1940 census: the first find

Well well well... I found great-grandma Johanna Pavlik Micutka Luzenia AND she landed on the lucky line! So this is just a quick post of what I saw; I haven't even examined every column and thoroughly analyzed the family info yet.

Andy, Johanna, and Mary are found living on Warren Road in Middlebury Township, Shiawassee County, Michigan. I knew they'd been living in Middlebury Township before and after 1940, so it was a safe bet they'd still be there. They owned their home (ok, gonna check for deeds next trip back to Michigan!), it's a farm, and it's valued at "900" and that's in line with the neighbors' home/farm values.

1940 U.S. census, Shiawassee County, Michigan, population schedule, Middlebury Township, page 9B, ED 78-12, household number 187, line 54, Andrew Luzenia; digital image, Archives.gov (http://1940census.archives.gov/ : accessed 3 April 2012); citing NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 1820.

Johanna was the informant for the family information. I'm rather surprised at the accurate spellings of the surnames; I wasn't so sure that she was literate. Mary's surname is especially interesting. While I know that it's supposed to be Pavela, the only place it's spelled that way is on her baptismal record. It's misspelled as Pavelia on her New York birth certificate, and that misspelling followed her to the end of her life. (How do I know that the baptismal record is correct and the birth certificate is wrong, and not the other way around? Because I recognized her father on the baptismal record by his unusual first name--he was from the same village as the Micutkas, and was himself a Micutka descendant, and his surname was most definitely Pavela.) Did Johanna pull out her daughter's birth certificate or other document, or did she know how to spell the family names?

Johanna sometimes named herself Annie or Janie in other documents, as she did here. Johanna was born in late 1870, Andy in late 1883, and Mary in late 1908, so the reported ages are pretty close. Relationships and places of birth are accurate--really, great-granny, I'm impressed, you haven't always been so careful with little things like facts in the past!

Levels of education are minimal--just a few years of formal schooling for Johanna and Andy; well, that argues for Johanna being able to spell names at least. Mary was mentally retarded to some degree and had no education.

The family was living in the same house as in 1935.  I should look for deeds before that date, then.

Andy apparently had taken out "first papers" for naturalization. I've looked for them rather half-heartedly in the past, not sure if he had ever pursued citizenship. Now I know to get serious about searching. He was a farmer, worked 60 hours in the last week of March 1940 and 52 weeks in the 1939. He didn't earn wages in 1939, but did receive income of $50 or more from sources other than money wages. Lastly, he's number 100 on the farm schedule, so now I have to find out if the farm schedules are available.

Johanna's basic information shows that she was still an alien, and that she didn't earn work for pay.

Her supplemental information is, alas, about what I expected. Her parents were both born in Czechoslovakia (which was what it was called in 1940, not in 1870 when Johanna was born).

Married more than once, first time at age 18 (that's right--in January 1889); but what's the number in line 50, for "number of children ever born"? I'm going to have to wait for clearer images, plus compare the enumerator's handwriting in other entries. 

So, my homework will be to look for a deed for property out on Warren Road in Middlebury Township, probably purchased before 1935 and sold in the mid- to late-1940s. And if Andy still owned the land when he died (Johanna predeceased  him), there might be a probate file. I need to check for naturalization records again; first stop (online or in person) would be the county courthouse. I should also eventually send for the Alien Registration forms that both Andy and Johanna would have had to fill out in 1940. I've been lazy about noting whether farm schedules for the 1940 census survived and are available, so it's time to find out.

Back to searching; I still need to find George and Valeria.

The 1940 census: looking for Michutkas

It made the national news—to some extent—but you might not have picked up on what an exciting day yesterday was, unless you’re really into genealogy. Yesterday was the release of the 1940 census, seventy-two years after it was taken. This is a gold mine of information for anyone researching family history.

Each census asks a slightly different set of questions, so tracking a family from one census to the next in ten-year snapshots shows more than just the fact that everyone aged ten years. Some censuses ask the year of immigration (for those not born here) and their citizenship status; this is hugely helpful information for then finding a person on a passenger list or locating their naturalization papers. The 1910 census asks each woman how many children she had, and how many are still living; this is often the first clue that a child was born and died since the last census, or that an adult child who can’t be found in other recent records is actually deceased.

