[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] a new dilemma

[Fran Matkovich]

Hello Craig,
If you go to www.familysearch.org and search for last name Schiller and 
first name Paul, many entries appear.  You can also search for Bertha. 
Perhaps one of them is your family member.

There is also a town in Volhynia called Janowka.  I have a book entitled The 
Women of Janowka by Helmut Exner which tells of the settlement of the town 
by German immigrants in the 19th century.  The town was once called 
Johannisdorf.

Fran Matkovich

-----Original Message----- 
From: Edelgard Strobel
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 2:56 PM
To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] a new dilemma

Hello Craig,

maybe the place name is Wisznow:

http://gov.genealogy.net/item/show/WISNEWKO20SS

Edelgard



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Schiller" <craigbear at gmail.com>
To: <ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 10:47 PM
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] a new dilemma


> For a quick refresher on the situation that this question pertains to, one
> of my great-grandfather's brothers, Paul, was known to have emigrated to
> the United States in the 1910s, but then permanently lost contact with my
> great-grandfather around WWII -- with the result that those of us alive
> today had virtually *no* knowledge of him beyond the fact that he existed,
> and have had to start entirely from scratch just to find out anything 
> about
> him at all. Our best lead was a border crossing document which had him
> entering the US at Noyes, MN in 1913, and listed a spouse named Bertha who
> lived in "Jeznewka, Volina". (From SGGEE research, further, I confirmed
> that "Jeznewka" is most likely Yasenivka, a village which *is* located in*
> exactly* the area where my other Schillers were living at that time.)
>
> That border document sent me hunting in Racine, WI, where I located two
> separate WWI draft cards, one which listed a wife named Bertha but had the
> wrong birthdate on it, and one which had the right birthdate and had the
> name Bertha listed and then crossed out before listing my 
> great-grandfather
> (correct name and address) as a replacement next-of-kin. However, I've
> tried without success so far to clarify whether the two draft cards were
> for the same Paul or not, because of (a) the contradictions between the 
> two
> cards (different birthdates, Bertha being listed on one but crossed out on
> the other, etc.) and (b) the rather odd notion that one person would even
> have two separate cards in the same draft round in the first place.
>
> From there, I located two naturalization index cards in Racine, a failed
> application from 1923 and a successful one from circa 1940, which
> corresponded cleanly to the address and birthdate on the draft card that
> listed my great-grandfather as next of kin. So in turn I ordered the
> naturalization petitions and certificate from an archive in Wisconsin, and
> they arrived today. They *almost*, I say *almost*, seem to solve my
> problem: they both name him as the widower of a woman named Bertha; they
> both give an original US entry that corresponds correctly to the date and
> location on the border crossing document that sent me looking in Racine in
> the first place...and they both give a birthdate that corresponds 
> correctly
> to the draft card that had my great-grandfather's name on it.
>
> Problem solved? Nope.
>
> They both list his birthplace *and* his last foreign residence as "Vicnov,
> Poland". No trace of Borowiec, Grodziec or Jeznewka...*Vicnov*. So now,
> after all of this, I suddenly have to figure out if despite all that
> circumstantial evidence, I've actually been barking up the wrong tree the
> whole time.
>
> So my question is: does the place name "Vicnov" mean anything plausible to
> anyone? Or should I just chalk this up to a bureaucratic error like my old
> "Gruec" problem, and accept that I've got the right guy?
> _______________________________________________
> Ger-Poland-Volhynia site list
> Ger-Poland-Volhynia at sggee.org
> https://www.sggee.org/mailman/listinfo/ger-poland-volhynia
>

_______________________________________________
Ger-Poland-Volhynia site list
Ger-Poland-Volhynia at sggee.org
https://www.sggee.org/mailman/listinfo/ger-poland-volhynia