Discovering Julian Prokopowicz’s Bogdan family in America

Almost everything I thought I knew about my paternal grandfather’s early years in the United States was wrong. And I am happy that I was wrong.

I knew that Julian Prokopowicz, age 19, planned to stay with the Linga family, his friends from Kiwance village in Radun parish, when he immigrated to America and reached his destination of Worcester, Massachusetts. The April 1914 passenger list for the SS Koln showed him traveling from Bremen, Germany, to Boston alone. His parents and siblings remained in Russian Poland, and he never did see them again. I was right about that much.

What I recently learned, however, is that members of his mother’s family had immigrated more than a decade earlier and had apparently maintained communication for all those years. I discovered this through Massachusetts records that have been digitized and made available online at the FamilySearch website. A single record in a Massachusetts vital records database (“Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915”) provided a single detail that gave me a whole new look at my grandfather’s first year here.

This new information unlocked the secrets held in a set of three related wedding-day portraits that I received in 1998, one of several dozen photos left behind, ignored and unwanted, in a small black suitcase after my grandmother, Anna Blaszko Prokopowicz, died in 1976. My grandfather, Julian, died much earlier, in 1951.

The large wedding portrait (shown below) is typical of its era: a seated bride and groom flanked by a group of nine beautifully attired but solemn-faced persons who shared in the occasion. A smaller photo shows the bride and groom standing alone. Inscribed in pencil on the back is this note in Polish: “Pamiontka szlubu Pan Jozef Orszula Szlachciuk”—that is, “A remembrance of the wedding of Mr. Jozef [and] Urszula Szlachciuk.” A third photo shows three young men standing together: one unidentified at left (holding a lit cigarette in his white-gloved hand!), Jozef Szlachciuk, and my grandfather, Julian.

The only person recognizable to me in the photos was my grandfather, looking very young at age 20. The Szlachciuk name meant nothing to me; I guessed the groom was a friend—likely a close friend—of Julian’s. The photos were made at the studio of Geo. T. Elson of Maynard, Massachusetts; his name is engraved on the tan and brown cardboard mats on which the photos are mounted.

About five years ago, in browsing through this collection of old photos, I tried to find some information about Jozef Szlachciuk. He appears with a wife and children in the 1930 U.S. Census for Rhode Island. I thought idly that someday when I had time, I would try to locate one of the Szlachciuk descendants and offer them the photos. (In fact, I have four other small postcard-type photos featuring Jozef and Urszula.) I assumed that the Szlachciuks were not related to me. And then I put the photos back in storage.

What a digitized record revealed

A few weeks ago, I came across the Szlachciuk wedding pictures and decided to research the surname again. So much more genealogical information is online now than there was five years ago! I entered the surname on FamilySearch, and was happy to get a result, though the name was indexed as Joseph Szlachcink. (Polish surnames are misspelled and misindexed more often than not in U.S. records, often so grossly incorrect as to be unrecognizable. A handwritten “u” misinterpreted as “n” wasn’t too far off, all things considered.) The digitized image was a page detailing “Marriages registered in the town of Maynard for the Year Nineteen Hundred and fifteen” (p. 631 in the Massachusetts state volume).

“Marriage No. 76” records the September 26, 1915, wedding of Joseph Szlachciuk, 23, and Ursula Przyjemska, 18. It was the first marriage for each of them; they were both residents of Maynard, both born in Poland. His occupation was “Laborer” and hers, “Mill Op.” (that is, “operator”). Joseph’s parents are listed as Stanislaw and Mary Krasz[e]wski Szlachciuk. Ursula’s parents are identified as Casimir and Ellen Bohdan Przyjemski. The priest who performed the ceremony was Reverend Francis Jablonski of Maynard. The date of record was September 27, 1915.

One detail in that record stopped me in my tracks: Ursula’s mother was Ellen Bohdan. (This is a surname that is variously spelled Bogdan, Bohdan, and Bahdan in Polish and Russian records.) Julian’s mother was Anna Bogdan, or Bohdan. I had found the 1870 baptismal record of Elena Bohdan in the Radun parish microfilms that I use for research at my local Family History Center. Elena Bohdan was born in Odwierniki, the same village that Julian claimed as his birthplace on his World War I draft registration card in 1917.

It seemed more than coincidence that the bride’s mother was a Bogdan from Odwierniki, a village of only six houses in that era. According to the somewhat earlier 1852 Radun parish census, two of those six houses in Odwierniki were inhabited by Bogdan families, one headed by Mateusz, the other by his brother, Jan (or Iwan, in the Russian-language records). Elena and Anna Bogdan were almost certainly either sisters or first cousins.

It may be some time before I know for sure what their relationship was, because there are gaps in the Radun parish baptismal records available on microfilm. The records for 1872 and 1874-1877 have not been filmed, and it is likely that Anna Bogdan was born in one of those years. (I will probably have to hire a researcher to find her baptismal record or request a search for it in either the Vilnius or Grodno archives.)

So Julian Prokopowicz appears in the Szlachciuk-Przyjemski wedding photos not because he was a friend of the groom, but because he was a cousin of the bride. If Elena and Anna were sisters, then Julian and Urszula were first cousins; if the two women were first cousins, then Julian and Urszula were second cousins. Either way, they were cousins.

Not just a guest at the wedding

Intrigued by the details provided in the town of Maynard’s civil record of the marriage, I wanted to know more: who were the witnesses? That information, along with the bride’s and groom’s villages of origin, would have been recorded at St. Casimir Church, where the wedding ceremony was performed. Established in 1912 to serve Maynard’s sizable Polish Roman Catholic immigrant community, St. Casimir Parish closed in 1997; its records are now held by St. Bridget Parish in that town. I contacted the parish office, and learned that the witnesses were Julian Prokopowicz and Jozef Fabrycki.

This news was quite exciting! Why was Julian chosen to serve as a witness? He had been in the United States for only 17 months when the wedding took place. He would not have seen his cousin Urszula’s family for at least 11 years before they reconnected in Massachusetts. Elena Bogdan Przyjemska and her daughters Urszula and Anna had left Russian Poland in 1903, when Julian was 8 years old and Urszula about 6; Elena’s husband, Kazimierz, had emigrated in 1902. Certainly, in more than a decade in Maynard, the Przyjemski family would have had ample time to establish relationships with other men suitable to serve as a witness to Urszula’s marriage. (In fact, I have discovered that they had other male relatives living in Massachusetts and nearby Rhode Island at this time.)

It is, of course, speculation on my part, but I would like to believe that the relationship between Julian and the Bogdan-Przyjemski family was so close that they chose to recognize him with this honor. So he was not alone in America, as I had assumed all these years; he did have family here, and knowing that makes me happy to have been wrong. The question now is, were Elena and Anna sisters, or cousins? Anna’s baptismal record would clarify their relationship.

I wish I could time-travel back to Odwierniki: Would I see a copy of that 1915 wedding photo on display in the home of my great-grandparents, Kazimierz and Anna Bogdan Prokopowicz? Would I see Anna’s face light up when she looked at it? Would she take comfort in knowing that her son Julian, some 4,200 miles away, had Elena (his “Ciocia Helena”) watching over him in his new American life? I’d like to think so.

Photo caption

Jozef Szlachciuk and Urszula Przyjemska were married September 26, 1915, at St. Casimir Church in Maynard, Massachusetts. This group portrait was made at the Geo. T. Elson Studio in Maynard. Seated at far left is, I believe, Anna Przyjemska, about 12 years old, the younger sister of the bride; an unidentified woman; the groom, Jozef Szlachciuk, age 23; the bride, Urszula Przyjemska, age 18; and marriage witness Jozef Fabrycki. Standing at far left is my paternal grandfather, Julian Prokopowicz, age 20, the bride’s cousin and another witness to the marriage. The others are unidentified.

Exploring human evolution and migration through DNA is genealogy writ large

I read a lot of nonfiction related in one way or another to genealogy and my personal family research.  And I watch just about anything on television that connects to genealogy or my ancestral roots.  Over the years, though, one book and one TV documentary have impacted me more than all the rest combined: The Seven Daughters of Eve by geneticist Bryan Sykes (2001) and  Journey of Man, featuring geneticist Spencer Wells (PBS/National Geographic, 2003).  Sykes and Wells are leading world authorities on DNA research.

The Seven Daughters of Eve focuses on mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, which is passed down matrilineally—from a woman to her daughter, to her daughter, to her daughter, generation after generation.  Journey of Man traces Y-DNA, which is similarly passed down, patrilineally, from a man to his son, to his son, to his son, and so on.  Both of these ground-breaking works look at the big picture: the evolution of the human species over thousands of years, through migration out of Africa and across the planet.  Genealogy writ large.

I am not going to go into detail here about the substance of either Seven Daughters or Journey.  Much has been written about both of them.  When I Googled the titles earlier today, I noticed, for instance, that Journey of Man is available for viewing (in 13 segments) on YouTube.

There is a plethora of material available now about DNA research and its significance for genealogy.  I've read a number of the popular books, and I've attended numerous workshops on this topic.  I am not by nature scientifically inclined, so much of the material seems dry and does little to increase my understanding.  The Seven Daughters of Eve and Journey of Man, though, captivated me.

There is a mythic quality about The Seven Daughters of Eve that engages me.  Sykes's research (later expanded upon) led him to conclude that people of native European descent trace their ancestry back to one or another of seven women whose mtDNA mutated from their mother's.  These seven mutations occurred thousands of years apart, between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago.  Each was a turning point that created a new haplogroup of mitochondrial DNA. 

Sykes envisions these seven women as "clan mothers."  He christens them each with names—Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine, and Jasmine—and describes their probable lives and times in their respective regions of Europe and the Middle East.  This is science as Susan Seddon Boulet might have painted it.  I can imagine the Seven Daughters' stories being told during ceremonies deep in the caves of Lascaux with flute music echoing from yet-deeper caverns.  But that's just me and, as I have to emphasize, I'm no scientist.

If The Seven Daughters of Eve takes you into the dreamtime, Journey of Man lurches you onto the frozen tundra with a backpack of test kits.  Spencer Wells is a high-energy genius who seems like he'd be equally comfortable analyzing lab results or summiting K2.  A book was developed from this documentary, but this story is such an amazing adventure, and certainly so visual, that this just might be one of those rare times when the film trumps the book. 

"Blood was the time machine, and we were the time travelers," Wells says as he explains the research that took him visiting isolated tribes and populations all over the planet to trace the Y chromosome and explore how everyone—everyone—is related.  One of my favorite scenes is in Kazakhstan, which you can see in Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Part 9 of 13) on YouTube.  This documentary rocks.

Bryan Sykes and Spencer Wells, more than anyone else, brought DNA and genetics to life for me.  Their work made traditional paper-trail genealogy seem like a very tiny, limited view of the real story—the really great story of human evolution and migration.  They linked my passion for genealogy with my lifelong interest in anthropology.  They opened doors that beckoned me inside, ready to swab my mouth for saliva (thankfully, no blood samples required!) and learn how my ancestors and I fit into this amazing journey of man and woman across Planet Earth.  And what I've learned from my family's DNA tests intrigues me even more.  It's our own journey, evolution and migration writ small.

The incredible good karma of genealogy Listservs

It's easy to take Listservs for granted in genealogy.  There are countless numbers of them online, devoted to every conceivable aspect of family history research.  They are free (and conventional wisdom says people value services more when they have to pay for them).  They are effortless, for members content to do no more than open e-mail, read, and lurk.  (In contrast, they can be very labor-intensive for the dedicated souls, unsung heroes one and all, who organize and moderate them.)

