And Then There Were None

Four years after her husband died in 1925 my husband's paternal grandmother, Cecelia (Klimasansluski) Dagutis remarried. She had moved her younger children from West Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to Hamtramck, Michigan. Dodge built their main assembly plant in Hamtramck in 1910 and workers flooded to the area, which had previously been rural. With the opening of the plant came a flood of Polish immigrants and by 1920, 85 percent of the population were factory workers.

11398 St. Albin Avenue, home of Cecelia Dagutis and her
children, courtesy of Google Maps

On 13 April 1929, Cecelia married Anthony Strupski, a 30-year-old autoworker, who had immigrated from Lithuania and been married previously. Cecelia claimed she was 42 years but was actually a few years older. They were married by the pastor of St. George's Roman Catholic Church in Detroit, a Lithuanian church.

When the 1930 census was enumerated Cecelia remained on St. Albin Avenue with four of her sons and a boarder, Joseph Okrongley. She indicated she was married but Anthony was not listed as living in the home. By 1935, Cecelia and her younger sons were back in West Hazleton. There is no mention of a husband. She used "Dagutis" as her surname and the city directory included "(wid Adam)." It appears Anthony had been expunged.

Anthony Shrupski died on 2 November 1939 at St. Francis Hospital in Hamtramck of pneumonia at the age of 38. His death certificate said he was married and listed Cecelia as his wife. My working theory at this time was they had separated.

I first learned about Anthony Shrupski in 2015 when Michigan marriage records became available online. My husband was shocked to discover his grandmother had remarried; his eldest sister knew all about Anthony! Recently, I got curious about him and learned that the black cloud of tragedy seemed to follow him around.

Anthony declared his intention to become a naturalized citizen on 19 July 1928 and said he was a widower. He provided 15 February 1901 as his birth date and that he had immigrated on the S/S America from Bremen, Germany. Other family members indicated they came to the U.S. in 1901. However, I have not been able to find a corresponding passenger record. Anthony did come to the U.S. on the S/S America, arriving in New York on August 1923. In tow were a wife named Vinca and a four-year-old son named Frank. The family had last lived in Berlin and were headed to Anthony's uncle, Joseph, who lived in Brooklyn. Anthony's parents and siblings also lived in Brooklyn.

Little Frank died in Kings, New York, on 17 May 1904, and Vinca was dead by 1928 when Anthony filed is intention to naturalize papers with the court. Eleven years later, he died, and then there were none.

I still have many questions...Did Anthony remain in Europe when his parents immigrated? He would have been an infant when they left. Did he go back to Europe after World War I, perhaps to find a wife? Why did they live in Berlin? Where did Anthony and his family live before he appeared out of thin air in Hamtramck in 1928?

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Three Sons Born in One Year...Really?
The Onion Layers that Were Cecelia Dagutis
Cecelia's Big Secret?

4 Things I've Learned about Researching Eastern European Ancestors

I have finally seriously begun to study how to research eastern European ancestors so I can begin to work on Mom's and my husband's sides of my family tree. One morning over coffee I was bemoaning the difficulties I have experienced. Pete agreed it sounded tough and said I should write a blog post about it so others who are thinking of doing the same thing will know about which issues to watch or take into consideration. I'm certainly no expert but am making progress in my education.

According to AncestryDNA eastern Europe includes these countries: Albania (northern), Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece (northern), Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia (European), Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey (European), and Ukraine. It's as good a definition as any other I have found.

Map of Eastern European Ethnicity per AncestryDNA; image courtesy of
Ancestry.com

Regardless of the specific country in which you find your research taking you, most of these countries require knowing certain facts before you can truly begin to make progress. And they are:

1. What calendar was in use?

It sounds crazy, I know, but if you want to add a certain date to an ancestor's timeline that puts that information in context with your other known ancestors, then you will likely want to use the Gregorian Calendar, which is what we use today. The Gregorian calendar was named for Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in 1582.

The calendar is sometimes known as the Western or Christian calendar. Not surprisingly, Catholic European countries were first to convert to the new calendar. Protestant and Orthodox countries adopted the Gregorian calendar sometimes centuries later with Greece being the last country to adopt it in 1923.

I use this web page to determine what calendar the country in which I am researching was using at the time of the ancestor about whom I am working. Then I go to Stephen P. Morse's converter to determine what the Gregorian calendar date is for a record created using the Julian calendar. I enter the Gregorian date as the fact in my family tree and add a note in the description field that includes the original Julian calendar date with (Julian) in parenthesis. The recording of the facts about my paternal grandfather Gustav Lange's birth is a good example:

Gustav Lange birth fact in my family tree; image courtesy of Ancestry.com

You could use an alternate birth fact, but my personal preference is to keep all of the information together as it really was the same date. If I had a source that listed an entirely different date, then I would use the alternate birth fact to record that information.

2. What religion did your ancestors practice?

Religion was more important in the daily life of our ancestors than it is for many of us today. My maternal grandmother's family moved from what is now Maliniec, Poland, to what is now Ukraine, but was then Russia, primarily for economic reasons. However, Tsar Alexander II offered many inducements, including the freedom to practice a different religion from Russian Orthodoxy, which was the empire's official religion. When Tsar Alexander III came to power, he rescinded those inducements and jailed my grandmother's family's minister. They undertook a 5,000+ mile journey in 1893 to escape Russia in order to practice their German Baptist faith. Many from their community and church made the same journey at the same time and settled in the same area in Canada where they built a church together. Without knowing your ancestor's religion, you will not know in what churches to look for records if none exist at the civil authority.

Photograph of the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Fredericksheim
in Leduc, Canada, which my great grandfather helped build; photograph
courtesy of Lucille Marian (Fillenberg) Effa

3. In what country did your ancestors reside?

Country boundaries changed a lot over time in Europe, but especially in eastern Europe. Poland actually disppeared from the map in 1795 after the third partition of the country as Prussia, Russia, and Austria gobbled it up. Other countries lost wars and territory and there was a war somewhere in eastern Europe for much of history. It is important to know in what country the town or area in which your ancestor lived at the time your ancestor lived there. It's also important to know the contemporary name of the location in case you want to plot it on the map.

I typically enter the current place name in the location field and the historical name in the description field. I do this so that mapping function of my family tree software will work. If they lived in a very small village that is not recognized by my software, I enter the region and enter the village name in the description field. By knowing the country in which Zamosty was located at the time of Gustav's birth, I can use Wikipedia or the JewishGen town search to get the correct spelling or current place name. Because most of my eastern European ancestors lived in Poland and the Volhynia region, I joined the Society of German Genealogy in Eastern Europe. Members have created some of the best gazetteers I have found. If your ancestors are from other countries in eastern Europe, however, the society's resources will not be as helpful.

4. What was the national language and what language did your ancestors speak?

Once you know the country in which your ancestor resided, then you will likely have a good handle on the official language spoken there. However, be aware that some countries allowed administrative areas to speak different languages based on the majority nationality in the area as did Russia until the reign of Tsar Alexander III. If you are lucky enough to find records about your eastern European ancestors, then knowing the language in which the record was written will be extremely helpful as you will need to have the record translated. I find Facebook groups very helpful for translations, but I must know to which group to post the record.

My maternal grandfather's birth registration provides a great example of how you can get tripped up. Remember, Gustav Lange was born in 1888. His birth information was recorded in German on a form pre-printed in Russian! After 1894, his birth information would have been recorded in Russian due to a change in the law.

Gustav Lange's original birth certificate; personal collection

Knowing it was in German enabled me to obtain a translation from the German Genealogy Facebook group. I now understand there is another group specifically for German translations.

I have found it particularly helpful to read the Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org wikis before I begin researching in a foreign country. I also spend a lot time reading about the history of the country, especially its internal civil procedures and how local governments were organized for administrative purposes.

I hope you found these tips useful. Please let me know if you have others.

Su Naujais Metais

For the past two years I've been writing about the New Year's traditions of some of my ancestors homelands, including Germany and Scotland. Today, I'm wandering over to my husband's side of the tree and his paternal grandparent's homeland, Lithuania.

On New Year's Eve, families usually spent time together and ate traditional foods. Fortune-telling, or guessing, games were played. If there was tension, reconciliation was attempted. Little alcohol was consumed.

Fireworks over Vilnius, Lithuania; courtesy of VisitLithuania

It was important to get up early on New Year's Day. If you did not, you would have a slothful year with no luck. If you were behind in your work, you would late all year. If you heard a lot of birds chirping, you would have many visitors over the coming year and it would be a fun one. If you borrowed something on New Year's Day, you would experience shortages throughout the year.

Lithuanians used to watch the weather carefully. If New Year's Eve was cold, Easter would be warm. If the night cold, clear and star-filled, the summer would be a good one. If the morning dawned foggy, there would be many deaths. If there was a blizzard, farmers would harvest a bumper crop. Huge snowflakes meant the cows would give a lot of milk.

Today, the end-of-year traditions have lost some of their importance in comparison with Christmas celebrations. The first day of the new year is spent with family or close friends at home or in a restaurant. People still hope the first piece of news they hear will be good as it reveals the type of news they hear throughout the year.

And since 1919, 1 January has also been Flag Day. To celebrate, a solemn ceremony, in which the flag is replaced, is held on Gediminas Field in Vilnius, the capital.

52 Ancestors #38: Uncle Joe Was Married Before!

Ancestor Name: Joseph GENEVICH (1892-1948)

Joseph Genevich was my husband's by-marriage uncle, who died before my husband was born. Joseph was born on Christmas Day in 1892 somewhere in Lithuania, which at the time was part of Imperial Russia. His father, also named Joseph, had been a farmer. His mother's name was Tilly Shedilis or Tessie Zudellis, depending on which record one chooses to use.

The spelling of Genevich has also been problematic when researching. The source documents include several variations such as Genavage, Genevick, Grevich, Jenevage or Jenevich.

Sometime between 1910 and 1912 Joseph immigrated to the United States and settled in West Hazleton, Pennsylvania. He worked in the anthracite coal mines his entire working life.  On 6 October 1915 he applied for a marriage license and on 3 November 1915 Joseph and Annie Stank were married in Hazleton. Annie was a mill hand and her parents were Michael and Eva (Dogalis) Stank.

On 9 April 1925 Annie (Stank) Genevich died at 203 East Coal Street Shenandoah, Pennsylvania of tuberculosis. She was 36 years old and was buried in St Mary's Lithuanian Cemetery on April 14th. I do not believe Joseph and Annie had children as none were listed on the 1920 census.

Less than a year later, Joseph married again to Anna Dagutis, my husband's aunt. Anna was born on 1 June 1908 in Harwood, Pennsylvania. Her parents were Adam Peter and Cecelia (Klimasansluski) Dagutis. Adam was a coal minter. Anna's parents considered themselves Lithuanian.

Joseph Genevich and Anna Dagutis marriage license application; image
courtesy of FamilySearch.org

When Joseph and Anna applied for their marriage license just after Christmas, Joseph believed his parents were dead. Anna was a mill hand, like Joseph's first wife, and she lived with her mother at 322 Winters Avenue, West Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Her father, Adam, had died in June 1925. Joseph and Anna married on 2 January 1926, perhaps in Freeland, Pennsylvania.

409 N 4th Street, West Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the last known
residence of Joseph and Anna (Dagutis) Genevich; photograph
courtesy of Google Maps

They had a daughter the following year and a son named Elgert in 1932. When Joseph registered for the World War II draft in 1942 he was working for the Lattimer Coal Corporation in Humbolt, Pennsylvania. The mine employed 226 people and shipped nearly 126,000 tons of coal to market that year. There had also been one fatal accident and three non-fatal injuries that year.

Anna's obituary said Joseph died in 1948. I wish the Pennsylvania death certificates now available on Ancestry.com did not stop at 1944! Anna (Dagutis) Genevich died after a long illness on 30 March 1974.

This is my entry for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge.

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Joseph Genevich was born on 25 December 1892 in Imperial Russia to Joseph Genevich and Tilly Shedilis or Tessie Zudellis. He immigrated to the United States in 1910 and was naturalized the same year, according to his border crossing record at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo New York twenty years later. He settled in West Hazleton, Pennsylvania and worked in the mines. In 1915 he married Anna Stank. The marriage produced no children and Anna died in 9 April 1925 at Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, of tuberculosis of the lungs. On 28 December 1925 Joseph and Anna Dagutis obtained a marriage license and were married on 2 January 1926 by Reverend S. J. Struchus in Freeland, Pennsylvania. They had two children. Joseph Genevich died in 1948.

The Rocks that Fueled the Industrial Revolution

Our Coal Mining Vacation

Four years ago Pete and I took our first genealogy vacation. 

2009 was the third or fourth time I'd tried researching Pete's side of the family.  I knew his Dad was born in West Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and Pete's grandmother's name was Cecilia and his grandfather's first name was Adam. And that's about all I knew. So I went poking around the census data from 1900 on.  I was able to find Pete's grandfather, Adam Dagutis, in the 1900 census.  He was a boarder at the home of Joseph and Martha Griskconick, along with six other young men. They were all coal miners. The census form indicated he immigrated to the U.S. in 1894 and that he was from "Poland Rus" or the part of Poland that had been partitioned by Russia.  In the same household was a servant named Cecelia Klimasansluski. She immigrated from Poland Rus in 1899.

With that information, I started searching passenger ship lists, which are great sources for finding out when ancestors came to the U.S. I discovered that Adam Dagutis arrived at Ellis Island onboard the Hamburg-America Line's S/S Patria on 10 Mar 1895.

Hamburg-America Line S/S Patria

I haven't yet found any information about Cecelia Klimasansluski in the passenger lists.  Later in 1900 Adam and Cecelia married. When Adam was required to register for the draft in 1918, he and Cecelia were living at 411 Winters Avenue, West Hazelton, Pennsylvania.  West Hazelton was one of two towns in eastern Pennsylvania where miners could buy their own homes and not be forced by the mines to live in company towns, shop at company stores, and use company doctors.  The story of coal and how powerful the mine owners were is a story for another day.

So in July 2009, Pete and I took a mini vacation to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. We went to Scranton first and toured the Anthracite Heritage Museum.

Anthracite Heritage Museum, Scranton

I bought a sculpture of a miner made out of anthracite coal. It has an honored place on our family room bookshelves.

Miner made out of anthracite coal

We also toured the Lackawanna Coal Mine, which I'd highly recommend to everyone. It gives you a real appreciation for how hard mining was. This is where mining stopped in 1968 at the Lackawanna mine.

Lackawanna Coal Mine, Scranton

The next day, we drove to West Hazelton. This is the house Pete remembered when his family went to visit his paternal grandparents.

411 Winters Avenue, West Hazelton

Adam and Cecelia had at least eight children that lived. He was a coal miner all his life and died in 1925 of Black Lung Disease at the age of 49. In 1918 he was working for the Cranberry Creek Coal Company.

Topographic map of the Cranberry Creek Coal Mine

His family worshipped at the Sts. Peter and Paul Lithuanian Church, which was established in 1911.  The last mass was held at the church on 8 Jul 2009, a few days before we arrived.

Sts. Peter and Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church, West Hazelton

Pete and I also walked the church graveyard looking for Adam and Cecelia's headstones.  We never found them, though we did find a lot of Dagutis, Degutis, Dagutes, and many more spelling variations.  The cemetery is on a hill as you head out of town down a dead-end road. There, side-by-side, separated by stone walls are cemeteries for several of the churches in town. All those cemeteries give you a very solemn feeling as you are walking the rows and many of the markers were quite elaborate.

Sts. Peter and Paul Lithuanian Church Cemetery, West Hazelton

On our last day we went to Eckley, Pennsylvania, which is a company town. The town was used as the location for the movie, Molly Maguires. Many structures were built especially for the movie, including the breaker:

Eckley Breaker

More photos of our 2009 coal mining and genealogy vacation are available on my Tangled Roots and Trees Facebook page. Pete and I will go back now that I'm a bit more experienced at genealogy research and visit the local historic societies and also the archdiocese to look for the church records.

It Only Took 10 Years

Adam Dagutis, my husband's paternal grandfather, came to the United States in 1894 or 1895 to mine anthracite coal in eastern Pennsylvania. He was recruited in Europe by agents of the coal company. They had tried Irish and Scottish miners, but found them too troublesome. Eastern Eurpoean workers were considered more obedient and less prone to labor strikes.

Family lore said Adam considered himself Lithuanian, but every census taken after he came to the United States said he was born in Russia.  It turns out both are correct.  The passenger list for the Hamburg-Amerika Shipping Line's SS Pratria, which is written in German, is more precise than the English version.  On that manifest, Adam Dagutis is listed as coming from Tracki, Russia.  Trakai was historically part of Lithuania, but was Russian territory at the time of his birth as it had been annexed by Russia in 1795.

S/S Patria

The area has variously been known as Tracken (German), Trakai (Lithuanian), Troki (Polish), and Trok (Yiddish). Other variations seen on official documents are Troky and Tracki. No wonder I had so much trouble!

Today the town is considered a tourist destination and it does look really beautiful. I especially love the old wooden houses.

Trakai, Lithuania

And the most famous sight in Trakai, the castle on an island in Lake Galve: