grandmother – Page 2 – It's All About Family

All Mixed Up

The Week 35 Topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is All Mixed Up.

If you’ve ever known twins, if you are a twin, or if you have family members who are twins, you know what I’m talking about.

*My mother asking Janice to pick out a specific twin*

Through elementary school and beyond we have been mixed up. Our children have turned to “the other one”, and people in grocery stores are embarrassed when they realize we’re not who they think we are, no matter how much we reassure them “it’s ok! Just tell me your name and I’ll tell her you said hello!”

I’m dealing with an All Mixed Up situation as I’m combing through Birth, Marriage, and Death records of my grandfather’s birthplace in Poland. A distant cousin received the records from a researcher and he passed them on to me. I’ve added information to Charles Jakiela’s immediate family including his sibling’s birth records, and his father’s remarriage after his mother died. But the jpg file are out of order of the books so I’ve been flipping back and forth trying to follow the dates. I finally made a list showing the page numbers in the books along with the file number.

My intention is to go through the records and chart the family names, dates, and house numbers to see where the matching parental names are. There are so many Jakielas, Murdzeks, and Pernals, all names I know are part of our ancestry. Then I plan to take names and birth dates and cross reference them to naturalization records and enlistment forms processed in Connecticut because I know there is a Lubatowa connection from looking through them in the past. There is also a Jakiela and Murdzek connection in Pennsylvania that I’d like to finally uncover. It would also be sweet to finally figure out where connect on the family tree!

This kind of research is what I love to do so hopefully it will be fruitful.

My Favorite Discovery

The Week 33 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – My Favorite Discovery. I’ve had a few discoveries over the last 25 years. My favorite discovery has a good side / not-so-good side, but it makes me happy.

The road to this discovery started in 2004, when my cousin Judy Posluszny Behme passed away and her husband brought me all her ancestry paperwork. She and I were working parallel, we didn’t share information or ask questions about what we had. I knew she was also working on it, but not much more!

The papers included email correspondence from someone named Joanne. Judy had sent a letter to Anna Engram, Joanne’s mother. I don’t know whether the letter was ancestry-related or just perhaps a Christmas card to Aunt Tootsie’s list of people. Who knows how long it had been since cards had been sent out but it was a smart idea to use the list for information too!

emails from 2/7/2001, 2/25/2001, and 11/18/2004

The top 2 emails are from Joanne to Judy in February 2001, 2 weeks apart, and the bottom one is my email to Joanne in November of 2004.

Joanne responded right away. She still didn’t know who she visited as a young girl but recalled a wedding in Wallingford “of a woman relative who was marrying at ‘mid-age'” and “this may have been a cousin? to my Dad”.

Through our emails, she told me about her father, Jacob Engram Jr., and his father, Jacob, who immigrated from Austria-Hungary and was a farmer. While growing up her father lived in the vicinity of today’s Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, and later on a rented farm in the Pelham Bay area. I knew there was some family connection because my grandmother loved her flowers and tending to her gardens.

My Aunt Judy helped put some pieces together in a phone conversation in November 2004. According to Judy, Uncle Jack Ingram had a farm “in Long Island”, and her parents would go there from Yonkers and help out. Uncle Jack had a son, Jack, who was in World War I and Aunt Judy remembered her mother kept up her Christmas tree until February, when “her nephew” Jack came home. The dates don’t add up but it’s interesting how that story got passed down. Jack served overseas during World War I from July 18, 1918, to July 13, 1919.

We continued our correspondence through the remainder of the year and determined that she attended my parent’s wedding on November 9, 1952. 72 years ago today! Joanne was only 7 years old so an older bride and a partially bald groom would be considered “mid-aged” in her eyes!

We emailed back and forth a few times and then didn’t talk again until 2016 and again in 2018. Life is like that sometimes!

And then, her kids gave her a DNA kit for Christmas in 2018. In March of 2019, we confirmed we were related. Oh boy, were we related! We were so much related that she and I shared twice the cMs compared to me and my first cousins. It also explained why some DNA matches were only between us and not between my maternal cousins.

I went to the experts – the Ancestry DNA Facebook group. My question “Why do I share 1,040 cMs with this person and only 527 and 467 with my first cousins” was met with “You need to talk to your mother”. Since my mother had been gone for 32 years by 2019, I answered my own question.

Joanne was my half aunt and her father, Jacob Engram, Jr., was also my mother’s father.

Shocked is putting it mildly.

My initial reactions were: 1) The work I’ve done on the Posluszny and Straub side was all for nothing!, 2) All the DNA matches associated with the last name “Duy” made sense because that was Jacob’s mother’s maiden name and, 3) not only were Julianna and Konrad Posluszny related (3rd cousins perhaps), but geez, Julianna and Jacob were related as well!

If there was any question of being related, I have the photographic proof:

That would probably be the bad side of the discovery because it did shake me up a bit.

I’m fascinated by the timing because my grandmother and family were living in New Britain in 1921 when she would have become pregnant. Did she know? Did she tell him her suspicions? Did their relationship continue after my mother was born? This is where I’d love to be a time traveler (and I’d have to let it happen again so that I would be assured I exist!).

The good side of the discovery is that I have an aunt! Jacob married in 1934 and had a daughter in 1945. Although she and my mother never knew each other, they did meet and/or knew about each other as a part of the family. Joanne lives in Pennsylvania and we have not met face to face yet. We are Facebook friends and we share any ancestry information we come across.

So this event would definitely qualify as my favorite discovery!

The End of the Line….

The week 31 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is End of the Line. This story will not go in the direction you automatically think of when hearing “end of the line”.

If my teacher was putting the class in order of height, “Nancy, you go to the end of the line” would not come out of her mouth ever in 8 years at Holy Trinity School. Only if I was being separated from my sister or friends because I couldn’t stop talking!

My ancestors did NOT bring the height to my family. At the time of their ocean voyages, my grandfather Charles Jakiela, at 17 was 4’9”. My grandmother Antonia Liro, at 21 was also 4’9”. I have no ship manifest for my grandmother, Julianna Ingram, but her sister Mary’s record says she was 4’8”. My biological grandfather, Jacob Engram Jr, is listed as 5’9” on his WWII draft registration card. He’s a jolly green giant compared to the others.

The height issue is evident in Charles and Antonia’s 1912 wedding photo which looks like they put their heads into cardboard cut outs of a bride and groom.

*Charles and Antonia Jakiela June 24, 1912*

Their four male children ended up between Steve at 5’5” and Walt who reached 5’9”. If his parents had been alive when he registered for the draft, he would have towered over them by a foot!

My dad, John Jakiela, was 5’6” and my mother was 5’3”. I always say, “if I wasn’t born a twin I bet I would have been taller!” But, in all seriousness, I’ll take my twin over the height.

*2nd and 3rd in line (Dana Smith leading the way)*

Janice, at 18 months older, always had 2-3 inches on us. Just enough to not have to hem every pair of pants she got! Gail and I had a 4” growth spurt in 6th grade and except for a few more inches between then and 18, we were done at 4’11”. In standing in a line by height, we’re forever in the front and the shortest of all the relatives.

It pays to marry up! All five of the next generation are over 5 feet and the two of the next generation look like they will be able to take their place at… the end of the line.

A Cousin’s Passing

I found out earlier this month that one of my cousins passed away in Oregon on July 15th. If you know me, or read my posts, you know that I am the Keep of All Things Family so I wanted to share my memories and thoughts on him.

My cousin, Malcolm James Bellafronto Jr, was born in October of 1942. He was the son of my Aunt Judy, my mother’s next older sibling and her husband, Mal. He was nicknamed Butch (I don’t know how he got that name). They lived on North Orchard Street when he was born.

When he was a year old, my Uncle Mal went into the Navy and my Aunt Judy and Butch moved in with my grandmother, grandfather, Aunt Tootsie, and my mother. He was a big little kid! He shared a few stories with me and although he doesn’t recall much of living on Clifton Street, he did remember this story:

During the war my mother and I lived with Gram when my father was in the Navy. I don’t have any specific memories of that period. I do have some vague recollections of Grandpa P.

