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From Galicia to Gravenstein to Hamburg to Cleveland

1/17/2014

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.

Journey from Skrudzina, Poland to Gråsten, Denmark

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

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Surname Saturday: Tumbusch

1/19/2013

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Theodor Tumbusch, one of my husband's gg-grandfathers on his mom's side, immigrated to America from Germany in 1861. His ship manifest is below. He was about 27 years old and his last residence is listed as Koesfeld (proper spelling is Coesfeld). Listed beneath him in the manifest is Anna Rasing, who was either already his wife, or who would soon become his wife upon arrival in America (I still need to figure that out.) They arrived in Baltimore and eventually made their way to western Ohio, where they settled on a farm in Mercer County. Unfortunately, Theodor died rather young in 1870; Anna lived until 1918.

Theodor Tumbusch and Anna Rasing Ship Manifest

I've done some research on the surname 'Tumbusch,' and it's difficult to determine what the name means or indicates. 'Busch' in German simply means 'bush' in English and 'tum' might refer to several meanings. The English word 'tumble' has roots in German - the German verb 'taumeln' means to fall, drop, or stagger, and the verb 'tummeln' means 'to romp.' The German noun 'tumben' means 'tomb.' The German noun 'tumult' has essentially the same meaning as the same English world and the noun 'tumultant' refers to a rioter. So, maybe my husband had an ancestor who fell in bushes or who was buried in bushes or who caused some sort of commotion or uproar in bushes. Your guess is as good as mine.

Theodor Tumbush had three sons, Henry, Bernard, and Herman, all of whom lived into adulthood and had sons of their own to carry on the family name. It appears that most of Henry's children chose to change the spelling of the name to 'Tumbush' - their birth records indicate the original spelling, while military, marriage, residential, and death records are most often without the 'c.' As far as I can tell from the records, the children and grandchildren of Bernard and Herman kept the original spelling.

If you're not one of my in-laws and have never heard the name 'Tumbusch' before, you're not alone. It's not a common name. The Worldnames Public Profiler maps surnames for 26 countries around the world using recent telephone directories and voter registries. It is not scientific or completely comprehensive, but it still gives you a good idea of relative popularity of a name in different places. In the U.S, the frequency per million (FPM) for the name Tumbusch is only 0.41 (The Tumbush spelling is 0.25). By comparison, my surname, Kowalski, which is basically the Polish equivalent of Smith, has a FPM of 81.56. And Tumbusch is actually MORE common in the U.S. than in Germany, where the FPM is only 0.09.

Relative frequency of surname Tumbusch - World

Zooming into Europe: It is a little difficult to see, but the only area in which 'Tumbusch' is found is the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is where Theodor's hometown of Coesfeld is located.

Relative frequency of surname Tumbusch - Europe

Breaking down the United States: Tumbusch on the left and Tumbush on the right. Not surprisingly, both spellings are relatively common in Ohio compared with other states.

Tumbusch

Tumbush

And, finally, Ohio by county, Tumbusch on the left and Tumbush on the right. That county in western Ohio in the darkest shade of blue is Mercer County, where Theodor and Anna orginally settled. Notice the small concentration of Tumbush near Cleveland. One of my husband's great uncles moved to the Cleveland area to work on the railroads in the early 20th century and I am willing to bet that some of his descendants still live in the area.

Tumbusch

Tumbush

Based on the rarity of the name, it is probable that many people with the surname Tumbusch or Tumbush in the United States today are descendants of Theodor Tumbusch. And if there are any Tumbusch's out there who AREN'T of his lineage, it would be interesting to try to trace back their ancestors to Germany to try to find the common ancestor. That may have to be one of my longer-term goals for the future. In the meantime, I'm adding Coesfeld, Germany to my list of must-visit places whenever my husband and I get a chance to take our genealogy trip to Germany.

Tumbus(c)h family documents can be viewed and downloaded at this website: http://schroeder-tumbush.weebly.com/tumbush.html

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My Great-Grandmother and her Feminine Surname

10/22/2012

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When I was first starting my family tree research, I ran into a bit of a roadblock when searching for information related to one of my paternal great-grandmothers. At first, all I knew was that she was a Polish immigrant who lived in Cleveland, and who died when my grandfather was a young child. All my dad and his siblings knew about her was that she went by 'Lottie.' I was able to piece together some clues through other family documents I found: I knew she had died by 1920 because my great-grandfather was listed as "widowed" in the 1920 census. My great-uncle's obituary listed her name as "Lottie Gacka," so all right, I thought, now I have her maiden name. I searched the engines on various genealogy sites for Lottie Kowalski (her married name) and Lottie Gacka, but I couldn't find any records that I could definitively link to my great-grandfather. In fact, as I was scrolling through the many records returned by the search engines, I soon realized that 'Lottie' was a common nickname adopted by Polish immigrant women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

So, at this point, I feel like my only choice is to scroll through and check ALL of the records returned by the search engines, even those with names that would not initially seem to be a match, in the hopes of discovering some clue that would lead me in the right direction. I was doing this on FamilySearch.org and came across a 1919 death record for a woman by the name of 'Władysława Kowalska.' The record also listed her father as 'Stanisław Gacki.' Hmmm, 'Kowalska' and 'Gacki' are close to 'Kowalski' and 'Gacka,' but, again, I had NO idea if this really was her first name, so I couldn't be sure it was her. I printed it out, though, and hoped that it may be an important clue.

Now, when I initially found this record, FamilySearch had not yet uploaded the actual image of the death certificate, so I couldn't learn anything else from it. Fast forward 6-8 months. I went back on FamilySearch to examine the record again and found that they HAD uploaded the actual death certificate:

"Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X8L9-NC9 : accessed 04 Nov 2012), Wladyslarva Kowalska, 1919; citing reference fn 52304, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

And there he was at the bottom - Informant: Dominik Kowalski - my great-grandfather. Now, I KNEW without a doubt that it was her. And then I was a tad angry with myself for not realizing that Poles traditionally spell surnames differently depending on if you are a man or a woman. I have read enough Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in my life to know that this is true in Russia, but I suppose I had never been exposed to it as part of Polish culture. This explains the 'Kowalska' instead of 'Kowalski' and even the 'Gacka' instead of 'Gacki.' Even though she had been in America six years, she maintained her female surname, even if she did adopt a more "American" first name.

And then of course AFTER I went through all of this with the death certificate, I found my great-grandfather's immigrant ship manifest on which he listed Władysława as "nearest relative in country from whence (he) came." If only I had found THIS document first - then I wouldn't have had to go through the whole mystery with the death record and trying to figure out her real name. Ah, but we all know that researching family history isn't always that simple. :-)

Source Citation: Year: 1912; Arrival; Microfilm Serial: T715; Microfilm Roll: 1850; Line: 8; Page Number: 76. Source Information: Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Because she died quite young, these are the only two documents I have found that reference Władysława. I am still on the hunt for her immigrant ship manifest; she came over about a year after my great-grandfather with her three sons ages four, two, and eight months. (I can't even imagine doing that on my own - she was obviously a very brave, a very strong woman.) By the way, the name 'Władysława' is the female equivalent of Władysław, which comes from the Russian name of Vladislav. It means "to rule with glory."

***STOP THE BLOG PRESSES! UPDATE!***
Ok, so literally right after I typed that sentence above about being on the hunt for her immigrant ship manifest, I went to Ancestry.com. Because I knew she was traveling with her sons, I tried searching for the manifest using the name 'Jan Kowalski,' who was her eldest son. I had previously discovered his immigration application papers, so I knew the exact date they entered the country and the ship name. I had to scroll through quite a few pages - 'Jan Kowalski' is literally the Polish equivalent of 'John Smith,' so there were a lot of records - but I found the manifest! Here is Władysława with her three sons, Jan, Stanisław, and Josef, all listed with her surname of 'Kowalska.' And her father, Stanisław Gacki, is listed as next of kin, so that matches the information on her death certificate.

Source Citation: Year: 1913; Arrival; Microfilm Serial: T715; Microfilm Roll: 2194; Line: 25; Page Number: 43.
Source Information: Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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Adele

9/19/2012

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Adele Licciardi, 1944

No, not THAT Adele; not the sassy, soulful British-born singer-songwriter. This post is about the person with whom I associate the name, my Great-Grandmother, Adele.

She was born Adele Parrazzini in 1895 in the northern Italian city of Milan. We don't know much about her childhood or upbringing. My uncle has told me that she met my great-grandfather, Luigi Licciardi, when he was on business in Milan; he was originially from Palermo, Sicily, and back then there was not a whole lot of intermingling between the north and the south. They were married in 1913 and my grandmother, Dina, and her sister, Yola, were born in 1914 and 1915, respectively. Luigi (Louis) became a captain in the Italian army during WWI.

I don't think anyone in the family knows why they decided to immigrate to the United States. Like many other European nations, there was a post-war recession and civil unrest in Italy, so perhaps they had good reason to leave. Or perhaps they had heard about what America had to offer from friends and their adventurous spirit won out. Louis arrived at Ellis Island in October 1920. As was the common practice among immigrants at the time, he made the journey ahead of the rest of the family in order to secure a job, make connections, and find a place in which to live. Well, apparently Adele got tired of waiting for her husband to send word to come over, because she sold some of her jewelry and bought passage tickets for her and her two young daughters. Below is her ship manifest. The fact that she declared her MAIDEN name may have had something to do with the fact that she wasn't too happy with her husband at the time. My uncle told me that the first thing Louis said to her when he met them in NYC was, "Where's your hat?" Ah, the romance :) They arrived in New York City on May 12, 1921.

Ship Manifest for Adele, Dina, and Yola Licciardi.

Once they were settled in Cleveland, both of my great-grandparents became very involved in the Italian-American community. Great-grandpa was a member of Italian societies and served on influential committees that were active in hosting events when Italian consuls visited Cleveland. (My mom was looking at my grandmother's wedding photos a few months ago and said something to the effect of "Who knows? One of these guys (in the photos) could be Chef Boyardee!," because Louis loved hobnobbing with the top notch Italian-Americans of the city.) Adele was just as active as her husband. Here is a 1934 Cleveland Plain Dealer photo of her with a group of Italian students who she helped greet with some of her local Italian neighbors and friends:

Source: The Cleveland Plain Dealer

One of the interesting things I learned about Adele during my research is that she ran into some snags when she applied for citizenship. Louis was granted full citizenship in 1927, but Adele didn't begin her petition for citizenship until 1942. (I found this to be the case with my Polish immigrant great-grandparents as well; the husband applied for and was granted citizenship long before the wife. I don't know why, but it may have had something to do with being able to work.) Shortly after she filed her petition, Adele received this letter:

Adele, the ENEMY ALIEN! It's hard to imagine my short, little old great-grandmother as a threat to anybody. But it was World War II; Italy was an enemy. According to the Nationality Act of 1940,

"An alien who is a native, citizen, subject, or denizen of any country, state, or sovereignty with which the United States is at war MAY be naturalized as a citizen of the United States IF such alien's declaration of intention was made not less than two years prior to the beginning of the state of war..."

Adele did NOT make her declaration of intention two years before the U.S. went to war with Italy, so that explains this letter. Of course, her classification did not last forever, and she became a full cititzen of the U.S. on June 15, 1945.

What do I remember about my great-grandmother? She had an apartment in the only high-rise apartment building in our suburb. She had lived there by herself since great-grandpa died in 1974. My mom and grandma would sometimes take me and my brother to visit her on Sundays after morning mass. We loved going out onto her balcony and looking down at the street. She always had a tin of these butter cookies for us to eat. We always thought they were so fancy!

She would give us milk to drink in little colored depression-era glasses. She hated to cook so her freezer had microwave dinners in it. She spoke English very well, but there was the hint of an Italian accent to some of her words. Oh, and I'll never forget that she had these borderline scary-looking glass clown figurines placed around the apartment for decoration. I'm sure that they were antiques and probably worth some money, but that doesn't matter when you are eight years old and you feel like they are following your every move.

Adele lived until 1990, when she was 95 years old, and she lived by herself that whole time. She liked being independant; even during her last days, she didn't want to be in the hospital. She just talked about going back to her apartment. I feel like I was fortunate to be able to get to know her a little. I look at this photo of myself and am amazed to think "This is ME, with someone who was born in the 19th century!" Maybe this is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by learning my family's history; I have real memories of a person in our family who made the decision to start a life in America, and who is, subsequently, one of the people with whom I can credit for making ME an American.

My brother and I with our Great-Grandma Adele on my First Communion Day, 1987.

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Coming Over

7/16/2012

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SS Finland, Antwerp-New York, 1902-1927

Like most white Americans, husband and I are descendants of immigrants from European nations. My ancestors were from Poland, Croatia, and Italy, while his were from France and Germany. (Our kids are good ole European mutts, I guess :) Our relatives came over at different times, though, which made their immigrant experiences somewhat different due to improvements in technology and changes in American immigration legislation and processing.

