Females: Maternal Line Discoveries

As many genealogists know, researching Eastern European ancestors is hard! You have unique spellings, illiteracy, name changes, border changes, and plain old lack of stories from the old country.  My mom was always frustrated that I couldn’t find as much information on her line as I found on my dad’s.  These past couple years, I made baby-step progress in my maternal line; and as I pulled together research for this blog post, I made an incredible discovery that should put a good-size crack in that brick wall!

To start, I wrote about what I knew about my Valek great-great grandparents here.  My first mystery was Elisabeth Valek’s death date. I knew it had to be between 1920 and 1930, based on census information.  Thanks to Reclaim the Records obtaining and publishing the New York State death record indexes on archive.org, I found that she died on December 31, 1922.

Next up, Elisabeth’s maiden name.  In 2018, my great-grandmother’s FindaGrave memorial was published and included her obituary that was published in The Suffolk Times when she died in 1983.  The obituary stated that she was the daughter of “Adam and Elizabeth Gudellis Valek”.  I have since found out that their son Antone’s marriage record states that her maiden name was “Gudals”. So now I have some things to search on.

Finally my most recent and probably most exciting discovery! I was looking at the FindaGrave photo of Antone’s memorial and noticed that there was more than one picture posted.  I saw that Antone’s stone was one of several footstones, and the main headstone read “Welikes”.  Knowing that Eastern European w’s are often pronounced “v”, I could totally see how that might be pronounced “Valek”.  But just to check, I put in a search for “Welikes” at that cemetery.  It came back with two graves: Adam, who died 1942, and “Alzbeita”, who died 1922.  Jackpot!

Some preliminary research has shown the surname also as “Weleikes” and “Weilike”, eventually evolving into “Valic” then “Valek”.  I have to wonder if the headstone had the spelling that it did as a nod to their original Lithuanian heritage.  

Alzbeita (Gudellis) and Adam Welikes, aka Elisabeth and Adam Valek! Author’s collection

At any rate, I am so excited to have “Elisabeth Valek” finally identified as “Alzbeita Gudellis (or Gudals)”!  Already I am making some new discoveries for the Valek family, thanks to someone simply taking a picture of the family burial plot.

Courting: Divorce Court!

This week’s theme for #52Ancestors is “Courting”, and though I’m sure my ancestors did their share of courting, I have no records about that. What I do know about and what I’ve learned more about lately is some divorce court information!

First up will be the divorce of my great-great grandparents Frank and Jennie Colomy.  I knew that Jennie was not pleased with Frank when daughter Bertha ran off with Percy St. Clair and that they were separated by about 1897.  

The former Essex County Superior Court in Salem, MA. Courtesy Wikipedia.

I’ve since learned a little more through newspapers (the Daily Item): starting on June 7, 1897, Judge Sheldon of the Superior Court in Salem was set to hear 163 divorce cases, including that of Jennie E. Colomy vs. Frank L. Colomy.  The paper said this was the most divorce cases being heard in many terms.  One has to wonder what the heck was going on in Essex County around this time!  The next article I found stated that the divorce, on the grounds of desertion, was uncontested by Frank and granted by Judge Richardson on June 10, 1898.

As I wrote in my last post, the final decree of divorce for my great-grandfather George Pleau’s first marriage was issued on October 14, 1922 in favor of Agnes.  As the plaintiff, she was represented by the law firm Albright & Mepham.  I’ve always been certain that George and Bertha having my grandfather probably was the reason Agnes pursued divorce.  What I’ve since learned is that this was not the first time a divorce case was brought in this marriage!

The former Monroe County Supreme Court in Rochester, NY. Courtesy Wikipedia.

Again in a newspaper (the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle), I found that Judge Roderick of the Supreme Court in Monroe County dismissed the divorce on June 7,1918, this time brought by George and contested by Agnes! I have to wonder what drove George to try to divorce Agnes.  I also should note that Agnes, as the defendant, was represented by Albright & Mepham; she must have kept them in mind when it was her turn to be plaintiff four years later.

Finding this information in newspapers has given me some great information to follow up on, should I get the opportunity to view the court records.  Perhaps I’ll find the details behind Frank’s abandonment of his family.  Perhaps I would know for sure why Agnes finally decided to let George go.

Landed: By the Cemetery

The Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds is an absolute gold mine for those doing research in Essex County, Massachusetts!  I’ve pulled records from my parents’ first house, going all the way back to when Job White and his family settled in Lynn.  Because I could search by name, I happened to uncover a short but interesting chapter in my paternal grandfather’s early life.

I’ve written before about how my grandfather was born in November 1921 although his parents (George Edmund Pleau and Bertha (Colomy) Spratt didn’t marry until July 22, 1922.  I found deeds and related paperwork to a home in Nahant, Essex County, MA in this time period that adds detail to the following timeline of this family:

• June 20, 1922 – Ella Sargent, wife of Fred Sargent, granted the lot & buildings to “Bertha C. Pleau, wife of George E. Pleau”.
• June 25, 1922 – George sold his estranged wife Agnes the deed to the lot at Lochner Place in Rochester, Monroe County, NY (where she was living) for $1.  I assume he would have to have been present for that.  Maybe that’s why Bertha was the one to initiate the purchase of the Nahant house.
• July 22, 1922 – George and Bertha married in Bath, Sadagahoc County, ME.  Yes, after Bertha started the process of buying the Nahant house as George’s wife.  Why Maine? I imagine that it was far enough away from everyone who knew them and their situation.  After all, George claimed that this was his first marriage and Bertha claimed it was her second.
• August 9, 1922 – Ella Sargent submitted a re-recording of the June 20 deed.
• September 30, 1922 – George and Bertha granted the property to the Lynn Five Cent Savings Bank for a mortgage.
• October 14, 1922 – decree of divorce is issued to Agnes (Kowiak) Pleau, the plaintiff, at the Supreme Court in Rochester. Yes, after George and Bertha’s marriage!  My guess is that Agnes probably knew that George fathered a child with Bertha but not that they got married.

The bottom line is that the Pleau’s ended up living on Wasau Place on Sunset Hill in Nahant, with the back of their property abutting Greenlawn Cemetery.  What an interesting genealogical find!  The June 20 deed describes the property as follows:  “bounded . . . Southwesterly by a proposed street, seventy feet; Northwesterly by land now or late of MacLardie, being lot #43 on said plan, one hundred feet; Northeasterly by a cemetery, seventy feet, and Southeasterly by land nor or late of Blondel, being lot #41 on said plan, one hundred feet, containing 7,000 square feet of land, more or less”.

Nahant in 1924, when the Pleau’s lived there! Can you find their plot? Courtesy Library of Congress.

Nahant is (and probably was back then) a lovely little town that is basically an island connected to Lynn by a causeway.  I assume that George continued to work in Lynn in the shoe industry, as he had in the 1920 Census.  The family lived in Nahant until June 1924, when it looks like they moved to Brooklyn, Kings County, NY (I had found them there in the 1925 NY State Census).  I have no idea why they would move from Nahant to Brooklyn, and then later to Baltimore, MD.  Perhaps there were better job opportunities for George?

Maps: Pine Grove Cemetery

There is so much to be said about maps and genealogy.  I rarely research an ancestor without trying to find where they lived and/or worked on a map.  But one kind of map that isn’t always available is a cemetery map.  If you’re really lucky, you might have GPS coordinates for a grave. Sometimes you may have a section or plot number, but that doesn’t do you any good if you have no idea where in the cemetery that is.

I am really fortunate to have a good many ancestors buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn, Essex County, MA, a large cemetery of close to 100,000 burials.  Many of the graves are accounted for on FindaGrave, with notations of the sections and plot numbers.  Best of all, this municipal cemetery has its own website with not only an overall map, but maps of some key sections.

Lipsett-MacWhinnie grave, Pine Grove Cemetery. Author’s collection.

Back in 2013 I planned a visit to the cemetery. It would be my first visit since 1993, and my first genealogical visit.  Knowing how massive Pine Grove was and the fact that this was only one stop on my journey, I wanted to make the most of my visit.  I made a list of who was buried at Pine Grove (with direct ancestors being the priority), printed out the main map and began to highlight the sections where I might find my people.

It was a good thing that I printed the map; cell reception was lousy there (I don’t know if it still is).  The map made it super easy to follow the paths around the cemetery and easy to find the sections I needed.  As I visited each grave, I marked its specific location on the print-out.  Once I got to my hotel, I downloaded the map onto Skitch (a now-defunct Evernote extension) and marked up where all the graves I found were.  The next time I visit Pine Grove, I’ll be able to make a beeline to those graves, and perhaps have a little extra time to find a few more!