There was one incident that my mother told me about later. Apparently, I used to spend time out in back with Grandpa. You remember how big the garden was. There was a gate leading into the garden that you had to lift up to get in and out. Well I wandered into the house one time and everyone wanted to know how I got out of the garden. So I showed them, lifting the gate with a loud grunt. Evidently, Grandpa always grunted when he lifted the gate. Mal was 18 months old at the time of that video!

*Aunt Judy holding Butch and sister in law Millie 1944*

He was the center of attention while living on Clifton Street!

In 1945, while his dad was on leave, the three of them drove cross country to California where his ship was docked. Aunt Judy and Butch were planning on staying with her Tante Lizzie and Uncle Ben while Mal was out to sea but he got back on board ship and was told he fulfilled his service and so was done and they came back home to Connecticut.

His brother Bob was born four years later and they eventually moved around the corner from us on Lincoln Drive in a home that Uncle Mal built with help from the students in the Wilcox Tech carpentry program where he was an automotive teacher.

The majority of males in our family attended Notre Dame High School in West Haven, CT. He played football there and relayed the following story to me:

“For the 3 summers of my high school years I would live with Gram for the two weeks before school started. My dad had August off and the family would stay at the lake in Moodus. I started early for football, 3 a day drills. Walk to the train station in the morning, train to New Haven then 2 buses to West Haven. We were on the field by 8 and finished up around 4. Then buses, train and walk to Gram’s. What I remember was how long her hair was and how she would brush it every night while we watched TV. And she was an absolute fanatic about wrestling, pounding the couch and yelling at the TV. For the 3 summers of my high school years I would live with Gram for the two weeks before school started”

Also – “But the main memory is of Gram’s cooking. The pastries she made on holidays. Her cheesecake was out of this world. Tootsie got the cheese part right but could never get the crust. As far as regular meals, I remember everything being overcooked and pretty well tasteless.”

He also told me that when they were building the stairs for the cottage in Colchester, he was the free labor! He said it was a lot of hard work and it kept him in shape for football.

He also told this story about staying at Gram’s house during the summer and the trains that passed along the side of the house going from the steel mill to the main railroad tracks:

“I also remember picking up coal that the engineer would throw into the yard when they stopped at the street. You remember the train tracks going to the steel mill behind the house.

I slept in the front bdrm by the tracks. I distinctly remember one night when I was staying there for football waking up in the middle of the night to the most god-awful noise and most brilliant white light filling the room. Had no idea where I was and what was happening.

When I finally came around enough to look out the window, I saw that the commotion was a very large steam engine stopping at the street with its carbon arc front light shining in the window. Scared the hell out of me.”

*Cousin Charles Jakiela, my parents, Butch at their wedding (altar boys)*

I hope you don’t mind if I end this here. After graduation from Notre Dame High School, Mal was heading to the Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland.

To Be Continued….

They Came In Boats

The week 30 topic for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is Boats. I’m a week late, will try to get back on track!

SS Blücher from Hamburg Germany to New York. It carried 2,102 passengers; 333 first class, 169 second class, and 1,600 third class. My material grandfather, Konrad Posluszny, arrived on this ship on December 5, 1902.

SS Vaderland in 1906 from Antwerp Belgium. It was part of the Red Star Line. It carried 342 first class, 194 second class, and 626 third class passengers. My paternal grandfather, Charles Jakiela, arrived on this ship on November 17, 1906.

SS George Washington in 1910 from Bremen Germany. When it launched in 1908 it was the largest German built steam ship and third largest in the world and could carry 2,900 passengers. My paternal grandmother, Antonia Liro arrived on this ship in September of 1910.

*SS. George Washington from Bremen Germany*

These are just a few of the ships my ancestors sailed on during their immigration from the German-Austrian region called Galicia.

Second and third class passengers were divided into “messes” and cooked their own food and cleaned their own berths. These trips took approximately 11-15 days. They would usually bring a trunk of belongings which went in the hold for the duration of the trip and they would bring a bag with the essentials for their travel. I found this information here .

My grandfather Posluszny was traveling with $3 in his possession. Based on a conversation website, that is the equivalent of $109.72. Imagine traveling somewhere today with not $109.72 on you with no other options to pay for anything!

