52 Ancestors Week 1 - Start - My "Original Source" Document

My "Original Source" Document ca. 1984-5

Since we are to interpret each prompt in the way that best resonates with us, I decided to write my first post about the very first time I became aware of a thing called a “Family Tree.”  The fact that I still have this piece of paper, yellowed and creased from many years of storage and handling, with a numbering system and newer names being added in darker blue and black ink decades later, attests to the fact that it was, and still is, a treasured document.  Not just any document, but my very own “original source” document which I have referred to over the last 33 years and which has held a place of the highest esteem in my genealogy files! 

I was in the 8^th grade, 14 or 15 years old, and the year was either 1984 or 85.  One of our Social Studies assignments was to fill out a sheet entitled “Tracing Your Heritage.”   I dubiously looked at the homework assignment and put it into my book bag with slight trepidation.  My heritage, I knew was Polish, but making a family tree like that…wasn’t that something only people whose ancestors had been in America for at least a hundred years could do?

To complicate things further was the fact that I didn’t even live with my parents…I mean my birth parents, that is.  My Aunt Helena and Uncle Marian *were* my parents in every sense of the word, had been since my birth mother passed away in 1976 when I was 5 years old, taking me on a dying wish visit to reunite with her beloved sister from whom she had been separated for 17 years.  I loved them and my sister (cousin) Sabina fiercely, and, to be perfectly honest, often even forgot I had a father and four sisters on another continent…until times like this.

My anxiety grew all day.  I was a straight A student, and the thought of getting a 0 on a homework assignment caused me great distress.  Family stories were not a foreign concept in my life.  My “Granny” Maria Skalska had been a wonderful story teller, regaling me and my sister with tales of her youth in a day when Poland as a nation did not even exist and only reemerged as an entity out of the ashes of WWI.  But Granny had died a couple years ago in August 1982 and her stories with her.  And anyway, I didn’t ever recall her talking about her parents and certainly not about anyone further back than that. 

I had noticed that including me, this sheet of paper was asking for me to name 5 generations of people!  The thought of it was inconceivable, so the longer the day dragged on and the longer I fretted over this assignment, the more I became sure that I would inevitably fail this homework assignment.  Quite frankly, at the time, the thought of failing such a seemingly simple assignment upset me far more than the actual facts staring me in the face: that other than the names of my parents, four sisters, aunt, uncle, cousin, and granny, I had no clue about who my ancestors were or where they came from other than the broad idea of ‘Poland.’

By the time I got home that fateful day, I knew I had to ask my mom if she could possibly help me with this seemingly impossible task.  To my sincere amazement, she not only said she could, but was able to help me fill in practically all of the spaces on my mother’s side.  I’ll never forget the pride in her voice when she had me fill in Professor Tadeusz Skalski, her father, or that she even knew the exact date of her mother Emilia’s birth, which I carefully penned in under the place Podole, Poland as 12/18 1899, not realizing at that moment that she had in her possession the original document! These names were not new to me, but the concept of her mother’s father being called Count Marceli Paprocki and his father Count Walenty Paprocki certainly was!  However, thirty some years later, that bit of lore is still to be determined!

Then there were the new surnames I had never heard of on my grandfather’s side such as Wiktoria Konopka from Wieliczka (a noble name from that town…another bit of sleuthing needing to be done) and even one more maiden name back, a Miśkolnicz, possibly from the Czech area.  And on my mother’s side I learned that my maternal great-grandmother was named Konstancia (sic) Presnerska.  I was flabbergasted!

My father’s side of the family was going to be more difficult. He lived in Sydney, Australia and did not own a telephone to my knowledge, so getting his input was certainly not going to happen in time to turn in a homework assignment the next day.  Even so, mom was able to tell me that my father’s father was named Antoni and that he and my grandmother were married in the Zamość area.  To this day I have many gaps in this side of the family and know that much work is still to be done!

So, the next day I handed in my homework resigned to the expectation of getting a 5 (0-10 scale) at best because of all the blank spaces. Despite this depressing thought there awakened in me an awareness that there was so much more to life and the world beyond the four walls of Central Junior HS in Greenwich, CT and that not only was this world rooted in the present and one’s aspirations for the future, but that the past was a very real and tangible connection to my understanding of myself and my place in this world. When I discarded that year’s school papers, this piece remained with my report cards, attesting to the value I placed on it.

This is me in 8th Grade.  
The year it all began!

This teacher may not have known it, but he had just altered the trajectory of my life in a very real way.  It would not be until 10 years later that I truly began to work on genealogy in earnest, and another 10 after that before it would become my burning passion, but now I know that it is the most important legacy that I plan to leave behind for my children and the generations to come.  For this I will always be grateful to Mr. Cobb, that teacher who decided to stretch our minds into the past in a very personal and real way and rewarded a paper, even with many missing answers, with a perfect 10.

Oh, and BTW, I did get an A in that class!




Next weeks topic is Favorite Photo...