My Journey Into My Past

In 2018 I took a trip backward into time, to follow the path of my ancestors.  To do this, I traced a path from Newport, and Frenchtown,  Monroe County, MI up the St Lawrence River to Quebec City Quebec CA where the first of my French ancestors landed in North America. To do this, I visited the churches where my ancestors were baptized, married, and buried, with my sister and research partner, Linda. There were a lot of them. The first church in Michigan was established before Michigan was a territory. St Antoine sur la Riviere-aux-Raisins. French missionaries came to the area as early as 1634.  The church was a poor French Canadian parish and mission founded 15 October 1788.  The church later became St Mary Parish. Our ancestor Louis Leduc was a signer on the original petition for the church.  Many ancestors were members of St Antoine, and were buried at the site.  Although the cemetery no longer exists, many remains were uncovered during excavation fo...

    What kind of teacher is remembered by her students 60 later? A teacher like E Lucille Webster.   Miss Webster was born on 15 November 1902.   Her life was not easy.   The family moved from farm to farm in southern lower Michigan, finally settling in Belleville where she graduated from Belleville High School.   She was plagued by many illnesses and lost a beloved brother who fell into a hidden well at age 5 and drowned.    Still, she persevered.   In 1921 she took 6 weeks of classes at Normal School and gained a teaching certificate and began teaching at a one room schoolhouse while continuing her education at Michigan State University. In June 1930 she graduated with her Teacher’s Life Certificate. Her second teaching job was at Hale School, at Eureka and Merriman Roads in Romulus.   She began there in 1922 and roomed with the families in her district.    She taught there for nine years, and encountered one of her most ...

  Wk 3: Out of Place   No one could have felt more out of place than Michalena Lyskawa on her wedding day.   Known as Lena, she was born in Posnan on 28 September 1877 to Franciszek Lyskawa and Francizka Konieczna. Her father died in 1894 in Poland, leaving a wife and four children.   In 1901, sponsored by her uncle, Jan Antczak, Lena sailed alone on the SS Pomeranian to the United States.   She arrived at Baltimore, MD in 1901, and continued on to Detroit, MI by train.   She worked in a tobacco factory, saving enough to send for her mother and two sisters. (Her brother came later).   Shortly after her family arrived, she was introduced to Frank Joblinski, a first generation American. His parents arrived in Detroit shortly before his birth in 1875. In 1893 they bought a farm in Romulus, MI, a very rural area. Two weeks later, on 28 September. 1903 the couple were married at St. Francis D’Assissi Church in Detroit.   Family lore said that Len...

  BELLE AND BILL   My Dad told lots of stories of growing up on a farm in Romulus, MI.   The hard work, the family ties, and the crops and animals.   Like all farms at the time, the work was done by hard work and strong horses.   The farm team was an important resource for all farmers.   The team my grandparents owned were Belle and Bill.   They were massive gray horses that had a special place in the workings of the farm and apple orchard in the wilds of Romulus. Mornings brought many chores:   there were the care and feeding of the livestock, cleaning the barns, and a multitude of chores to accomplish before breakfast.   The team was fed before the men and boys. Always.   After breakfast, the team was harnessed and hitched to whatever implement they were using that day, and the hard work began.   When the dinner bell rang, the team was brought back to the barnyard, unharnessed, rubbed down, curried, fed and watered.   O...

   Wk 2 One of my favorite photos is of my dad on his motorcycle.   He was quite the daredevil in his day, driving fast and taking chances.   He suffered a few serious crashes, and once his parents were told he had been killed in a car accident, but he was out looking for thrills as soon as he left the hospital. He had nearly lost his leg in one accident, but his father refused to sign for the amputation.   He had a serious limp the rest of his life.    Since his car was wrecked, he bought an old motorcycle and worked on fixing it up.   The day he got it running, he said he strapped his crutches on the handlebars and took off with a roar!   His sister said their mother watched out the window and cried.     During the depression he said, four or five guys would pile on the bike to go to the nearest town for some fun.   Gas was hard to come by. He also bought an airplane and used to buzz the neighbors. He   always dro...

