Post by piwo on Dec 22, 2005 9:41:42 GMT -7
This is an account of my search for Polskiego Rodzine. I thought this was the forum to do so and wanted to tell the story. There have been several new posts from people who are now just searching, and I thought I'd share my adventure. Sorry for the long post, but no other way to tell it.
My mother was born of Jozefa Arasim and Kazimierz Pachucki, making me an American with Polish ancestry on my mothers side, thus I don’t possess the Polish surname. I always considered myself Polish though, and always answered so when asked what my heritage was. My grandmother had 14 grandchildren, and only two demonstrated much interest in genealogy: myself and an older male cousin. He studied his surname, which was our grandfathers, Pachucki: and I my grandmothers, Harasim (though we knew it only as Arasim). I never met my grandfather and of course I bear my fathers name so there wasn’t any particular curiosity: but I lived many years with my grandmother, and we were very close. I always dreamed of learning her old world, but knew I had no chance. Well, thankfully I was slightly mistaken.
Easter Sunday, 2002 was a turning point: my 17 year old daughter looked through an old box of stuff at my mom’s house, and came across the old pictures of my grandmother and others. She was drawn to them, and to my mothers “Elementarz” book. She said she wanted to speak Polish, and I knew then she was hooked and I finally had what I needed: an ally in the search and an explainable reason for the time I would need to spend searching. That very night I posted a post on the Harasim Genealogy forum requesting information for Arasim who lived in the Raczki, Suwalki region of Poland, which were the only towns any of the first generation folks (my mom included) could remember being discussed. No one even knew their grandparents “imie”, only that they were “Arasim”, and all who came over had that name on their tombstones at the cemetery, along with their married names.
A few weeks later, I got an email from a man in Michigan, who asked me some questions about my post. He had begun this search for the same surname a few years earlier, and had documents from St. Louis, where we lived (including the address of the house I was born in on an old calendar) and the ships manifest for my great aunt Stefania's trip to the USA. I filled him in with as much information I could, and he did likewise. We surmised that we were related somehow, but not sure exactly how. With his assistance as to procedure, I went to a local Mormon Family learning center and had some microfilms sent and began scouring ship indexes using the soundex code for Arasim, and ships arriving in Baltimore Harbor, where we knew she arrived in either 1907 or 1909. I eventually found her index card, which contained the name of her village, Mikolajovka (listed as being in Russia), her parent’s names, their occupation, how much money she had, where she was going in the USA and so forth. It also listed the ships name, so I was able to find the actual manifest later, and found the entries. It was incredibly thrilling.
We couldn’t find that village on the map in the vicinity of Raczki or Suwalki, and when shown to my Czech brother in Law, he told me it was a “case” issue. The village was likely to be Mikołajówek. This we found, so now we had the village, and where it was located. A search of available church records showed a nearby church in Janówka Poland with extensive records. By now, it was late 2002, and things had slowed down in the searching for many reasons.
Good fortune was on my side however, as I had a business trip scheduled for Salt Lake City in January: Genealogy heaven! I was able to spend parts of 3 evenings in the world’s largest Genealogical library, with multi lingual speakers available to help. After finding church records written in Polish for very early records, they all changed to Russian in 1868: retribution for the failed uprising to kick out the Russians from Poland and reclaim their country. I was about to throw in the towel, when very nice lady asked me what I was looking at, and when I told her, she said it was Russian, and that she could help. She showed me in Russian alphabet what the family name would look like, and so I began photocopying all instances I could find for marriages and births during specific years. In doing so, I found my great great grandparents, Anna and Michal’s marriage records (which contain the name and village of their parents), and also the marriage records of the guy in Michigan’s great great grandparents. Turns out his Marianna, and my Michal, were brother and sister! We had the link we hoped for. As for the other documents, I had to learn the Russian alphabet and translate to Polish, and look for family. I found 5 marriage records where the Harasim (first time we had seen that spelling) person getting married had the same parents, Stanislaw Harasim and Teofila Cuper. It took many months to sift through all the documents, and I still haven’t done so satisfactorily yet. I emailed a good friend in Brussels who is Ukrainian, and she gave me a “readers digest” reading of the wedding documents for the 5, which was much appreciated.
