Happy New Year! This past weekend, I spent a delightful New Year’s Eve at a family party, talking with with my niece, Tina, who is newly engaged to her fiancé, Luke. Tina and Luke were interested in discovering Luke’s family history, so we began researching Luke’s ancestry together, starting with information from a preliminary family tree recorded in Luke’s baby book by his mom. The process was really satisfying for me, because it gave me a chance to demonstrate proper methodology, source citations, and critical analysis, so Tina can avoid making some of the sloppy rookie mistakes that I made when I started. Moreover, the research project offered an opportunity to demonstrate the necessity of resolving conflicting information as we sought to distinguish between two men with the same name and approximately the same birth year, living in the same metropolitan area, a problem frequently encountered in genealogy.

Meet William Krupski

Our starting point for the project was Luke’s great-grandfather, William L. Krupski. Luke knew that he died 25 June 1995 and lived in Elma, New York, and that was all he knew. A match for William L. Krupski from Elma, New York with this date of death in the Social Security Death Index, quickly provided William’s date of birth, 7 January 1919. Even better, an entry in Ancestry’s Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, provided his full name, William Leonard Krupski, confirmed his date and place of birth as 7 January 1919 and place of birth as Buffalo, New York, confirmed his date of death, and revealed that his parents were Adam Krupski and Maryann Houchol.

This information led to the 1930 census, in which we discovered the family of Adam and Mary Krupski, living in Elma, New York, with son William Krupski, born 1919, as well as daughters Eva, Genevieve, and Jennie. Oddly, William was marked as “relative,” rather than “son,” and at this point, we didn’t know whether this was merely an error on the part of the census taker, or whether William Krupski might have been an adopted son, rather than Adam and Mary’s biological child. However, at this early stage of the game, this was not something we needed to lose sleep over. As my old undergraduate research mentor used to tell me, “keep gathering data and truth will emerge.” The census revealed that William’s father, Adam, was born circa 1880 in Poland, immigrated in 1907, was a naturalized citizen, and that he was 22 years old at the time of his first marriage. This suggests a marriage year circa 1902, and since the data for his wife Mary suggest the same year of marriage, we have no reason to suspect that either of them was married previously. Their oldest daughter, Eva, was also born in Poland. Strangely, the census-taker chose to record her under her married name, Dubel, but in her father’s household, rather than with her husband and daughter, who appear on the next page. This may have resulted from a miscommunication, which supports the notion that William Krupski’s identification as “relative” rather than “son” may have been another miscommunication.

In the 1920 census, the family was still living in Elma, New York, and was recorded under the name Krupska, rather than Krupski, possibly suggesting that Mary was the informant, since this is the feminine form of the surname in Polish. Adam’s age once again suggests a birth year circa 1880, and his immigration year, 1908, is fairly consistent with the date he reported previously. So far, so good. William Krupski was recorded as “Bolsłew” which is clearly a misspelling of the Polish name Bolesław. It was unfortunately indexed as “Boktev” by both Family Search and Ancestry. This illustrates nicely why it’s a good idea to search for family groups, rather than trying to focus on just one individual, since a researcher focused solely on “William Krupski” is unlikely to pay much attention to a result for “Boktev Krupska.” It’s actually fairly common for Polish men named Bolesław to use the name William in American records. This is because the traditional diminutive for Bolesław is Bolek. From Bolek, they’d go to “Bill,” and then from “Bill,” they’d go to “William.” In this census, Bolesław/William was recorded as “son” rather than “relative.”

At this point, we had two records confirming that Adam Krupski of Elma, New York, was born circa 1880. We still didn’t know his date of death, but the Social Security Death Index reveals that one Adam Krupski, born 4 December 1880, from Erie County, New York, died in May 1970. Seems perfectly plausible, right? That zip code for his last residence, 14218, corresponds to Lackawanna, New York, rather than Elma, but that’s only about 15 miles away. He could have moved, right? Find-A-Grave informed us that Adam Krupski died 3 May 1970 and is buried in Cheektowaga, New York, which also seemed reasonable.

The Plot Thickens

So now we know that William Krupski’s father, Adam Krupski, was born 4 December 1880 in Poland, and died on 3 May 1970.

Or do we?

A little more digging in census records revealed that there was an Adam “Krupsk” in the 1930 census, living in Buffalo, New York, who was born circa 1880, with wife Josephine and children Joseph, Alice, and Henrietta. This Adam immigrated circa 1903, and his two daughters were born in Pennsylvania circa 1913 and 1917, respectively. This same guy showed up in the 1940 census as Adam Krupski, still living in Buffalo, with calculated birth year 1880, wife Josephine, son Aloysius, and daughter Henrietta. From this, we understood that there were two different Adam Krupskis, born circa 1880, living within 15 miles of each other. This told us that we needed to be very careful in evaluating documents so as not to confuse the two Adams.

So which Adam died 3 May 1970 and is buried in Cheektowaga? An easy way to answer this question was to check Find-A-Grave again and search for other Krupskis buried in the same cemetery as Adam. Sure enough, other burials include Henrietta, Aloysius, Joseph, and Josephine, along with a Jane and a Violet (née Smith) Krupski — probably the wife of Aloysius or Joseph. This family may still be related in some way to Luke’s Krupski family, but there’s no guarantee of that, especially since the Krupski surname is sufficiently common that several unrelated Krupski families might have immigrated to Buffalo from Poland independently.

