Oooh, a mystery!

[Lainey]

Inspired by Bethella's advice, I'd like to try to document the people in my tree. I already know about the ones who are still kicking, of course, but I'd like very much to find obituaries for my great-grandparents. Maybe even my grandparents, come to think of it. I found my maternal grandpa's already. I don't know where to start, though. There is not much online, that I can find anyway. The library?

[crazyforkate]

Where did they die? Maybe see if you can find the local newspaper archives?

[Lainey]

Where did they die? Maybe see if you can find the local newspaper archives?

They died in my province, for the most part. I've been on the phone all day, trying to track some down. :) So far nothing, but I have people looking into it, so that's something. Yay! I might find something after all.

Sadly, the newspaper archives here in Calgary are inaccessible and may have been destroyed due to the flood.

[Bethella]

They died in my province, for the most part. I've been on the phone all day, trying to track some down. :) So far nothing, but I have people looking into it, so that's something. Yay! I might find something after all.

Sadly, the newspaper archives here in Calgary are inaccessible and may have been destroyed due to the flood.

Other places to check include your local historical society/museum and your local genealogical society (if there is one). I know that our local historical society has files of all the obituaries printed in our local newspaper- approximately 80,000 at this point.

[Lainey]

Other places to check include your local historical society/museum and your local genealogical society (if there is one). I know that our local historical society has files of all the obituaries printed in our local newspaper- approximately 80,000 at this point.

Yes, I was directed to a few museums and what I think may have been a branch of the genealogical society...I called the library in the area some of my ancestors were from, and I think they have a link with the genealogical society or something. Thanks for the tip!

[GeoBQn]

The library in your town might have a link to an online obituary database that you can use from home. Those can depend on which newspapers contribute, and what years they have provided information for. It's very frustrating to not find obituaries for people who 1. you know existed, and 2. you know must have had obituaries.

[Lainey]

So far, I've found obits for my great-grandma and my great-grandpa on my dad's side! They don't have as much information as I'd hoped (like their parents' names), but they have some stuff that I didn't know. Like, my great-grandpa served in WWI, for Germany. I did not know that. And he was only 57 when he died. He had suffered ill health since being gassed in the war.

Still some confusing stuff, though: there are two people buried in the same cemetery under my great-grandpa's name. Totally different death dates, although one is close to the correct one (April 3 as opposed to April 1). I have no idea who the other one could be. A cousin, maybe?

Is there any way of finding out further back, such as my great-great-grandparents' names, if they lived in Austria (it was Austria then; not sure why he fought for Germany, unless they were connected or something. I don't remember my WWI history. Now it's the Czech Republic)? I don't speak any other languages.

I'd also like to find out more info about my Russian branch (which may have actually been Polish, it turns out), and Italian. No idea how to do that.

[Peas n carrots]

You might not be finding more info because you are at the point where you need to get info from the country they originated. Any indication where your great grandparents were born. Have you located any immigration docs?

I could maybe help a bit with the Czech language translation as long as its not beyond dates and other vital info. Well, tbh it would be my mom that would be helping you out. But if you know anyone who speaks Polish or Ukrainian they could probably work out some of the translation as the languages have a lot of similarities.

Austria-Hungary aka The Holy Roman Empire. Most of Central/Eastern Europe was under the realm of the Hapsburgs. During WWI Germany and Austria-Hungary were allies. Lots of people emigrated due to the conscription requirements of the Austrian army. Lots of the various ethnic groups under the rule of the Hapsburg family didn't feel especially willing to give up their time and energy to their overlords.

Eta more info

[Peas n carrots]

I forgot to add, as much as its grates me saying this the LDS usually have a genealogy library at their local temple. It's free to the public...I would just google your local LDS temple and find out what the hours are. They are staffed with volunteers who are generally pretty awesome at helping you track down information.

[Lainey]

You might not be finding more info because you are at the point where you need to get info from the country they originated. Any indication where your great grandparents were born. Have you located any immigration docs?

I could maybe help a bit with the Czech language translation as long as its not beyond dates and other vital info. Well, tbh it would be my mom that would be helping you out. But if you know anyone who speaks Polish or Ukrainian they could probably work out some of the translation as the languages have a lot of similarities.

Austria-Hungary aka The Holy Roman Empire. Most of Central/Eastern Europe was under the realm of the Hapsburgs. During WWI Germany and Austria-Hungary were allies. Lots of people emigrated due to the conscription requirements of the Austrian army. Lots of the various ethnic groups under the rule of the Hapsburg family didn't feel especially willing to give up their time and energy to their overlords.

Eta more info

I'm not sure if they were actually born there, but I understand that the family came from Osek, Czech Republic (which used to be Osseg, Austria, and I may have spelled it wrong). That's my dad's side. I have located the ship passenger list, which shows when and where they came over.

I don't know anyone who speaks Polish or Ukrainian.

[Lainey]

I forgot to add, as much as its grates me saying this the LDS usually have a genealogy library at their local temple. It's free to the public...I would just google your local LDS temple and find out what the hours are. They are staffed with volunteers who are generally pretty awesome at helping you track down information.

Oh yeah, my cousin mentioned that. Does it have to be the temple? I just looked up the one for my city, and it's way the hell across the city.

[CallmeChaCha]

Have you tried familysearch.org? I don't know if they have more info at their temples, but I've used the website before and found records from Mexico from the 1920 census (which was quite surprising to me). They had not been indexed yet so I had to go through and look at the actual document. This was 7+ years ago, so things may have changed. In any case, this page shows records available for various countries in Europe: https:// familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1&region=EUROPE (note the S in https, in case the link doesn't work)

[Bethella]

Oh yeah, my cousin mentioned that. Does it have to be the temple? I just looked up the one for my city, and it's way the hell across the city.