The first targets of my searching will be my Michutka grandparents, and my Grandpa Michutka’s mother, step-father, and half-sister. The 1940 census isn’t indexed yet; that will take probably six months, so I have to plan my search geographically, identifying enumeration districts and then reading line by line, page by page. Grandpa and Grandma Michutka moved around a lot, nearly every year, but remained in the area of Ovid, Michigan. I’ve already read through the 1940 enumeration district in Clinton County where they lived in 1930, hoping they might still be there. I found their former neighbors, the Hoffmans and Burls; I saw my dad’s godmother, Mrs. Waydak; and I ran across the family of one of my dad’s best friends growing up, Glenn Decker. But no Michutkas.

What do I expect to see, once I do find them? My grandparents George and Valeria Michutka were almost certainly living on a small farm. The census will tell me whether they owned or rented, and the value of their home if owned, or what they paid for monthly rent. Honestly, I don’t expect they owned. I’ll be able to see how their home value, or rent, compared with others in the area. This census asks the citizenship status of those foreign-born; George did not become a citizen until later in the 1940s, although he took out “first papers” in the 1920s. A new set of questions on this census asks where each person lived in 1935, but I don’t expect any surprises there.

I expect to see sons Don, Victor, and Vincent living with their parents. Eldest children John, Jennie, and Josie were out on their own by then. I’m betting that middle children Joe and Paul were “farmed out,” living with and working for other families in the immediate area. The question is, will they be enumerated with those other families, or with their own family?

There’s a chance that I’ll find my grandparents living with great-grandma and her second husband. At some point, George and Valeria were having a tough time economically (ok, they always had a tough time economically!) and they shared a house with George’s mother and step-father. My dad said that one family lived in the front of the house, the other in the back of the house.

I’m really curious to see this great-grandmother’s family enumeration. Johanna Pavlik Mičutka Luzenia and her second husband “Big Andy” Luzenia always lived near my grandparents, but often over the county line in Shiawassee County. Johanna’s illegitimate daughter, my grandfather’s thirty-year-old half-sister Mary, lived with them. I never know what surname Mary will have in a census, or what her relationship to the head of household (Andy) will be; both have always been wrong in the past. One new thing with the 1940 census—the person providing the information is identified. So, if Mary’s info is wrong again, I’ll know who the guilty party is. Actually, I’ll be shocked if Mary is enumerated with her correct legal surname Pavela, that of her biological father. It took me over twenty years to find that particular piece of information, and it apparently was not known to her nieces and nephews.

This census also asks about a dozen questions regarding the employment status of everyone age fourteen and older. Will it show that my grandmother did field work, or only that she was a housewife? I’m interested in finding out George’s and Andy’s income in 1939, and how that compares with others'. They worked their small farms, but also had other odd jobs such as section hands for the railroad, or digging ditches for a WPA project.

The 1940 census has an interesting variation: one person on each page was asked supplementary questions. Those enumerated on the lucky lines (lines 14 and 29) were asked about their parents’ birthplaces and the language they spoke growing up, their status as a veteran, whether they had a Social Security number (this will be handy for researchers!), more questions about their usual occupation, and for women who were or had been married, whether married more than once, age at first marriage, and number of children ever born. I’d love to see great-grandma Johanna’s answer to the last question, as I know of seven children (four lived to adulthood) but have one document that says she gave birth to eight children. We’ll see if any of the family ended up on one of those lucky lines.

So in the odd half hour here and there, I’ll be looking for my Michutkas. I’m not expecting any surprises—well, if I expected them, they wouldn’t be surprises, would they?!—but I seldom get a new document but what it has information I totally didn’t know about before. So, I guess I’m remaining open to the unexpected. Stay tuned.

Using Hungarian census records in Slovak (and Hungarian) genealogical research

Those of us researching our Slovak ancestors suffer from a scarcity of record types, relying heavily on parish records and occasionally (if we’re lucky) census records. Understanding records—the reasons they were created, their limitations, their peculiarities—help us to wring as much information as possible from the documents we find. Knowing where record groups can be accessed, or conversely for what regions they are no longer extant, can save us time and effort.

