I am struggling with this week's theme of Curious. I'm not sure how to interpret it. I am curious about all sorts of things, especially history. Not just my own personal family history but history in general. How did things get to be the way they are today? is always a question on my mind. I think I do genealogy research because I am curious.
So I have been staring at my family tree pondering which one of my direct ancestors I am most curious about. They all make me curious. I'd have to say I'm probably most curious about my mother's maternal side. My grandmother, Marilyn Irene Fay-Gardner (29 August 1931 - 5 June 1972), passed away before I was born. In June it will be 50 years since she died, which, on a positive note, means I can order her New York State Death Certificate. I already have the form filled out. (These are things genealogist say.) She was so young; only a few months shy of 41. I'm definitely older than her now.
Her youthful passing creates a void in many ways. It leaves me with little connection to her family history. I don't have any of her family stories really, not from her mouth at least. I have researched her side of my tree extensively though. Connected with a few researching cousins. Yet still, there is an absence felt there; an absence filled with curiosity I suppose.
Grandma Gardner's ancestry presents my most exotic ethnicity. I am American but ethnically speaking, well, I'm White American. Kind of a mutt. My ancestors were mostly waspy white Early Americans, Irish Catholics, and Canadians (French, Scottish, and English). Pale people. Kind of bland really. I mean no disrespect to those ethnicities or lines of my family tree but I learned something about all those regions in grade school.
Grandma Gardner was 1/2 Irish (on her paternal side, the Fays and the Joyces), 1/4 German (the Krantzels), and 1/4 Czech. Yeah - Czech. Exciting right?
I was always told by my mother that the Prince Family was Polish but all documentation shows my great-great grandfather, John Prince Jr., was born Jan Prinz on May 2, 1853 in Jungwozic, Bohemia which was part of Austria, then it was Czechoslovakia for a while, and now it is known as Mladé Vožici in the Czech Republic.
I didn't know anything about that region of the world except it's landlocked. I have so many sea captains and sailor is my family history but I suffer terrible motion sickness. So part of me thinks my landlubbering is derived from my Czech ancestors. Although, they made it here by ship so maybe not.
I also know that WWI and WWII impacted the area tremendously, shifted all their borders around. That made for a good puzzle in my search for Czech records for my Prince ancestors.
I recall the first time I saw the name of the town of John's birth. It was on his New York City Marriage Certificate from 1881, a relatively early vital record for NYC's vital records. At the time I had a colleague who loved to visit the Czech Republic and I asked him if he could figure out with me where the town was on a map. And sure enough, through all the boarder changes and city name changes, he found it.
It was not much longer after that when I found a cousin on Ancestry researching John's parents, Jan Prinz (14 May 1826 - 22 May1888) & Franciska Preis-Prinz (17 November 1830 - 29 November 1902). Cousin Carol is my 3rd cousin once removed, meaning we share that couple, my 3rd great-grandparents, in common.
In 2013, Cousin Carol made the trip to our common ancestors' home town in the Czech Republic. Although Cousin Carol shared a great deal about her trip, including photos and genealogical finds, I think I am most curious to see the place for myself and walk the road my ancestors traveled.
So yeah, I guess I am just curious about it all.
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