  On both forms, her last place of residence is listed as 'Gravenstein, Germany.'  Sophie was born in Skrudzina, a small village in ethnically Polish Galicia, that was, at the time of her birth in 1888, part of Austria-Hungary.  So, obviously, I was wondering what she was doing in northern Germany before she sailed for America.

Gravenstein today is no longer in Germany, and, in fact, it is no longer known by that name. The town that used to be called Gravenstein is currently in southern Denmark, and is now known as Gråsten.  As you can see on the map below, Gråsten is quite a journey away from Sophie's hometown, so I started searching for why she may have lived there, at least temporarily.

As I wrote about in this post, Sophie was an illegitimate child born into one of the poorest regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  I do not know anything specific about her early life, but I think it is safe to say that it must have been a hard one.  On the U.S. 1940 Census, she (Sophie Bodziony) lists her highest level of education as only 2nd grade.  As soon as she was old enough, she likely went to work.

While scouring the Internet, I came upon this website from the Danish Immigration Museum.  The page gives a nice, concise history of Polish immigrants in Denmark during the late 19th and early 20th century - right at the same time Sophie was there.  The one paragraph on this webpage that *really* caught my attention was this one: 

"The Poles were recruited by organized German-speaking agents - the so-called “Aufsehere”, who usually travelled around Galicia in the winter and signed contracts with young workers. Some were also sent to Denmark through the so-called import associations that supplied workers to Danish and German employers."

So, there were recruiters around Galicia?  Interesting.  Sophie's occupation on the Hamburg list is shown as 'Dienstmädchen,' which translates quite literally to 'servant girl.'  Was Sophie intending to stay and work in Gravenstein permanently, or was she just saving up money for the trip across the ocean?  Was she there in Gravenstein by herself, or did she have close friends or extended family there also?  Always left with more questions than answers after these investigations, but I wouldn't have it any other way!  :-)

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

This Sunday, I am looking at the first U.S. Census that my Italian great-grandparents appear in. Louis (Luigi) Licciardi came to America in late 1920 and his wife, Adele, followed with their two young daughters, Dina and Yola, in 1921.  In 1930, the family is renting part of a duplex home on Cleveland's east side.  Louis owns an embroidery business on West 6th Street in downtown Cleveland's Warehouse District.

I'm not quite sure why, but the census enumerator listed my Great Aunt Yola separate from the rest of the family. (And they got her first name a bit wrong, but, hey, that happens all the time.)  He did make a note of it though and points the reader in the right direction as to where she IS listed.  

Here are a couple of Cleveland city directories.  The one on the left is from 1928 and gives the address of Louis' embroidery business.  The one on the right is from 1930 and shows their home address. (Click on images for larger view.)

Here is what the house that they lived in looks like today via Google Street View.  Real estate data shows that it was built in 1927, and since the 1928 Cleveland residential directory lists them as living there in 1928, they were very likely the first occupants. Based on the census form, it looks as if my great-grandparents rented from the owner, Joseph Bertolius, who also lived there with his family. 

And finally, here is the building in which my great-grandfather, Louis, ran his embroidery business in 1930. (He later moved the business to E. 25th St.)  It is known as the Bradley Building. It was completely renovated in the late 20th century, and today it is an apartment building with shops and restaurants on the main floor.

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Census Sunday is a weekly prompt sponsored by Geneabloggers in which family history bloggers are encouraged to talk about how census records help us learn about our ancestors.

Andrew Brunswick was my husband's 3x great-grandfather.  He emigrated from Germany to America in 1853 and became a farmer in western Ohio's Auglaize County.  Here he is with his family in the 1860 census:

He is listed with his wife, Philomena, and young daughters, Catherine and Theresia.  (The transcription of first names is slightly incorrect as usual :-)  A boy by the name of Clements Holdman is also listed, along with a Theresia Brunswick, who is enumerated as a 'domestic.'  I am fairly certain that Theresia Brunswick is Andrew's youngest sister, although I have some more research to do regarding her.  For the longest time, I had trouble figuring out who the boy was, especially since this particular census form does not list relations between family members.  Although I'm sure he did much work on Andrew's farm, he is a little young to be a hired farmhand and he is not listed as a farmhand in the occupation column.  Hmmm...

