Hard to believe it is fall and we are already in the last weekend of the month, but here we are.
However, it also means it’s time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver and this week’s challenge:
1) We all have 8 biological great-grandparents. Where and when were they born, where and when did they marry, and where and when did they die?
Here are my eight great grandparents. Because only one lived into my lifetime and I never had the chance to meet her in Slovakia, I am thankful that I have photos of all eight:
1. Stephen Kucharik was born in 1855 in Okruzna, Slovakia and died in 1933 in Wallington, Bergen, New Jersey. He was also known as Stephen Tomko in Slovakia and changed the family name to Sabo in New Jersey, c1910.
2. Maria Kacsenyak was born in 1859 in Ruska Nova Ves, Slovakia and died in 1926 in Passaic, Passaic, New Jersey.
Stephen and Maria married in 1877 in Ruska Nova Ves.
3. Michael Scerbak was born in 1868 and died in 1932 in Ujak, Slovakia.
4. Anna Murcko was born in 1872 in Hajtovka, Slovakia and died in 1967 in Ujak. She is the one great grandparent whose lifetime overlapped with mine.
Michael and Anna married in 1892 in Passaic, New Jersey, but returned to Europe between 1896 and 1898.
5. Charles Edwin Adams was born in 1877 and died in 1921, both in Calais, Washington, Maine.
6. Annie Maude Stuart was born in 1872 in Meddybemps, Washington, Maine.
Charles and Annie married in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
7. Hartwell Thomas Coleman was born in 1869 and died in 1938, both in Calais, Maine.
8. Anna Elisabeth Jensen was born in 1872 in Copenhagen, Denmark and died in 1916 in Calais, Maine.
Hartwell and Anna married in 1890 in Calais, Maine.
That’s it for my eight ancestors.
Five of them – Stephen, Maria, Michael, Anna and Anna – emigrated and settled far from their places of birth, but two – Michael and Anna Scerbak – returned to Europe.
Three – Hartwell, Charles and Annie – lived most of their lives close to where they were born.
Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge. I just realized something for the first time – three of my great grandmothers are all named Anna!
Two of them returned? How common was that for Slovaks? I’ve read many Italians did that.
I barely overlapped with one great-grandmother. I was told my mother took me to Florida to meet her, but I have no photograph to prove it.
Many from Nana’s village went back and forth from the U.S. factory life and their homes. There are a number of entries in the church registers about married or born in America.
Wow – that’s quite the mix of locations…and how fascinating that at a time when ocean travel wasn’t comfortable for most people, that some went back and forth.
Wow, how lucky you are to have photographs of all eight. I have no photograph of my great-grandfather, Anton Hork. They moved around a lot and I think didn’t have much money until after he died and his sons helped out their mother.