The lost history of Rosie Sitzman

Several years ago, DNA testing and a mailing list helped me bust through one of my most solid and unyielding brick walls - identifying the ancestry of my great-grandmother, Rose (Sitzman) (Wagner) Morris. It was an amazing breakthrough, and being able to finally identify her mother's place of birth and hundreds of years of her ancestors was and is one of best moments (or series of moments I guess) in my genealogical career. Best of all, I was able to share that info with my grandma Blossom, Rosie's daughter, just a few months before she unexpectedly passed away. Even with those discoveries, something always bugged me - who was Rosie's father? And could I find a birth record for her that might give me some clues?

According to my grandma Blossom, when Mary Sitzman came over from Europe, she told her girls they were making a clean break from Europe - no speaking German, no talking about where they were from, nothing. Rosie would have been a toddler or maybe a kindergartner at the time she entered the US, so I'm not sure what she could have revealed anyways. But she never said anything to my grandma about her origins, so grandma had no info to pass on. Since it seems Mary wanted a clean break from Europe, it makes sense that she might have changed some info for her daughters' births, either with or without their knowledge. And it seems she might have actually done so.

Rosie's Social Security Application

Rosie's Social Security application, filled out by Rosie herself, gave her date of birth as 20 August 1903 in Germany, and named her parents as Mary Sitzman and Chris Schmidt. Her sister Mary's card (dated the same day as Rosie's, it turns out) names the same parents. Obviously Rosie and Mary wouldn't have come up with this information themselves, so they probably got it from their mother. Their mother Mary's death certificate (with info provided by her granddaughter Ellen Richter) says she was born in Germany, which she may have told her family, or they may have inferred it from the fact she spoke German. Once I learned Mary (the mother) was not from Germany, but from a little town in what was then the Austrian Empire, and now sits in the Czech Republic, I thought maybe Rosie and her sister Mary had also been born there too. The birth records for that area were not publicly available for the years I needed, so I searched for an alternate way of searching them. The chance came up when a coworker of mine mentioned an onsite researcher he used for researching German ancestry in the western Czech Republic. I hired that researcher to look for the birth records of Rosie and her sister, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It turns out, onsite research in this area is SLOW. The government moves very slowly, the mail moves very slowly, and the process of obtaining records is measured in months, not weeks or business days. But eventually, I received a transcription and then an electronic copy of both birth records. And the information was worth the wait.

Rosie's birth reocrd

Rosie's birth name was Rosina Zitzmann, probably named after Mary Sitzman's sister Rosina (who was actually Rosie's godmother). She was born on 27 July 1902, more than a year earlier than Rosie's stated birthdate. She was born in Zirk, a tiny little village in Bohemia near the Austrian Empire's western border with Germany. Her birth record names her mother, Maria Zitzmann (her mother's original name), and her mother's parents, Johann Zitzmann and Theresia Dorfler, but unfortunately says nothing about the identity of her birth father.

Mary Sitzman's birth record

Mary's birth record was likewise illuminating. She was born on June 23 1899, over a year earlier than the 17 July 1900 date she put on her Social Security application. Like Rosie's birth record, Mary's birth record names her mother and maternal grandparents, but says nothing about who her father was. However, there was one tantalizing clue - her godmother. Mary's godmother was Maria Schmidt, daughter of Mattheus Schimdt from Brandhauser in Bavaria, Germany. Brandhauser was only 12-15 miles away from Zirk, just over the border into Germany. As Mary's reported father was Chris Schmidt, I am very interested to see if Mattheus had a son named Chris or something similar. There are no records for Brandhauser available online, so I'll probably have to rehire that onsite researcher to see what he could dig up on the Schmidts of Brandhauser. Identifying Mary's birth father won't directly help me identify Rosie's father, as DNA testing has revealed they had different fathers, but it would be great to solve at least one half of this outstanding family history mystery.

