martinekfamily.info

Interesting. Dr. Martinek’s sister Mary married (say that three times fast…) Charles Aubuchon. That lived in Callaway and Audrain counties. Dad recently visited the Wellsville cemetary where some of the family members are laid to rest. I have been able to find names of seven of their nine children. Anyone have info on the other two? I will be uploading a new surname tree shortly with that info on it. How does it look?

When Uncle Bobby died, I started assembly a family tree.  With dad’s encouragment, I went so far as to hire a researcher in the Czech republic to run down records in Prague.  Most of that information was printed out if electronic or was a hard copy mailed.  However, the family tree I had put together was electronic only.  I have not been able to find back-up copies anywhere!  So, the work of reassembling information is a little tedious.

I tried a two week free trial offer from Ancestry.com.  It is amazing the amount of imforamtion they have!  However,  the US Census information is limited because of privacy.  The most current available is 1930 census.  I am guessing 1940 information will be out in the next couple of years.   With that, it is hard to bring ancestors forward and find living relatives.

What I find most curious about many things is that our perception is our reality.  I have a copy of a handwritten note that has Dr. and Mrs. Martinek’s offspring listed with their DOB’s.  What I am finding out is that those dates really aren’t that good.  It is also interesting to hear what people think happened and then try and piece that together with real data.  Just like the child’s game “grapevine”, I think the real story is sometimes lost over time.

How about common names?  How many Josephine Zajicek’s co you think would exist at the turn of the 20th century.  Amazingly, I think there was more than one in the St. Louis area!   It is sometimes hard to prove that when you have multiple data sources, you really aren’t confirming the person that isn’t related.  Information by itself is sometimes misleading.

I hope to find a good family tree to HTML software in the next week and post a family tree with the info I have to date.  At that time, I have for lots of feedback!

Today is Nicolle’s 12th birthday.  As we look at her, our youngest, it is hard to believe how time is flying by.  I look at the pictures from grandma and grandpa; my uncles and aunts younger than my children are now and wonder how they felt.  We have so much more free time than they did.  How are we using it?  Are we doing things that matter and will be remembered 30 or 40 years from now?  Or like the child that throws away the present and plays with the box, are we giving our children the right thing?  If I could ask my grandparents “what was the greatest gift you gave your children?”, what would they say?  For discussion amongst ourselves, I am going to say it was their faith.  Any discussion?

I’m not sure when or why people start to take an interest in family history and why others don’t. When I was in grade school at Hawk Point Elementary, the TV mini-series “Roots” was on. We had classroom discussions about immigration to America and the whole “melting pot” concept. As a result, our assignment was to research our family history and the nationalities in our lineage.

One half of my lineage was easy. Grandpa Martinek is Bohemian. Grandma Martinek is German. The other side of my family had many different nationalities. I suppose there is also something to say about a male and interest in his surname…something that is always passed down from father to son.

What piqued my curiosity but didn’t make sense to me was the story I heard. I think it varies depending on where you are at in our family. The version I heard was that a boy of about seven years old was separated from his family aboard ship during his journey from Bohemia. When being processed by immigration, his surname may have been confused and no one is sure if Martinek is really correct.

So, how would a seven year old live in a foreign country? Would authorities just let him let him walk out into America? What is our real name? So, many questions with so few ways for a ten year old to find answers in the mid 70’s…..

Here we go.  This is my first attempt to create something that might be of interest to our family.  I’m not promising lightning fast progress.  Raising four girls and keeping up with their activities leaves me little time. 

My goal for this is to have an outlet where our family members can keep in touch and over time fill in a lot of our geneaology.  Hopefully that expands our family over time.

I’m sure I’ll get better at this…..