Last week, my sister in law and I were talking about the things I had found on her husbands family. She was interested that I had found information going back hundreds of years.
She said she would like to find information on her family and knew nothing about her fathers family. I told her to send me the information and I would see what I could find.
A quick search of Ancestry proved to be bountiful, and she is very lucky all of her ancestors settled in one little town in suburban Pittsburgh.
In her fathers side I was able to find her great grandfather and his family. The census stated that he was born in Germany in 1865, Austria in another and Czechoslovakia in a third. The family was Catholic so this led me to believe he was from Southern Germany and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire and lastly Bohemia.
My next search was the immigration records and then the records for his naturalization. George and Mary were found in all census, still living in the same small town. My next step was to check the records of the local Catholic Church where I first found the death records and about seven of the family. The priest had recorded the death date, origin of the family (it was Bohemia), age at death, cause of death and cemetery where they were buried. I have to give the kudos to the priest that kept excellent records. It must have been the German influence on his record keeping.
Next to look for her maternal side. The grandparents emigrated in the early 1900’s and I found the marriage record for them, and the priest had recorded the marriage with the names of the great grandparents,as well as the town, province and town where the came from. More Kudos to the Polish priest. Census and immigration records were found also.
I have my sister in law hooked. She signed up for a subscription to Ancestry. There is a lot of new information to be discovered. We have not even gotten to the civil records. We are both excited with anticipatory joy.
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