Wk 1  Who would I like to meet?   My greatest brick wall, Barbara Magdeleine McDonald.  I don't know where she was born, or who her parents were.  She married my 4th great grandfather, Pierre Tessier dit Santure at Ste Anne Church, Detroit MI on October 31, 1790. He was from Riviere des Raison, later to be called St Antoine, then Monroe, MI) She didn't have a place of residence.  One un-verified record says she was born in 1748 in Assumption Sandwich.  She and Pierre had several children before he died on October 14, 1801, at St Antoine aux Riviere de Raison.    Apparently, she married again in 1803 to Jean Marie St Ours dit Graveline.  Her death record shows her as Elizabeth Durrusseau, age 103, dying June 8, 1851, in Monroe MI.   (Citations St Anne Marriage Book, Dennison, Souls of St Antoine).  She died in the home of Francois Santure, one of her grandsons.  My mother would have been her 3rd great granddaughter....

 It is a new year, and once again I am going to attempt to finish 52 ancestors in 52 weeks.  But, first I transferred a lot of stories from all different files to this blog, to keep family stories in one place.  There are some duplicates, some written by other people, but all family or genealogy related.  

  ANOTHER RESOUCE TO TRY     A while back, at a genealogy meeting I heard a speaker talk about using Facebook as a tool for research.   I   didn’t really think this would be very helpful, but I joined a Fille de Roi Facebook page, Then joined a few more French Canadian pages, including Genealogy a la carte, Les Filles des Roi Founding Mother Of Canada, Fille de Roi Descendants, French Canadian Ancestors, Prussian Genealogy, Polish Genealogy, and most recently Finding Your Polish Ancestors. While all the sites had some information, and hints for further research, I really hit pay dirt with Finding Your Polish Ancestors. I submitted a simple query, “Any help in locating military records for my Great Grandfather Franciszek Lyskawa?”    I gave his date of death, and general location.   I was expecting a link to a site I might try. I was shocked and surprised when instead of a link I got copies!   I now had a copy of his death certific...

  OUR JOURNEY INTO THE PAST   Following several years of genealogical research that was began by our Aunt Rosemary in the 1970’s, my sister Linda Tilley and I embarked on a journey into past.   Our intent was to follow the path our ancestors made on their journey to Monroe County, MI.   The most logical place to begin was with the various churches our Catholic French-Canadian ancestors attended. This part of the journey had been in the works for several years.   We started with St. Patrick Church, Carleton, MI.    It was where our parents, Allie Joblinski and Clara Wickenheiser married in 1945, and where all their children were baptized. We had roamed the church and grounds all our lives, and were very familiar with the three cemeteries, although the oldest one pre-dated our dead.   We photographed the headstones. Most were still standing and legible. The next leg was St. Charles Church, Newport, MI.   Our grandparents, Gus Wickenheiser...

  In the Fullness of Time   In 1995 my family published a cookbook. It was a work of love and many of the family members, men and women, boys and girls contributed.   It was intended for family members, but the interest was so great that many other people wanted copies of the book as well. (It was sold at Book Nook in Monroe, MI).   This cookbook was dedicated to the wonderful Mother and Grandmother that we missed so much.   Intertwined with the recipes were stories and memories of Lena Wickenheiser, many showing the impact this woman made on all our lives.   She was a strong woman, who buried her husband and infant daughter, raised 9 children during the depression, took in 5 orphaned nieces and nephews to raise as her own, and did all this with a cheery disposition and a pocketful of prayer. She was a real prayer warrior!  When I sent in my contributions to the cookbook, I had to think long and hard about one of the stories I was submitting. ...

        Jan 7, 2020 A Fresh Start   When I think of a fresh start I think of my Polish ancestors.    My great grandparents were the first to immigrate to America from Posen.  GGF Piotr/Peter Jablonski married at age 24 to a 15 year-old girl named Katarzyna/Katherine Gic in 1865 at the Catholic church in Znin.  I am not sure why they left Poland, but historically Poland was in a difficult economic time, and many young Poles were being conscripted into the Prussian army.  I think Peter left the country first, leaving his pregnant young wife and two children, Marianna and Michael.  I have yet to locate his immigration records, but Katherine arrived at Castle Gardens, NY in 1873 with the two children.  My grandfather Frank was a first-generation child, born later that year in Detroit, MI.   Not only did the Jablonski family face the hardship of travel, of leaving their families, they also faced the language bar...