The all passed through Ellis Island on their way to New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where they settled into their new lives.

Family Worship

The topic for week 13 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is – Worship.

My maternal and paternal sides of my family have always been catholic. I have no church records of their marriages in the United States but I have baptism records for almost all of my parents’ siblings. My Posluszny family likely attended St. Mary’s Church in Yonkers New York as it was the oldest Catholic Church and about a half mile from their Jefferson Street home.

After their move to Wallingford, my Great Aunt Mary Posluszny Biega and her family attended St. Casimer’s Polish National Church. There was/is also a Polish Catholic Church, Saints Peter & Paul in Wallingford so I’m not sure of their decision to go to one over the other – possibly location. My Aunt Judy talked about my grandmother acting in the plays at St. Casimer’s with my Great Aunt Mary (her sister-in-law) directing, so I’m assuming she attended that church! At some point, my mother’s family switched to Holy Trinity Church. I speculate it had something to do with my cousin Judy, the first grandchild, attending Holy Trinity School in the mid-1940s. There would be 13 Posluszny related cousins attending the school over the course of 40 years.

The Biega family and my great grandmother Carolina Posluszny/Bonk continued at St. Casimer’s and are buried in its cemetery. While Holy Trinity has a beautiful spacious cemetery not far from the center of town, St. Casimer’s is off an industrial road on the south end of town near the highway and train tracks. In fact, you used to cross over the tracks at section WITHOUT ANY GATE OR SIGNAL. Yes, I put that in all caps because our neighbors (father, daughter, and son-in-law) were hit by a train while crossing the tracks in their car in 1992. That amazes me that the crossing was still allowed in the 1990s.

Interesting aside about Holy Trinity Church…I met an older woman years ago while on a work appointment. She was Italian and grew up in the Colony Street area of Wallingford. She said Holy Trinity Church was started by the Irish in Wallingford in 19847 and a brief rundown of the priests in the church’s history reads like a Dublin phone book – McGarisk, O’Reilly, Teevens, Quinn. The Italians were not made to feel very welcome in the church so they created their own women’s society within the church. Perhaps that’s why the town still has two Polish churches!

Once my paternal Jakiela side settled in Southington CT, they attended The Church of the Immaculate Conception where my Uncles Steve and Eddie made their first communion.

After my grandmother Antonia died, my grandfather and his five children moved to Wallingford and they began attending Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church. My dad, his brother Walter, and his sister Helen all made their first communion there. The boys were altar boys and Helen cleaned the altar for the priest.

*Helen – 2nd row 4th from left abt. 1930*

After their father died tragically in 1935 the priest worked with Steve, the oldest sibling, to be sure the family stayed together by offering to “be their guardian” in the event the state tried to separate them. Thankfully that didn’t happen!

My Uncle Steve’s family must have continued to attend Sts. Peter and Paul after their first two children were born. Charles, their oldest, wanted to attend Holy Trinity School. In order to get free or discounted tuition, they needed to be parishioners of Holy Trinity Church as so they did. That began a Jakiela tradition of all eight Wallingford cousins graduating from Holy Trinity School.

As a family, my parents, sisters and I went to Holy Trinity Church every Sunday for the 9:15am mass. We sat in the same general area and looked the back of the same heads every week. We also attended mass with our classes for holy days. I enjoyed walking down the hill to the church on those days! I was not crazy about going to mass every Sunday and wished that we took a summer break from church like we did with school. Even when we were on vacation, we went to Sunday mass at the local church!

After mass we would head to Boylan’s Market to pick up the Sunday newspapers – New Haven Register, New York Daily News, and a Boston paper – and drop off a paper to our grandmother and Aunt Tootsie.

We all made our first communion and I was annoyed we didn’t get to wear pretty dresses like Janice did! we made our confirmations and had our 8th grade graduations at church as well. Janice and Gail both were married at Holy Trinity.

When my mother died in April of 1987, her funeral mass was one of the last times I attended church before I moved to California that October. I didn’t stop because I was upset with God or anything but I was going because I didn’t want to disappoint my mother. Weird I guess, but we do what we do.

