On This Date...

On March 25, 1913, my great grandfather Ludwik (Lewis) Bieda arrived in America with his parents and two brothers. I find it amazing that it was 99 years ago. Not even a year after the sinking of the Titanic. How scary would that be?

Left to Right: Ludwik, Jakob, and Anna Bieda

They sailed from Bremen Germany on the Kronprinzessin Cecilie. I found a few pictures of it online through Google.

 

 another view of the smoking room.

I doubt my Polish peeps would've been up in first class. I mean photos of Jakob make him look rather snazzy with a pocket watch and everything but the surname "Bieda" translates to "Poverty" in Polish. Lovely

 

Ever since the movie came out and we learned about it in 3rd grade, I've had a thing for the Titanic. When I found out they came to America not even a year later... I see the movie different now. Maybe all of you genealogist types see it too. When I watch the first half (pre iceberg) I feel... It helps me imagine what my ancestors might have been feeling when they boarded the Kronprinzessin Cecilie. Then when everyone is scurrying for the lifeboats... it just makes it more real knowing that it could've happened to my ancestors too. 

In other news... did you all hear Titanic is coming out in 3D? Excited! Just made plans to see it with some coworkers. I'm sure I'll post about that, as well as a whole Titanic themed post including distant cousins I'm apparently related to that were on the ship. I found some sad stories (surprise right?) about some of the families. I'll share those too (if I can remember where I stashed them).

Thats all for now folks!

Back to Bieda

This past week I noticed that I've had a lot of blog views from Poland. Particularly to the Bieda pages of my blog. It's been driving me crazy. I keep thinking "oo is it a relative?" So I thought I'd post some more stuff on the Bieda family. Or perhaps repeat some stuff. Who knows.

I have some documents that I need some help decoding. I can figure out the general stuff. Sort of. Its in Latin and Polish and the dreaded 18-1900s cursive writing.

Jakob Bieda's baptism record

So I know where Poreba Spytkowska is on a map. It's between Krakow and Tarnow and right next to Okocim. This is good. I know there are the parents listed and their parents. Also good. They're in my tree already. Don't know what the B name is under father though. And I don't know what the "Patrial" part is. Or what the stamps or signatures are.

Next up we have the marriage certificate for Jakob Bieda and Anna Klaus

Sponsas I'm guessing means parents? since... Those are the same names. Once again don't understand the box on the right.

Ludwik's Baptism record

Ok so he was born in 1902 BUT the bottom of the paper says 1913. I think it's March. That's when they got on the ship and came over to the good ole USA. So why would they wait to get the paper until then? Why wouldn't they have it on hand?

Ok next up we have a screen shot from the Ellis Island site. The ship manifest from the Kronprincessen Cecile (slightly edited in paint to point out my peeps)



Ok so this needs some translating. Luckily I know what it says. I just don't know what it means.

Jakob is on line 5. First red dot. Followed by Anna, Alex, Jozef and Ludwik

The area with the red ( and arrow is the "Whether going to join a relative or friend, if so their name and address"

It says "br. in law Wojciech Niemiec 412 Harrison St. Shamokin, Pa"

the br. in law is on 2 lines. Not sure about the numbers for the street.

Anyway, like I said in an earlier post, I did some digging and found a Wojciech and Petronella Niemiec in the same cemetery as Jakob and Anna. (Just realized "digging" may not have been the best word choice here... but it's gonna stay). Now I know, Wojciech and Petronella are such common names *eye roll*. Based on the manifest it means Petronella is either Anna or Jakob's sister. Probably Jakob's. Dunno why but that's what my brain says.

Anyone with suggestions about the documents feel free to comment because I sure wouldn't mind the help. 

And to those people from Polska looking at my blog posts... PLEASE COMMENT! If you know anything I'd love to hear it! Thanks in advance! I know you're out there somewhere.

Poland Summary and Coming Attractions

Ok so my main focus in my genealogy search is my great grandfather's relatives. The ones that were in the pictures I posted. This is what I know (mini repeat of a former post)

My great grandfather- Louis/Ludwik Bieda had a brother Walter...
Walter + Anna?
-Wanda + ? - surname would have changed from Bieda. Hence the brick wall...
--Jerry the aerospace guy + Barbara
---Adam... he would be about 43/44 years old now.

They were in Krakow Poland and near Wawel Castle and Tyniec Abbey.

If anyone has any tips on how to find these people please let me know!

Things to come...

The Farley family and Hungerford family. These will take up several posts. At least one for Farley and two or more for the Hungerfords. The first of these posts will hopefully be within the next week or two...

Sometime soon(ish) I'd like to make up and post a list of famous/ interesting people that I'm related to. Geni.com has profiles of such people and you can check out those profiles and see if you are connected to them. right now I'm in the "big tree" meaning I'm connected to almost 52 million other profiles.

Anyway what I'm gettin at... if I post the names and then readers know that they are related to that person then we'll be connected. Just a though. It happened for me on twitter recently.

I have a few others from previous posts, but I'll deal with that sometime later...

Later peeps!

Picture Update

So I found out some of the places where the pictures were taken. I edited the earlier picture posts and noted which ones had locations. I still need help identifying the others though.

Wawel Castle was identified by one of my twitter followers within like... 3 minutes of posting it. Awesome.
Tyniec was written on the back of some of the photos along with other Polish stuff so... I had no idea what was going on with that. My one facebook friend helped me translate the writing. After finding out it was a place and doing a Google image search I found similar pictures and was very excited.
St. Mary's was in a picture within that group so I got lucky there.

Next I'm going to share some more pictures with known locations

Also Tyniec

Near Tyniec Abbey. Notice the painting on the rocks (top center).

Wawel Castle

Pictures from Poland (Part 4)

This should be the last set of pictures. Please please let me know if you recognize these locations.

Polish writing on the back translates to: This is in Tyniec

This one has "Bieda" listed on the right upper part. No idea which Bieda is there though.

Pictures from Poland (Part 3)

More pictures! Please let me know if you can identify anything in the following pictures.

Monastery of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland

Monastery of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland

Pictures from Poland (Part 2)

I learned yesterday that the pictures I posted (at least the first 2 anyway) are from Wawel Castle in Krakow.

These pictures are probably in Krakow too but I'm not sure what/ where exactly they are. This is where you guys come in. Once again if your recognize anything in these pictures please leave a comment.

St. Mary's church in Krakow

Pictures from Poland (Part 1)

This blog goes out to anyone in Poland, or who has ever been to Poland. I need some help identifying locations of where these photographs were taken. I think my great grandmother was visiting the Krakow area but I'm not sure. If you recognize any of these buildings please leave a comment!

Wawel Castle in Krakow

Wawel Castle in Krakow

Bieda Polish Picture

My busia sent me pictures. Some of when my mom was young, but mostly of when my great grandmother (Mildred Bieda) went to Poland.

In the center is Walter Bieda. To his left is his wife whose name may or may not be Anna. In the back is their daughter, either Anna or Wanda. Mildred is on the right.

For more information on the Bieda family please look in the 2010 blog posts.

If by any chance you recognize any of these people please let me know :)

Lapinski Update

familysearch.org can be pretty awesome at times.

Yesterday I was randomly searching for variations of the name Anthony Lapinsky and I managed to find a marriage certificate. I'm pretty sure its the Anthony I'm looking for. It said he married "Ludwica" which sounds the same as Ludwika. Also, The date was 24 May 1892, and it was in Northumberland Co. Pa. Their first child wasn't born until 1894 so this works too. Luckily, there were some more names that I didn't have previously.

Anthony's parents: John and Josephine Lapinski

Only Ludwika's father was mentioned: George Kazanicka

Short post today, and the last of my Polish roots (so far...)

The Lapinsky's...

or Lapinski.... Lipinski... Lupinski... etc etc...

Now that the Bieda side is done, as much as possible, I will share my great grandmother's side. I'm having a lot of issues, mostly name changes.

My great grandmother's name was Mildred Lapinsky. Her parents were Anthony (Antoni) and Louise (Ludwiga). I don't have a last name for her. I know that they married in America. I'm not sure if Louise was born in America or Poland. Anthony came over from Poland twice. Apparently he didn't like America the first time. In a census record I found Louise listed as Julia. I would have disregarded the record, but all of the children were the same (except for a Ludwika changed to Julia)

The children were: Stanley (b. 1894), Josephine (1895), Julie (1897), Frances (1898), Anna (1899), and Mildred (1905).

Frances kind of confuses me... On another census I found the name Nancy. Maybe they called her Francy and the census taker heard Nancy.. I don't know.

Since that pretty much is the end of my Polish side, I thought I'd share some more Polish stuff. Here are a few words my family uses.

Dziadzi (ja-jee)- grandpa
Busia- grandma
Cioci- aunt
Matka- mother
Ojciec- father

Example: My busia would talk about her cioci Frances.

Food.... very very important!!!
Pierogi- yum yum yum. we usually make Mrs T's with butter and plenty of onions. Very good deep fried! Cottage cheese ones are good too, but Mrs. T's doesn't make those...

Golabki- "little pigeon" stuffed cabbage. delish. We use both beef and pork, and cooked rice for the stuffing part. Then of course cooked cabbage. Put those in a baking dish covered with extra cabbage leaves, place more on top, then cover with tomato juice. Serve with mashed potatoes and use the tomato juice as gravy. AMAZING

Halushki- cabbage and noodles

Bleenies- potato pancakes. good with salt, pepper, and a little bit of sour cream. mmm

Chrusciki- angel wings. I've never tried them but apparently its some sort of dough with powdered sugar?
Anyway, as my cousin says, never put dough in front of a polish girl.

As I'm writing this I may have found another link to the Lapinski's thanks to familysearch.org. Stay tuned.

Jakob and Anna Bieda

Most of the information I have on these two came from a marriage certificate from Poland. Almost everything was handwritten in latin. Needless to say, my spellings may not be accurate. Another interesting thing... a weird name appeared on a ship manifest...I'll get to that a little later.

I'll start with Anna. I don't have as much information on her. She was the daughter of Thomas Klaus and Barbara Kucharzyk.

Jakob Bieda was the son of Paul Bieda and Marianna Jedryka. Paul's parents were B. Bieda (really hard to read on the record... plus latin) and Sophia Kaczmar. Marianna's parents were Martin Jedryka and Magdalena Duda.

I'm not sure about any siblings, but I would assume there were. Jakob was born around 1867 and Anna was born a few years earlier.

Ok now onto the detective work. The Ellis Island record I found has several catagories... who paid, country of origin, final destination etc. Theres also a space for the name and address of a friend or relative they would stay with once they arrived in America. Another record from the same ship had a list of relative in Poland. Anyway. The Ellis Island record listed Wojciech Niemiec as a brother in law in Shamokin. Now, brother in law can mean several things...either Jakob's sister's husband or Anna's sister's husband. Remember, I have no proof about siblings for Jakob or Anna.

So here is where the detective work comes into play. How do I find this Wojciech Niemiec person? How do I even figure out thats his name? Handwritten records remember. Ellis Island does have a typed version, but its very vague. You can get more information from the original manifest struggling with handwriting. Well after several tries I figured out the last name was Niemiec.
 I knew the cemetery where Jakob and Anna were buried. You figure, well, if they're buried there the church would have the same name. And if your going to a new country and only know your family, you're most likely going to attend the same church. They wouldn't have gone to another church. So I searched findagrave.com for the cemetary and the last name Niemiec. I found a Wojciech and Petronella Niemiec.

I later found a ship manifest with a Wojciech and Petronella Niemiec from Galicia. They had 3 children and came to America in 1909. Thats before the Bieda's (1913) so it's possible. Listed as the relative was Anna Niemiec.

Well, thats a bit of a problem. Anna's maiden name was Klaus not Niemiec. Obviously Wojciech is not Anna's sister because of the different last name, but what if she was Petronella's sister? The guy taking down the information could say "What is the name of your relative in your native country?" Wojciech or Petronella could have simply said "She is my sister". If they didn't specificly give a last name, the guy could have just assume Anna had the same last name.

Something to think about.

Ludwik's Brothers

Ludwik/ Louis had three older brothers: Walter,  Alexandor, and Jozef.

