Sto Lat – 100 Years

If my grandfather Henry Pater was still alive, today would be his 100th birthday.   This post is in his honor: Just the Facts: Parents: Louis Pater (born Ludwik Pater, 1893-1957) and Elizabeth Miller (born Elżbieta Müller, 1891-1972) Born: 25 March 1912, Langhorne, Bucks County, Pennsylvania Baptized: 04 April 1912, Our Lady of Grace RC Church, [...]

Read Full Post »

Sweet Sixteen Redux

Back on August 9, 2009, Randy Seaver presented another Saturday Night Genealogical Fun (SNGF) challenge for readers to document their sixteen great-great-grandparents.  I responded to the call with Sweet Sixteen: My Great-Great Grandparents.  But, my tree was a little bare in some spots.  I did not know at least 4 names and was “iffy” on [...]

Read Full Post »

The Millers’ Tale: Part Three

The previous posts have discussed two other Miller families.  Part One focused on the Miller family related to Carl Mach and his wife, Sophia Miller Mach.  Part Two was about my great-grandmother Elizabeth Miller and her brother, Emil Miller, and his family.  But there is yet another Miller family with a “connection” of sorts to [...]

Read Full Post »

The Millers’ Tale: Part Two

The last post, Part One, detailed the Miller family associated with Carl Mach and his wife, Sophia.  In this post, I will detail my own Miller family – and their connections to Mach and his family. My great-grandmother, Elżbieta or Elizabeth Miller, was born on 19 November 1890 – presumably in Żyrardów although the actual [...]

Read Full Post »

The Millers’ Tale: Part One

Searching a common surname like Miller is challenging, but even more so because this particular surname is common not in one or two countries, but in many from Ireland and Great Britain and crossing throughout Europe to Russia, German, Poland, Hungary, and more.  In the U.S., there are even a mix of races that bear [...]

Read Full Post »

Do you have a photo of my great-grandmother?

Yesterday I celebrated the 100th anniversary of my great-grandmother’s arrival to the U.S.  Unfortunately, I did not include a photo of her, Elizabeth Miller Pater, with the post.  Even though she is the only great-grandparent who was alive during my lifetime, I have only one photo of her.  As you can see below, it is [...]

Read Full Post »

April 16, 1909 – Welcome to America!

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the arrival of my great-grandmother, Elżbieta Müller, to the United States.  She soon Americanized her name to Elizabeth Miller, and the following year became Elizabeth Pater after marriage. Elizabeth sailed on the SS President Grant, a ship of the Hamburg-American line.  The ship left Hamburg, Germany, on April 3, [...]

Read Full Post »

When You Can’t Find Grampa’s Marriage Record

One of my more popular posts has been Philadelphia Marriage Indexes Online.  As that post indicates, the FamilySearch site’s collection of Philadelphia Marriage Records is great online tool for searching for marriage information.  The collection is a listing of marriage licenses issued in Philadelphia from 1885-1951.  While these records are technically an “index” they are [...]

Read Full Post »

Żyrardów: Birth of a Modern Town

My immigrant ancestors came from many different places. Some came from large capital cities that had very old beginnings and long histories (Warsaw, Poland). Other hometowns were not as large as a city, but they were large market towns born in the 1300’s that continue to have vibrant communities today (Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, Germany [...]

Read Full Post »

A Salute to Gutsy Women Travelers

Ever since my first transatlantic trip in 1985, I’ve been stricken with the travel bug. There is no cure. Symptoms include a desire to wander to far-away places, hopeless daydreaming, and a joy brought on by traipsing on planes and trains. I did not think my condition was genetic as no one else in my [...]

Read Full Post »

Polish Names and Feast Days

Name days, which are the church’s feast day of the saint that bears one’s name, have long been considered important in many Catholic cultures. Even today in Poland, a person’s name day, called imieniny, is celebrated in lieu of or in addition to a birthday. But in the past, the name day and the birthday [...]

Read Full Post »