My father continued to attend of course and looking back I really admire his faith. Not the “I have faith in you” kind, but his religious faith. It’s not always easy. He started attending the late Saturday afternoon mass and afterwards, he would drop off the mass bulletin to my Aunt Tootsie, my mother’s oldest sister. He probably did that right up until his heart surgery.

He died in 2010 on Palm Sunday. The nursing home distributed palms that morning and they were in his room when he died. I still have them. As he told the medium in the first reading I had, “I died an angel’s death Phil”, meaning he didn’t feel anything, he didn’t suffer. Fitting for a person who worshipped until the end.

The Mysterious Mikula Family

When I first started my family research in the early 2000s, Ancestry(.)com was in its infancy and information was not as readily available as it is now. Research involved either visiting town clerks office to requests copies of birth, death, and marriage certificates or mailing a request and waiting for a response.

One of the mysteries of my paternal side was my grandmother’s sister Aniela (also known as Nellie) and her husband Joseph Mikula of Palmer Massachusetts.

One of the crazy family stories was that she and my grandmother were twins but that was far from the truth as she was born in 1871 and my grandmother was born in 1891.

What little I know of them is they were married in Poland and Joseph arrived in the fall of 1902. I don’t have his ship passage record but Aniela arrived in December of 1902 and she was heading to Windsor Locks Connecticut where he was living. Since Walter was born May 30 1903, counting on my fingers, she would have been pregnant with him when she arrived. From there, or at some point in time, they moved to Palmer, Massachusetts.

Besides the “Aniela and Antonia were twins” story, I only knew they took in my father, aunt, and uncle when their mother died in 1927 and they had two sons, Stanley and Walter and one daughter, Catherine who were older than the Jakiela siblings.

I sent a letter to the two Catholic Churches in town and received a response along with four Certificates of Baptism for Mikula children – none of them named Walter or Stanley or Catherine. In hindsight, knowing Joseph and Aniela lived for a time in Windsor Locks, Ct, I might be looking in the wrong state for their birth records.

My past research told me that Walter was born in May of 1903, Stanley in November of 1904, and Catherine in 1908. The “new” siblings included: Bronislaw born 1909, Genowefa born in 1911, Zofia born in 1913, Kazimiera born in 1915, Antoni born in 1917, and Mieczyslaw born in 1918.

Just to put this in perspective my dad and his siblings were born in 1913, 1915, 1920, 1922, and 1924.

Joseph, worked in the cotton mills throughout his life and it’s likely they lived in millworkers housing in Palmer. What I found out about the family was either sad, or non-existent.

Antoni died by accidental drowning when he was 1-1/2 years old in August of 1918. He fell into a well.

Mieczyslaw (Martin) died just short of 6 months old in September of 1918 from Infant Cholera “a disease of poverty”.

Through this all, their mother Aniela, was suffering from tuberculosis which eventually made its way into her bones. She died in May of 1919 from Tuberculosis of the Bone. Would she have been home with her children around her with this terrible disease?

Catherine died in 1934 at 26 years old of tuberculosis and was in the 1930 census as an inmate at the Hampden County Sanatorium.

Bronislaw is in the 1910 census at 1 years old and was not listed in the 1920 or 1930 census.

Genowefa, later known as Genevieve, married, had a child and lived her life in Vermont until her death in 1987. Besides Stanley, she is the only I found to have a family.

Kazimiera is on the 1920 and 1930 census at ages 5 and 15, but disappears after that.

Zofia is not in the 1920 or 1930 census when she would be 7 and 17 years old. However, my Auntie Helen recalled in one of our conversations that “Tootie” committed suicide but I don’t know when that would be as I’ve never found any information about her.

I would think something was amiss with these people and lack of information if I didn’t have actual church raised seal certificates.

*One of the Mikula children birth certificates*

What I realized after all this, was that Uncle Joe remarried after Aniela died and it was actually he and his second wife and Genevieve and Kazimiera that likely took care of my aunt and uncle in 1927. My dad was in Southington with his god mother (he was only 2-1/2 years old).

Walt and John were also brought to Uncle Joe’s after their father died in May of 1935. These pictures are from August of 1935. I can’t recall my dad ever speaking of being there but I bet it is where he discovered his love of the outdoors!

