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Archiver > POLAND-ROOTS > 2004-02 > 1076160302


From:
Subject: [POLAND] Re: POLAND-ROOTS-D Digest V04 #77
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 08:25:02 EST


In a message dated 2/6/04 9:40:25 PM Pacific Standard Time,
writes:

<< Pat: Do you have the church marriage records (copies of actual page
entries in church books) for two children born in Poland? Death records
and any funeral home records for those who died earliest. Town histories
for the areas where they settled? Land records especially if US Land
grants were involved? Church histories which extol families who built
the church? Small town obituaries? Talked to the research librarian in
the hometown Minnesota to see what options are available to you in small
town records (i.e. school records, etc.) Good hunting. BTW, is the John
Soika listed in the Minnesota Naturalization Index yours? Did you
acquire all possible information on the Bucholz'?
>>
Dragon,
All good questions, but most answers are no. It is in fact the church
records that I hope to find but I understand that I can't find them until I can
locate the place in Poland where John and Mary lived. I do have death
certificates, but they died so long ago that all that shows on the certificates is a
date, and vague cause of death. Not even a name of a source for the
information is listed. A distant relative who lives in St. Paul searched out the graves
for me, and took photos of the tombstones, but the cemetery office was closed
when she was there. I'll have to try to visit the cemetery on my next
visit to St. Paul and see if the cemetery has records that may be helpful.

The couple settled in Mounsview Township, whose records were long ago
destroyed according to both the History Center, and the (now) city of Mounds View.
The guy from the city sent me a booklet that was made up at the celebration of
the centennial of the old Moundsview township to offer at least some
background on the area. While I found it enjoyable, my ancestors names weren't among
those found in the stories. Their were no Soika's listed in any city
directories that I've found, and the church the couple later attended after moving to
St. Paul (where my parents were married, and I attended school and church) is
also no longer a church. I have yet to determine whether their records were
saved somewhere. As for the Bucholz name, there are so many various
spellings, and I've had so many false alarms, that I've all but given up on finding
more on that branch until I find more on the Soika branch.

I too found the record on the MNHS website for naturalization records for
John Soika, and I suspect it may be my ancestor, but I live in a small town and
don't have an LDS center, so will wait til I next get to St. Paul to check it
out further. It's my most exciting lead so far. The worst part is, this is
one of my major branches of my family, and I'm running into the same problems
for the other major branch.....both families lived in Moundsview Township.
Fortunately, my Fabianski family stayed in Moundsview, so I've found several of
their graves, and have more leads to follow up. I also found a
naturalization record for the head of the Fabianski family, but all it gave me was the date
of immigration, and that he came from Germany <sigh> There may still be
other records yet to dig thru, but it's difficult with the distance involved.
Thanks Dragon for your time and effort.
Pat Soika

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