Andrew's wife Philomena had a maiden name of Oldendiek (or Oldendick depending on the source).  Earlier this year, I found Andrew and Philomena's wedding record in a book indexing Mercer County marriages.  In her marriage record, Philomena's maiden name was listed as 'Holdink,' which is not really that different from Oldendiek phonetically-speaking.  I am willing to go out on a limb and say that Clements 'Holdman' is probably Philomena's younger brother.  As to why he may be living with his older sister, I don't know.  In fact, there is much I do not yet know about this Oldendiek/Oldendick family that I still need to try to research.

Andrew Brunswick is also listed in 1860's agricultural census.  I love these 19th century ag census schedules because they give us a sense of what our ancestor really DID on their farms.  Here is Andrew listed at the bottom of the images below (click for larger image).  

Andrew had a total of 76 acres of land valued at $1000.  The family had five horses, three milking cows, five general cattle, four sheep, and twelve pigs as livestock, which had a value of $300.  Over the past year, his farm had produced 150 bushels of wheat, twelve bushels of rye, a hundred bushels each of Indian corn and oats, and forty bushels of barley.  Their sheep had yielded ten pounds of wool, and the milk cows helped them produce 150 pounds of butter.  The farm also produced 14 tons of hay.

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Today is Labor Day here in America, when we remember and honor the work of our current citizens and of those in the past who worked to create the America that we know today.  For this post, I was originally going to make a list of my and my husband's direct ancestors' occupations.  However, I wanted something more visual and artistic, so I went to Tagxedo.com and made this cool, autumn-themed, family tree word cloud using words related to our relatives' jobs.  The information came from personal knowledge, city directories, as well as from census schedules and draft registration cards on which occupations and employers were recorded.  Most of these words obviously represent jobs for which our relatives were paid, but I have also included unpaid ones, such as 'volunteer' and 'mother' because, especially for so many of our female ancestors, these were their lifelong labors and vocations.  Happy Labor Day!

Those of you who know me or who are regular readers of my blog know that, in my pre-kid life, I worked as a meteorologist.  I did a little forecasting, a little teaching, and a little catastrophe reporting and analysis (no, I was never on TV).  Recently, I've been thinking about why I like doing genealogy so much, and I've figured out that weather forecasting is similar to genealogy research in several ways:

1.) Facts are limited and/or flawed.  In meteorology, we call these facts 'observations' and we collect them through various instruments like thermometers, barometers, and anemometers.  All instruments like these have built-in uncertainty limits even when they are working properly, and then you have some instruments that break, are "off-line" for awhile, and need to be replaced, which leads to gaps in observation data.  Also, the atmosphere is completely fluid, but, even for ground-level observations, it's impossible to have weather sensors at every single point in the forecast area.  Upper-air observations, which are collected via weather balloons, are even more spread out (hundreds of miles apart), so much more interpolation has to happen in the vertical plane. (Let's not even talk about the lack of observations across the oceans.)        

Fellow genealogists, can you see the similarities here?  We work with limited facts.  In a BEST case scenario, we get a census schedule every ten years, a birth record, marriage record, birth records of children, death record, and maybe an obituary.  Yep, we do a LOT of interpolation to try to fill in the other years of a person's life.  And, of course, the 'facts' written on those documents could be completely wrong, leaving you with even more gaps in your data and/or leading you down the wrong path.

2.) Working with imperfect models.  Meteorologists use computer models to forecast the weather.  The models, which consist of LOTS of complex physical equations, use the observations to solve the equations, and the results tell us what the atmosphere is going to do in the future.  Since the observations are only for a few points along the map, models do a lot of interpolation between observation points, and, even when the observation data is good, those interpolations are not perfect.  (And when the observations themselves are bad, the solution is just going to be bad: Garbage In, Garbage Out, right?)  Not only that, but there are many atmospheric processes and features that are 'parameterized,' meaning that they are represented in the models using over-simplified equations and assumptions.   Assumptions: Any genealogist knows that assumptions can lead you down the wrong family tree branch quickly.

What kind of models do genealogists use?  How about the models of the nuclear family (parents, their children) and the extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins)?  Not all of our ancestors lived in and maintained traditional nuclear families: some were adopted or spent entire childhoods in orphanages, some had extra-marital affairs, some divorced and lived as single parents or remarried again.  The same goes for the extended family model - was that 'Uncle John' listed in the census form really a blood-relative, or just a close family friend?  I don't necessarily like calling non-nuclear family units 'imperfect' - a better term I think would be 'unexpected' as we are more or less conditioned to search for ancestors in these neat and tidy family units.  However, those assumptions can ultimately prevent us from making major discoveries about our relatives.

And whether you realize it or not, if you are a family historian, you've probably also employed human behavior models whenever you've tried to figure out WHY an ancestor did something or acting in a certain way.  "Oh great-great-grandma once worked as a prostitute?  She must have been extremely poor to have had to resort to that."  In most cases, that would be a good assumption, but not always.  "Grandpa moved across the country during the Depression?  Must have been looking for a job."  Again, not a bad assumption, but not necessarily true, unless you have documentation.

3.) Reasons #1 and #2 can lead to what meteorologists call 'busts,' which are simply bad forecasts.  If you've ever done any sort of extensive family history research, you've probably experienced a genealogy bust yourself.  So, you thought Great-Grandpa John Miller's birthday was xx Mar 18xx, because that is what is listed on his death certificate.  You find a birth record with the same name and date and then start tracing back his family tree based on the parents listed.  Except that this is the birth record of a different John Miller, not your ancestor.  Doh!

4.) Some questions/events are unsolvable (at least for the time being).  Meteorologists do a lot of case studies, looking back at notable weather events to try to learn why the computer models and forecasters either succeeded in predicting the event accurately or did not.  Many times, after a long and careful analysis, they do figure out why the atmosphere behaved the way that it did during the event, but sometimes they don't.  For genealogists, we know that if a courthouse or archive site has burned down (taking all its records with it), we may never be able to get grandma's birth record.  If a father is not listed on an Old World baptism record, we may never be able to find out who that person was.  In cases like these, meteorologists work toward developing a better understanding of the physics of the atmosphere, and genealogists keep up the hope that perhaps a new record set will come to light that will solve their mysteries in their trees. 

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

My great-grandfather, Dominik Kowalski immigrated to the U.S. from Poland in 1912 and settled in one of Cleveland's Polish neighborhoods on the east side of the city.  According to occupation listings in the Cleveland city directories, by the mid-1920s he had opened his own neighborhood hardware shop.  It was located at 3110 E. 65th Street; the shop took up the main floor of the home and Dominik and his family lived above it.  He operated the shop until about 1947, when he and his wife Lucy moved to Arizona to retire.  

About a month ago, I was back in Cleveland for my brother's wedding.  I had a little free time, so I went down to the Cuyahoga County Archives to see what types of records they had and if there was anything I could add to my collection of family history knowledge.  One of the really unique record sets that they have are appraisal/tax duplicates for county properties.  Since I knew the address of the Kowalski home/store, I asked the research associate (who was incredibly helpful) if she would look for any duplicates pertaining to this address.  She came back with these copies:

So, these forms are basically telling me about the structure's "vital statistics:" how big, when it was built/remodeled, what it is made of, how much it is worth, etc.  This appraisal was done a couple of years before Dominik and Lucy retired, and it's neat to see their names listed under 'owners.'  But she also found something else in the property's file that was even better:

Many properties do have actual photos of the structures in their tax duplicate files.  Now, this photo was taken in the 1950s when the property was appraised again, but this is probably very much what the Kowalski hardware store looked like from the 1920s through the 1940s. (The house IS still there today, but it's no longer a shop and there no longer any evidence of a storefront.) These are the types of finds that I live for when doing all this family research.  Census schedules and death records are necessary and list great information, but stuff like this really helps to tell my family's story.

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder