Information on the Topic
Week 24's theme is "Handed Down." Do you have a story that's been handed down in your family? Did it turn out to be true (or maybe have just a kernel of truth to it)? Maybe you have something tangible that's been handed down.
My paternal side has handed down a few stories, which I’ve been able to prove most of them. It’s to the point now where I show something to my father and he gives me story about it which is good
My material side is a bit more, how an I say, free floating about stories. My mother’s always been one which would tell me some of the truth but put another false information there at the same time. This, I think, is because she was trying to keep me away from the information for some reason why I will probably never know.
The biggest story of all was about her mother, my grandmother and namesake, Janet Jagodzinski Gauquie. Mom told me she was born in Poland, had a husband and baby son there and they both died on their farm not far from Warsaw. The government was going to come and take the land, this was just after the son and husband had died, and she was desperate to get out. There was a group of people walking by and found her in the fields crying. They took her within their group, which were Quakers, and they helped her arrive in the US.
When I started my research years ago, I researched the Quakers and this story, while seemed plausible, didn’t seem to make sense either. First, I found when & where my grandmother Janet was born and this started to unravel the above story.
My grandmother Janet's confirmation of date of birth and death.
As with everything, there was also a sad part of the story. We had a feeling my grandmother was dead because she would have been in her 80s in the early 1990s and we knew she had health ailments, so it was reasonable to think she had died. This was sad because my mother was actually the executor of her will and had given her contact information, which was added to my grandmother's medical chart the last time we saw her, to the nurses. However, no one ever contacted us about her death. Nothing. When I found out when my grandmother, and namesake, was born, I also found out she had died. Talk about taking your breath away.
After I looked around the area I grew up in and found there were no Quakers around the time she came over nor in that area of Poland during those times. After World War 1? Yes. However, her mother was born in 1911 in the US, I found, so this didn't match with the WW1 info. Next I looked up her name and started my search throughout the US. I started to find her married name linked up with my grandfather’s family. Then in obituaries some said her siblings and such were born in Pennsylvania. Then I searched for her family there.
Her brother Jug's obituary. Credit
First thing I found after the obituaries was the headstones.
The first was Walerja or Valerie and Stanislaw or Stanley in PA exactly as put in the obituaries.
If you look at each one of these siblings of hers, each one (except for Pauline's) says PA they were born or found in.
Next, was the document of intention to become a US citizen. This was a huge amount of information because it wasn’t just my 3x great grandparents and 2x great grandmother but I had a huge amount of 2x great aunts and uncles. WOW. This lead me into weeks and months of searching because most of these relatives had bigger sized families and then the numbers started to fall after this.
This lists is from her father trying to get naturalized. Notice the children listed including where they were born. Credit
In fact, about 4 years ago one of my facebook groups which I have set up for that side of the family took off and I had done a huge family tree linking each branch in. It took me a few months just to do that side and I still wasn’t finished. I finally put it up on the facebook group to have people check it and amend it which a few did. However, after this the group started to go silent. I’m not sure why but I know there’s still more information and people out there. I’m just busy catching up with other things in life so I had to let them slide.
So what about the Quakers?
One thing I did come across, due to one of my cousins (Thanks Jason!), asking a question. “How does the Gauquie’s in Minnesota link with our branch in New York?” I didn’t know as I wasn’t even aware of the branch in Minnesota at that point.
However, I had discovered we didn't have Quakers on that side of the family but Jehovah Witnesses. They follow the same overall beliefs, they do have their differences as I discovered by reading about them. It really did open my eyes up ask I believed they were one in the same.
Jerome Gauquie, of the Minnesota Gauquie’s, married Lula Yoder in 1949. They were members of the Jehovah Witness religion. From the obituary I found and it looks like they lived a very happy life.
Jerome Gauquie, who Lula she married, was from Belgium, so it's not any direct link to the east coast Gauquie clan. However, it has to be one of the aunt/uncles/cousins from Belgium where my 3x great grandfather was born and 4x great grandparents lived their whole life - all in the same area.
Sylvain's WW2 registration showing where he was born in Belgium
My 3x great parent's wedding entry which shows where my 3x gg father was born, and where my 4x ggfather had his death at.
I’m now of the belief my grandmother Janet knew of the group in Minnesota, as my grandparents lived with Jules which was a cousin of some sort to them (as by the map must have knew of them), and adopted the story into Poland which was her grandparents story.
Sometimes stories are not true and at other times they are partly or not true at all. It’s just one part of putting the puzzle together.
How the puzzle is done. Credit
No comments:
Post a Comment