Examination of all the documents revealed 5 brothers and sisters, but records for a 6th family (that the guy in Michigan came across) could not be located. And I had talked to these people, and actually sent them copies of old pictures asking if they recognized any of the people. She replied with one, “Yes, that’s mom and dad; we’ve never seen that picture”. Those people were with my Grandmother and Great Aunt, so we knew they were family. Why else would these Arasim travel from Michigan to Missouri to visit our Arasim? We knew they were family, but we had no documents to show how.
Luck followed again in the spring of 2003, when a website was provided to my contact in Michigan. It was sent to my contact by a friend who told him there was a picture of the church in Janówka where our records came from. The link was only in Polish, and while surfing, I found a directory of dozens of tiny villages in Northeastern Poland, with what appeared to be addresses and telephone numbers of people in them. The Village of Mikołajówek had 10 phones, and one was of a Marek Harasim. Using Poltran.com, I drafted a crude letter introducing myself, why I was writing, included a map which showed the location of Mikołajówek, asked for help, and sent a few bucks for return postage. Then we waited.
Returning from a family reunion in WI that 4th of July (Pachucki side), there was a letter from Poland. In it contained a hand drawn family tree, consisting of my information and Marek’s “branch”, and a photograph that was taken in the house I was born in St. Louis, of my Grandmother and 4 or her 5 sisters. Amazing, the picture was taken in St. Louis in the 1950’s, sent to Poland, and then sent back to me 53 years later. We had our bona fides established, and Marek was the missing “6th family” branch. Ironically, that website no longer exists. Another few months, and I may still not know of my cousin’s existence!
Our communication was slow at first as they knew no English, and I no Polish. I began using internet studies, PC software programs and eventually a “conversational Polish” class at a local community college over the next two years. Marek had invited us to Poland, and I knew it would take some time before I could do it both financially and "language” wise. My eldest daughter, my Godmother and I traveled to Mikołajówek this past July, and spent 6 days on the farm with my Polish family. It was the most emotional, amazing time of my life. As Jaga has mentioned on other threads, my eldest wants to go back to be married in the church at Janówka, so, another adventure awaits.
You just never know what will transpire to help find your family. Everything old is a clue.
My mother was born of Jozefa Arasim and Kazimierz Pachucki, making me an American with Polish ancestry on my mothers side, thus I don’t possess the Polish surname. I always considered myself Polish though, and always answered so when asked what my heritage was. My grandmother had 14 grandchildren, and only two demonstrated much interest in genealogy: myself and an older male cousin. He studied his surname, which was our grandfathers, Pachucki: and I my grandmothers, Harasim (though we knew it only as Arasim). I never met my grandfather and of course I bear my fathers name so there wasn’t any particular curiosity: but I lived many years with my grandmother, and we were very close. I always dreamed of learning her old world, but knew I had no chance. Well, thankfully I was slightly mistaken.
Easter Sunday, 2002 was a turning point: my 17 year old daughter looked through an old box of stuff at my mom’s house, and came across the old pictures of my grandmother and others. She was drawn to them, and to my mothers “Elementarz” book. She said she wanted to speak Polish, and I knew then she was hooked and I finally had what I needed: an ally in the search and an explainable reason for the time I would need to spend searching. That very night I posted a post on the Harasim Genealogy forum requesting information for Arasim who lived in the Raczki, Suwalki region of Poland, which were the only towns any of the first generation folks (my mom included) could remember being discussed. No one even knew their grandparents “imie”, only that they were “Arasim”, and all who came over had that name on their tombstones at the cemetery, along with their married names.
A few weeks later, I got an email from a man in Michigan, who asked me some questions about my post. He had begun this search for the same surname a few years earlier, and had documents from St. Louis, where we lived (including the address of the house I was born in on an old calendar) and the ships manifest for my great aunt Stefania's trip to the USA. I filled him in with as much information I could, and he did likewise. We surmised that we were related somehow, but not sure exactly how. With his assistance as to procedure, I went to a local Mormon Family learning center and had some microfilms sent and began scouring ship indexes using the soundex code for Arasim, and ships arriving in Baltimore Harbor, where we knew she arrived in either 1907 or 1909. I eventually found her index card, which contained the name of her village, Mikolajovka (listed as being in Russia), her parent’s names, their occupation, how much money she had, where she was going in the USA and so forth. It also listed the ships name, so I was able to find the actual manifest later, and found the entries. It was incredibly thrilling.
We couldn’t find that village on the map in the vicinity of Raczki or Suwalki, and when shown to my Czech brother in Law, he told me it was a “case” issue. The village was likely to be Mikołajówek. This we found, so now we had the village, and where it was located. A search of available church records showed a nearby church in Janówka Poland with extensive records. By now, it was late 2002, and things had slowed down in the searching for many reasons.
Good fortune was on my side however, as I had a business trip scheduled for Salt Lake City in January: Genealogy heaven! I was able to spend parts of 3 evenings in the world’s largest Genealogical library, with multi lingual speakers available to help. After finding church records written in Polish for very early records, they all changed to Russian in 1868: retribution for the failed uprising to kick out the Russians from Poland and reclaim their country. I was about to throw in the towel, when very nice lady asked me what I was looking at, and when I told her, she said it was Russian, and that she could help. She showed me in Russian alphabet what the family name would look like, and so I began photocopying all instances I could find for marriages and births during specific years. In doing so, I found my great great grandparents, Anna and Michal’s marriage records (which contain the name and village of their parents), and also the marriage records of the guy in Michigan’s great great grandparents. Turns out his Marianna, and my Michal, were brother and sister! We had the link we hoped for. As for the other documents, I had to learn the Russian alphabet and translate to Polish, and look for family. I found 5 marriage records where the Harasim (first time we had seen that spelling) person getting married had the same parents, Stanislaw Harasim and Teofila Cuper. It took many months to sift through all the documents, and I still haven’t done so satisfactorily yet. I emailed a good friend in Brussels who is Ukrainian, and she gave me a “readers digest” reading of the wedding documents for the 5, which was much appreciated.
Examination of all the documents revealed 5 brothers and sisters, but records for a 6th family (that the guy in Michigan came across) could not be located. And I had talked to these people, and actually sent them copies of old pictures asking if they recognized any of the people. She replied with one, “Yes, that’s mom and dad; we’ve never seen that picture”. Those people were with my Grandmother and Great Aunt, so we knew they were family. Why else would these Arasim travel from Michigan to Missouri to visit our Arasim? We knew they were family, but we had no documents to show how.
Luck followed again in the spring of 2003, when a website was provided to my contact in Michigan. It was sent to my contact by a friend who told him there was a picture of the church in Janówka where our records came from. The link was only in Polish, and while surfing, I found a directory of dozens of tiny villages in Northeastern Poland, with what appeared to be addresses and telephone numbers of people in them. The Village of Mikołajówek had 10 phones, and one was of a Marek Harasim. Using Poltran.com, I drafted a crude letter introducing myself, why I was writing, included a map which showed the location of Mikołajówek, asked for help, and sent a few bucks for return postage. Then we waited.
Returning from a family reunion in WI that 4th of July (Pachucki side), there was a letter from Poland. In it contained a hand drawn family tree, consisting of my information and Marek’s “branch”, and a photograph that was taken in the house I was born in St. Louis, of my Grandmother and 4 or her 5 sisters. Amazing, the picture was taken in St. Louis in the 1950’s, sent to Poland, and then sent back to me 53 years later. We had our bona fides established, and Marek was the missing “6th family” branch. Ironically, that website no longer exists. Another few months, and I may still not know of my cousin’s existence!
Our communication was slow at first as they knew no English, and I no Polish. I began using internet studies, PC software programs and eventually a “conversational Polish” class at a local community college over the next two years. Marek had invited us to Poland, and I knew it would take some time before I could do it both financially and "language” wise. My eldest daughter, my Godmother and I traveled to Mikołajówek this past July, and spent 6 days on the farm with my Polish family. It was the most emotional, amazing time of my life. As Jaga has mentioned on other threads, my eldest wants to go back to be married in the church at Janówka, so, another adventure awaits.
You just never know what will transpire to help find your family. Everything old is a clue.