No, I don't think any of them are actually in the temples because you can't enter them if you aren't Mormon. The one in my area is at the LDS meetinghouse.

Have you tried familysearch.org? I don't know if they have more info at their temples, but I've used the website before and found records from Mexico from the 1920 census (which was quite surprising to me). They had not been indexed yet so I had to go through and look at the actual document. This was 7+ years ago, so things may have changed. In any case, this page shows records available for various countries in Europe: https:// familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1&region=EUROPE (note the S in https, in case the link doesn't work)

In my experience familysearch.org has been great although a little lacking in the non-English speaking countries. If you do use it (or any other online sites/indexes) it is often a good idea to go back and repeat searches a few years after the fact because the keep adding new resources. I was recently able to break through one of my walls doing this. :D

[Peas n carrots]

We went to some kind of Mormon church, that is all I know! We were only allowed to go into the genealogy center, but the rest of the place had restricted access.

You may want to "Czech" out this website (sorry I couldn't avoid the terrible pun!) for the Czech genealogy. If you do need some translation, my mom knows a bit of Czech so PM me if you need help.

http://www.cgsi.org/

[Peas n carrots]

Btw Bethella, I checked and it was a meetinghouse I went to in Wilmette, IL.

[Lainey]

Familysearch.org...yes, I was recently introduced to this by one of my DNA matches on 23andMe. But it's new to me, and it was confusing in some ways.

For example, it listed a completely wrong last name for my great-grandmother. I have no idea where they got that from. Also, on my maternal grandpa's side, they had completely different people than I had for great-great grandparents. Now, I don't know if my information is wrong, or theirs is, and I don't know how to find out.

[CallmeChaCha]

Familysearch.org...yes, I was recently introduced to this by one of my DNA matches on 23andMe. But it's new to me, and it was confusing in some ways.

For example, it listed a completely wrong last name for my great-grandmother. I have no idea where they got that from. Also, on my maternal grandpa's side, they had completely different people than I had for great-great grandparents. Now, I don't know if my information is wrong, or theirs is, and I don't know how to find out.

I usually do my own searches instead of looking for other family trees. As Bethella said, though, there is a bit of language difficulty if you're looking at documents that are still not indexed. I believe the purpose of this project is so LDS members can go back and baptize relatives into LDS church (or something along those lines), so it's quite possible that someone just wanted to find any possible relatives to baptize and they didn't really do a good job researching. ???

[Lainey]

By using/working with the LDS on this sort of thing, am I setting myself up to get myself and all my ancestors posthumously baptized into the Mormon church?

[CallmeChaCha]

I think it's only possible if you're a church member or if another church member wants to baptize them.

Maybe I should look into that. I'm pretty sure my strict Catholic family wouldn't be too happy if that happened :?

[CallmeChaCha]

From wiki:

To be sensitive to the issue of proxy baptizing for non-Mormons that are not related to church members, the church in recent years has published a general policy of performing temple ordinances only for ancestors of church members.

eta: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead

eta2

the church is in the process of removing sensitive names (such as Jewish Holocaust victims) from its International Genealogical Index (IGI).

Just wanted to point this out in case it may affect your search.

[Lainey]

Thank you! I think I'm good, then. My brother got baptized Mormon, but he's not anymore. I don't remember if he got excommunicated or what. He doesn't like to talk about it. But I never was, so if I'm the one going to do the research, I guess it will be all right.

Not that it matters much to me, personally, because I'm an ebil atheist. But some of my ancestors were very religious, and I think that would be very disrespectful.

[Lainey]

My grandma wants me to stop looking into her father's past. So naturally, it's imperative that I find out everything I can about him immediately. I'm working on getting his obituary right now, but it's difficult. That area of my province is not as "on it" as the area my dad's family is from.

 

The thing is, he came from Russia/Poland/Ukraine (the area has been in all of those countries at various points in history), and there is NO record of him on any ships that I can find. Nothing. Nada.

 

His brother came over in the 20s (I think), and was murdered (shot) in the US around 1930. I don't know which state. I can't find any record of him, either.

 

Suggestions?

[Shamrock]

Ooh! I would be the same as you and want to find out EVERYTHING!

What about looking for variations in name spelling? (Although i assume you've already tried that).

Search the rootsweb message boards for hints? (That sometimes helps me when i'm stuck).

Did he come over with his brother? I would think there is some kind of newspaper article about the brother being murdered. It's probably hard to find though. :/ ((I've had trouble finding one for my murdered ancestor. My aunt said she had a copy at one time but can't find it now so I don't know if she just had an online link and it changed or she printed it and misplaced it.))

[crazyforkate]

Was his real name Dick Whitman?

(Serious: How big of a time gap are we talking? You might want to expand it to the decades around. Alternate names at all might be an option - look at mother's maiden names, English variations, etc. Did they get Ellis Islanded? I have a friend named Evans who found nothing on her family until they told her the name had been changed from Edelstein.)

[Lainey]

Ooh! I would be the same as you and want to find out EVERYTHING!

What about looking for variations in name spelling? (Although i assume you've already tried that).

Search the rootsweb message boards for hints? (That sometimes helps me when i'm stuck).

Did he come over with his brother? I would think there is some kind of newspaper article about the brother being murdered. It's probably hard to find though. :/ ((I've had trouble finding one for my murdered ancestor. My aunt said she had a copy at one time but can't find it now so I don't know if she just had an online link and it changed or she printed it and misplaced it.))

I have looked for variations in name spelling, but it's a weird one (Zurowski). There are SO MANY alternate spelling possibilities. I'm not familiar with the rootsweb message boards, but I will look into that, thanks. :)

No, I think his brother came later. It would really help if I knew which state he lived/died in. She can't remember. Or so she says. :shifty-kitty: