Primary Documents. More Questions.

The thinking in genealogy research is that only the information on primary documents can be trusted. A birth certificate, a death certificate. A marriage license. The information contained in these documents should be reliable. Should be. As I learned with my father’s birth certificate, even the primary documents can contain errors. But at least the dates should be right.

After two hours in the LDS Family History Center, I have found the birth and baptism records for six of John and Julianna’s nine children. This is mostly good news. I have facts now that come from primary sources. Good news. The data contradicts every other “fact” I have uncovered so far.

For example, according to the census of 1900, John was born in January of 1867. The fact is, he was born on, January 27, 1868.

According to the ship records on castlegarden.org, Helena was 12 years old when she arrived in 1888. Her birth record shows that she was born on May 10, 1870. The ship record is a primary document as far as establishing when the Paszkiewicz family came to America.We know for a fact when the ship sailed. The ages of the passengers are not verified. Helena was not 12 when she arrived, She was 17.

It turns out that all five birth records I have found for the daughters are off by about five years, compared to the census and ship records I had previously.

Beyond that, the new information shows that I may have made some flawed assumptions. The 1900 census asks females how many children they have had, and how many are still living. Joseph arrived in the US in 1886 with his son, John. Julianna arrived in 1888 with eight Paszkiewicz females. All under the age of seventeen. It is not a stretch to assume that these were the eight daughters of Julianna. Yet, the birth records may prove otherwise.

The ship records indicate that Josepha was 16 when she arrived in the US. That would make her birth date approximately 1872. The official birth records show Ladislawa being born on June 4, 1872. I have yet to find a birth record of Josepha. It could be that Josepha is older than John. Or, it could be that she is related in some other way, and not a daughter at all.

The official church birth records show Ladislawa being born on June 4, 1872, as I mentioned above. According to the ship records, Wladislawa was a nine month old baby when she arrived in 1888. No mother could be off on the age of their daughter by 16 years. Especially when she is only 17 years old. This baby Wladislawa is either a relative or a second daughter of Julianna with the asme name.

 

Deception? Or Bad Record Keeping?

Before I get to my discovery at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, I have to rant about record keeping. First, everything is handwritten. In cursive. Didn’t they have block letters in the 1800’s? Names are often very hard to decipher.

I have already vented about misspellings. I have at least one more to add to my list of Paszkiewicz variants.

Now I am dealing with dates. With the exception of Joseph, it seems that all the ages listed for the family on the ship manifest were wrong. John was listed as 16. He was 19.

Julianna was listed as 35. She was 44. Josepha was listed as 16. This would make her a twin of John. The twins, Kaschmira and Wladislawa, are listed as nine month old “babies.” That would mean they are not the children of Joseph, since he had been in the United States for 25 months when the women arrived.

My guess is that the ages were changed to save on the price of  travel. This is one more thing to investigate. Under one year of age probably traveled free. So, were the twins really twins?

Sixteen was probably a cutoff for a change in price, and all the other ages were changed accordingly. I may never know. But I have to sort some of it out, because it doesn’t line up with what I discovered at the courthouse.

Immigration Update

After finding the record for Julia and her daughters, I decided to head for the Rowan Public Library, to search for the actual copy on ancestry.com. Searching for “Paczkewicz” left me with no results.

I searched by ship, with no results, then by ship and a first name. I typed in Gothia, the ship name, and Stephania, and there she was: Stephanie Parzkewicz. A totally different name. Again. Doing the search for Parzkiewicz gave me the list of all nine of them.

Stephania is listed as a Male on castlegarden.org, but she is listed as a Female on the actual document. The two youngest girls, Wladislawa and Kaschmira, are listed as nine month old “babies.” So, they were actually twins.

If the age of the twins is correct, it raises a huge question. Is Joseph Paszkiewicz their father? At nine months old, they would have been conceived about 18 months prior to the arrival date of February 21, 1888. Joseph arrived in the United States, on January 19, 1886, about 25 months earlier. Maybe the age is wrong, Maybe Joseph went back. I don’t know. Another thing to investigate.

Hitting the Mother Lode.

Julianne and Her Children

Here they are. Julia and her other eight children. All of them made the trip to America. Only six would be alive for the 1900 US Census.

Stephania is listed as a male, although she is not. Julia is listed as 35, when she should be 44. Apparently Wladislava had a twin sister. John was the only son out of nine children.

This is too much for me to absorb right now.  So I am going to bed. More on this tomorrow.