Collateral Research

RESEARCHING COLLATERAL LINES CAN HELP BREAK DOWN BRICKWALLS

I had been searching for 18 years to find the parents of my great-grandmother. My great-grandmother became pregnant in Europe without being married. She told many different stories about her life because of this. When I began this search, I worked with these differing stories. Some of the stories that she told were that she was married to a Russian or Prussian soldier at the age of 14, became pregnant, he died in either a farming accident, or in the military, or on the boat on the way to the U.S. Another story was that her parents, John and Marie, died when she was young and she went to work for an Aunt Susanna and was treated badly there and left to come to the United States. A third story was that she became pregnant at the age of 14 and her parents wouldn't let her stay in their house and that's how she ended up coming to the United States. Either way, she ended up in Cleveland, Ohio, and gave birth to her child on September 6, 1898, at what I learned later was an unwed mother's home. She gave this child up for adoption in 1900 and ended up getting married in 1901 and had a family with her husband. This was an open adoption, and our family knew her son when he grew into adulthood. My great-grandmother had NO family whatsoever in Cleveland that we knew of. My great-grandmother also said that she was born in RUSH, POLAND, near a town called Strasburg, not the Strasburg in France, not the Strasburg by Berlin, but a town of Strasburg east of there. Her census records showed that she was born in Russia/Poland and she also talked of Cossacks riding through her hometown, killing the babies thatpeople would hide in baskets. So, how did I begin to work on this research project?

I found each and every record in Cleveland, Ohio that would pertain to my great-grandmother. There was no help there as none of these records showed her place of birth. Back in the 1950's, there was a man that came to visit from Brazil. He had done an extensive genealogy on my great-grandmother's last name. This man left a copy of his genealogy with my great-grandmother, but we don't know what became of that book. I found out that this man donated his research to the LDS library, and I found the microfilm that included his work. I found my great-grandmother listed on his massive charts, but she was listed there two times with question marks after her name. Clearly, he didn't know who her parents were either, but he had her placed with two couples (the men being brothers), in a town called Schnaitheim Germany in the Wuerrtemberg region. I proceeded to write to the civil authorities in these towns and ended up ruling out the two couples as her parents. This took about 2 years of writing back and forth to do.

I then decided to see how many towns there were in Poland called Rush. I found quite a few and checked the LDS microfilms for those towns with no success.

So, again, I was left with nowhere to turn, and I decided to try the old genealogy maxim - research the collateral lines. However, since she had no family in Cleveland, I had no collateral lines to work on. What to do??? I decided to work on the adoptive family of her child, thinking that perhaps she was related to that family. I spent about 2 years on that and found some descendants of that family who shared some information with me, but I was not able to find any record that my great-grandmother was related to that family. I tried to get the adoption record from the Cuyahoga County Probate Court, but was not allowed to view the file as these files are only open to the adoptive parents, the birth parents, or the adoptee himself. Another brickwall thrown in front of me.

At that point I came upon a record that I had missed in Cleveland. My great-grandmother had another marriage application on file in the Cuyahoga County Courthouse. Just 23 days after the birth of her child, she almost married a man but the license was returned - marked as: "License returned, marriage not solemnized." I thought to myself, why would this man be interested in marrying her if he was NOT the father of her child. So, I branched out and began researching the family of this man. More collateral research! I researched his ancestors and siblings, and traced the family lines of his siblings down to the present time. It was time to start writing letters! I wrote to grandchildren of his siblings and didn't hear a thing from them for months. At this point, I had just about given up. One day I got two phone calls from these descendants, and one of them told me that they had heard that their grandmother's brother was not a very good father, that after his wife died, he gave up his 5 children for adoption, and that there was also talk that before he had married, there was another woman who he had gotten pregnant and he didn't do right by that child either (I assumed that this other woman was my great-grandmother). So, this was a major breakthrough, showing me that possibly this man was indeed the father of my great-grandmother's son.

So, I trudged on, trying to find what became of this man's children that he had given up for adoption. Using the internet, I found these children in the 1920 and 1930 census at an orphanage in Indiana. Using marriage records, I found one of the sons had married and I was able to find obituaries for this husband and wife. The obituaries showed their children's names, and again, using the internet, I found that one of these children was a school teacher in Indiana and the website showed her email address. I sent her an email explaining the entire situation, and she was thrilled to hear from me, because her family always wondered about their heritage. She told me that she wouldn't be surprised if her grandfather was the father of my great-grandmother's son, because he was not a very good father at all.

