Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Ancestral Name Roulette

It's that time again! Here are the rules via Randy Seaver's blog:

1)  What year was your paternal grandfather born?  Divide this number by 100 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."


2)  Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel"). Who is that person?


3)  Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number."


4)  Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post.


5)  If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick a grandmother, or yourself, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!



1)  My paternal grandfather, John E. Gombash, Sr.,  was born in 1935.  Divided by 100, that makes 19.35, rounded to 19.

2)  Number 19 on my ancestral name list is Amelia Stec (1887-1968), daughter of Jan Stec and Sophie Swiczek, who married Franciszek Grządziel in 1904.

3)  Three facts about Amelia Stec:

*  She was born in Barycz, Brzozów, Lwów, Poland and had four siblings: Katarzyna (married Franciszek Wojewoda), Mary (married George Karnas), Tekla "Tillie" (married a man surnamed Domaradzki) and Jan.

*  She immigrated on 27 Nov 1908 through Ellis Island, with her daughter Katarzyna (Catherine) Grządziel. They were going to Franciszek Grządziel in Joliet, Illinois. One of my grandfather's brother told me that Franciszek actually didn't know of their oncoming arrival, and Amelia received a horrible beating for it. What a horrible man.

*  Amelia left her husband Franciszek Grządziel sometime after 1919 and was married to a man named Franciszek Bogusz, in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1922. Amelia never divorced her first husband, Frank Grządziel. Frank what I've been told of this man, I don't blame her for getting away.