Madrzjewski in Poland

I hired a researcher in Poland to track down the birth records of Jacob & Jozefa Madrzejewski, and hopefully John as well. 

I learned that Jakób Mądrzejewski was born on July 22, 1854 in Louisenfelde to legal spouses the tailor Szymon Modrzejewski and Marianna nee Dobrzelecka. Louisenfelde belonged to the Roman Catholic parish in Chlewiska in Inowrocław County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland.

Roman Catholic vital records were kept in Latin and placed on a 2 page spread (see images below.) Jakob (also spelled Jakub) was listed as the son of Szymon Modrzejewski, a Catholic, a tailor, and Marianna primo voto* Dobrzelecka nee Mierzwicka. “Primo voto” meaning that Dobrzelecka was her first married name, as she was a widow.

Translation: 
No 30. 
On July 23rd, 1854, the above-mentioned priest [Stanisław Rosinski] has baptized a male child named Jakub, born on July 22nd at 9 p.m. in Louisenfelde, the legitimate son of Szymon Modrzejewski, a Catholic, a tailor, and Marianna primo voto* Dobrzelecka nee Mierzwicka, a Catholic. 

Godparents were Antoni Motylewski and Katarzyna Rutkowska, a maiden. 

Much more to come as I dig into this new info!

FamilySearch Family Tree

I've been using Ancestry.com for many years, and you can find all of my research and info in there. But I have also begun to use FamilySearch.org so that people without an Ancestry subscription can access my decades of research and info. 

They also have fun tools like this "Fan Chart" to show you multiple generations at a glance. Check it out over on FamilySearch.org. You can get a free account there, as well!

Condon Christmas 1936

 

In 2005 I took all of the 16MM and 8 MM film reels of my grandparents John & Verna (Modjeski) Condon, and had them cleaned and converted to digital and then I burned them onto a DVD. But who has a DVD player anymore? :-D 

I have begun to export the individual files to a YouTube playlist, and am sharing here the Condon Christmas 1936 video. 

In this video we see my Aunt Terry (Mary Therese), and the baby is my mom, Patsy. We also see my grandparents John (Boppie) Condon playing with them both.

(Note: I still have the white wicker doll clothes organizer they received as a Christmas present in this video, having played with that as child myself.)

John Smith (1800-1869) and Isabella Fenton (1816-1891)

 

I visited the graves of John & Isabella Smith in Ontario a few years back. They are my 4th greatgrandparents.  Their son George Smith (1846-1905) had a daughter Julia Isabelle Smith (1867-1936) who has a son Jay Barker (1894-1958) who had a son James Benjamin Barker (1914-1964) who had my father James Walter Barker (1936-1995.)

They are buried in the Selby Burying Ground in East Gwillimbury, Ontario about an hour north of Toronto. The Selby Burying Ground is on the west side of Leslie Street in East Gwillimbury, and is separate from the adjacent Weddel Family Plot. 

I overlayed the text of the stones onto these images because they are quite hard to read. In addition to being old and weathered, these stones have been moved from their original location and they are now lying down in a circle alongside the other headstones in Selby. This has unfortunately resulted in more erosion on the face of all of the stones, and some are almost unreadable. I wanted to make sure to preserve as much as I could of my gggggrandparents' stones. 

The land this sits on was given to John Weddel in 1809, who had immigrated to Canada via Pennsylvania in the early 1800s. This section of the burying ground is named after Thomas Selby, and Irish settler and veteran of the War of 1812 and both Thomas and his wife Sarah are buried here. 

It was in 1975 that the headstones of the Selby Burying Ground were gathered into this circular configuration in the center of the property, into these earth mound cairns, and a plaque was placed at the front of the property dedicating the cemetery to the pioneers of the area. This is said to be the oldest cemetery in the York Region of Ontario.  

I don't know why this was done, as it was not done in other cemeteries in the area.  The local historian was not certain either. So the remains of none of these people are necessarily under their specific tombstones. But they were all buried in that area, and their remains have likely long since returned to the earth.