Unfortunately, it’s easy for genealogy rookies to get confuddled when presented with data like this, and it can lead one to the wrong conclusions entirely. We discovered at least one family tree online in which a researcher conflated Adam Krupski 1 (married to Mary) with Adam Krupski 2 (married to Josephine). Ancestry’s database, Pennsylvania, Federal Naturalization Records, 1795-1931, includes a Declaration of Intention dated 26 October 1908 for one Adam Krupski, born 4 December 1881, who arrived in the U.S. on 25 June 1903. His date of birth, exactly one year off from the date of birth for Adam Krupski 2, combined with his arrival date in 1903, and the fact that he naturalized in Pennsylvania, are all consistent with this man being the same as Adam Krupski 2 who was married to Josephine and had two daughters born in Pennsylvania in 1913-1917. Unfortunately, the other Krupski researcher whose family tree we examined, concluded that this was the Declaration of Intention for Adam Krupski 1. Since this document stated that Adam Krupski was from Grodno, Russia, the researcher will be chasing the wrong family if she seeks Adam Krupski 1 in records from Grodno.

So where was the birthplace of Adam Krupski 1, the father of William Krupski, husband of Mary Houchol? That’s easy. He was born in Pobroszyn, Opatów County, in the Radom province of Russian Poland, nowhere near Grodno. How do I know this?

Rather than engaging in an exhaustive analysis of each document discovered let me hit the highlights. The 1940 census suggested a birth year circa 1873 — significantly earlier than the date of 1880 discovered previously. This could have been an error, or it could indicate that Adam really wasn’t sure of his exact date of birth, which was fairly common in those days since knowing this information wasn’t as important as it is today. Unfortunately, none of these census records (1920, 1930 or 1940) indicated the partition of Poland that Adam was from, which was important to discover, since Poland did not exist as an independent nation at the time of Adam’s birth, marriage, or emigration (see here for a crash course in Polish history). It’s very helpful to determine the partition that an immigrant was from because there are so many Polish place names that are not unique. Fortunately, further digging produced Jane Krupski’s birth record, which revealed that her father Adam Krupski and mother Marie Hochol were born in Russia circa 1877 and 1879, respectively. We can be sure that this is the right Jane/Jennie Krupski, because the mother’s maiden name matches the name reported by William Krupski on his Social Security application, and the 1930 census reported that  Adam and Mary’s daughter Jane was born in Indiana.

Putting it all together, I now knew that Adam and Marianna/Mary were from Russian Poland, where they married circa 1902. Adam immigrated circa 1907-1908, while Marianna stayed behind in Poland. Their oldest daugher, Ewa/Eve, was born circa 1907, and Marianna and Ewa came to the U.S. to join Adam circa 1913. Adam’s passenger manifest was the key to unlock the place of origin for the family. According to this document, Adam Krupski (line 27) was a 32-year-old ethnic Pole living in Russia, who arrived in New York on 9 July 1907. He was married, and his age suggests a birth year of 1875. His last permanent residence was Ujazd, Russia, he was headed to New York, and his contact in the Old Country was his wife, Marianna Krupska, living in Ujazd.

There were two places in Russian Poland called Ujazd, according to the Skorowidz Królestwa Polskiego published in 1877. One was in the Kalisz province (presently in the Łódź province) and belonged to the parish in Tur. The other was in the Radom province (presently in the Świętokrzyskie province) and belonged to the parish in Iwaniska. Both these parishes are indexed in Geneteka for the time period needed to locate the family, and Iwaniska turned out to be the correct parish. Lo, and behold, Ewa Krópska’s birth record was discovered in 1907 and the facts fit perfectly. She was born in Ujazd to Adam Krópski and Marianna Chochoł. Although both of the surnames are spelled a bit differently than they appeared in U.S. records, the U.S. spellings make sense as phonetic transliterations of the Polish versions.

Although there’s no link to it in the Geneteka index, Ewa’s birth record can be found online in the Metryki database.  Adam and Marianna’s marriage record was also discovered in Geneteka in the parish of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, about 20 miles north of Ujazd. The record, which appears below, can be found online in the GenBaza database. (To access this database, you need to create a free account, and once your account is active and you are logged in, the link to the marriage record will work.)

Here’s the translation from Russian, as I read it:

“#31. Ostrowiec. Adam Krupski and Marianna Chochoł. This happened in the town of Ostrowiec on the 30th day of May/11th day of June 1899 at 7:00 in the morning. They appeared, Roman Domański, blacksmith, age 40, and Artur Gregor, ???, age 22, residents of Ostrowiec. On this day was contracted a religious marriage between Adam Krópski, bachelor, age 27, son of parents Kazimierz and the late Joanna née Kocznur, born in the village of Pobroszyn, parish Opatów, and now in Ostrowiec residing in the local parish, and Marianna Chochoł, peasant, age 26, daughter of Roch and the late Julianna née Mucha, born in the village of Pęchów, parish Goźlice, Sandomierz district, and now in Ostrowiec residing in this parish. The marriage was preceded by three announcements in Ostrowiec parish church, to wit: on the 14th, 21st and 28th days of May of the current year. The newlyweds stated that they had no prenuptial agreement between them. The religious ceremony of marriage was performed by Fr. Feliks Latalski. This Act was read aloud to the illiterate witnesses and was signed only by Us. [signed] Administrator of the Parish of Ostrowiec, Fr. F. Latalski”

So there you have it. I think we made pretty good use of our New Year’s Eve, successfully tracing the family of Luke’s great-grandfather, William Krupski, through U.S. records, determining his parents’ place of origin in Poland, and discovering and translating William’s parents’ marriage record and his sister Ewa’s birth record, all before the ball dropped in Times Square at midnight. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg for the research that can be done for the Krupski family in both the U.S. and Poland, but Warsaw wasn’t built in a day. The moral of the story is, if you carefully follow the paper trail — not ignoring conflicting evidence, but seeking the truth — you won’t go astray. Here’s to a New Year filled with great genealogical discoveries, for all of us!

© Julie Roberts Szczepankiewicz 2018