As we exchanged emails, she sent me a picture of her parent's wedding picture. Her father would have been a step-brother to my great-grandmother's son. This picture was amazing to see because her father looked exactly like my great-grandmother's son. I now had no doubt in my mind that I had found a connection. I learned that this man's family were centered in two towns, Gros Herzogswalde and Peterkau, West Prussia. I ordered microfilms for those towns. Not only did I find this family there, but I also found the surname of my great-grandmother there as well. But, I still hadn't found the baptismal record of my great-grandmother. However, among the families that had my great-grandmother's surname, were a John and Marie, and John had a sister Susanna! (Refer back to the beginning of this story: John and Marie were my great-grandmother's parent's names, and recall that she was sent to live with an Aunt Susanna). So, this was VERY encouraging.

These locations of Peterkau and Gros Herzogswalde fit PERFECTLY with the stories that my great-grandmother told. She said that she was from a town east of Strasburg. There is a town called Strasburg (Brodnica) in Poland that is near these towns of Peterkau and Gros Herzogswalde. Also, she said that they had problems with Cossacks riding through town. The people would hide their babies in large baskets and the Cossacks would ride through stabbing their swords through the baskets. This is historically accurate with these towns of Peterkau and Gros Herzogswalde. I had already corresponded with people from this area who said that their grandparents spoke of Cossack raids too.

I then looked for the passenger list of this man who was the suspected father of my great-grandma's child. Since this child was born on September 6, 1898, that meant that my great-grandma got pregnant on or about December 6, 1897. I found the passenger list for the suspected father and interestingly, this man sailed from Antwerp on December 2, 1897 and arrived at Philadelphia on December 17, 1897. We can assume that he left his hometown on about November 30, 1897 on a train bound for Antwerp. This man had two remaining siblings in West Prussia - the rest had already come to Cleveland. So, he probably was set to leave Poland to come to his family in Cleveland, and he and my great-grandmother could have had a last fling on or about November 29th. She got pregnant, he left for the United States unaware of this situation, her parents found out she was pregnant and made her leave their home and she followed the father of her child to Cleveland.

I found it too coincidental that this man left Poland right at the time that my great-grandmother would have gotten pregnant, and to find her surname in the microfilm of the town where this man was from seemed more than coincidence to me. I really believed that I was on the right track, and ordered more films for the towns Peterkau and Gros Herzogswalde. Unfortunately, my great-grandmother was not born in these towns, so I had to keep looking.

I then decided to go back to my Atlas of Poland to see if there were any towns called Rush in the vicinity of Peterkau and Gros Herzogswalde. Sure enough, I found a town called Rus (Reussen in German) that I had missed the first time around. I ordered the microfilm for Morag (Mohrungen in German), as this town of Morag was the civil records office for people living in Rus. It was on this film that I finally found my great-grandmother's birth record on the exact date that she always gave as her birthday. Not only did I find her birth record, but there were also seven other families with her surname, eight families with the surname of her mother, and four families with the name of the father of her illigitimate child. Hooray, the mystery was finally solved after 18 years!

So, what do I believe really happened in the life of my great-grandmother? A descendant of the adoptive family told me that my great-grandmother arrived in South Euclid (where the father of her child settled, a suburb of Cleveland), in a pregnant state, and she collapsed on the porch of a family out there. I'm assuming that this porch was the adoptive couple's porch. My great-grandmother always said that she came to this country and began immediately working as a domestic helper for this couple. They probably took her in and allowed her to work for them. She was still trying to talk the father of her child into marrying her, but he wouldn't have any of it. So, the adoptive family sent her away to the Berachah Haven (Home for Unwed Mothers), on Guernsey St. in Cleveland where she gave birth. I first wondered why they would send her away - she was not their daughter - they didn't have to cover anything up because of shame. I think that they sent her away in order to get her away from the father of her child because they knew he was not a good person AND they wanted to adopt that baby. They were childless and could not have children. She had the baby at Berachah, and then 23 days later she tried one last time to get the father to marry her but he wouldn't do it. She realized that she has to board her son with this family that later adopted him. She always said that she originally boarded him with them and took room and board out to them every other weekend. Eventually, she learned that she wasn't going to find someone to marry and wasn't able to keep her child, so 1 1/2 years later, she allowed this couple to adopt her son.

All of this just goes to show how you have to research collateral lines, even if you know that they are not YOUR COLLATERAL LINES. My great-grandmother had no relatives whatsoever here in Cleveland, but that didn't mean that I had no collateral lines to research. Thank goodness that my great-grandmother almost married this man and that there was a record of that marriage license application. If they hadn't, I never would have known about him and wouldn't have thought to research his family. I wanted to share this story with others to show that no matter how insurmountable something may seem, there is a way to break down a BIG brickwall. You just have to keep working with the information that you have and look at EVERYONE that was a part of your ancestor's life. You never know what you might find.