So how do you spell Miller?

Your Mission Should you Choose to Accept It

I spent Friday in Boston at the Massachusetts Archives facility next to UMASS Boston and The Kennedy Library on Morrissey Blvd. The sole intention of this visit was to locate Alexander Miller's naturalization documents. These documents, a Declaration of Intention and a Petition for Naturalization contain lots of useful information for genealogists. Of the many facts that are recorded is the name in which the applicant entered the country with.

I had already contacted the Judicial Archivist to ensure that there was a record for Alexander. I received a positive response which also included the data that I needed to locate the record once at the archive in Boston. The staff was very helpful, took the time to show me the facility and how to look for the records that I was interested in. In less than 1 hour, I had what I was looking for....

But First, A Little History

Remember my visit with Great Aunt Stella? She told me a few things about Alexander Miller and the circumstances around which the name changed. During this visit she told me:

1. It was Alexander's father that changed the name.
2. His father was already in the states, arriving ahead of his son Alexander.
3. His father worked in the coal mines, probably in PA, before coming to Webster to work the mills.
4. There was a reference to the salt mines in Poland, the relationship at the time I did not understand.
5. Peter revealed to Stella the name Kozik prior to her accepting a marriage proposal.
   

What I had already discovered relative to Alexander:

1. In all census records available, he indicated the year of immigration as 1900.
2. From his marriage, death, and various census records I know his age at those times and the approximate year in which he was born.
3. But most importantly I know his approximate age in 1900 when he would have stepped off the boat, 24.

Shortly after my visit with Stella I performed a search for Kozik in the Ellis Island immigration records. If you recall I found an entry for an Alexander Kozik, sponsored by his father Wojiech, headed to Webster, Ma where his father lived. The year was 1900, his age 24. I was not 100% satisfied that this was Alexander and proof of our real name, but I was a bit excited to find this, and it certainly seemed more than just a coincidence.

Fast Forward to Friday

The papers did not contain that critical piece of information I wanted to see. I guess they didn't startasking for it until 10 years later, like it shows on Peter Kizior's papers. oh well.

Here's some of what was listed:

Born: Bachnia, Poland/Austria
DOB: 26 February 1876
Emigrated from: Rotterdam, Holland
Departure Date: 24 December 1899
Ship Name: The Narsam
Arrival Port: New York, New York
Arrival Date: 4 January 1900

Armed with this new information I performed a different search, this time looking at only those ships that arrived at Ellis Island from Rotterdam, Holland beginning January 1, 1900. I was looking for any passenger that had a first name of Alexander, was of Polish/Austrian descent and was 24 years old. While looking down the January 4 list I came across Alexander Kozik, from Bochnia Austria/Poland, age 24, going to Webster, Ma to be with his father who also lived in Webster. This records turns out to be the same one that I found when doing a name search.

What's interesting to note though is:
Port of departure: Rotterdam, (exact match)
Date of Departure: December 21, 1899 (close match)
Arrival Port: New York, New York (exact match)
Date of arrival: January 4, 1900 (exact match)
Residence in Poland: Bachnia (exact match)
Year Born: 1876 (exact match)
Age: 24 (exact match)

Oh, one more thing. Remember the salt mine reference from my visit with Stella? Well Bachnia is known for its salt mine. In fact it is one of the oldest salt mines in the world and is still operated today.

So when someone asks me "How do you spell Miller"?

I spell it KOZIK. How about you?

Oh those census takers!

It's been a while since my last post. The reason is my laptop is back at the "dealer" getting fixed. I'm using a spare laptop that doesn't have all my "stuff" on it, so I've just been poking around here and there. Last night I decided I wanted to find Stanislaw Szacik in the 1910 US Census to complete my research in finding him in all available census databases. 1910 was the only one that I've struck out on time and time again. The stars where aligned last night, because I found him. So here's the timeline that I've created for Stanley Szacik, the husband of Agata Kizior my Great Grandparents.

Stanislaw Adam Szacik Timeline

• 1884 - Born in Roza, Galicia (From Military Documents that Gram had)
• 1909 September - Left from Hamburg Germany. (Ship Manifest Immigration Record)
• 1909 August - Arrived at Ellis Island, New York. (Ship Manifest Immigration Record)
• 1919 - Residing at 38 Oxford Avenue, Dudley. Married to Agata (From WWI Draft Registration Record)
• 1920 - Residing at 38 Oxford Avenue, Dudley. (From 1920 US Census)
• 1930 - Residing at 36 Granite Street,Webster. (From 1930 US Census)
• 1942 - Residing at 2 Granite Street, Webster. (From WWII Draft Registration Record)
• 1946 - Died in Webster.

By now I have figured out that name spellings, both Surname and First names, are often misspelled. When performing searches, you have to get creative in your approach, often times spelling things the way they would have sounded to the person recording them. Many times too, the immigrant could not write so they relied on the record taker to properly record their name. With the Polish language, all bets are off. I've been reading this book, more of a genealogical bible for polish genealogists "Going Home - A Guide to Polish American Family History Research" which provides insight into the difficulty in translating the Polish language into English. The rules - what you hear - do not apply.

So back to the 1910 Census. I've tried all of the usual searches and variations of them with no luck. I decided to try and narrow the search to just the city of Passaic the county of Passiac New Jersey. I know Passaic because that's where Gram was born, and that's also where Agnes and Stanley were married. I tried Surname searches of Sacheek, Sachik, Sacik, etc.. Nothing turns up. By that I mean after you browse through the returned results (many times over 1,000 hits), there wasn't a match. About to give up, I try leaving the Surname off and searching on the first name of Stanley which is a very common name. This is a trick that I learned at that conference a few weeks ago. If you're having trouble with a search, try searching on a known person of interest that has a more common first name. Especially in the census databases, this trick has worked well for me.

So I search for just Stan* in Passiac County, Passaic New Jersey. A list of 183 possible matches is presented. I get to about 125 into the list and I come across an unusual entry, with a notation for an alternate spelling. The name was listed as Stanley Sbatchik with a possible alternate spelling of Stanley Shatchik. I open the record and look down the scanned image of the handwritten census data and find Stanley Shatchik. Could this be him?

The year of immigration 1909 matches, his age 26 matches, and he is married as well but the real indicator is the person that appears one line below his, his wife Agatta age 18.

Think about it. The census taker is writing down what he/she heard, most likely in a very thick Polish accident. What was heard was "Saacheek" and they did their best to get it right. The census taker more or less scribbled Shatchik onto the page. To make matters even more difficult, when these handwritten records were finally digitized and indexed the person doing that job could not tell if the second letter was a "B" or an "H" and incorrectly recorded the census takers incorrectly spelled name as Sbatchik, making it nearly impossible to find.

1910 US Census

(look down towards the middle to see if you can find Sbatchik)