52 Ancestors in 2022 - Week 9: Females

It’s already Week 9 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge! The prompt this week is ‘Females’. That is a wide-open prompt! There are a lot of females in my family tree!

Since I am female, I decided to follow my female line back as far as I can and write about that ancestor. In this case, that is my maternal grandmother’s mother, Mara Miller Janco. I know very little about Mara. She was only 43 years old when she died. Here are some of the things I do know about her.

Mara was born June 1, 1869 in Tot Aradać, which was part of Hungary at that time. Aradać was later part of Yugoslavia and today is located in Serbia. The only evidence I have for Mara’s parents, is a handwritten note from her daughter, my grandmother. The note indicates that Mara’s parents were Jano Miller and Mara Janosik.

Mara’s death certificate indicates that her parents were John Miller and Susie Johnrush. The informant was not related to Mara and the Jancos had been in the country only a short time. They probably spoke little or no English, and what they did speak was likely heavily accented. The informant may have mistaken Janco for Johnrush. 

 

Grandma told me that she assumed that her grandfather was English, based on his surname. However, because Aradać was part of the Austria-Hungary empire, I've often wondered if perhaps he was German or Austrian with the surname 'Müller'. 'Müller' is sometimes pronounced very similar to the English 'Miller'.

 

Mara arrived in the United State at the Port of Baltimore in March 1911. She was accompanied by three of her seven children. Her husband had come earlier in 1907. An older daughter was already married and remained behind in Europe. A younger daughter died as a young child while still in Europe. I’ve not yet found records for the immigration of her oldest son.

At the time of her immigration, Mara had only six children. Her youngest daughter was born approximately one year later, on May 1, 1912, in Peoria, Illinois. Mara died of tuberculosis just a few months later on January 5, 1913. She is buried in Peoria, Illinois.

Photo Friday: Frances Gunn

It's Photo Friday again. Today I am sharing a photo I scanned last month. 

 

This is a photo of Frances A. Gunn, wife of William Gunn. That's really all I know about the photo. I don't know who Frances was or how she was related to my family. The photo was found when cleaning out my in-laws' house several years ago. It was grouped with about a half dozen other photos in an envelope. The envelope came to me in a box with many other family photos, all mixed up together. I don't know what branch of the family Frances belonged to. I suspect it was the DeBee-Poynter line based on the location near other photos in the box. But it could also be from the Striebel-Hixon line! I still have almost a dozen 52 quart bins to sort through, so maybe I'll get lucky and find some information about Frances.

Meanwhile, if you recognize her and know her story, please let me know! Here is the back of the photo, showing the captioning.

52 Ancestors in 2022 - Week 8: Courting

It's already week 8 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. So far I've been able to keep up! I hope I can continue to post each week. The prompt for the week is 'Courting'. 

Normally if I hear the word courting, I immediately think of a young man trying to woo his future bride. I also start singing "Goin' Courtin'" from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers! But today I am thinking of 'courting' as 'going to court' for legal proceedings. I want to tell you about a court case involving an ancestor.

The story starts in 1901 when Charles Franklin Weiss married Mary E Tullis in St. Charles County, Missouri. The couple kept their marriage secret for nearly a month before announcing the marriage. I don't know why, but now I wonder if that may have been an early clue that there would be trouble in the marriage!

Marriage of Mary Tulles and F Weiss 12 Sep 1901, Thu Alton Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) Newspapers.comThe article refers to the groom as 'Fred', but his name was 'Frank' or Charles Franklin Weiss 

Eleven year later Charles (more commonly known as Frank) and Mary were living separately. In August of 1912 they were in court battling for custody of their daughter, Mary Esther. If the testimony is to be believed, Mary was less than an ideal mother. According reports in the local paper, the court testimony showed that Mary kept her daughter out late into the night while she attended dances. The child would have been only 4 years old at that time. Mary was also accused of seeing another man while her husband was away. You can read more in the article below.

