Brick Wall Broken!

"Genealogy is a pursuit of hidden knowledge, and success at the end of the search is like the perfect outcome of a mystery murder". -Graham Landrum

It was three years ago when I began searching for the records of my grandfather's family of origin at the Transylvania Public Library in Brevard, NC. After countless hours of research, the mother of Adam T. Siulinski has at last been found one month prior to a planned trip to the city where she raised her family. Bronislawa Podorski Szulinski's obituary was found on Google News Archive which popped up through navigating the Albany State Library website during a late night search at my home in Oakland last weekend. This incredible find will be a point of reference that I can use to find vital documents for my grandfather's family members, and will piece together other documents I have already found to confirm the path of this Polish immigrant family's journey. The source of Mrs. Szulinski's obituary (seen to the left) is the Schenectady Gazette printed on May 14, 1953.

One of the reasons why this find is so significant is because the Szulinski family in Schenectady became disconnected from the newly forming Siulinski family in Portland as far back as 1928 when Adam Siulinski married Ouida Dykeman. Their sons, Adam Jr. and Jack, never got to know this half of their family line. Here is a time that the work of genealogy can open a window (if only for a glimpse) to shed some light on a long forgotten family.

As noted above, the two family names are spelled differently. What has been speculated is that when Adam married outside the traditional faith of the family, a separation occurred thereby cutting off communication for all those years. Or, did Adam just choose to stay out of touch because of other family-related reasons? What is certain is that somewhere along the line, Adam changed his name from Szulinski to Siulinski.

Armed with the facts about Mrs. Szulinski's life, I used another website (fultonhistory) to find the obituaries of Adam's brothers, Walter and Joseph. They both died in middle age, but what of?...Stay tuned. Also, Adam was known to have a sister but she was not named in Mrs. Szulinski's obituary possibly because she was not living at the time. Here is another part to piece together the family that Adam came from.

Over these years, many people have helped me break the brick wall. I would like to formally thank four of them: Jerry McGovern, Marybeth Frederick, Nancy Servin and Michelle LePaule.

Getting Started

How I got started in oral history of Jack and Pauline:
In June of 2007, I took a 3 day course across the street from San Francisco City Hall.  This course was called "Legacy Oral History Workshop" and it got me started in interviewing Jack and Pauline in July that year. These interviews (approximately ten hours) were audio recorded and later transcribed. Conducting the oral histories of my parents was a combination of fun and work but humbling at the same time. By spending so much time with them, I not only heard their personal stories but also developed more of a rounded view of them on a whole life scale rather than from the sole perspective of a son.

How I got started in genealogy:
On a visit to see my brother, Bruce, in the mountains of North Carolina in May 2008, I was given the monthly meeting brochure at the housing development where he lives. On it they listed the monthly meeting of a genealogy group that meets on a regular basis. I hoodwinked Bruce's wife, Joan, to go with me. That meeting spurred me on to visit the local library in Brevard to try a "Siulinski" search on ancestry.com. What was nice was the library was walking distance from Joan's art gallery. I was excited to find a record within minutes of searching...

The record was a WWI Draft Registration Card of 'Joseph John Siulinski' (shown above). Thinking this person had to be a direct relation to my grandfather, Adam Siulinski, I called Jack and Pauline right away. They reminded me that Adam's father was named Albert not Joseph and besides, the record was from Massachusetts not Upstate New York where Adam was raised. Could this man be Albert's brother? Since I know so little about Adam's life prior to his service in the Coast Guard, I have yet to break through this "brick wall". A brick wall in genealogy is not being able to find somebody. Impacting the wall will most likely happen when I make a research and discovery trip to New York where Adam grew up...hopefully in the near future. I do have some ideas of possible family members from Adam's life before his residence in Maine which I will report in this blog.