Tony's ancestors came to America in the 19th century, mostly from 1830 to the mid-1850s. Many of them were farmers from small villages in northeastern France (Alsace-Lorraine) and northwestern Germany, but there were a few tradesmen (blacksmiths, coopers, etc.) that made the journey as well. At this time, the Trans-Atlantic journey took an average of about seven weeks, but it could take upwards of 2-3 months depending on weather conditions and steering currents. The following exerpt describes how two of my husband's ancestral families came to the U.S from France:

"The Grill(i)ots (in 1838) and Aubrys (in 1840) traveled to the United States on American sailing ships. Usually these packet ships carried cargo, perhaps bales of cotton, on the voyage from America to France. For the return trip, the empty holds were transformed into a semblance of living quarters for the emigrants. Shelves arranged around the walls, three tiers high, served as berths. Each family was assigned an appropriate space that some managed to curtain off for a bit of privacy. They went up on deck for exercise, fresh air, and to prepare food on cook stoves." Source: http://www.wmcnitt.net/aubry/emigrati.htm

Typical steerage immigrant quarters

Conditions in steerage were usually quite bad. The quarters were cramped and unsanitary. Air circulation was poor and temperatures became dangerously hot during the summer months. People did not bathe and, at this time, were expected to provide their own food, which, even if properly "preserved" did gradually spoil. The stench was probably pretty awful.  Passengers suffered from seasickness and other serious illnesses and injuries, and, unfortunately, there were occasionally deaths during the voyage.

In 1855, Congress enacted a Passenger Act as an attempt to improve conditions for immigrants heading to America.   It included provisions to limit the number of passengers per size of ship, increase the height of living quarters to at least 6 ft (it was usually 5.5 ft or less prior to this), provide adequate food, water, and ventilation, maintain a "quarantine" area for the sick and wash areas for all passengers, and provide some discipline to passengers who broke simple laws (theft was a large problem). There were fines if these provisions were not upheld; however, most historians agree that the law was not regularly enforced and the fines were not large enough to get every ship captain to adhere to the provisions.

It was about this time that the first steamships started making Trans-Atlantic voyages. By the mid-1870s, dozens of steamships were regularly carrying immigrants from Europe to America. While conditions onboard these ships were still cramped and unhygienic (for lower class passengers), the length of the trips was signifcantly less: About 5-7 days from English/Irish ports and no more than 2 weeks from ports in central and southern Europe.

My ancestors came to America between the 1890s and 1921, so they did have much shorter journeys. However, they also had to go through more red tape once they arrived at port, which included more thorough medical inspections, grouping procedures, and obtaining legal paperwork.   Another post for another day, though :) I also intend to write about WHAT may have driven our ancestors to leave their homes and make a long, difficult, and dangerous journey halfway around the world to start new lives.

Finding Ship Manifests

In 1819, the U.S. passed a customs law that required ship captains to list the names of each passenger traveling on his ship. Because of this law (and the good fortune that most of them survived to be preserved and catalogued), we actually have pretty good records of the immigrants on each ship passage. Ancestry.com is the best, most-complete online source of records and images of the original ship lists (known as 'manifests') that you can download. If you choose to get a 14-day free trial, these documents are the first ones I would search for, because, apart from visiting the National Archives in Washington, D.C, they are difficult to obtain elsewhere. Below is a sample manifest from 1853 when Andreas Braunswig, Tony's great-great-great-grandfather, came to America. It lists his name, age, country of birth, place of last
residence, place to which he is going, occupation, and pieces of baggage. Once in America, he used name "Andrew Brunswick." It was fairly common for immigrants to anglicize their name, so keep that in mind when doing your own searching.

Andrew Brunswick "Bessel" Ship Manifest 1853

There is a free site on which you can find some immigrant ship manifests. The Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild is a network of volunteers who read through and manually transcribe original ship lists, which are then posted on the website. Because it relies on volunteer work, it is by no means a complete record of all ship lists, but I did find some of Tony's ancestors in their database, which is continually growing and being updated.

©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

Ship Manifest Source Citation: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, DC; Records of the US Customs Service, RG36, Series: M255, Roll: 9
Source Information: Ancestry.com. Baltimore, Passenger Lists, 1820-1948 and 1954-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

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From Galicia to Gravenstein to Hamburg to Cleveland

Surname Saturday: Tumbusch

My Great-Grandmother and her Feminine Surname

Adele

Coming Over

Finding Ship Manifests

Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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