Saturday afternoon always brings Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge and here it is:
1) Where did your ancestral families reside in 1920? Do you know their addresses or locations? Have you visited the home? Who was enumerated in the 1920 in each family? Are any of your ancestral families missing from the 1920 U.S. Census even if they should be in the census?
Here are my ancestors:
- Grandparents: George Kucharik aka Sabo and wife, Julia (Scerbak), my paternal grandparents had been married for five years, but didn’t yet own their house on Summer Street. They were living at 10 Cedar Street, Garfield, Bergen, New Jersey. George was enumerated as the proprietor of a business (they owned a butcher shop) and Julia was at home. My father hadn’t yet been born.
- Grandparents: Vernon Tarbox Adams and wife, Hazel (Coleman), my maternal grandparents, were newlyweds in July 1920. I believe they lived in Calais, Washington, Maine when they first married, but they might have lived in the area around Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts.
- Paternal Great Grandparents: Stephen Kucharik and wife, Maria (Kacsenyak) were living at 204 Hope Avenue, Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey. Stephen was working at a bleachery and Maria was at home.
- Paternal Great Grandparents: Michael Scerbak and wife, Anna (Murcko) were living back in Ujak, Slovakia. They were peasant farmers. They married in Passaic in 1892, but returned permanently to the village about 1896.
- Maternal Great Grandparents: Charles Edwin Adams and wife, Annie (Stuart) were living at 14 Calais Avenue, Calais, Washington, Maine. Annie owned a women’s accessories shop and Charles managed the books.
- Maternal Great Grandfather: Hartwell Thomas Coleman was living on River Road, Calais, Washington, Maine. He was a master mariner. My great grandmother, Anna Jensen Coleman, had died in 1916
- Paternal Great Great Grandmother: Maria (Szova) Murcko was living in Hajtovka, Slovakia in 1920. She lived her entire life in the village where she was born.
- Maternal Great Great Grandparents: Calvin Segee Adams and wife, Nellie (Tarbox) were living at 14 Calais Avenue with son Charles and daughter-in-law Annie. They were both retired.
- Maternal Great Great Grandmother: Sarah Morah (Crouse) Coleman was living with son Hartwell Coleman on River Road in Calais, Maine.
That’s it for my ancestors in 1920.
My paternal and maternal sides of the family were living very different lives.
My first generation American Rusyn ancestors were up and coming immigrants working hard to better their lives or else living back in the villages, struggling to live.
My maternal ancestors were all solidly middle class Americans.
Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge.
Interesting that you had someone still in the old country.
Not only did my great grandparents return to Slovakia, but my grandmother never met her youngest brother. She was the first born child and returned to the U.S. when she was 17 in 1910. Her brother wasn’t born until 1917. She never went back to Europe and he was behind the Iron Curtain. Nana was almost 92 when she died in 1985. Stefan died in the 1990s.