Uncle Joe outlived his second wife Anna and he died at the age of 67 from a cerebral embolism in 1945 while living in Worcester Massachusetts.

You might be wondering about Stanley and Walter? I actually have some information on them from family members and another interesting source. I’ll share that in another post.

The Season of Betty – About Betty Part 1

Betty was born Elizabeth Ann Posluszny on April 5, 1922, in New Britain Connecticut where her family – mother, father, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters – lived in the 2-story house of her mother’s Ingram relative. She was five years younger than her next sibling and 13 years removed from her oldest sister Antoinette (Tootsie).

Her family had left Yonkers New York around 1921, lived briefly in East Hampton MA, and then moved on to New Britain where my grandfather worked as a hatter and also owned a hat shop – Conrad Hat Company at 317 Main Street. The family story is, that it burned down and he had no insurance. In 1925, they are all living at 121 Clifton Street in Wallingford which was “brand new” and where someone in the family lived until 1989. Conrad went to work at the steel mill after working in the hat industry his whole adult life.

Betty was a little bit spoiled but most information about her over the years came from her sister Judy who was the baby of the family until Betty came along! When the family moved to Wallingford her oldest sister didn’t move on to high school. She worked for people at Choate cleaning (not verifiable). If Betty wanted something and her mother couldn’t afford it, she would tell Tootsie to buy it for Betty. Both Gram and Tootsie were incredible seamstresses and could look at something in a store window, go home, and re-create it.

In high school, Betty bowled, played basketball, and was a drum major with the marching band. After graduating she went to Laurel School of Business Administration in Meriden and then went to work at one of the International Silver factory offices.

Because she was quite a bit younger than her siblings, they were getting married and having kids when she was still a teenager! Her older brother Lou and his wife Irene, had their first child, Judith, when Betty was 19. This is the same Judy who was such an incredible help to us before her diagnosis, during her illness, and when she died. Judy and Betty had a close relationship because of the time spent together when Judy was growing up. My sisters and I share a close relationship with Judy’s kids they are both smiling down on.

She traveled quite a bit based on the postcards she wrote and then took them back from family members she sent them to! She and her sister Tootsie took a trip to Texas in 1943 to visit their brother Connie while he was in the army. The following year, she and her friends traveled to California to visit her mother’s sister, Tante Lizzie, and Uncle Ben who lived in Los Angeles. There were also many trips to Atlantic City, Washington DC, and one trip to a ranch in New York to ride horses! Her photos from these trips were all put in albums and labeled with names and dates and are a wonderful look back at her life.

She also had a few boyfriends! She and her girlfriends were always in pictures with different guys, but I’m sure they were just friends! There was one though, Angelo Losi, that her sister Judy says my mom really thought she would marry. Another serious one was a young man in the army from Boone Iowa. Unfortunately, his mother died and he went home, never to return. But, as we know, everything happens for a reason!

While working in an office and bowling in a league, Betty became friendly with Helen Jakiela and Helen’s brother John would give them a ride home. Helen knew something was up when John started bringing her home first! I don’t know what year this was but I do know that they dated for a few years because Betty gave John an ultimatum of “either propose or move on!”. That was the nudge that John needed. They were engaged and got married on November 8, 1952.

Janice came along in September of 1958 and “the twins” Nancy and Gail in April of 1960. They bought the house I now live in on Atkinson Lane in May of 1961 with its 4 bedrooms sitting on almost a half acre of land with apple trees, a cherry tree, raspberry bushes, and more. A dream house for a family of five!

Betty was a full-time mom until we were in 4th and 6th grade. She was very involved with Mother’s Circle at Holy Trinity Church, Mother of Twins Club, and any bake sales or book clubs happening at school. She was the president of both organizations. When the church started its bazaar, she was always involved in running a booth and eventually was chairman of the whole thing!

She went back to work as an office manager for different small companies and helped my dad with the bookkeeping at the paint store. Her last job was working for our neighbor’s construction company. There were 2 brothers who built many of the developments in Wallingford. Her office would move at the start of every development to the first home built. She really enjoyed working for them and with the other employees and talking with their friends who would stop by the office. We remain good friends with them and their children whom we used to babysit!

