Here is the ship manifest for the Frank Stefanski & Margaret Lewandowski family. As you can see, they came to the United States with their children
Joseph and
Alex. Also listed is a Paul, shown as the same age as Joseph. I was able to track down Joseph's birth record in Goloty, West Prussia (baptized in Unislaw), but there was no record of a Paul. In an email from a distant cousin, Margaret, I was told that Paul was a cousin to the other children.
In the summer of 2006, Margaret sent me an absolutely wonderful package of pictures she has of the family. One of the images was a wedding photo of an Agnes and Paul Levandowski. I had to investigate further to see if this could be the same Paul that came to the United States with Frank and Margaret's family.
I figured a good place to start would be the census records, since Paul was still a young boy (15 years old) when he arrived with the Stefanski's in 1903. So who was he living with in the 1910 census? The only person listed as living with Frank and Margaret in 1910 was their son, Alex. So Paul was not living with them by 1910. It didn't take long before I found a Paul Lewandowski living in Milwaukee with parents Andrew and Julia, and siblings Anton and Antonine. The age matches, as does the year of immigration.
1910 Census - Frank & Margaret1910 Census - Andrew & JuliaThis census establishes that the rest of the family came to the United States in 1907, and that by 1910, they were once again reunited. It also tells us that there were 15 children in this family, but that only five were living in 1910. I also was able to find Paul in the
1920 census and the
1930 census, which confirm, along with the wedding picture, that his wife was named Agnes.
The next step was to find Paul's parents and siblings in their 1907 ship manifest. The first place I checked was to see if they came through Ellis Island in New York, and sure enough, there they were. A very common Polish name, I have learned, is Andrzej, which was commonly changed to an English equivalent of Andrew. So here is
Andrzej and
Juliana with children, Anton and Antonia coming to the United States to stay with another son Jan Lewandowski in Milwaukee. The best part of this ship manifest is that it tells us the birthplace of all of them. From this I have been able to find all of their birth records.
1907 Ship Manifest of Andrzej & JulianaSo although not proved yet, my guess is that Andrew and Margaret Lewandowski were brother and sister. I have yet to find the birth record of Margaret, so I don't have proof of her parents. If they are siblings, they were consecutively born - Andrew born 13 Nov 1848 and Margaret born 28 Aug 1951. (As a side note, I also just discovered that on the
baptism record of Joseph Stefanski, son of Frank & Margaret, one of the witnesses at the baptism is
Anna Wisniewska, mother to Andrew Lewandowski. So it is likely that this is Margaret's mother as well.)
After this I found several other children of Andrew and Julianna listed online at the Family Search website. Going into the library to locate the actual microfilm records of these children, I discovered that the witness (godfather) at the
baptism of Franciszka Lewandowski in 1879 was a Franck Stefanski, listed as living in Uscia! This shows yet another connection between these two families. While I don't know the exact location of Uscia, I was able to find that the Catholic parish serving the town is in the city of Culm, West Prussia now called Chelmno, Poland. It was while searching in these records yesterday that I found the missing
birth record of Anna Stefanski, born 28 June 1880 in the town of Use", child of Frank and Margaret Stefanski!! I was hoping to also find the record of her older sister,
Marianna, but no luck. However, I was able to locate yet another child of Andrew & Julianna who was also born there. Her name was
Rozalia Lewandowski,
born 16 Dec 1877, also in the town of Use" so it seems that the two families lived in very close proximity during these years.
View Kland Family Map in a larger mapDiscovering the background information of this mysterious Paul has led to discovering the birthplace of
Anna Stefanski, older sister to
Antonia, my great-grandmother. My grandfather referred to Anna as the only Stefanski sibling not to immigrate to America, who had 13 kids and a married name of Kreja.
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