Relationships key to finding the Stelmaszewski’s

A very good friend of mine has been doing genealogy for a while ran into something of a brick wall.  He found his family in the 1940 Census and even his great-grandparents in the 1930 Census, but he was not finding anything for them before that.  We were pretty sure that they arrived at Ellis Island on 20 Jun 1892, so they should have shown up in the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses as well.

I did a quick look on Ancestry and on Family Search and wasn’t successful finding anything either. I know that if you asked several people how to spell Stelmaszewski you would receive several different spellings. Trying to figure out how the surname is spelled in a case like this can be daunting. So I took a surname unknown approach.  I used Ancestry.Com because both my friend and I have subscriptions there.

   

Next, I took stock of a few things we did know.  His grandmother’s name was Priscilla Helen Stelmaszewski and her parents were Frank (or Franz) and Katherine.  We knew Priscilla was born in 1907 in Minnesota.

On Ancestry.Com I went immediately to the 1920 Census records via the Card Catalog (Search | Card Catalog | 1920 United States Federal Census). 

First & Middle Names:  Priscilla Helen  

Birth:  1907   Location: Minnesota

Then down to family members,

Father:  Frank

Then I added another 

Mother: Katherine

Search…

Bang.  Second entry:

A review of the record confirmed that was them, right age for mother, father, and daughter. Right places of birth.  And wow.  Not only them but eight siblings for Priscilla.  

Then I tried the same kind of search in the 1910 Census records.  Boo-hoo no luck.  

I tried several other combinations and didn’t hit on a combination that found them (remember, I’m not using a last name).  

I tried using Frank/Franz with a child named Victoria (usually quite readable and spell able). 

That gave me about 126 thousand responses and none on the first page that looked right.  I knew from the 1930 census that Priscilla’s older siblings were also born in Minnesota so I figured that they might have been in Minnesota in 1920 as well. Also Frank had been born in Poland about 1864 so I went with that too. 

Still too many records (I hate going down to a second or third page).  They lived in Pine County in 1930, maybe they did in 1920 also.  I added that as exact.

Again, there they were.

I used a similar technique to find them in the 1900 Census.

Because I know that Minnesota had an 1895 and a 1905 census I was able to search (leaving out the last name) and including either relationships to children or the location of Pine County to follow the family and see the spellings used for their surname.

1892 – Stelmaszewski (Ellis Island Passenger Record)

1895 – Stillmaziski (Minnesota Census)

1900 – Stetmaszewski (US Census)

1905 – Stelmazewki (Minnesota Census)

1910 – Stelinaszewski (US Census)

1920 – Stetenzki (US Census)

1930 – Stelmaszewski (US Census)

1940 – Scelmaszewski (US Census) (Living with daughter and son in law)