His Name was Józef Pater

Who was Józef Pater?  I came upon Józef by accident while searching for my 2nd great-grandfather of the same name. I discovered that this particular Józef was my ancestor’s nephew, his brother Marcin’s son. What I learned with that search result was a forgotten story of a family – my family – who perished in [...]

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Time Travel to 1940

“One hour, okay?”  He looked at me skeptically. “Then you have to come back to me. We have places to go!” “One hour – got it!” Wow, even time travel has restrictions. I turned on the machine and within a minute I was back in 1940 and walking the streets of Philadelphia. I didn’t have much [...]

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The Cost of Dying in 1919: Funeral Home Records

Recently Ancestry.com put up a new set of records called “Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records.” The collection contains a wide variety of miscellaneous records from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.  I actually found a few items of interest in the collection.  One subset of records comes from the Wackerman Funeral Home, a funeral home [...]

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What Happened to Uncle Herman?

In my quest to prepare for the 1940 Census by documenting all of my relatives and their potential 1940 addresses, I realized there was a relative or two I never found in earlier censuses.  One such relative was my great-grandfather’s half brother, Herman Goetz. Herman and his brother, Julius Goetz, left a rather good paper [...]

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Relatively Speaking: The 1940 Census

In only 35 days genealogy geeks everywhere will rejoice in the release of the 1940 Census. It will be the first Federal Census in which my parents make an appearance. When I came up with 12 Genealogy Goals for 2012, goal #3 was to “Find all my relatives in the 1940 census.”  But just how [...]

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TV’s Castle Can Help Solve Your Genealogical Mystery

A few months ago I watched all the past episodes of the television crime drama Castle (ABC, Monday nights at 10:00 PM Eastern). I’ve always had a thing for romantic comedy shows about crime-solving duos. Castle didn’t disappoint and it’s now one of my favorite shows. It has good plots, interesting and well developed characters, subtle humor, [...]

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12 Genealogy Goals for 2012

Last December I made 11 genealogy goals to accomplish in 2011.  How did I do? Attend the 2011 Southern California Genealogy Jamboree – DONE – I had a blast attending the lectures and hanging out with friends. Obtain a public speaking “gig” on a genealogical topic – DONE – Done times two.  Both talks were [...]

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Genealogical Serendipity

Sometimes my genealogical research takes an organized and methodical approach akin to the scientific method – or at least obsessive compulsive disorder.  And then other times my research resembles the dog in the animated movie Up who gets distracted every time a squirrel runs past him.  While the former research approach may be more useful [...]

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Top Ten More Ways to Celebrate Pol-Am Heritage Month

Everyone can have fun celebrating Polish-American Heritage Month, as we proved yesterday. But if you have Polish ancestry, there are also some fun genealogical things you can do.  Today I present: Top Ten Genealogical Ways to Celebrate Polish-American Heritage Month 1. Listen to Polish pronunciation of names and places with Expressivo.  I wrote about it [...]

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Who Needs an Index?

Genealogists are eagerly awaiting the release of the 1940 U.S. Federal Census in April 2012 so we can track down the information on all of our relatives. While Ancestry will have the images available for free, they will probably not be indexed for some time. For me, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing…my family’s track [...]

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The Fugitive Immigrant

My previous post discussed the Bayer[ische] Zentral-Polizei-Blatt found on Google Books, which I call “Bavaria’s Most Wanted” since it lists names and other information on men and women wanted for crimes throughout Bavaria.  In the collection from 1903, I found a relative listed in issue No. 128 dated 26 September 1903.  He is listed under [...]

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Bavaria’s Most Wanted

While doing some random Google searches, I stumbled upon a fascinating resource on Google Books – the Bayer[ische] Zentral-Polizei-Blatt, or the Bavarian Central Police newspaper.  In short, Bavaria’s Most Wanted. While my German language skills are lacking, it seems that this paper was distributed throughout Germany and perhaps neighboring countries – presumably to police departments.  [...]

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