R6| Monday, November 16, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
JOURNAL REPORT|ENCORE
M
y fatheraccumulated
funeral cards like some
people collect baseball
cards. He wasn’t mor-
bid—quite the opposite:
He loved the conversa-
tions when family and
friends gathered in the parlor for final
goodbyes.
The front of the card displayed a reli-
gious image or prayer. The back had the
name of the deceased and some details—
often age, date of death and burial loca-
tion. Dad sometimes paper-clipped them
to newspaper death notices. He threw
them into a file, and when we cleaned
out his stuff some 30 years ago, I tossed
them into a “someday” box—as in “Some-
day I will get around to sorting these out
and learn about our family history.”
Last year, a few months into retire-
ment, someday arrived. I opened his col-
lection and realized I had a small trea-
sure trove of people who meant
something to our family. Thank you, Dad.
As a former newspaper editor who
spent years searching for and confirming
facts, I figured digging into my own past,
building family trees and finding the sto-
ries behind the names on those trees
would be fairly easy. Instead, I found it
to be a minefield, both in terms of wast-
ing a ridiculous amount of time and get-
ting things wrong.
It was worth the missteps and the
frustrations. In part, that’s because I
want to make sure my grandchildren
know their American chapter began in
steerage, rather than in the middle-class
comfort they were born into. We are
where we are because of the grit, desire
and luck of the people who came before
us. But I also want to make sure my
grandchildren and their descendants
have empathy for the future immigrants
who will make their own start in steer-
age. We were “others” once as well.
For now, though, the least I can do is
guide those who want to dive into the
past what I’ve learned on my journey.
These lessons may make their path a bit
easier—and a bit less prone to regretta-
ble wrong turns and detours.Decide what is important
When I started last year, I had a plan. I
would read, sort and scan boxes of docu-
ments and photos, update the information
on the genealogy software on my per-
sonal computer and join the pay site An-
cestry.com to see what else is out there.
Months later, I had made little progress
on the boxes and, worse, now had a new
pile of names to sort through and deal
with from Ancestry and Newspaper.com
clippings. I’d fallen headlong into the en-
tertaining time trap of adding online links
to names and connecting to other trees.
Clearly, this could go on forever.
I stopped and gave myself a two-year
deadline and two goals. First, I would pre-Our family
changed
its name
from
Podkowa to
Podkowin-
ski to Podd.
When and
why?Top, Wladys-
law’s widow
and children
circa 1925; my
dad, Edward, in
roughly 1917;
funeral cards;
and Polish
church records.Genealogical projects can be
frustrating and full of wrong
turns. Here are some ways to
make them less so.serve and share the most important
documents and photos so they
weren’t lost with me. Second, I
would limit my research to direct
ancestry lines starting with our
four sets of grandparents, deter-
mining: where their original home-
towns were, and in what countries;
why the immigrants left; and what
happened to them and their chil-
dren when they got to the U.S.
It seems so obvious now: Once
you focus on a smaller number of
names, and know what you’re
looking for, you have a task you
can get your arms around. You can
see the beginning, middle and end.Go deep
Face it: Putting names and dates
on a family tree just isn’t that in-
teresting. How many of my grand-
children are going to care about a
bunch of names? Even I don’t care
that much.
But dig deeper, and the stories
can be gripping. A search of news-
papers, for instance, revealed great-
grandmother Mary Heffron of
Scranton, Pa., described as a “poor
washerwoman” who lost everything
in an 1885 house fire. She fought
the insurance company in Pennsyl-
vania Supreme Court and won.
Then there were the newspaper
accounts that told of how my
grandfather Wladyslaw died when
he was splashed by molten slag in a
steel-plant blast. His daughter, my
mother, was born four months later.Use multiple sources
Here’s another lesson I learned
from my years as an editor: Don’t
just rely on one source. You won’t
have the full story if you do. You
may not have much of a story at all.
My father changed his last
name to Podd from Podkowinski.
Hisfather had changed his nameBYANNPODDby it. Resourceful Stella solved her
problem in America. By the 1930
census, she miraculously aged back-
ward and was three years younger
than her spouse. Good for her, but
bad for family genealogists who only
rely on census information.
We confirmed my grandmother’s
age with her marriage records and
copies of her birth certificate. (Mul-
tiple sources, remember?).
If you really can’t prove a piece
of information, just flag it as uncon-
firmed. The next family sleuth can
perhaps take it on.Make use of local experts
Local history or genealogy centers
have paid or volunteer researchers
who can find so much more, quickly
and who understand the quirks of
the data and the history of the area.
I found them by googling “gene-
alogy society” and the name of the
town. The research fees are reason-
able, from $25 to $125. In research-
ing our Irish miners in Scranton,
the Northeast Pennsylvania Genea-
logical Society found baptism re-
cords and translated the Latin.Enjoy the Search
Yes, it can be frustrating and an-
noying at times. But overall, this
project has been energizing, en-
grossing and entertaining. I’ve re-
connected with some relatives andchatted with others for the first
time. I discovered surprising stories
that my kids are actually interested
in. The pandemic canceled our vaca-
tion to Ireland this summer, but we
have a great family-centered itiner-
ary for next (fingers crossed) year.
And probably most important—
especially these days—it’s actually
fun.Ms. Poddis a former Wall Street
Journal deputy managing editor.
Email:[email protected]. AUTHOR’S FAMILY PHOTOS AND RESEARCHto Podkowinski from Podkowa.
When and why the changes?
The accepted story in my family
was that my grandfather’s name
was changed by immigration offi-
cials at Ellis Island when he ar-
rived in the U.S. in 1912. But family
interviews, rediscovered letters,
censuses, court records and books
on Polish genealogy uncovered the
truth: My grandfather added on
the “ski” sometime after he ar-
rived because he was imitating a
style used by Polish nobility, re-
flecting his ambition for a better
life. It was a quick upgrade from
Podkowa, which translates to
“horseshoe.” That was so much
more interesting than the widely
held myth that Ellis Island officials
changed names.
My father’s change came for a
darker reason. His supervisor at
the Red Cross during World War II
suggested the change because
some people were unable to grasp
his name and, worse, some didn’t
want to deal with a person with a
name like Podkowinski.Beware of untrue ‘facts’
The enormous amount of bad in-
formation linked to Ancestry.com
family trees was a shock. It’s not
Ancestry’s data that’s the problem.
It’s the users who take guesses
and link to existing trees to build
a mini family empire. Or who linkaccurate documents to the wrong
person (No, that’s notyourJohn
Murray.) And then others copy the
error. Over and over again.
Even if you carefully link the
right person to the correct census
information, the information may
still be wrong. People forget infor-
mation, especially dates, or have
other reasons for giving inaccurate
information.
My grandmother Stella was four
years older than her husband, and
she was always a bit embarrassedMy Family Tree—
And How I Found the Stories Behind the Names