I don't take lists for granted.  When I reflect on some of the major successes I've enjoyed in genealogy over the past 15 years, it is clear that they have been due largely to the invaluable help I received from the early genealogy forums and user groups (once sponsored by AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc.) and from Listservs.

Very best example:  My father's family lost contact with some cousins in Belarus after my paternal grandmother, Anna, died in 1976.  In 1998, a young woman named Ilona (either from the Belarus Discussion list connected to A Belarus Miscellany online, or from the soc.culture.belarus group, I can't recall; all our correspondence was via AOL) found those cousins for me within five months.  I e-mailed her JPGs of some photos dating back to the 1950s-60s.  She e-mailed them to her father, who was a physician in Radun, Belarus.  He showed them to everyone he came in contact with.  Within a couple weeks, someone recognized my cousin Maria from a 1965 photo.  Ilona's father drove to Maria's village to meet her and relate this story.  He e-mailed Ilona Maria's address; Ilona e-mailed it to me.  When I traveled to Belarus in 2001, I finally met Maria and her family.  Extraordinary!  Could I have done this on my own?  Maybe ... but it seems unlikely.

Just recently, a member of one of my favorite lists e-mailed me some JPGs of church records that had caught his eye while he was doing his own family research.  He thought they might interest me, since they involved two Prokopowicz families from our mutual ancestral area.  Among them was the 1845 baptismal record of my maternal great-grandfather, Kazimierz Prokopowicz!  How many years had I been looking for that?  Oh, only about 15.  I simply hadn't hit on the correct year in my search.  Kazimierz had been my missing link.  Seeing his father's name on the baptismal record allowed me to take that family line back three more generations.

The incredible good karma of Listservs

In between Ilona in 1998 and Marek in 2010, dozens of fellow list members have helped me in more ways than I can detail here.  They have been from all over North America, Europe, and Australia.  We have communicated in English, Polish, and Russian (just a few feeble attempts on my part).  They have explained and translated arcane 18th-19th-century Polish and Russian terminology, offered insight into history and culture, and shared PDFs of documents and URLs of Web sites.  Always generously, always graciously.  Honestly, I have always tried to be equally helpful on my lists, whenever I've felt I had something worthwhile to offer.  Good karma is a two-way street. 

Since 1996, I've subscribed to many genealogical Listservs—some Polish (my ethnic heritage), some Belarusian (my ancestral region has been within the boundaries of western Belarus since 1945), some Lithuanian (my paternal family villages and parishes straddle today's border of Belarus and Lithuania), some Russian (my ancestral region was within the boundaries of the Russian Empire for 125 years).  Because my immigrant grandparents settled in Massachusetts, I've joined lists focused on that U.S. state and the New England region.  About three years ago, I started a Yahoo! group called PolishMass, specifically focused on Polish Roman Catholic immigration to Massachusetts.  I've also joined lists sponsored by various genealogical societies and organizations and lists dedicated to specific topics, like Russian military history.  (Seriously.  It took me many years to get a satisfying explanation of the military status indicated by zabiletny soldat.) 

Every one of those Listservs has been worthwhile.  I subscribe to them in digest form.  This means that for each Listserv, I receive only one e-mail a day, and it contains all the messages posted in the past 24 hours or so.  Each day, a dozen or so lists appear in my inbox, and I read them with my morning coffee.  Some I skim and delete quickly, some I spend considerable time with, depending on the topics.

Below are my four favorite Listservs.  I have not identified any members by name, simply in respect for their privacy, as much as I'd like to give shout-outs to some of the most knowledgeable and helpful.  The founders and moderators, whether named here or not, are all my heroes for providing such wonderful forums for thousands of family researchers.  And among the thousands of list members, I'm happy to have made some genuinely great friends.

