From Gemini’s website:

Get up to speed on just about anything with Deep Research, an agentic feature in Gemini that can automatically browse up to hundreds of websites on your behalf, think through its findings, and create insightful multi-page, reports that you can turn into engaging podcast-style conversations.

So, it is basically a research assistant that returns a nicely formatted document with answers to your question and background info. Here is a snippet from one it did when I asked about my Irish ancestors in 1792.

Research Options for Family History in Killeeshil Parish, County Tyrone (Pre-1792)

I. Introduction

The pursuit of family history often encounters obstacles, particularly when tracing lineages to earlier periods where record-keeping was less standardized and comprehensive. This report addresses the specific challenge of researching family members who emigrated from Killeeshil Parish, County Tyrone, Ireland, to Canada in 1792, a period for which readily available genealogical records for Northern Ireland can be scarce. The primary aim of this analysis is to provide a detailed overview of alternative research options and strategies that may assist in uncovering information about this family prior to their departure.

II. The Genealogical Landscape of Late 18th Century Ireland (and County Tyrone)

Researching ancestry in Ireland during the late 18th century presents unique difficulties due to the limited survival of fundamental record types that genealogists often rely upon. Comprehensive government census records for Ireland, which provide a detailed snapshot of households, largely begin in 1901 . While governmental census taking commenced earlier in 1821, the records prior to the turn of the 20th century exist only in fragmented form . This absence of substantial census data for the 1792 timeframe means that researchers must seek alternative sources to identify individuals and families.

It goes on for many pages after that, going into details and it includes footnotes with every website it used.

The kicker, I think, at least for me, is the option of turning the research document into an “Audio Overview.” This turns it into an amazingly real sounding podcast from the information with two hosts. If you’re like me and like to listen to podcasts, or you learn better when it sounds like entertainment, this is a wonderful option. Here is the audio overview of my Irish research.

So, if you haven’t tried it, give it a shot. I thought it said it was free on their site.

Many years later, I checked into the WikiTree Translators groups and asked if anyone had some spare time to translate it. Not too long after asking, someone responded with a wonderful translation of the letter.

It is dated 11 Apr 1923, not long after Germany lost World War I. It’s a fascinating view into history on how things were in the area in the early 1920s, how tough it is dealing with French occupation in certain areas, and how expensive everything was after the war.

It is assumed the letter is written from what is now Haßfelden, which looks to be near Wolpertshausen and part of Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She mentions the area and also nearby area of “Forst” which is probably Großforst, where some of the family is from. At the time, it was technically the Free People’s State of Württemberg.

We don’t exactly know who wrote the letter, though it was probably written to my great-great grandmother, Margaret (Stearns) Braatz. At this point, her parents had passed away, so this may be from an aunt or cousin still living in Germany.

Here is the English translation. You can find the German transcription and images of the letter on WikiTree.

Dearest Margarete and your whole
family, we thanks to God received your valuable
letter with unspeakable joy yesterday 10 April
and have read that with you dears everything
is hale and hearty which I can also
truly say of mine, which is the greatest
richness. You all dears, Fritz and
Fritz and grandfather have preceded
us into eternity which has torn
a big gap for us, but God be thanked
thousandfold that the children of
Fritz are all grown and can work.
The oldest of the children is named Fritz
the other one Hans the third Wily and Clara.
And Rosine lives in Eschenthal [Eschental near Kupferzell], has also
[married] a smith and also has 4 children the
oldest of them is also named Fritz and
the other is named Hans he is a teacher and
the third is named Hermann and a girl
Lina and Rosa died at age 18
that was a big todo for Rosina, the oldest
of the boys is a smith he is
at home and works in the smithy and the
third works the field they have
24 Morgen [1 Morgen is roughly 0.6 acres] Lina is still at home
and helps her mother work, her father-
in-law was brother to old Mrs. Neubäuer in
Kleinforst.