James Benjamin Barker (1914-1964)

My father was James W. Barker (1936-1995) and his father was James Benjamin Barker (1914-1964). You can see part of his ancestry chart below.

Here is a photo of James Benjamin Barker in the Army, and a photo of him with my grandmother Olga Kristel (1916-1998) in 1935.

 

James Benjamin Barker was born on June 3, 1914, in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Jay C. Barker (1894-1958) was 19, and his mother, Gertrude Mordecai (1893-1962) was 20 when he was born. He was named James after his father, and his middle name Benjamin came from his grandfather Benjamin H. Mordecai (1865-1938.) (You can read much more about the Mordecai /Whitecloud family in my blog here, as well!)

James Benjamin married Olga Kristel and had one son with her, James W. Barker (1936-1995.) In fact, his son James Walter was also born on June 3rd. Olga was my grandmother, who went by the nickname "Mickey." They divorced when my father was young.

My father said that when his Dad came home from the war, he was heralded as a hero for something he did in the war. I have tried to uncover what this is, but have been unsuccessful. My Dad said it was written in the papers. I do have this photo of James Benjamin in what appears to be a parade.

James Benjamin Barker also married Marian Elizabeth Hubbs (1924-1998) on January 27, 1943 in Clark County, Washington. I stumbled upon this during my research a few years ago.

They had no children and were divorced July 17, 1946. They were living in Oregon at the time. Marian remarries Eldon Morse in 1947.

James Benjamin returns to the Chicago area, perhaps right after his divorce from Marian. I also know that James Benjamin had a son named William around the year 1947. My father told me he had a half-brother named William, but I never found out what his mother's name was, nor what happened to him. My father told me that William's middle name was the name of James Benjamin's best friend in the Army. (For some reason I believe it was Lambert or Campbell, but I may be quite wrong on that. )

My father did not speak much about his father or his Barker family. He did tell me about his grandfather Jay when I started doing genealogy in the 1990s, and he said how much he adored him. And he told me we had Barker relatives living in the area and in nearby Tinley Park, Illinois. But I never met any of them.

My mother told me that when they were dating and first married, my Dad would often go looking for his father, who became an alcoholic, and he might find him drunk on the street or in an alley, and would take him to get him something to eat. My father had his own issues with alcoholism, but finally became sober when I was young.

James Benjamin Barker died on October 24, 1964, at the age of 50. This was right before the birth of my brother, James, who was James Benjamin's grandson and my father's first child. My Dad was informed of his father's death by telegram.

(I do not know if William was informed of his father's death, nor do I know where he went or what happened to him. I would like to find him, if I could.)

My mother told me when my Dad went to the place where his father was living when he died to retrieve his belongings, and the other people living there were with him said they did not know James Benjamin and that there was nothing there of his.  That story has always broken my heart a bit. 

James Benjamin Barker was buried in Beverly Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois. Shortly after my father died in 1995, I applied for a grave marker from the Army and had it installed in the cemetery so that my grandfather's grave had a stone. Even if I never knew him, and even if he had a sad and tragic end in alcoholism, I think it's worth remembering the people who came before us. 

Jay C. Barker (1894-1958)

Jay C. Barker was born on August 16, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Julia Isabell Smith (1867-1936) and James Barker (1857-1918). He married Gertrude N. Mordecai on September 9, 1913, in Lake County, Indiana. They had one child during their marriage - James Benjamin Barker (1914-1964.)

Here is a portion of Jay C. Barker's ancestry tree. His family on the Smith side goes back to the Dunhams, and the early days of our country.  (You can read much more about the Dunhams elsewhere in this blog.)

He died on January 9, 1958, in his hometown at the age of 63, and was buried in Lemont, Illinois. It took me decades to actually find Jay and track down his grave and death certificate.

He is buried in Mount Vernon Cemetery in Lemont, Illinois, next to the first wife of his nephew, William R. Maschner.

