Genealogical Vacation!

In case you haven't noticed, I tend to post to procrastinate. What better time to procrastinate than during the week when you you go on vacation and your trip is bumped up leaving you less time to clean and pack etc. I was supposed to leave Friday morning 6am.... unfortunately Tropical Storm Irene had other plans. So my mom and I are going to try and leave Thursday morning.

Moving right along... my trip is to Pennsylvania and, whilst enjoying good food, amusement parks, and family, I want to do at least an itty bitty tiny bit of research. Ok mostly cemetery photography. All of these cemeteries are in Northumberland County. Here is a list of the ones I plan/ hope to visit:

Shamokin Cemetery
Saint Stanislaus Cemetery
Presbyterian Chapel Cemetery
Pine Hill Cemetery
All Saints Cemetery
Jacob's Church Cemetery

Two extras are Rush Presbyterian/ Baptist Cemetery and the Lantz Emmanuel Cemetery.

Now, time to do a public service. This is for anyone looking for any of the sixty some people buried at the Presbyterian Chapel Cemetery. If you've googled it, like me, you will find... nothing. at all. except maybe this blog post and findagrave.com which does not help. Fear not! For I have discovered where it is!

After endless google results coming up empty, I got the bright idea... Hey! Why not check ancestry.com's message boards! It seemed so obvious. So here it is.

Presbyterian Chapel Cemetery is located 2.5 miles outside of Elysburg, Pa. It is off of Snydertown Rd. Traveling down the road you pass an industrial park on the left, keep going. There will be a bible church and semi modern home next to it with a driveway and grove of trees between. The cemetery is apparently in that grove. Lambert Pitner, his wife Elida Farley, and their daughter Nancy Pitner Persing are buried in that cemetery. Not sure who else is, but thats all listed on findagrave.com

When I return I will have more blog posts with the cemeteries and pictures of people buried there. Now I'm not just going to take one picture of the sign and then the headstones. No no, that's not how I work. I'm going to do this as if it were... a crime scene. Hey, I have no job offerings so I have to put my degree to use some how. Crime scene photography includes overall photos, or 360 degree shots, as well as progressive shots from far away, to middle ground, and finally close ups. That way if anyone reading would like to visit those cemeteries they can have specifics instead of just wandering blindly. Eventually the photos will go on to findagrave.com but this is quicker for now.

This will probably be my last post until after vacation (unless I find something really REALLY exciting and just cannot help myself. Note, any such post will be very short as I am still debating taking my laptop with me and will only have iphone and nook. le gasp!)

(Side note: is genealogical even a word? Or am I just making stuff up? No red spell check line so I assume I'm ok.)

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.