The second and third archive visits from yesterday and the day before shed more light on the mysteries described in Ancestral conspiracies! and Ancestral confirmations?. It turns out my whacky theory was almost completely right, with the exception of the mysterious sister having been Katrena Micik. The baby actually died at six months of age, preceded by her mother by about two months. Jan Micik remarried in 1889 and exactly 10 months later, like a good girl, Zuzana Harmaniakova gave birth to my great grandmother Maria. A slightly puzzling fact is that apart from Jan (*1877) she had another son, Ondrej (1881 – 1893) about whom we knew nothing and as far as we know, Jan’s father was unknown, as so was Ondrej’s. Nevertheless her marriage certificate says she was a widow of Adam Janci. Was he the father of the two boys? Would they have lived together without getting married? Or did she marry him after her two kids were born?
And there is still no sign of the mysterious aunt of my grandma! Could it have been the wife of Andrew’s brother John? I’d thought I had found John’s family in Illinois, but his wife’s name is supposed to be Elisabeth (Alzbeta), while according to the archive it should have been Zuzana. Then again, who knows with so many Jan Miciks. Maybe it will be clearer after June 26th and 27th, the next archive stop.
I have also started a 14 day free trial on Geni and merged my two trees, the Micik’s and ours.
I now have 43 ancestors in my family tree, going as far back as 1700’s (ok, it would be more like 1799 but that’s still 1700’s so shame!) and all the way to my fourth great grandparents. Maybe I should start working on my dad’s side of the family now and look for those elusive Jews!