Custody Hearing for Mary Esther Weiss 06 Aug 1912, Tue Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) Newspapers.com[The article refers to the father as Elmer Weiss, but Mary Esther was the child of Elmer's brother Frank and his wife, Mary Tullis] 

The outcome of the trial was that the grandparents were awarded custody of Mary Esther. The grandfather took custody a few days after the trial.

Weiss child custody awarded to grandfather 19 Aug 1912, Mon Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, Illinois) Newspapers.com

The grandfather took custody shortly after the trial ended. I find it interesting that the Police Chief agreed to have an officer go along to keep the peace, but NOT to take possession of the child. I wonder why this was. Did he strongly believe that the mother should always be the caretaker of the daughter? Did he know that there was more to the story than what came out in court? Is it possible that Mary was not the bad parent that Frank made her out to be?

I've been unable to locate the actual court records. I plan to try again now that I am little more familiar with court records. I may have looked in the wrong court when I tried several years ago.

One more thing to note in the article. The grandparents were apparently given custody to allow the parents to work towards reconciliation. (Does it bother anyone else that the child is referred to as 'it' in the last sentence?!) Spolier alert: Any reconcilation they achieved was short-lived. Frank was back in court three years later to obtain a divorce. But that is a story for another post.

Photo Friday: On the Roof Top

It's Photo Friday. This week I am posting another photo from the 1993 family reunion that I wrote about last week.

This is a photo of my sister and brother on the roof of our childhood home. They climbed onto the roof to take photos of our family reunion. But my story is not about the reunion. The story is about using the roof as a 'playground'.

Our childhood home was a 2-bedroom bungalow with an attic. The attic was semi-finished and we used it as a large bedroom. There was an attic dormer window at the front of the house. My dad sometimes crawled through the dormer when he needed to work on the roof or clean the gutters. One day we kids discovered how easy it was to open the window and crawl through! After that, we would often go out and sit on the roof to watch the cars go by. Sometimes we brought a blanket and snacks with us and used the roof for sunbathing. There MAY have been a time or two when one of us decided to cause trouble. We'd sneak inside and then lock the window so that the others would have to beg to come in again!

But ours was not the only roof that we used as a playground. Our friend Phyllis lived up the street. The neighborhood kids sometimes gathered at her house to play. There was a separate entrance to the attic rooms. These rooms may have been an apartment with a private entrance at one time. When Phyllis' family lived in the house, her older siblings slept in the attic rooms. We kids would sometimes come in through the back entrance. Phyllis' mother may not even have known we were there, let alone know about our activities! We often climbed out the front dormer to play on the roof. Sometimes we made out way to the back of the house and JUMPED OFF THE ROOF! I'm pretty sure that the ground was raised at the back corner, so that we weren't really jumping off a second story roof, but still....

Another roof we played on was across town. It was the home of my dad's work friend. He and his wife often played card with my parents while we kids played on our own. These were usually evening gatherings. I can remember one warm summer evening when our parents were absorbed in their pinochle game. We kids thought it was a perfect night for star-gazing, and the roof was the perfect spot to gaze from!

This sounds crazy to me now. I can't imagine that I would have been ok with my kids climbing on roofs and jumping off. I guess by the time we were adults, climbing up on the roof to take photos was a relatively tame activity!

52 Ancestors in 2022 - Week 7: Landed

The prompt for week 7 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is 'Landed'. 

This is a picture of my great-grandfather, Paul Janco. He is standing on his land in Branch Township, Mason County, Michigan. The young girl next to him is probably his daughter Elizabeth. 

Paul immigrated to the United States, arriving at the Port of Baltimore on June 4 1907. He lived in Peoria, Illinois for several years after his arrival. He moved to Michigan and bought his farm in 1919. Paul raised goats on his farm. He also sold wood locally.

His farm became a refuge for his daughter's family during the Great Depression. Susie Janco Petrini brought her daughters to stay with Paul. Her husband remained in St. Louis to look for work. Refuge may be an exageration. Conditions were not easy. The family squeezed into a house that was little more than a shack. There was no running water or electricity. They had to trudge through the deep snow to the outhouse. To avoid getting lost in the snow, a rope was strung between the house and the outhouse. As a newspaper article reported, "there is nothing in its appearance from the outside to commend it as a home".

