Hits and misses

It's my last day in Salt Lake City but since our plane leaves at 9:30 pm, I have most of the day to spend at the Family History Library. Hopefully, I will find the last few documents that I had set as my goal.

Yesterday was a pretty good day in terms of locating documents. I was able to locate and copy Bernard Jelen's birth record. I had an accurate birth date from both his naturalization papers and death certificate (it's so nice when birth dates are consistent!), so he was easy to find. Anna Jelen, on the other hand, still refuses to be found. One problem is her birth date - on one document she has it after 1901, which is impossible since she is in the 1901 Scottish census! Using information from the 1901 census puts her birth date at around 1894, two years after Bernard's. I found Bernard in Anderlecht, which is in the Brussels area. But no Anna.

I spent time looking for Henry and Cecile's marriage record - this time in Lieges, since that is where Germaine was born (I scored her birth certificate when I visited Uncle Leon in August). Unfortunately, I have yet to find their marriage record in the films that I've looked at. I'm going to re-look at some films today, in case I missed them. At this point, I've only been able to eliminate where they were married! (not Brussels, Anderlecht, Antwerp....) Since I had the film, I copied Germaine's original birth register since the one I got from Uncle Leon was a transcription done when Germaine probably got her passport.

Keep your fingers crossed for another good day searching!

Salt Lake City - Day 1 recap

We woke up Monday to snow flurries, which continued throughout the morning. The temperature remained cold, so there is still a couple of inches on the ground this morning. I spent yesterday looking for US records - I just wasn't ready to tackle Polish records and the Belgium films won't arrive from the vault until this afternoon.

I started by looking for the naturalization records for Simon Jellen and his family. I found his son Joseph in the index - he was naturalized on March 6, 1933 in San Francisco. He is living at SF Hospital - probably because he was doing his residency there? I haven't found the actual papers, as the film needs to be ordered from the vault.

I found Simon in the Southern California index, along with Lily. I still haven't found Morris. Simon filed his declaration of intention (the first step of the naturalization process) on May 22, 1924. His first petition for naturalization (step 2) was filed on August 25, 1926 and denied on December 3, 1926. The reason listed on the petition was "loyalty is not satisfactory". Huh? His second petition was filed on November 1, 1929 and referenced this first denial, the reason now given simply as "draft record". Based on this, I am guessing that Simon either didn't know that he was supposed register for the WW1 draft (it was mandatory even for non-citizens) or purposefully didn't register. He had arrived in the US in 1916 and I'm not even sure if he was living in NY or had already moved west to San Francisco (where he lived prior to moving to LA). I'm going to search the WW1 records to see if I can find anything there.

Simon finally obtained his naturalization on February 14, 1930 and Lily obtained hers on July 11, 1930.

I also found my husband Steve's paternal grandparents marriage license and from that discovered his great-grandmother's maiden name - Eva Zwarkin (sp?). I started doing some work on his mother's line (RIKLIN) and found his maternal grandparent's Jake and Tillie in the census living with another Riklin family Abraham and Bessie and their two kids. Right now I'm working on the hypothesis that Abraham and Jake are either brothers or cousins. Lots more work to do on this line!

It's off to the library for a very full day of work!

Off to Salt Lake City!

I know that I haven't posted here in awhile - frankly, it's been hard to get motivated to write when no one has posted any comments. I had hoped that people would add their information, memories and thoughts - oh, well!

Anyway, in a couple of hours I fly out to Salt Lake City, home of the most incredible library for genealogy research - the Mormon's Family History Library. This is my third year there - I go with the ladies that I meet with monthly to talk genealogy. They've been going for years and have the routine down pat. We stay right next door to the library so we don't have to waste anytime getting there when it opens!

This trip I hope to at long last find my maternal grandparent's marriage certificate. Now that I know that their first-born, Germaine, was born in the city of Lieges, I can search there for Henri and Cecile's marriage. The prevailing memory was that they were married in Brussels, so I've spent lots of time looking there and the surrounding communities, plus Antwerp. Wish me luck! I am also hoping to find the youngest 2 Jelen siblings (Bernard and Anna) birth records. I now have a specific birth date for Bernard from his naturalization papers so I can narrow my search. Anna, on the other hand, will be harder as her age varies depending upon what document you look at. I'm going with the 1901 Scottish census as the best estimate, which would put her birth in 1894.

I am also going to do some research on my father's line. I will be spending time looking at records in Krakow for the Kollender family (my dad's mother's family). Polish records are such a chore especially the ones during the Russian empire. I'll need to get someone to write out Kollender in Cyrillic for me to help in the search.

I hope to post a few entries from SLC. The weather this year is fair - around 45 - 50 F with no snow forcasted.