So it feels like I am getting closer and closer to unraveling my great-grandmother's story, perhaps even parts she may not have known completely. Thanks to my dad and his siblings all testing at Ancestry, I've some preliminary leads on genetic connections that may link to Rosie's father, which is fantastic because it looks like that's how this mystery is going to have to be solved. If the identity of her sister's father is any indication, I may have to cast the net a little wider than I originally imagined. But if I can identify Mary's father, it may give me some idea of who and where to look for Rosie's when I get to that point. It's been a bit of a challenge to get this far, but I am super happy with the progress I've made so far, and I am totally up for the challenge of figuring this guy out.

Mothers in my family tree - Grandma Rosie

 With last Sunday being Mother's Day here in the US, I wanted to post a little tribute to the mothers in my family tree. I come from many remarkable and amazing women. I wish I had the time to pay adequate tribute to them all, but for now, I'll start with one - my great-grandmother, Rosie (Sitzman) (Wagner) Morris. She was an immigrant from what is now the Czech Republic, where her mother's family had lived for centuries. I still don't know for sure who her father was, as birth records aren't publicly available yet for the year she was born. She grew up in Montana, where she attended Catholic school as a little girl. She married my great-grandfather, Charles Wagner, and moved to Washington state, where they raised their family. After Charles' death, she later remarried to Clarence "Unc" Morris, and moved back to Montana, where she passed away in 1983.

The following two pictures best sum up my impression of her, based on the research I've done, the pictures I've reviewed, and the stories I've heard from family (she passed away when I was a little kid, so I only have one clear memory of her). The first picture is of Rosie and her family visiting the grave of her son, Charles. He died when he was 10 of tuberculosis. Having buried a child myself, I can imagine somewhat the pain and sadness she felt. Her expression, and that of her husband, to me epitomize the grief you feel when you bury a child. There just aren't words for it.

But I equally love this picture (which I think I've shared before on this blog). It was taken many years later, and shows that while she did experience great sorrow and grief at times, she also didn't let those emotions rule her life. She continued to look for joy and happiness. The sheer number of pictures she took (numbering in the thousands!) of her children, and especially her grandchildren, shows me that she found that joy in her family. 

Her daughter, my grandma Blossom, was the same way - family was everything. That love of family carried down to my dad, who has a closeness with his siblings and cousins that I envy. My dad and mom both did their best to instill that love of family in me and my siblings, and I hope I'm doing my best to pass it to my kids as well. Like Gordon B. Hinckley once said, don't let yourself be the weak link in the chain of the generations. Grandma Rosie was, and in many ways still is, a powerful influence in my family. I hope that I can continue to weld links in our family chain with the same strength and love she did.

Update: I tried colorizing the pictures, and the effect is amazing. The picture of Charles's grave is really different when you realize it was a beautiful sunny day. The black and white version captures the feeling better, but the colorized kind of helps me put that emotion in a larger context. The colorized version of the sledding picture almost looks like a still shot from a home movie. I love technology!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - My ancestral hometowns





After blogging about my Gibson ancestors' hometown, I thought it'd be fun to browse Google Earth and mark the locations of other ancestral hometowns I've discovered in my research. Here they are!

 

 

Gross-Bieberau, Germany - My 3rd-great-grandfather Jacob Beilstein was born here in 1851.

 

Evanger, Norway - My 3rd-great-grandfather Johannes Sjursen Bergstad was born here in 1832.

 

Paris, France - My 9th-great-grandmother, Claude Demise, was born here in 1650. Other ancestors were born here as well.

Kepa Kikolska, Poland - My 3rd-great-grandfather Ludwig Heinrich Joseph was born here in 1836.

Reischewo, Poland - My 3rd-great-grandmother Justine Witt (Ludwig's wife) was born here in 1842.

 

Rosshaupt, Bohemia (now Rozvadov, Czech Republic) - My 2nd-great-grandmother Maria Zitzmann was born here in 1876

  

Uljanowka, Ukraine - My great-grandmother Augusta Joseph was born here in 1892. Her grandparents, Ludwig and Justine Joseph, moved here around 1865 from their native Poland.