Steve’s Genealogy Blog

I have been searching for years for information on the ancestors of my paternal grandmother, Marianna Dziurzyńska.  When I hired a professional genealogist in Poland to find records of my ancestors in Dubiecko, Poland, he found precious little about my grandmother, but he found enough to keep me hopeful of finding more information about these ancestors.

The only record of the Dziurzyński family the researcher found in Dubiecko was the Marriage Record for Jan Dziura and Magdalena Jara, my grandmother’s parents.  While the surname was Dziura, not Dziurzyński, the researcher was fairly confident that this was the correct couple.  He also found the birth and baptismal records for two of my grandparents’ children: my Uncle Jan (John) Dańko and my Aunt Zofia (Sophie) Dańko.  (Note: Zofia (Sophie) Dańko was to later become the second wife of Clark Gibson, see yesterday’s blog.)  The record that the researcher did not find was the marriage record of my grandparents, Michał Dańko and Marianna Dziurzyńska.

Recently, I searched the Ancestry.com message boards for “Dziurzynski” and “Dubiecko” and found an interesting message:

RE: Galicia/Podkarpackie/Dubiecko
Author: Paulette Mackuliak
My great grandmother’s name was Zofia Kopacka, daughter of Tomasz kopacki and Marianna Pulinska. She was born in Silenica, Dylagowa, Poland and died in Grebocin, Turinia, Poland. Zofia married marcin Dziurzynski and had 7 children. Jan, the oldest, lived in England and put my grandmother on a boat to come to the US around 1905-1910. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Keep in touch. Email me at pmack@alltel.net. thanks.

Well, there were two positive references in this message: the village and parish of Dubiecko and the surname Dziurzynski.  I sent an email and discussed the family similarities with Paulette.  She told me that her Dziurzynski ancestors lived in the town of Sielnica in the Dylagowa parish and that they had changed their name from Dziura to Dziurzynski. I took a new look at the marriage record of my great grandparents, Jan Dziura and Magdalena Jara.  I noticed some odd notations in the margins of the record that I hadn’t paid much attention to before:

The bride was apparently from the Dubiecko parish, but the groom was from Sielnica (a village that wasn’t in the Dubiecko parish).

There is a notation about the Dylagowa parish that appears to be a record of the Banns of Marriage read “in Dylagowa as well as in Dubiecko”.

I was astonished!

My ancestors seemed to have changed their surname from Dziura to Dziurzynski and were originally from Sielnica in the Dylagowa parish, just like Paulette’s ancestors!  Well, Paulette and I have kept in touch by phone and email.  Our family trees don’t seem to have any common ancestors, but we’d both like to search the records in the Dylagowa parish to see how we might be related.  Unfortunately, these records are not available at the Family History Library, so we will either need to travel to Dylagowa or hire a professional genealogist to search the records for us.

In any case, if the Dziurzyński’s were from Sielnica in Dylagowa parish, perhaps my grandparents were married there, in my grandmother’s home parish.  That would explain why their marriage record wasn’t among the Dubiecko parish records.  After their marriage, they settled in my grandfather’s village of Nienadowa in Dubiecko parish to begin a family.

Although this brickwall isn’t demolished, the information I have accumulated on the Dziurzyńskis is making more sense, and I have found a way to move forward.

In June of 2000 I was casually searching Ancestry.com for the ancestors of my Aunt Sophie’s husband, Clark Gibson.  I had learned from my Cousin Mark that Clark’s father was Arnold Gibson and his mother was Harriet (Hattie) McFadden and that Clark was born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont on June 20, 1894.  Mark also told me that my Aunt Sophie was Clark’s second wife!

According to family legend, Clark married the daughter of a Scottish sea captain, the couple had two children, and then Clark’s wife returned to Scotland with the two children and was never heard from again.

According to the 1910 Census, Clark was living at home with his parents in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont.  According to the 1920 Census, Clark was living in a rooming house in Worcester, Worcester County, Massachusetts.  According to the 1930 Census, Clark was married to my Aunt Sophie and the family was living in Albany, Albany County, New York.  Clark and Sophie’s first child, Jack Arnold Gibson was born in 1923 in Albany, Albany County, New York.  Based on this information, Clark and his first wife must have been married, had their children, and separated between 1910 and 1920.

While I thought that Clark’s first marriage and the fate of his first wife and children was extremely interesting, I figured that the story would forever remain a family legend with no chance of ever knowing what happened to Clark’s first family.  After all, I didn’t even know the name of Clark’s first wife or his children, I had no firm dates, and all I know about the family was that they returned to Scotland.  Not much to go on; so I moved on to other details of Clark’s life.