A recently-published article should be read by anyone expecting to search for or work with census records of the former Hungarian Empire. Authors Peter Ori’s and Levente Pakot’s working paper, “Census and Census-like Material Preserved in the Archives of Hungary, Slovakia and Transylvania (Romania), 18-19th Centuries,” can be downloaded at http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2011-020.pdf.

The fifty-seven page paper is divided into three sections: a discussion of the various censuses, a bibliography, and a comprehensive listing of census materials in archives.

The authors’ focus is identifying extant census materials of enough detail that they can be used for demographic studies of household composition. In the first fifteen-page section of the paper, they explain: their reasons for discussing only certain parts of the Hungarian empire; the various censuses and enumerations; the intentions of each census (e.g., was it to count the entire population, was it to identify males for military purposes); factors affecting the likely accuracy; the concept of “household unit” in a particular census. Five maps are helpful illustrations of the areas named as different censuses are discussed.

A bibliography of just over two pages lists works in English and Hungarian concerning censuses and demographics; Hungarian titles are translated into English. Several of the English-language articles will be attractive to researchers wishing to learn context of their ancestors’ lives, such as “Different Household Formation Systems in Hungary at the End of the 18th Century: Variations on John Hajnal’s Thesis.”

The third section of the paper is basically a detailed finding aid for extant census materials. Archive by archive, the authors describe the types of census-like records, the years covered, the number of villages covered (sometimes by name), the types of data in the records, and more. Contact information for each archive is included, and online record access is noted where it is available.

Those doing Slovak research will find Ori’s and Pakot’s paper a good supplement to the various Hungarian census resources offered by Bill Tarkulich and others at http://www.iabsi.com/gen/public/CensusMain.htm.

Looking back, and looking ahead

One of the blogging prompts at Geneabloggers this past week was to review our genealogical accomplishments of the last year, and post our goals for the coming year. I was sorry that I didn’t get around to participating last year, so here I go for this year, and only a few days late. Maybe by putting my goals out there, I’ll be more motivated to work on them!

I was busy in 2011, to the point where I cleared the decks of nearly all client work. An intensive elementary German class, the online ProGen study group, and being a teaching assistant for Boston University’s online Certificate Program in Genealogical Research and their new Genealogical Essentials course filled most of the time that I allotted for work.

It was a good year for taking advantage of continuing education opportunities: I attended the New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC) in April, a week-long course in Writing Narrative Family Histories at Boston University in July, and a three-day workshop about Massachusetts colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson and the time/situation in which he lived.

I managed to carve out time to give some of my own ancestral projects the same thoroughness as I do my client work, and wrote extensive “state of the research” reports for two of my more troublesome families. It was very satisfying work, and I’m looking forward to giving the same treatment to other of my projects this year.

The genealogical high point of the year concerned my continuing research on my grandfather’s half-sister, Marisa. In April I found and met with a woman who had known her well; she graciously invited me to her home, spent an entire morning talking to me, and gave me the only known photos of Marisa. My quest for Marisa is a long story for another time; suffice it to say that this is a project in which I am quite invested emotionally.

Looking ahead to 2012… one always begins with a long list of hopes and plans (heck, I begin every day that way). But if I accomplish these three, I’ll be doing pretty well:

• It’s time for me to try and get published. [Yikes, did I just say that out loud?] I have two projects that I want to re-write for state/regional publications, and which I think have a chance of being accepted. Y’all can hold my feet to the fire on this one!
• I need to resume client work, if for no other reason than the fact that researching for others always makes me stretch my skills. There are time constraints, unfamiliar repositories and records, and the absolute necessity for writing up the research thoroughly yet very clearly and succinctly. I’m forced to move out of my comfort zone, which really means that I end up expanding my comfort zone.
• Client work also pushes me to investigate new tools, and I am then usually slow to really learn all that the tool can offer me. I think I did a good job of choosing new and useful bits of software last year, and this year’s goal will be to become more proficient with them. I don’t want to spend research time or writing time in figuring out how things work! First up: an inexpensive four-week online class on Scrivener. This will do double-duty: not only will it give me an extended period of guided practice, but I’m also very curious to see how an individual (vs. a company or institution) sets up an online class.

