Category: Ancestor Stories
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One Address, Eight Census Records, 45 Years of Family Survival
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Tracking a family through census records from 1905-1950 reveals survival strategies. Eight NY censuses show how one Brooklyn family adapted across generations.
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Season of Change: How Basilius and Maria Lost Their World
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History follows the travelers, the ones who pack trunks and board ships. But for Basilius Marcisak and Maria Gladis of Litmanova, the most profound season of change involved staying exactly where they were while their world migrated away from them. Between 1872 and 1895, they buried five children in the…
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My Favorite Family Photograph (For Now)
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How do you choose a favorite family photograph from a collection of 130 images? I picked the one whose story I know best. This is my grandmother Eva Marcisak on June 18, 1945, at the Exchange Tavern in New York City. She had just said goodbye to George Dubinsky at…
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What Did Two Irish Immigrants Endure to Build a Better Life in America?
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This Irish immigrant story follows William and Ellen Dowling from Listowel, County Kerry to Brooklyn, New York in 1857. As teenagers traveling in steerage, they carried something that set them apart: literacy. By mid-century, Irish literacy rates had climbed to seventy-five percent, and this education shaped their American future. They…
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Why My Genealogy Research Breakthrough Hasn’t Happened Yet
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This week’s #52Ancestors theme is “A Breakthrough Moment,” but here’s my confession: I haven’t had a major genealogy research breakthrough in months. Despite attending genealogy conferences last year, enrolling in multiple courses, and maintaining a weekly genealogy blog, I’m starting to understand why those breakthroughs aren’t happening. Somewhere along the…
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The World Around Them: My 2x Great Grandparents from Litmanova
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Between 1883 and 1900, the world around Constantinus Hurkala and Anastasia Hlinka transformed completely. Born in Litmanova, Slovakia in 1860, they knew only mountain meadows, subsistence farming, and the brutal reality of rural poverty under Hungarian nobility. Each July, families migrated to mountain chalets to prepare hay—the difference between survival…
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Ellen McAuliffe’s Irish Family Lost in Time — and Rediscovered?
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My great-great-grandmother Ellen McAuliffe lived a brief but consequential life. Born around 1844, probably in Ireland, she arrived in New York in 1857 and died in Brooklyn in 1875 at just 33 years old. Her death record provides no information about her parents, leaving a gap in our family history…
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When Survival Required Remarriage: Anastasia Bosak’s Difficult Choice
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In 1874, Anastasia Bosak faced an impossible choice in Austrian Galicia: remarry quickly or face destitution. Her first husband Stephanus Dubnianski had died, leaving her with young Jacobus in one of Europe’s poorest provinces. For researchers tracing genealogy Austrian Galicia, understanding these constrained choices reveals the survival strategies our ancestors…
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When Genealogy Stops Being Solitary: The Ellen McAuliffe Story
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This post explores genealogical collaboration between the author in Cincinnati and a DNA cousin in Brisbane, Australia. Together, they’re researching whether Ellen McAuliffe (Brooklyn, 1857) and Margaret McAuliffe (Australia, 1845) were sisters, both daughters of Florence McAuliffe and Ellen Healey from Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland. Using DNA matches across multiple…
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StoryTeller Tuesday Challenge: An Ordinary Day in the Plunkett Household
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At 418 Van Brunt Street in Brooklyn’s Red Hook waterfront neighborhood, an ordinary day for the Plunkett household began with the sounds of dock work in January 1875. Peter operated as a middleman in the rag trade while Julia managed eight children at home. Every family member played a role…