LidaRoots
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LidaRoots/

 If I could give a giant gold star, or some impressive trophy, or better yet, a great big hug, to my all-time favorite Listserv, it would be to LidaRoots.  The icons and flags on the home page for this Yahoo! group represent  the ethnic and religious diversity that make this area of western Belarus so culturally rich.  Unlike lists geared to specific narrow groups (my own PolishMass among them), LidaRoots opens its heart and mind to everyone with ancestry in this area or an interest in its history. 

Founded by Tony Gabis in May 2002, this list currently has 223 members.  At least a dozen of the more active participants are top-notch researchers, and the quality of discussion is the deepest, most substantial I've ever experienced on a list.  Listservs don't get any better than this.  And newbies are always welcome :)

Kresy-Siberia
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kresy-Siberia/

This list has garnered more than a thousand members since it was founded by Stefan Wisniowski in 2001.  I can't improve upon the compelling description on its home page:   "The 'Kresy-Siberia Group' brings into contact people from countries around the world with a special interest in the fate of over one million Polish citizens of various faiths and ethnicities (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, etc.) arrested or deported from eastern Poland (Kresy) to special labour camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Soviet Asia. The circumstances of their odyssey and the tragic history of the Polish citizens under Soviet occupation during WW2 was hushed up by the Allies during the war to protect the reputation of the Soviet Union, an important ally fighting the Nazis. 

"Sixty years later the survivors have aged and many have died. With this list we hope to bring together surviving deportees and their descendants to remember, learn, discover and spread the word of their ordeal to the world and to future generations."

What is truly outstanding about this list is that it has taken its energy and resources a step further to become an increasingly significant cultural force by means of the Kresy Siberia Virtual Museum:
http://www.kresy-siberia.org/

This list has helped me to understand the experiences of my family in Poland's eastern borderlands, the kresy, during and after World War II.  And it has helped me to find detailed information about some of them and their own odysseys.  I receive much more than I can possibly give here, and I am grateful beyond measure.

Lithuanian Genealogy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LithuanianGenealogy/

Founded in 1999 and sponsored by the Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society, this list has 2,277 members.  Like LidaRoots and Kresy-Siberia, this is a dynamic, helpful group of people with some highly skilled members here and abroad.  It has taught me much about the Lithuanian aspect of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and all its geographic and political morphing over the centuries.  As I trace my paternal roots increasingly northward from Belarus into Lithuania, I expect my interest here to grow even stronger.

DNA-Newbie  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNA-NEWBIE/

More than 2,200 members have joined this group since it was created in 2005.  I think that speaks to the ever-increasing interest in DNA research for genealogy.  The list is sponsored by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG).  The moderators are extremely knowledgeable and unceasingly helpful to people like me, who are, frankly, just trying to understand the results of the DNA tests we order to complement our paper-trail genealogical research. 

I am not a sciencey person.  My high school Algebra II teacher, Sister Mary Celine, made me promise not to major in math in college.  No matter how many books I read or workshops I attend, very, very little of all those strings of numbers and ACGT letters on the test results mean anything to me.  I am a DNA newbie.  I am lucky someone started this list.

Getting acquainted with twenty new ancestral lines

My blog could probably use a new subtitle.  "Reseaching the genealogy of the Prokopowicz, Ruśćik, and Blaszko Families" doesn't tell the whole story anymore.  Those three surnames identify all four of my grandparents: paternally, Julian Prokopowicz and Anna Blaszko, and maternally, Aleksandr Prokopowicz and Stefania Ruśćik.  When I started this blog, that seemed sufficient.  Including my great-grandparents' surnames would have been unwieldy.  But now I'd like to introduce the earlier generations.

I'll never be one of those genealogists who, like birders with their life lists, proudly announce they have 37,482 names in their database.  Nor do I care about having 945 friends on Facebook or 682 followers of this blog.  Frankly, I'm surprised (and honored) that Basia's Polish Family has, at last count, 13 followers.  That's a cozy group, small enough to get together for coffee and conversation about Polish genealogy! 

