Albin Szulinski Revealed

The odd title to this post comes from the impact that genealogy often provides: information not known about an ancestor is revealed through research and a bit of luck. The children of Adam Thomas Siulinski, Sr. (Jack and Adam, Jr.) did not get to know their grandparents, Bronislava (Bessie) and Albert (Albin) Szulinski. The name change and the son becoming separated from his family of origin presumably came about from Adam, Sr. marrying a woman of another faith from the family's traditional Catholic creed. Here is the only image I have of Albin Szulinski. It came from a photo album in the possession of Adam and Jean Siulinski who reside in South Portland, Maine.

Thanks to Beth Snyder from RAOGK for offering this obituary to help shed away the mystery of who Albin Szulinski really was:

Obituary April 13, 1943 Schenectady Gazette

Mass will be celebrated this morning at 9am in St. Adalbert's Church for Albin Szulinski, 70, retired, who died Saturday at his home, 1019 Second Ave, after an illness of about a week.  Burial will be in St. Mary's cemetery, McClellan St.  The A B Brzozowski funeral home, 644 Crane St., will be open this morning after 3:30pm. He was born in Poland and lived in this city about 50 years.  He worked at the American Locomotive Co. about 25 years and at one time was employed about 10 years at the GE Co.  He belonged to St. Josefa society 181, Z P R K.  He retired in 1931. Besides his wife, Mrs. Bronizlawa Podoraki Szulinski, he leaves three sons, Adam, Joseph and Walter Szulinski.There are three grandchildren.

Although, genealogists can provide factual information about an individual who lived many years ago, offering a sense of what their personality was really like is a challenging task indeed. Mr. Szulinski seemingly was a very traditional, conservative hard-working industrial worker from Schenectady, New York having immigrated from Poland around the turn of the century. Any child's fascination with locomotives might have its origins in the place Albin chose to work most of his life: the American Locomotive Company. Could Albin have worked a train as famous as the Nation's First Diesel-Electric Locomotive, Alco from 1924?

Source: THE SCHENECTADY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE - a service of the Schenectady County Public Library.

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.