I do not have a birthdate for Walter. As of 1913, he was married and had a child, which is why he stayed in Poland rather than comming to America. The names associated with this branch are a little iffy. On one ship manifest for the rest of the Biedas, there was a space for relative in native country. It looked like Wloded Bieda. I don't know if such a name exists, but thats what happens when you look at handwritting from the early 1900s.

Walter married "Anna" , unknown last name. They had a daughter who's name was either Anna or Wanda. She married and had a son named "Jerry". My aunt told me the Polish version was "Yeshie" but I'm not sure how to spell that. Thats what it sounded like. He was in an aerospace program that was top secret. Apparently he wanted to visit America, but he couldn't. (Which makes sense, this was probably during the Cold War). "Yeshie" married Barbara, unknown last name. They had a son Adam. He is probably in his 40s now. My great grandmother Mildred, went to Poland in either 1970 or 1971 and Adam was young, perhaps 2 or 3 years old.

Walter Bieda + "Anna"
-Anna/Wanda + ?
--Jerry ("Yeshie") + Barbara
---Adam

Alex married a woman named Mary and they moved to Philadelphia*. They had three daughters (Angie, Eleanor, and Marie) and a son (Joe). Angie never married. Eleanor married twice and had a daughter. Marie married Dennis Acker, but I'm not sure if they had any children. Joe married a woman named Marie but never had children. I found a draft card for Alex when he was 48. The address listed was in Shamokin and it said he was married. His name was spelled Aleksander Bieda.

Alex Bieda + Mary
-Angie
-Eleanor +?
-- ?
-Marie Bieda + Dennis Acker
-Joe Bieda + Marie

Jozef married but never had children. I believe he stayed in the Shamokin area.

Thats all for now. Next time information from Jakob and Anna's Polish records. Also, a strange name from an Ellis Island ship record.

*At some point the Bieda's (except for Louis) changed their name to Biedzinskie. The reasoning behind it? I was told it sounded "more Polish".

Bieda- Poland to Pennsylvania

First, I'm going to try and break down the surnames in my family. Obviously the main ones are Persing and Bieda but theres more in there. On the Polish side theres also Lapinsky (+ other spelling variations), Jedryka, Klaus, and a few others. Some major ones from my Persing side include: Pitner, Hauck, Kase, Hungerford, and many many others. (It is literally insane how many people are on that side of my tree).

Now we get to the good stuff. First I'm going to tell a little about the Biedas.

In Polish Bieda means 'poverty'. Doesn't sound to pretty when looking back, but hey.

My grandmother's dad was Louis/ Ludwik Bieda. He arrived in Ellis Island in March 1913 when he was 91/2 years old.

He came over with two older brothers, Alexandor (18) and Jozef (11), and his parents Jakob and Anna. (There was another boy "Walter" but he was already married and he stayed in Poland) They settled in Shamokin, Pa and the boys became coal miners. At some point, they all changed their names to Biedzinski(e), except for Louis. Louis later married Mildred Lapinsky and they remained in Shamokin. Jozef and Alex both married. Jozef did not have any children. Alex and his wife moved to Philadelphia

The Bieda's came from Galicia, or what is now Malopolski, Poland. The last recorded place before boarding a ship in Bremen, Germany was Okocim.
They probably resided in Tarnow at some point.

I have baptismal records for Jakob and Louis. I also have a marriage certificate for Jakob and Anna. All the records are in latin and have bad handwriting. I think I have all the names sorted out, except for one. The good think about these Polish church records? They list the parents name, AND the names of the grandparents. So boom. Two generations.

I'll get to those later. What else will I blog about if I post everything now? If anyone decides to read this why not leave them in suspense?

After Louis died in 1968/9, Mildred went to Poland to visit "Walter" in Krakow. I'm still gathering details on that.

Unfortunately we had one family member that decided to throw out a bunch of things when Mildred passed away, so that makes it very hard to find anything on my Polish roots. Gotta love family! *sarcasm*

Jakob Bieda + Anna Klaus
-Walter
-Alexandor
-Jozef
-Ludwik + Mildred Lapinsky
--My grandmother + my grandpa Persing
---My mom
----Me