Dearest Margret
about Forst I don’t know any more, nobody
comes to Haßfelden from there Ludwig
has died and Eberte [female] has also died
and nobody likes her husband, Berute’s
Johann has given off [??] his Son, Schuster’s Katharina
and Maria with their daughters have moved to Kirchberg
of the Weisenbauern nobody is
left [on the farm] from the family, Enders’s Johann
his son married a woman vom Braisbach whose
dower cost 2 million [this was the time of hyperinflation in Germany] . . .

Dear Margreth, you can imagine that everything
is so expensive that you can’t
pay for it anymore. What do you think how
hard this year will be. It is almost impossible
to find money. If grandfather
would have died 14 days later, then
his coffin would have cost 70 thousand marks
instead of 50 thousand now. Think how
expensive that is. Where take the people who have contributions
from the war the money. They are all poor, they have
nothing. We only thank God that you
Dear ones are no longer in Germany. What
a big dream for old people
who can no longer work. How
should you pay for everything.

Dear Margreth now
I am 83 years old, grandfather was 84. You can
imagine, my dear, how it is with me now. I can
still do my work and
still sit at the spinning wheel, but I see and
hear poorly. I am mostly in my room,
you know, just to the right when you come up the stairs.
Oh, dear, we had it good
before the war, but now we have a lot of
worries. If only we could be a
moment together, that
would be a joy, it would hardly be
expressible. But since it will not be
we will be patient until we can
embrace each other in eternity.
Then it will be beautiful when we and our predecessors
see each other and embrace each other

Dear Margreth, you would also like
to know what is happening with your house.
It is still in the old place,
but I don’t know what it looks like inside. There will not be much
changed. The Ludwig girl got married.
Her husband died many
years ago. Years ago I heard say
she leaves everything fallow and the estates are
all overgrown with Behwaasen (???). It must be
a lazy person. How
it really is, I do not know.

Dear Margreth,
If you are well, live happily,
because time flies fast and when
your dear children are in a good mood, that’s a
[right across the lines]
great gift of God. I mean, I wrote that to you most of the time.
I will tell my Rosine that you have written
She will be very happy, because
she will write to you right away. My dear, on the 8th
April we had with our Willy
Confirmation, there were also my son-in law
and his daughter with us. I could have told him
immediately, but your
letter arrived on the 10th.
And my dear, it is hard for me
to write a letter, because it costs too much.
We have to pay 100 M when the distance is only
10 minutes, to
America 300 marks. But for the
sake of great joy and love
everything goes. I think she will come to me
in a few weeks and look after me.
Dear ones, I want to let you know,
that the eldest son of our Fritz
has gone through the better school; first of all
the elementary school, then the continuation school
extra with the priest and the
agricultural school. Now he is an administrator
on a princely farm. But because it
really so bad in Germany,
he has sometimes said he would go
to America, too. Where he has been,
the French have invaded
and have occupied everything; they mistreat
us Germans so badly. We are
badly off. In the Rhineland everything is
occupied by the French and they go on
and on. We have to
accept everything. We can
do nothing against it. We are simply
powerless.
Warm greetings from all of us.

The address of Rosine is:
Johan Härterich
Eschental
Post office Kupferzell O/A. Öhringen
Württemberg Deutschland
Germany.

Searching in some of the old 1819 Mecklenburg-Schwerin Census records did find some Thielkes, but nothing else to go on. At least we knew roughly the general area.

Last night, since I was working on some of the other Thielke lines to try to pad things out, I decided to run another FamilySearch search on my furthest ancestor, Henry Peter Thielke. I used WikiTree’s RootsSearch option which just makes it easier by automatically plugging in all of the vital data for me and searches FamilySearch.

Lo and behold, a bunch of old German Lutheran church records showed up on the list and at first glance, names and dates lined up really well with what I knew. Every Thielke child born in Germany was accounted for along with a few more that probably died early. There was also a marriage record that lined up, too, surnames and all.

Their original German location is very near Schwerin, in between it and Rostock in a village named Bernitt (as always, the German Wikipedia entry is much better but needs to be translated).

For now, I was able to get or confirm exact birth and baptism dates for all of the German-born Thielkes in that family before they emigrated in about 1855 and added two more sons that must not have lived long. I have also confirmed the marriage date of Henry and his wife Marie (and also Marie’s father’s name.)

My great-great-grandfather’s name shows up as Hans Joachim Martin Thielke which lines up with his marriage record that lists him as Hans J M Thielk, though he was almost always known as Johann or John.

One take away is to always re-search ancestors again on sites like FamilySearch. It’s a never-ending process. They are constantly transcribing old documents and adding new records. Unfortunately, I can’t view the original records unless I’m physically at a Family History Library. (Ugh, don’t get me started on that weird data rule.)

The research continues!

This also helped me start the Zalewski Name Study page over at WikiTree which will hopefully help Zalewski families connect to each other either through paper genealogy or DNA.

Here are the main Zalewski lines I have since found (usually merged into their main immigrant ancestor) from the Milwaukee area. In no particular order:

1. Martinus Zalewski & Marianna Sobotka

This would be my Zalewski line. For the longest time, I only ever had Frank Zalewski listed here, an immigrant from German Poland. Over the last 20 years, I’ve slowly broken down his brick wall. First I found another Zalewski line that lived very closely and also overlapped a bit in relation to baptismal sponsors, etc. It turns out that this line, Jacob Zalewski, was Frank’s brother. After that, I hit the jackpot when I found Frank’s baptism record in Poland and from there I’ve worked as far back as I can for now to Martin Zalewski and Marianna Sobotka in Krottoschin, Löbau, Westpreussen, Germany which is now Krotoszyny, Biskupiec, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland in the slightly northern central part of Poland.

• Martin Zalewski – 27 Oct 1797 in Lonkorsz, Löbau, Westpreussen, Germany – 5 Dec 1860 in Krottoschin, Löbau, Westpreussen, Germany
• Marianna Sobotka – 23 Feb 1799 in Krottoschin, Löbau, Westpreussen, Germany – 27 Apr 1853 in Krottoschin

Through their son Michael, two of his sons, Frank & Jacob, traveled to the US and settled in Milwaukee.

Other surnames in this branch are: Muszkowski, Strelka, Pierzchalski, Cybela, Stroinski, Wondkowski, Paplaczyk, Troka, Gierszewski/Giersch, Walczak, Ziarniak, Herkowski, Kub, Bombien

2. August Zalewski & Julianna Wyttbrut

I have not traced this line back to a specific location in Poland, though their oldest son, Michael, is said to have been born in Danzig/Gdansk, Poland, which is the north central part.

• August Zalewski – About 1851 in German Poland to 2 Mar 1914 in Milwaukee
• Julianna Wyttbrut – About 1856 in German Poland to 25 Oct 1930 in Milwaukee

So far, I have found 9 children of August and Julianna and most were all born and stayed in the Milwaukee area.

Other surnames in this branch are: Majchrzak, Papinski, Dombrowski

Andreas Zalewski & Hedvigis Balcerzak

This line actually came from a person I had met through a coworker that happened to be a Zalewski, so I was able to ask them about their Zalewski line and went from there. They have been traced to Jaksice Parish, Inowroclaw, Poland (Jakschitz).

I have no data of this couple specifically as they were only mentioned as parents on their son, Andreas, marriage record in 1839. So, technically, the couple with vital data would be:

• Andreas Zalewski – About 1815 in German Poland
• Michalina Smichowicz – About 1814 in German Poland

There are a good number of descendants traced in the Milwaukee area.

Other surnames in this branch are: Kujawa, Gorski, Ulbing, Lewandowski, Cetnarowski, Garczynski, Eisfeldt

Peter Zalewski & Julia Blasyewicz

Again, these are two names that were only found in marriage records, so there is no more information on them besides their names. I also have yet to narrow down a origin location for them besides German Poland, but there are a few branches in the Milwaukee area:

1. Severin Zalewski – 7 Jan 1870 in German Poland to 19 Apr 1950 in Milwaukee
   • Married Augusta Batachewski (Sep 1874 in German Poland to 9 Sep 1927 in Milwaukee)
2. Frank K Zalewski – 3 Dec 1873 in German Poland to 9 Jun 1945 in Milwaukee
   • Married Catherine A Mueller (30 Apr 1872 in Milwaukee to 2 Oct 1932 in Milwaukee)
3. Charles F Zalewski – 25 Dec 1875 in German Poland to 11 Feb 1945 in Milwaukee
   • Married Helen K Muller (About 1884 in Milwaukee to 13 Jan 1947 in Milwaukee)
4. Lottie Zalewski (? – ?)
   1. Married a Pozorski

Other surnames in this branch are: Brukwitzki, Krutza, Gosslin, Hutchinsen, Jensen, McGinnis, Brissett, Placek, Oszewski

Michael Zalewski & Magdalena Szymanska

Another couple just by name via their son Adalbert “Albert” Zalewski. Also, just known as German Poland.

• Adalbert “Albert” Zalewski – 15 Mar 1858 in German Poland to 7 Aug 1910 in Milwaukee
• Apolonia “Paulina” Gorska – Jan 1866 in German Poland to ?

Other surnames in this branch are: Janik, Dzielinski, Parzych, Osypowski, Kaczmarek, Bender, Venus, Plewa, Zale, Jagodzinski, Borzinski, Kozlowski

Zygmund “Ziggy” Zalewski & Wladyslawa “Lottie” M Kroll

I found this one more recently so it’s not too deep, yet.

• Sigmund “Ziggy” Zalewski – 18 Nov 1888 in Poland to 30 Jun 1969 in Milwaukee
• Wladyslawa “Lottie” Kroll – About 1894 in Wisconsin to 23 Apr 1987 in Wisconsin

Other surnames in the branch are: Sucharski, Doering, Kolb, Drydyk, Kubiak, Calederon, Thoen, Mikicinski

John Zalewski & Marianna Unknown

This one isn’t technically Milwaukee, but it is Wisconsin. A bit more north in Stevens Point, Wisconsin which was also a hot spot for Polish immigrants, mainly from the Kashubian area. It does intersect into Milwaukee lines. This Zalewski line was from what is today Suwalki, Suwalki County, Podlaski Voivodeship, Poland.

• John Zalewski – About 1933 in Suwalki to 5 May 1921 in Guenther, Marathon, Wisconsin
• Marianna Unknown – Feb 1935 in Russian Poland to About 1918 in Wisconsin

Other surnames in this branch are: Babiak, Kurzynski, Gollon, Lewandowski, Feltz, Kielpinski, Waldoch, Zagrzebski, Ceplina, Ostrowski, Bretl, Borski, Skrzypkowski, Cieslak, Kotowicz, Fisher, Bombien, Donowicz, Byhniewicz

A few weeks ago, WikiTree sent out it’s weekly email. As always, it has a list of notable people that you can click on to view their ancestry. You can also see how you’re related to these people and other fun things. I’m almost always connected through my wife’s ancestry, so not directly genealogically.

That specific week it was notable musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. I was also curious about other musicians I enjoyed growing up. One that came to mind was Cliff Burton. He was the bassist in my favorite band of all time, Metallica. He played with them on their first three albums, but tragically died when Metallica’s tour bus crashed in rural Sweden during their 1986 Master of Puppets tour.

Missing Profile

It was sad to find out that Cliff didn’t have a WikiTree profile. His father’s name was known since Cliff’s father Ray Burton was still very visible to fans of the band and he passed away last year in January 2020. It was enough to work with.

I’ve always wanted to do some genealogy research on a notable person and Cliff was good option. He wasn’t too famous where I’d feel like I was treading over already researched information, but he was still notable. He is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and listed as the ninth greatest bassist of all-time according to Rolling Stone.

Start At the Beginning

I started by creating the profile for Clifford Lee Burton and worked from there. Fortunately, his parents were already linked to him on Find-A-Grave, so I had names to work with: Ray Burton and Janette Morgenstern.

Ray’s family was traced to Rutherford County, Tennessee where he was born to Paul and Mary (Lenoir) Burton.

Janette’s was a bit tougher. I found her in the census records and her birth entry. Though, it only listed her mother and mother’s maiden name. Her parents were divorced sometime between her birth and the 1930 Census. So, I have her mother, Marion Rosenthal, but not her father (though I have some leads.)

There is currently only one more generation back for both lines as I want to make sure they are the right ancestors before adding. The Burton line goes deep into Tennessee, while the Morgenstern mainly stays in California. Though his great-grandfather, Sigmund Rosenthal, was born in Germany.

This is fun and interesting project. Hopefully, it will be able to connect Cliff’s line into the main connected family tree so other people can see how they’re connected!

They may have been orphaned in many ways. More than likely they were held by an old family member who passed away and no one knew what the photos were and gave them to someone else or an antique shop, etc. I really enjoy the positive vibes of solving the mystery of these forgotten photos and returning them to family.

Fortunately, most of them had names written on the back. I spent some time sorting them and finding connections between some of them just based on their names and faces.

From there, I started using my research knowledge and sources to try to piece together a family tree for these individuals. I did pretty well on most of them, at least connecting them to items like census records and marriage records.

To get the information out there for the largest audience, I built their families and put them onto WikiTree. This way people may be able to find them via Google and then can also claim ownership of the profiles.

Right now, I have nine individual with photos on WikiTree and their connections from there. I do need to flesh them out a bit more, but it’s a good start.

I have found them in a few other places, like Find-A-Grave and have contacted the profile managers, but no luck. I also did find possible matches listed in some family trees on Ancestry, but without paying Ancestry, I cannot confirm the matches nor contact those profile managers. I’m hoping this post and WikiTree will be a good start.

Just to get the names out there, here are the nine individuals with photos:

• Joseph Hoffmann
• Gertrude M (Kischefsky) Van Auken
• Rosa (Kischefsky) Dannenberg
• Walter Peter Kischefsky
• Anna (Runge) Hoffmann
• Frederick Carl Runge
• Helene Wachsmuth
• Ida (Wachsmuth) Haase
• Sophie Augusta (Wachsmuth) Muck

Last year I made the realization that it was the same amount of time from when I was born to the day he died and that same day until last year, 19 years. I had known my grandfather as much as I was without him. So, now the realization is that this year the balance is tipping in the latter direction.

Since that day in 1999, I have now lost all of my grandparents, but fortunately that has only happened recently, so I was able to enjoy their company for many years. His death was always harder on me since it was the first major death that directly affected my life, which made the later ones a bit easier to swallow after experiencing it once.

For the longest time (almost 20 years) my Zalewski line was the shortest and most difficult to crack. A few years ago I did make some headway into that brick wall and then only a few months ago I finally slammed through it and made many more discoveries (and ran into another one of those infinite brick walls.)

I always wonder how much quicker I would have made it through that brick wall if I was able to talk to him about his family history. A lot of his ancestors were mysteries for awhile and some of them may have had some interesting stories. I really would have loved to talk to him about his mother, Emily (Troka) Zalewski, who passed away in 1941 when he was only 19 years old and away in Florida in Navy school.

I would’ve loved to talk to him about his grandfather, Frank Zalewski, and about his personality and other small things since he lived until 1941, also, and my grandfather would’ve definitely known him well. He lost his grandfather at the same age I lost my grandfather.

There is this thing I heard somewhere recently, but I forget where, about imagining how far back you can connect to your ancestors by visualizing each ancestor that was able to hold hands with their grandparents, and so on, which in turn connects you to them since you held your grandparent’s hand. If you think about it, based on how long some generations lived, you can sort of feel that connection to your deeper ancestors.

So, today is a bittersweet type of day. I fondly remember my grandfather and everything he means to me, but I also thank him for sparking that fire in me that has brought me joy and mystery and challenges and meaning to my life for the past 20 years. Miss you every day, Grandpa.

A few years back, I had found Frank and Anna’s marriage record in the Polish Civil Archives. That record listed his parent’s names and his birthplace which was listed as Krottoschin. This got me one more generation back, but with little more info besides names and a location.

Using sites like Kartenmeister and Google Maps, I quickly was able to find the location and it’s modern equivalent. It is now Krotoszyny, Biskupiec, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland. Not be confused with the more popular one in the Poznan area that I kept running into.

What I couldn’t find were any church records for this location. Civil records were available, but those didn’t start until 1874. Frank was born in 1858. I’ve always had great luck at finding record listings for almost any location using FamilySearch’s Catalog, no matter how small. For some reason Krottoschin wasn’t even listed on their site. I was at a loss and disappointed.

On a whim I decided to post about my conundrum in the Polish Genealogy! Just Ask! Facebook group I belong to. I haven’t interacted much in there, but it was worth a shot. Someone might know something.

Well, they did. Only a short time after I finished posting, a few comments came in. In one of the comments someone told me to try records for Schwarzenau, West Prussia, Germany. I questioned how they knew to look there and they said they used some clever Google searches.

After my own research, it seems that while Krottoschin had a Catholic Church, it wasn’t started until the mid 1890s. Before that, it seems Krottoschin residents used the church in nearby Scwarzenau.

Finding the Record

I started browsing the records and fortunately they were available online. It’s hit or miss with these church records. More recent ones only seem to be available online when viewed from a Family History Library. Also, fortunately, the records around 1858 had an index for baptisms, which is rare. When I jumped in and browsed, I immediately saw a Zalewski baptism entry for a Frantz born on Frank’s exact birth date, October 4th, 1858! Jackpot!

As most genealogists may know, you get a little giddy when you’re starting to browse through these old records expecting to come across written evidence of your ancestor. I had that feeling when I finally saw the baptism record I’ve been wanting to find for almost 20 years.

The record didn’t give me much new information, but it did solidify a lot of it. For one, I had his mother’s surname as Mushowski, but it really is Muszkowski, confirmed by many other records I looked over for matching family members.

I was also able to finally confirm and solidify the fact the Jacob Zalewski is Frank’s brother and also get his actual birth date. I only had Dec 1863 from census records, but he was born on 10 Dec 1863.

I looked back and forth through the records and found three other siblings for Frank and Jacob who are Johann, Catharina, and Anna. Unfortunately, as it is with a lot of families during this time period, I confirmed with burial records that all of them died young. Johann lived to be about 12, but the others died within their first few weeks. I am curious about Johann’s death as Frank’s father Michael also died around the same time, but those records need to be viewed from a FHL, so I can’t look at them right now.

Keep Digging

Once I found Frank and his siblings, I moved further back as much as I could. I found Michael and Anna’s marriage record in 1855, which gave me their ages and estimated birth years. From there I found both of their baptism records. Michael was born on 30 Aug 1825 and Anna on 16 Jun 1831 both in Krottoschin.

Those records gave me both of their parent’s names. Now I had a completely new generation back. I got to meet my 5th-great grandparents on that line. Michael’s parents are Martin & Marianna (Sobotka) Zalewski. Anna’s parents are Jacob & Marianna (Urlicki) Muszkowski. I confirmed both of those maiden names with other records from the area. Both Sobotka and Urlicki are very common in Krottoschin.

I used this same process to keep going back as far as I could. Krottoschin records only went back to about 1772 and those are either hit-or-miss or very hard to read (and in Latin.)

I was forced to look outside the area to nearby records to find some of them. I could not find Martin Zalewski’s baptism record anywhere in Schwarzenau. Through some lucky records and interesting finds, I started looking in the records for the parish in Lippinken (now Lipinki) which is a bit south of Krottoschin.