In June 2000, I was searching Ancestry.com for information on Hattie McFadden, Clark’s mother.  I saw a couple of hits in the message boards and was surprised to see the following post dated May 28, 2000:

I am looking for any family connection to Hattie Fadden,my GG grandmother.She was married to Arnold Gibson and had possibly 3 children,named Clark, lewis(or louis) and a daughter with the initials A.M(possibly Anna May).Hattie was born in Sept. 1868 and died on Jan 22 1930.Her husband Arnold was born in Aug. 1861 and died on Mar 14 1928.They lived in the area of Vermont and are buried in New Jersey.

Well, son-of-a-gun!  Someone else was searching for Clark Gibson’s family!  And he had posted this message just about two weeks earlier.  Well, I decided to jump right in and post a reply:

My aunt married Clark Gibson. Clark’s mother was Harriet McFadden and his father was Arnold Gibson. Clark was born in 1894 in Fairfield, Vermont and had three sisters: May, Arilla, and Adessa. I am told that there are men in the family named Lewis and Meriwether.

A few days later a reply was posted:

I believe that this is a connection to my family.Do you have any other details about your aunt (Clarks wife).I think that this was a different wife.I have an old family letter from a A.M Gibson Page…could this be one of his sisters.I also have a photograph of Hattie and Arnold’s Headstone in New Jersey.Where does the name Meriwether come in? I am looking for any info. on all aspects of our family(both past and present).

My jaw dropped!  Could this be a descendant of Clark Gibson and Clark’s first wife?  I replied immediately.  Then a few hours later, another message was posted on the message board.  Paydirt!  Without going into too many more details, the two of us began corresponding by email.  We exchanged family trees, pictures, and more information.  This was indeed Clark Gibson’s lost family.  The thread of our original message board conversation is still available on the Ancestry/RootsWeb message board.

Since that time, members of both sides of the family have traveled to visit the other side of the Atlantic and have had a very happy reunion.

Tomorrow:  Breaking down another brickwall on the message boards.

The web is full of them:  internet message boards where you can post a query and wait for the responses to come pouring in.  Of course, you have to find the right message board on which to post your question and you have to check back for responses.  Most of all, you have to post an inquiry that someone can answer.

Years ago, when I was still a newbie to both genealogy and the internet, I found some interesting message boards for Poland that I thought would be appropriate for searching for my ancestors.  One of my first posts was posted to the Poland “Unknown Province” board at RootsWeb (now owned by Ancestry.com):

My grandfather, Konstante (or Konstanty or Kostanty) Niedzialkowski was born in Poland in about 1893.  He lived in Worcester, Massachusetts since about 1910 and died on March 13, 1978.

Well, that message is probably a poster child for a bad post.  I had posted this message in response to a post where someone was looking for the family of Julianne Majewski nee Niedzialkowski born in 1894 in Russia-Poland.  Now, chances are that my family may be related to this Julianne Niedzialkowski since most Niedzialkowskis lived in the same few villages in Russia-Poland, but I never received a reply to my message.  The reason is that I just stated a fact about my grandfather, without asking a question, and without providing any information about why I thought my grandfather might be related to Julianne.  No wonder (in 20/20 hindsight, of course) nobody replied.  There was really nothing to say about my message unless someone had information of direct relevance to my grandfather.  But, I can claim naivete and inexperience for my bad post.

Another example of a poorly worded post on the message boards:

I don’t really know anything about my family history and was also looking for info, my last name is (surname)….

I left the surname off the message above to protect the identity of the guilty, but otherwise the message is reproduced in full.  Nobody has yet replied to this message posted in May 2002.  The author didn’t provide enough information for anyone to know if they could help.

Inquiries about specific people in specific areas at specific times may not receive a reply simply because nobody has the information you’re looking for, but this shuldn’t dissuade you from posting this type of query.  You may just luck out and find someone who has the information you’re seeking.

Some types of message board queries that are likely to generate a reply are those that are looking for more general information, such as:

• Help finding a certain type of record
• Help with foreign language translation
• Help to find a particular village/cemetery/church
• Help with genealogy software
• Information included in a certain type of record
• Meaning of a surname

There are many, many, many genealogy message boards on the internet, and a search for something specific on Yahoo! or Google may lead you to a message board that’s just right for you.  Some genealogy message boards (and this is just a sampling of the many message boards available) include:

• Ancestry/RootsWeb
• Genforum
• Hessen Germany Query Board
• Huron County, Michigan
• Isle of Man
• Italian Roots Forum
• Looking for Kin - Scotland
• South Australia
• Your Family

One note about the Ancestry/RootsWeb Message Boards:  Ancestry has announced that some major improvements are being made to their message boards which should greatly improve the usability of those boards. 

If someone responds to your post either on the message board itself, or by email, it’s probably courteous to post a follow-up, even if just to thank the poster for his/her comment.  And read over some of the other messages posted.  You may be able to help someone too!

Tomorrow:  How I broke down a couple of my brickwalls on the message boards!