I’ll also continue my volunteer work in the Manuscripts Department at the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston. Continuing education opportunities are always a goal, and always dependent on schedule and economics.

Lastly, I need to figure out what I’m doing with this blog. It fell by the wayside last year as I became busier than I ever expected to be. It might be that my intention of using the blog to write up my Michutka family history very thoroughly is overly ambitious. Stay tuned!

A blessed New Year to all!

Today's Favorite Resource: Detailed Historic German Maps

A particular factoid that I remember from a high school American history class is that one out of every six Americans has German ancestry. Given the passage of years (ok, decades!) and the immigration of a variety of other nationalities, that proportion has likely changed; I don’t doubt, however, that there are still significant numbers of Americans researching German lines. My own maternal ancestors came from various corners of the German-speaking world, and I continue to work on those portions of my family tree and learn about the many resources available. I have a few favorite collections that are accessible online; two are free, the other is free at many libraries or by subscription otherwise.

Kartenmeister

One of the first sites I use for my German map research is http://kartenmeister.com/. Kartenmeister helps me pinpoint a location, tells the various name changes of a town, and gives the past and present political divisions that are so important for locating records.

Here’s what it shows for the village of Sarben, near the town of Czarnikau, in what used to be Prussia (today in Poland) at http://kartenmeister.com/preview/City.asp?CitNum=54196

Using the information in Kartenmeister, I made myself a little cheat-sheet of basic location info for my ancestral villages in the German province of Posen, Prussia, which today is the Polish province of Wielkopolskie:

Towns in Prussia associated with the Grube-Giese family
German name	Polish name today (no diacritics used)	Location	Roman Catholic parish
Czarnikau	Czarnkow	East 16° 34′ North 52° 54′	Czarnikau
Hutka	??	East 16° 41′ North 52° 53′	Czarnikau
Gembice, Gembitz	Gebice	East 16° 41′ North 52° 54′	Czarnikau
Sarben	Sarbia	East 16° 39′ North 52° 56′	Sarben
Schönlanke	Trzcianka	East 16° 27′ North 53° 02′	Schönlanke

Ancestry.com, World Explorer membership or Library Edition

The information I collected from Kartenmeister made it much easier to turn to Germany, Topographic Maps, 1860-1965 [original title and publication info: Karte des Deutschen Reiches 1:100 000. Berlin: Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme, 1860-1965], available at Ancestry.com in the World Explorer membership, or via Ancestry Library Edition. This collection of highly detailed maps is a treasure. I can see the lay of the land, where there were fields, forests, buildings, businesses such as brickworks, and streams in the area where my family lived.

To access this collection, at Ancestry.com or Ancestry Library Edition,  pull down the Search menu and choose “Card Catalog.” Type in the search term “Germany topographic,” and in the box to the right choose sheet range “Ubersichtsblatt” [“Overview”], sheet number “Ubersichtsblatt,” and then click year ‘all.’  (I found that I have to type “Germany topographic” and not “German topographic”: for some reason, Ancestry won’t find it without that final –y.)

This leads to a large map of Germany divided into numbered squares corresponding to the sheet numbers. Each square includes the name of a major town or city; river names and political divisions are also indicated. Using those clues, I can hone in on the area my ancestors lived in, and find the section number(s) that includes their town. Obviously, I first need to know the name of the town my family came from (from family stories and documents) and have a pretty clear idea where it is located (thank you, Kartenmeister).

Once I have a sheet number, I can return to the map collection’s search page. Now I can choose a sheet range instead of “Ubersichtsblatt, ” then a specific sheet within that range, and sometimes I can choose from several maps of different dates.

To illustrate what the search process and results look like, here is the search screen for those villages around Czarnikau.  I determined that I needed sheet 250, and then:

I chose sheet range “200-299” then sheet “250”; a choice of years is listed, which leads to the maps.

Below is a cropped section of sheet 250, showing Czarnikau and villages including Hutka, Gembitz, and Sarben. If I did this right (but apparently I didn't!), you'd be able to click on the map and blow it up to see just how much detail is present. Yeah, I'm still practicing with capturing images and putting them into my blog; it doesn't always come out quite as well as I'd like.

Bavarian Regional Library Online: Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online

In a future post I’ll look at another resource that I use for a different branch of my ancestry from yet another part of the German Empire, but I want to at least mention it here. The Bavarian Regional Library online at http://www.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/ has a wealth of resources, including maps at http://www.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/enortsblaetter. Some parts of the site have an English language option.

Wedding Wednesday: 1 September 1956

Weddings have been much on our mind here recently, as one of our daughters was married on our anniversary this spring—as we were married on my in-laws’ anniversary, and my in-laws were married on my mother-in-law’s parents’ anniversary—4 generations sharing a wedding date, 96 years of tradition!

But today I turn to my side of the family: September 1st marks the 55th anniversary of my parents’ wedding, and this is my favorite group photo from the album. Dad and the groomsmen are, sad to say, all deceased, and all are still so missed. Mom and her bridesmaids are all still happy and healthy. And the flower girl still has a smile to charm your heart.

The three groomsmen are two of my dad’s five brothers: best man Vincent (Dad’s identical twin), brother-in-law Bill (husband of Dad’s sister), and brother Joe. Bill was a little bit of a controversial choice for a Catholic wedding, as he and my aunt were divorced from their first spouses and were each other’s second spouse. Devout a Catholic as my dad was, he could recognize when a rule or convention should be ignored. Uncle Bill was always a beloved member of the family, and to this day I love to see him as a part of my parents’ wedding.

The three bridesmaids were two of my mom’s three sisters, Rita and Martha, and (in the middle) her friend Marcia. Marcia had been one of mom’s roommates when she lived and worked in town, had known my dad for some time, and set my parents up on a blind date. Marcia was a convert to Catholicism, and if I remember correctly, my mom was her sponsor. Marcia and Mom are still dear friends; I last saw Marcia and her husband at my sister’s wedding 10 years ago.

The flower girl was my dad’s niece Jan. The youngest (with his twin) of eight children, my dad had a number of nieces and nephews by the time he married.

Mom’s dress was a near-white ice blue, and about 20 years later she recycled her veil to be my youngest sister’s first communion veil. Her string of pearls was my dad’s wedding gift to her, something that her daughters have been sure to mention to prospective husbands when our turn came to marry!  I have always liked that rosaries were a part of the bridesmaids’ nosegays, as prayer was always an integral part of my parents’ marriage and family life.

The wedding was very early in the day, at 9:00 or 9:30 I think. After a reception, the party continued out at the farm (my mother’s parents’ home) until late in the evening.

Looking at this photo of my parents on their wedding day has always given me joy, and now a little bittersweet feeling too. Those strong young men are all gone. My parents were looking with hope into a future that ended up bringing some challenges and sorrow as well as all the joys of raising a family. My parents’ marriage produced six children, twelve grandchildren, and (so far) five great-grandchildren. The “hope” and “joy” parts of their marriage continue in the lives of their descendants.

A new-to-me resource for central European genealogy

A new resource was pointed out to me last night, a godsend for anyone searching central European parish registers. Compiled by Bartholomew Szokolszky and published in 1922, Annyakönyvvezetők szótára [Registrar’s dictionary] is 141 pages of terms used in church registers, each term being given in Hungarian, Slovak, German, and Latin.

There are four chapters, each for a different class of vocabulary. Words are in alphabetical order of the Hungarian term within each chapter. The chapters are: occupations, causes of death, first names, and the most common terms and phrases used in the registers.

The registrar’s dictionary is available online in PDF format, courtesy of Verejná knižnica Jána Bocatia [John Bocatia Public Library] in Košice, Slovakia, at http://www.vkjb.sk/File/anyakonyvvezetokszotara.PDF . I immediately put it to work, looking up a cause of death in Hungarian for which I could determine only some of the letters. With the PDF format, I could search on a partial word. After a few tries (“is that a letter o, or an a?”) I found the phrase.

I owe a HUGE “d’akujem pekne” [thank you so much!] to Ladislav Rosival for telling me about this resource.