In general, I enjoy getting to know people one at a time, more than in groups.  One-on-one, there is the opportunity for focus, revelation, truth telling, being real, without interruption or distraction.  I feel the same way about meeting my ancestors.  When I discover someone new in my research, I want time alone with that person, time to savor our shared name, say it aloud, and claim it.  I like to imagine what that person looked like, what their personality was like. 

Most often I find new names in the course of reading microfilmed records; sometimes, of course, they appear in documents I receive in the mail or find in databases online.  These days, I am doing several hours of research each week at a small Family History Center close to my workplace.  It is housed at Godfrey Memorial Library, a gem of a genealogical library in Middletown, Connecticut.  When an early-18th-century church record offers up a new name, be it a direct ancestor or someone otherwise related, I can't help but share the good news with the one or two other people in the room.  "Oh, wow! I just found ____ !!!"  Then I print the record.  (There is no scanning equipment at this FHC, and I'd just as soon print as capture the image with my digital camera.) 

Celebration and reflection

When I leave, that new name is mine to mull during the 20-minute drive home.  If it's a really important person—a brand new great-great-great-grandparent, say—I stop at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and a bagel, which I enjoy in my car in the parking lot.  Always in my car, so I can pull the newly printed record out of my tote bag and set it on the front passenger seat alongside a worn, taped working copy of my family tree.  This is my little ceremony for getting acquainted with my new ancestor, our own private one-on-one bonding time.

I think about when and where they lived, both locally and in the historic big picture ... their place within that branch of that particular family line ... what I might know already (from other records) of their life experiences, joys and sorrows.  I wonder what they looked like, and what traces of them might have made it through the generations to find new life in me.  DNA testing makes me even more acutely aware of all the different family lines I embody. 

My Lida ancestors

From at least the 1700s, and most likely earlier, all these families lived in the Lida area between Grodno and Wilno.  Some were clearly associated with specific villages over the course of several generations; others moved from one village to another, for reasons I don't yet understand.  After thinking of myself as a Prokopowicz for all my life, it intrigues me to consider that I am also the following:

Through the ancestry of Julian Prokopowicz, a Bogdan, Janonis, Wieligor, and Kadysz / Chadysz.  (Roman Catholic parishes of Ejszyszki, Bieniakonie, Werenów, and Ossów)

Through the ancestry of Anna Blaszko, a Bowszys, Doda, Tumielewicz,  Balcewicz, and Rudz.  (Roman Catholic parishes of Radun, Ossów, Lida, and possibly Żyrmuny)

Through the ancestry of Aleksandr Prokopowicz, a Zubrzycki, Haydukiewicz, Piwowarczyk, Dubiejko,  Chwiedziuk, and Kaczanowna. (Roman Catholic parishes of Iszczolna, Wasiliszki, Szczuczyn, and possibly Różanka)

Through the ancestry of Stefania Ruśćik aka Ruść, a Nowogrodzka, Hayduk, Sobol, Staniejko, and  Mickiewicz.  (Roman Catholic parishes of Szczuczyn, Wasiliszki, and Lack)

These surnames generally represent ancestors in my great- and great-great-grandparents' generations.  My immediate goal is to identify all 16 great-great-grandparents.  In a couple lines, I've not yet found the women's family surnames.  In the case of my paternal great-grandmother Anna Bogdan, this surname and its variations are rather common; until I find some record identifying her family's village and parish, I cannot reliably trace her line further.

The simple, happy rituals of reorganizing and reassessing 15 years of research

Generations of ancestors surround me while I work on my family history this winter.  Some are on the floor, or inside two new storage ottomans, or next to me on the couch in the living room.  Others are on the dining room table.  Many more are upstairs in my office.  They are on index cards, in pages of notes, in file folders, and in three-ring binders.  A select few have made safe passage to a new database on my laptop.

I am devoting as much time as possible these days to genealogy—specifically, my own Polish ancestors.  The French Canadians, Swedes, Scots, and Revolutionary War era Americans who occupy the paternal side of my children's family tree are on hold for the foreseeable future.

In 2010, I expanded my family research to include DNA testing, a variety of heretofore-untapped databases, and some much-needed background reading on Polish history.  This new input has led me to re-examine what I knew, or thought I knew, from my past 15 years of research.  A couple of DNA tests, a handful of new records, and suddenly the earlier generations of my family are shifting into new configurations, introducing new surnames, and living in parishes outside the pale of my past explorations.

All this reorganization and reassessment takes a lot of time, and a lot of thought.  I fall asleep at night wondering about my ancestors.  Where did Anna Mosiejko's family live?  (Not in Szczuczyn parish where her own children were later baptized, and not in any of the surrounding parishes I usually search, so maybe Kamionka or Ostryna?)  Is that szlachta Prokopowicz clan in Lack parish related to my maternal peasant Prokopowicz family nearby in Iszczolna?  Why were my paternal Prokopowiczes baptized, married, and buried from at least five different parishes when they lived in the same village, Poleckiszki, for a couple hundred years?  The marriages are understandable (couples were usually married in the brides' parishes, not the grooms'), but the other events puzzle me.

Celebrating individuals through index cards

Each one of my ancestors is an individual unique in their particular combination of physical appearance, personality traits, talents, and life experiences.  All I know of them, however, is when they were born, baptized, married, had children, and died (from "fever," more often than not).  The most direct observation I have of any one of them is when I view and print out the documents of such life passages. 

Curiously, these long-ago family members come to life for me on the index cards I use for extracting the important details from their vital records.  There is something compelling about creating a card for each event and paper-clipping all those cards together.  Is it the act of writing that ancestor's name, or of physically handling the index cards?  Holding the pen, touching the paper—this is a tactile process, my own little celebration of an ancestor's individuality.  Typing the same information into a computer simply does not give me this same feeling of closeness and connection.  The electronic database is handy and useful, of course.  Just not emotionally satisfying.

Even more gratifying is my ceremony of laying out all the index cards potentially connected to a particular ancestral line.  As I study them, patterns emerge.  I shift the cards around to form family groups.  Even the minor cast members here play a part in the drama; persons repeatedly serving as godparents or marriage witnesses tantalize with clues to other relationships waiting to be revealed. 

Baptismal records from the 1700s and early 1800s typically omit the mother's maiden name.  The parents may be identified, for example, as "Michal Rusc and Rozalia."  But over the years, one Hayduk or another serves as a godparent for this couple's children.  Perhaps Rozalia is a Hayduk?  More research will tell, either through the eventual discovery of the couple's marriage record, or through baptisms of children born a decade or so later, when mothers' maiden names became part of the church record.

Genealogy software might generate the same kinds of clues about possible relationships.  But would seeing these connections in Arial 10 point on a computer screen make me as happy as moving index cards around, identifying a new family group, and setting them together on their own corner of the dining room table as if I were building them their own little house?  For me, the answer is obviously no.  This is one aspect of genealogical research in which I am unabashedly old-school and loving it.

In 2010, my genealogical research trumped my genealogical blogging

After a very long absence from Basia's Polish Family, I'm back, with no apologies for my absence, but with an explanation: instead of blogging, I've been researching.  Genealogy has reclaimed its rightful position as the major passion in my life.  As a result, I have a lot of new information about my ancestry, which I am excited about sharing here in 2011.

It seems that most bloggers post entries every day.  My approach is very different.  Professionally, I am a journalist.  I have always believed that good journalism is based in providing new information—new facts and new insights that are hopefully helpful in understanding and navigating through life.  My career as a newspaper reporter and editor disciplined me to make every word count.  As a blogger, I don't write if I don't have something new to say.  Last January I realized that I needed to do a lot more research before I could continue to share my family story in a way that was satisfyingly meaningful to me.

Here are some highlights of my adventures in genealogy in 2010, with a promise of blog posts to come.  It's been a great year!

Y-DNA testing

In one of my early blog posts, I noted that I am descended from two Prokopowicz families.  All my life, I had wondered whether my father's Prokopowicz family was related to my mother's Prokopowicz family some generations back.  Now I have a definitive answer, thanks to Y-DNA testing made possible by graciously contributed saliva samples from some direct-lineage male Prokopowicz descendants.  Related or not?  The answer, the process, the details, the implications for future research, I will reveal all in coming weeks.  All except the men's identities, of course, for privacy's sake.

mtDNA testing

After much research into different companies for the Y-DNA tests, I also did a new test of my own maternal mitochondrial DNA.  Do I know more as a result than what I had learned through my original test by Oxford Ancestors nearly a decade ago?  Yes and no.

Subscription databases

Did I ever mention I was weaned on shopping at Filene's Basement and Spag's, or that my parents never bought anything they hadn't researched first in Consumer Reports, or that I feel like the Great Polish Huntress brandishing coupons and bargain-hunting at stores like Marden's and Ocean State Job Lot?  (If you're not a New Englander, you may have to Google these retail references.)  Bottom line, I'm thrifty. 

I have always made heavy use of free resources for genealogy, whether online, at libraries and archives, or at workshops and conferences.  Those resources are vast, but as we know, not everything is online, and not all records are available for free.  In 2010, I subscribed to a few paid database sites.  Were they worth the money?  Will I renew them in 2011?  I'll let you know before they run out this spring.

I ♥ Listservs

I've been active on various genealogy Listservs since 1996 and the era of excruciatingly slow e-mail over 9.6 kb modems.  The lists have been invaluable to my research.  Though I'm still subscribed to over a dozen, a couple in particular have emerged as my clear favorites.  Every year the relationships and the quality of help shared have grown deeper and richer.  If you're doing Polish/Lithuanian research in today's Belarus and/or Lithuania, you may benefit from them too.

Accessible archives

Prospects for obtaining some family records from the Grodno archives—officially, the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno—seem good.  If all goes well, I will have some previously unattainable documents in hand this spring.  Woo-hoo!!!

Meanwhile, back at the microfilm ...

After a lapse of several years, I am again immersed in scrolling through church records microfilmed by LDS (aka the Mormons).  There are new films for the Roman Catholic parishes of the Lida area—pretty exciting!  But I also have reason to re-examine films I used years ago. 

I have a very organized system for working with the baptismal, marriage, and death records I find in the 18th-19th-century European church registers.  However, my research got interrupted a few years ago due to home and family matters and various writing projects.  My notes, index cards, and file folders lay abandoned.  My software got outdated.  Several computers and operating systems later, I'm using a new brand of software to create a new GEDCOM from scratch.  (Thankfully, out in the garage, I still have an old PC with an A drive that reads 3.25-inch disks. I just may need that sometime.)

Finally, Facebook

This has been my major foray into the social media.  I don't expect to be Tweeting my great-great-great-grandmother's baptismal date anytime soon ... but who knows?  What prompted me to join Facebook, what I initially expected, what I've actually gotten from it, and how I hope to use it for genealogy in coming months—as it turns out, these are all very distinct categories in my experience.

Goals for 2011

The final week of 2010 is the obviously perfect time to look ahead.  There is much I hope to accomplish in 2011.  The more I discover about my family's past, the more fascinated I am by the generations that came before me.  More research, more travel, more contact with kindred spirits worldwide lie ahead.  I hope you'll join me in my journey through the past.

Michal Prokopowicz marriage record 1886



Michal Prokopowicz of Poleckiszki (Ejszyszki parish) and Maryanna Kurowska of Pohorodno were married
16 February 1886 in the Ossow parish church, north of Lida. 
Iwan Szwed is listed among the witnesses.  His name appears in column three, line 15.

The family surname of Michal's mother, Rozalia, puzzles me. Any interpretations? 
In other records for this family, it is listed as Janonis (with varied endings).