The graves belong to his sister Amy Gertrude Barker (1896-1989), who had moved to Arizona by the time he died. Amy married William Maschner, thus the ownership of the grave, as I noted on my post in 2013. There is no headstone on his grave, but I am planning to put one there some day when I can save up the money.

Jay is my greatgrandfather, and my Dad was quite fond of his grandfather. When I began doing genealogy and asked my Dad about his family, he told me that -- had I been born a boy, he wanted to name me Jay, after his grandfather.

Here is Jay & Gertrude's 1913 marriage application:

Jay's father was James Barker (1857-1918) who was born in Manea, Cambridgeshire, England, and emigrated first to Ontario, Canada, and eventually to Chicago, His mother was Julia Isabell Smith (1867-1936) who was from East Gwillimbury, Ontario, Canada. You can reach much more about the Canadian side of the family, and my trip to East Gwillimbury to see their homes elsewhere in this blog.

Where did the Whitecloud family live?

While we certainly don't have a complete picture of where Benjamin, Mary and their family lived and when, we do have some clues from his written biography, historical documents, and the letters he received while preaching. From tax lists, census documents and city directories, I will here trace the family from 1859 right up to the Chicago city directory in 1890.

This first map shows a possible progression of Benjamin from his birthplace in Alabama (where his father Abraham lived) to the Cherokee Nation in Arkansas Territory, to upper New York just south of Lake Ontario, to Dowagiac, Michigan where he obtained a medical license and he and his wife had their first 2 children, to Chicago where their son Benjamin was born, to Deerfield, IL where he died.

---

Benjamin obtained this LICENSE TO PREACH on Feb, 9, 1859 in the Cherokee Nation Arkansas Territory. He received his Ordination Papers on June 23, 1859 in Arkansas Territory, too.

---

On June 8, 1860, he was in the state of New York, where he received a letter of reference from a man named Ezra McInty(sp?). On August 13, 1860 he received another one of these letters from Pastor S. D. Phelps of the First Baptist Church of New Haven, New York.

---

Subsequent letters are from Clyde, NY on October 10, 1861; Lyons, NY on November 11, 1861; and Port Gibson, NY on January 14, 1862. This map shows the area north of the Finger Lakes and south of Lake Ontario in upstate New York where all of these letters are from.

---

Benjamin was in Port Gibson, NY in January of 1862, and on the tax rolls in Kalamazoo, Michigan in December1863. His son Abraham and daughter Hattie have both been listed in later census files as having been born in Michigan. Cass County, Michigan has a rich history. Here is a newspaper from Cass County in 1863.  http://discovercasscounty.com/historic-public-structures/


Benjamin is listed as living in Kalamazoo, Michigan in this December 1863 Tax Roll from Michigan.

---

Benjamin is in the 1865 Tax list in Dowagiac, Michigan where he is listed as a physician. We know his children Abraham and Hattie were already born by then, both being born in Michigan.  His son Benjamin was born in Chicago in 1865, this same year.  So we can assume he moved to Chicago in 1865. (He is listed toward the bottom)

---

Benjamin is listed in the Chicago Business City Directory in 1866 as a physician with an office at 131 E. Adams.

---

Benjamin is listed in the Chicago City Directory in 1867 living at 259 21st Street.

---

Benjamin is listed in the Chicago City Directory in 1869, a year before his death.

Name: Benjamin M Whitecloud
Residence Year: 1869
Street address: 99 Butterfield
Residence Place: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Occupation: Physician
Publication Title: Chicago, Illinois, City Directory, 1869

Benjamin died in April 1870 in Deerfield, IL.  He is listed here in the 1870 census.


The rest of the family is listed as living in Deerfield, IL in the same census. For some reason, Mary is listed as Louisa Mordecai. It is here we first see Mary's birthplace listed as New York. Abraham, Hattie and Benjamin Jr. are all listed as well, all under the name Mordecai.

For more census entries, click here.