There I found a promising baptism record for the right time period for a Martinus Zaleski. I know better than anyone that Zalewski and Zaleski are not the same surname, but based on other baptism records in the same parish, it seems that the Zalewski surname was never listed the same way. Sometimes Salewski, sometimes Zaleski.

I haven’t entered it into my database, yet, until I dig a bit more in the area. Plus, I’m not really sure what his mother’s maiden name is, possibly Walecka/Walecki. It almost looks like they wrote an I and then changed it to the feminine A.

Because this area is obviously a multi-generational home to my Zalewski ancestors and their ancestors, as I browsed through basically every page of the available records, I recorded any entries mentioning the new surnames I found. As of this writing I have 324 baptisms, 61 marriages, and 27 burials. I’m hoping it will help me as I continue my research.

In case your curious, and also to feed the Google beast to help distant cousins find this post, here are the new surnames I have found: Zalewski, Muszkowski, Sobotka, Urlicki, Walecki, Hincowna, Eykowna, and Olszewski. Now, both Hincowna and Eykowna are using their feminine modifiers, so I’m not sure what the standardized surname should be on those. The -owna suffix is new to me, so I’m not sure how to convert it. I may ask in that Facebook group.

I’m continuing to track as much information as I can, and obviously, you’ll be some of the first to know. Thanks for reading all of this. Here is a link to Frank’s WikiTree profile where you can browse most of this new information at your own pace.

I plan to add more detailed posts this week about how exactly I found this new information, but here is a quick overview. [Update: the detailed post is now up. You’ll find the link at the end of this post, so keep reading.]

A few years back, I found Frank’s marriage record to his wife Anna in the civil archives which listed his parent’s names and his birthplace. This got me one more generation back, but with little more info besides names and a location.

I quickly was able to find the location of this birthplace, Krottoschin. It is now Krotoszyny, Biskupiec, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland. What I couldn’t find were any church records for this location. Civil records were available at the other site, but those didn’t start until 1874. Frank was born in 1858. FamilySearch has always been helpful at finding records for almost any location I’ve thrown at it, no matter how small, but for some reason Krottoschin wasn’t even listed on their site. I was at a loss.

I decided to just post about my conundrum in the Polish Genealogy! Just Ask! Facebook group I belong to. Someone might know something. Well, they did and a few comments later someone told me to try records for Schwarzenau, West Prussia, Germany. I had no reason not to, so I did.

Fortunately, the records around 1858 had an index for baptisms. When I jumped in and browsed, I immediately saw a Frantz Zalewski born on his exact birth date! Jackpot!

After all of that excitement, which I will detail soon, I did what any excited genealogist would do, I start logging every entry mentioning Zalewski and these new names I collected. Right now, it’s not super helpful, but I imagine I may be able to track these families around the area and some are definitely connected to me somehow. As of now, I have 282 baptisms logged.

That’s not the end of it! During this process, I was looking through Marriages of the area and saw one for an Anna Zalewska. The husband was an August Gwiazdowski. You probably don’t remember, but I’ve had a longstanding mystery regarding a connection between the Zalewski and Gwiazdowski families. This marriage record may have solved that mystery and also shown that my 3rd-great grandmother was living in Milwaukee for 25 years and I already have a photo of her headstone. Some of the dates are slightly off from my information, but the record lines up a lot more pieces of other information. I’d like to try to confirm it a bit more before locking it down.

So, it’s been a whirlwind of activity this week on my Zalewski line. I’ve add multiple more generations and possibly solved another longstanding mystery. As with mystery solving, I’ve created a dozen more, but I like doing that. Stay tuned for the more detailed posts!

[UPDATE: Here is the link to the more detailed post.]

Getting some of my old black and white family photos colorized is always something I wanted to do. There are some amazing artists out there would can do an amazing job.

I ran across a video on YouTube today that showed some people colorized versions of the photos they had and some of their reactions are wonderful. Like someone said in the video, black and white videos just seem “very old” and sort of disconnected to you, but adding color to them does something to you psychologically where is almost feels more real and recent.