 

By 1940, Paul was living with his son in Granite City, Madison County, Illinois. He was 75 years old by then, so it is likely he'd sold the farm and retired. I want to find a plat map of Branch township from the 1920s or 1930s to see if I can locate his plot of land. I'd also like to find property records that show the transfers of the land. I don't have any experience researching Michigan records. If you do, and you know of a source for me, give me a shout!

Photo Friday: Grandma Susie

 It's Photo Friday. This week I am posting a photo of my Grandma, Susie Janco Petrini. 

This photo was taken at a family reunion in June 1993. Grandma had turned 92 just two months earlier. Through the years the family gathered for many special occasions, but this is probably the only gathering that we referred to as 'a family reunion'.

A few weeks earlier, Grandma had a health scare. She had passed out and and was very weak. She could hardly get out of bed. Grandma lived with my mom at the time. She told my mom that she thought she was dying and she asked for me. I went, of course. I talked to her, and other than being frail and weak, she seemed normal. As we talked I learned that the doctor had prescribed a new medication the previous week. I looked up the drug she was taking and learned that it metabolizes more slowly in seniors. The advice was to reduce the dosage. One of the side effects of taking too large a dose was dizziness! I told her that I thought it was her prescription causing the problem, and that her symptoms would lessen once the dose was adjusted. She smiled and relaxed immediately!  We visited the doctor and he reduced the dosage. The symptoms disappered and Grandma returned to normal.

One effect of Grandma's health scare was to make us all aware of the fact that Grandma's children and grandchildren had not gathered in one spot for several years. The grandkids had grown and the families scattered. We decided it was time for a family reunion! The purpose was not to celebrate a holiday, not to celebrate a wedding or graduation, not to celebrate any milestone occasion. The  purpose was to come together and celebrate Grandma and her family. Grandma lived for several years, but that was the last time we all were together with her.

52 Ancestors in 2022 - Week 6: Maps

It's time for another week of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt this week is 'Maps'. Maps can be very useful for genealogy. I've used Sanford fire maps for finding my city-dwelling ancestors. I've used plat maps to find the farms of my rural ancestors. 

Maps are also great for showing distances. How far were your ancestors to the state border? Is it possible that they traveled the short disance across the border to marry in another state. Was the hospital in which they died across a state border? Do you need to look in that state for vital records? How close were your ancestors to other family?

That leads me to this map, a map of Illinois counties. 

Map of Illinois Counties from the Illinois Blue Book 2021-2022
https://ilsos.gov/publications/illinois_bluebook/
Green = where my Kolk ancestors lived
Blue = where I thought the Whiteside Kolks lived
Red = where the Whiteside Kolks really lived

I mentioned last week that I am branching out to the Whiteside County Kolk family to see if there is a connection to my Madison County Kolk family. I KNEW that they were in Fulton, Illinois, and I KNEW that Fultion is in Whiteside County, Illinois. But for some reason, I didn't realize where Whiteside County is. I probably did a quick search on a map 20 years ago when I first found the death certificates. I probably came up with Fulton County instead of the city of Fulton. It makes a big difference—about 100 miles! Fulton County is about 125 miles north of Madison County. Whiteside County is about 100 miles further north!

This is a little discouraging. It makes me feel that it is less likely that there is a connection between the two Kolk families. It is impossible? Of course not! They traveled 3600 miles across the ocean in a rickety old ship. 100 extra miles by land must have seemed like a piece of cake! 

I also see some similarities when I look at the map. Alton was a small southern Illinois community surrounded by farmland. Fulton was a small northern Illinois community surrounded by farmland. Both cities sit on the banks of the Mississippi River. And both have the same ending sound—'**l-ton'. Is it possible that two brothers got off a ship in New York and separatley bought tickets to go to Illinois? Could they have missed understood each other and ended up in similar-sounding, but different, places. That's probably NOT what happened, and it's very possible that the two lines are NOT related. But I won't know unless I try to find out. 

So my hunt for a connection continues....