Her last big adventure before she got sick, I told you about it in my first post was when she won a trip to Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day 1986. She and my dad flew there in August and spent a week on a bus tour and also on their own. They had a wonderful time and she brought us back wonderful gifts. I’m so glad they had that one final adventure to remember before everything happened.

So this was Betty’s life up to her illness. Next time will be about what made Betty – Betty.

A Piece of the Puzzle

Elizabeth Ann Posluszny, my mother, was born in April of 1922. Her mother, Juliana Ingram, was 34 and her father, Konrad Posluszny was 36 years old.

Betty, as she was known, was the youngest of five. Aunt Tootsie (Antoinette) was the oldest, born in 1909. Uncle Connie in 1910, Uncle Lou in 1913 and Aunt Judy in 1917.

Everyone was born in Yonkers, New York except Betty. After the 1920 census the family moved to Easthampton Massachusetts. According to Aunt Judy, her mother was so unhappy living there that “she didn’t even encourage my father to find a job” and “she didn’t unpack any boxes”. Next we know, Betty’s born in New Britain Connecticut and the family is living in an apartment owned by an Ingram cousin and by 1925 they bought 121 Clifton Street in Wallingford.

Betty grew up in Wallingford and had whatever she wanted. If her mother couldn’t afford it, her oldest sister Tootsie who left school after 8th grade would buy it for her. She took dance lessons, played basketball and was a majorette with the high school band. She wasn’t as craft oriented as her sisters – she didn’t knit or crochet or do needlework, or sew; but she had her mother and sisters for that! She loved to read and collected postcards buying blank ones on her trips or keeping ones that arrived at the house.

Betty traveled a lot after high school. She and Tootsie took a train trip to Texas to visit Connie in the army after Betty graduated from high school in 1940. Betty and her cousin Pauline traveled by train to California to visit their Tanta Lizzie and Uncle Ben (Weiss) and see the sights of Los Angeles. Her collection of postcards sent to her family tell of her travels and the fun she had.

My DNA mystery match, Joanne, was born in 1945 and in our earlier emails she said she had been to Wallingford in the past with her parents. She was around 7 years old and went to the wedding of “an older couple”. They missed the ceremony but made it to the reception and she remembered “stepping down into the hall”. It was my parents wedding and the reception was at the old Moose Club on Long Hill Road. How strange I thought that they would be there as we never had any communication with them that I knew of. I wondered what else she would remember of our family or if there had ever been any other trips to Wallingford!

Life (and DNA) is Full of Surprises

Julianna, Konrad and Antoinette Posluszny 1909

I’ve written a few posts about my grandmother Julianna Ingram Posluszny. Her story has always been somewhat mysterious. Family members say she came to the United States at a young age, younger than records stated, and she came alone. I have yet to find a record I can confirm as hers. Her marriage license lists her as 18 in 1906 when they got married and, the 1910 census says she immigrated in 1903 so 15 years old. You’ll see in my past posts I’ve really mulled over it!

In this last year, through DNA matches I uncovered a mystery which brought with it a whole host of new questions. Through my Aunt Tootsie’s Christmas card list came the name and email correspondence with a woman who was an Ingram relative. Cousin Judy Behme corresponded with her and after Judy’s death I inherited her ancestry paperwork and I picked up the correspondence. We knew we would be related through Ingram (obviously!) but how. Then Joanne’s children gave her an Ancestry DNA kit for Christmas 2018.

My first cousins Bob and Mal were DNA matches to me at 507 and 497 cMs approximately. I didn’t question why they were listed as Second Cousins because after all, they were the children of my mother’s sister. Some odd little quirk in the system, no big deal I thought.

I knew Joanne’s maternal family name (Duy) and had seen the name in records from the town my grandmother came from. What I didn’t understand was why I was seeing DNA matches to people associated with this last name. Weird, I thought! There must be some DNA running through the Ingram line as well!

Then, Joanne’s DNA match was processed and posted on the Ancestry website and oh my, we matched with 1,040 cMs!