My Polish Roots
(Carrie Jankowski McNish)
From Natalia, Poland to Syracuse, New York
I was born and raised in New York State in the 1970s. My mother’s side of the family were early settlers in America who immigrated from Scotland, however, my father’s side of the family immigrated from Poland. Growing up, we were always so true and connected to our Polish heritage. I truly thought that everyone’s immediate family were immigrants because it was so normal to us as a family. My great grandfather, VALENTINE left a hamlet in Poland and in 1912—at the age of 40—he arrived in New York Harbor at Ellis Island on a ship named President Grant. His hopes and dreams were to start a new life for him and his wife—my great grandmother, ANIELA He left my great grandmother, ANIELA, and her daughter, Bronislawa., behind so that he could find work, make a home for them, and save money to be able to bring them to America—and chase the “American Dream.” The definitions of the American Dream have changed over the years, but the fundamental meaning is that ‘every person has the freedom and opportunity to obtain a better life.’ After nine years of hard work saving money and separation from his family—VALENTINE finally afforded to bring my great grandmother to America in 1921. It is a miracle my family survived the oppression of World War I and made it here.
ANIELA survived a difficult life, as many Poles did, through the war and in 1921, ANIELA walked down this road from a hamlet in Poland for the last time. She left her life, her friends, her 13 brothers and sisters, VALENTINE’s brothers and sister and everything she knew to be with her husband and make a better life. She arrived in New York Harbor, through Ellis Island, with her daughter in 1921, nine years after VALENTINE I do not know the details of her journey—how she made it from a hamlet in Poland to Gdansk, her experience on the Hudson (the ship that brought her to America), the length of time it took her to get to America, her journey from New York City to where they settled—but I know that they were given the chance at the American Dream and based on the definition, they succeeded.
Establishing their roots in Elbridge, New York
They both worked so hard. When Aniela arrived, they were living in a city in Upstate New York. They worked and saved money and bought a house in a small town in Upstate New York. This is a picture of VALENTINE on the porch of his house in that small town. There was a small (1,300 square foot) house on a large lot of land. At one point, we know that VALENTINE sold part of his land (lower lot) where a local Creamery was built and the house was moved up the hill (upper lot). We also know that he was a farmer and a builder and he dug the basement of the new house out with a shovel by hand. We talked about that act of grit our whole lives, and whenever we went into the basement, we couldn’t believe the hard work. A lot of the details and stories of their experiences have been lost through the generations, but they had a large plot of land, and they grew a lot of their own food and they had chickens. The chicken coop still stands today. This is a picture of ANIELA in her garden. The had accomplished so much. When they were naturalized, their naturalization papers hung in a frame in the living room, for all to see. They had success and they had heartache. They had five children (Bronislawa, Jennie, Valentine, Florence and Charles), and they worked so hard through tough times in America to make a life and raise a family. In that tiny house, all 7 people lived, including my grandfather, Valentine, their third-born. That house was the pinnacle of their dream. VALENTINE and ANIELA worked so hard to have it and spent the remainder of their lives cherishing it. VALENTINE died in 1962—in that house. ANIELA died in 1981—in that house. JOE died in 1996—in that house, and in 2022, my father died, who lived in that house until his death. We felt their courage in the walls of that house as we gathered through the generations as a family to celebrate holidays, birthdays and Sunday suppers every single week until Joseph got sick and died in 1996.
Aniela became a mother to my father & his siblings
We were a tight-knit family. We were an American family that knew we were a family with Polish immigrants. I only recall very few English words from ANIELA—but mostly Polish. ANIELA actually raised my father and his siblings (in the picture to the left, Tom, Rita, Don), because their mother left when they were small, so ANIELA was like a mother to my father and his siblings. This is a picture of my grandfather, Joe, next to ANIELA’s first car (to the right). Because VALENTINE & ANIELA raised Joe’s kids (my father), ANIELA was like a grandmother to us (not a great grandmother, but a grandmother). It was actually confusing to me as a child. I didn’t realize until I was older that she was not his mother and she was my great grandmother. I didn’t understand why my father’s mother wasn’t around. We spent every holiday together, and every Sunday, ANIELA and my grandfather cooked dinner for the whole family. When she passed, my grandfather, carried that tradition until we all graduated high-school and left the house. I never met VALENTINE and only saw few pictures of him, but listened to the stories Aunt Bronislawa, Jennie and Florence, would share. I remember ANIELA I remember her well. I remember her broken English, her hollering at all the great grandkids in Polish and I also remember her love for her garden. I remember always hearing about her family back in Poland from my grandfather’s siblings. They were the true connection to our Polish heritage, through food, traditions, holidays and values. They carried that Polish heritage from the first generation to the second and third generation (my generation). With the wake of hard times and the ration cards in Poland during the 70s and the lack of food and clothing, my Aunt D.J., my mother and my great aunts started coordinating boxes of clothing back to our family in Poland—we would hide canned goods in the boxes in hopes that they were not seized. We did this, and I remember it well, and with that, I knew our relatives in Poland were living a very hard life. This made us feel so connected to our family in Poland. We only knew my grandmother had a lot of brothers and sisters, and of course because we were so young it was just “Poland,” not a town or a village or even the names of family members—it was just “Family in Poland” (e.g., “we are sending boxes to the family in Poland). We had no idea where or to whom.
Losing the first generation
Slowly, we started losing our Polish roots with the passing of the first generation. To the right, this is the last picture we have of ANIELA and her five Children (Joe, Charles, Jennie, Bronislawa, Florence & ANIELA in front) in their house in a small town in Upstate New York. When we started losing the first generation, we started losing the information on our roots. Where did all pictures go? No one knows. The heroic stories of their journey and experiences were not written down, so they have been forgotten. Sunday Supper became too expensive and the family gatherings dwindled down to once a year. My grandfather, JOE, was the first of ANIELA and VALENTINE’s children to pass in 1996. Then, Bronislawa and Joe both passed in 2001. Then, Florence in 2004 and Charles in 2014. Just like that, the first generation was gone and the Polish connection diminished. The communications to / from family in Poland decreased to nothing. The house went from my grandfather to my dad, Tom. The children of my grandfather, Rita, Don and my father, ‘divided’ up the contents of the house—and what little physical artifacts remained from VALENTINE & ANIELA, were shifted around and basically, gone and lost forever. We didn’t have addresses or phone numbers of our family in Poland. None of the cousins had them—Aunts Bronislawa, Jennie and Florence all used to maintain all the contact information for the entire family, and so it was all lost. Life carried on and the core ‘family’ only saw each other at funerals and weddings—for a family that was so close, it was sad. Generation two and three grew so far apart.
Losing the second generation
In 2018, my father’s sister, Rita died. In 2022, my father, Tom, died—of COVID, actually, and it was devastating to us. As we prepared for his funeral, my sister, cousins and I (generation three) realized that generation two was almost gone as well—and we had grown so far apart. Of my father’s immediate family, the only ‘generation two’ relative left was my uncle Don (his brother). The ‘generation three’ cousins reminisced about how incredibly tight-knit we were as a family and that we cannot believe that we have grown so far apart as a family over the years. It wasn’t intentional and no one disliked anyone, but yes, we grew apart. We were all so very different. We lived all over. We had different life journeys with education, family, jobs, etc., but we were still family. Some of the ‘generation three’ cousins (Vicki, Shawn, and Bobbi), made a pact to try and carry-through our Polish roots and rediscover our relatives and heritage. There were more ‘generation two’ cousins who had information (S), and we decided to try and reconstruct the history that wasn’t written down and was passed down through stories.
The third generation & the first steps at reconstructing our Polish history
In the months following my father’s death, I started searching on the internet for our family information. I learned very quickly that Ancestry.com was a great tool if your family roots are from the United States. There was absolutely no information on ANIELA’s family, her departure from Poland, her brothers and sisters—nothing, except of course, her ship manifesto information on arrival. There was even less on VALENTINE I couldn’t even find his entry date and ship manifesto. I only found a WWI draft card, however, he was 40 years old when he arrived, so he didn’t serve. In January of 2024, Reilly, my son, and I were on our yearly ‘mommy and me’ long weekend vacation, and we spent a lot of time talking about my father, his death, our traditions growing up and our Polish roots. Because he is an only child with very few cousins—and his father is an only child, so our family is smaller. Reilly was eager to learn more about his Polish relatives and extended family. Reilly also shared that because I am ‘generation three,’ I could possibly quality for Polish citizenship. And so, it began…
Finding Polish roots & living relatives with help
I was anxious and eager to relearn our history and carry our Polish heritage forward, and learn if I would qualify to apply for Polish citizenship. I didn’t want to lose all that was so meaningful and important to us from generation one and generation two (that we lost). I started my search. As mentioned, I found ANIELA’s Ellis Island Manifesto, and that took me a while to find because in the Polish language, her last name was spelled with an “-a” not “-i.” In Poland, female last names end with the vowel -a, while male last names end with a constant or a vowel other than -a. This is due to Polish law requiring names to indicate the person’s gender. When I started my search, of course I wasn’t going to find “ANIELA with an ‘-i” because I didn’t know this—and good for her for adopting her husband’s last name, “with an -i” when she got here (which is gender neutral). I couldn’t even find VALENTINE—at all. Why? Because I knew him as ‘Valentine.’ That is the Americanized name that he adopted when he arrived in the United States, but in Polish (and most of his legal records), his name is WALENTY. When I found “WALENTY,” on the Ellis Island Manifesto, I didn’t even realize that this was the same person. Also comical in our Americanization of how they referred to themselves, we knew VALENTINE as Ojciec, but because Polish pronunciation was so difficult for us, we referred to him as “wutchettes” (fanatically spelled). I do laugh out loud every time I think of this. Of course, there are still decedents of ANIELA here in the United States, but we have all grown so far apart. There was still a strong concentration of family in the small town in Upstate New York, but some on Facebook, some not. We had no email addresses, no mailing addresses or even phone numbers of anyone. Technology took over so fast, but we all didn’t keep up with contact information. My father’s cousin “S” had the most information because her mother, Aunt J.J., kept most of the records and visited Poland a few times in the 1990s. I knew I still needed help because nothing was digitized, so I found Radoslaw from Genealogia Polonica.
Finding Polish roots & living relatives with help
I sent a little information to Radoslaw, and very quickly, he was able to find ANIELA & VALENTINE’s basic personal information. I decided to proceed with the first round of research. Very quickly Radoslaw was able to establish their birth places and location of residence. Surely someone in ‘generation one’ had this, but it wasn’t written down or widely shared. He was also able to establish their parents’ marriage certificates, and birth and death dates of all of their siblings (VALENTINE had 8 siblings and ANIELA had 13 siblings). We had received more detailed data than we expected. We were so happy with the results and knew that we needed to do deeper research to: (1) find living relatives; and (2) determine if Walenty had Polish residency through 1920 (even though he departed, he was still considered a resident). We decided to proceed with a second round of research to go deeper.
Radoslaw knew that he would have to go to National Archive. Records more than 100 years old were transferred from Perishes to National Archives. Additionally, Radoslaw knew there was still a heavy concentration of relatives in the hamlet in Poland area given his initial research. With this research, Radoslaw saw original residence documentation in a hamlet in Poland that ANIELA & VALENTINE lived in a house in the hamlet in Poland—that was still standing. We were able to see that VALENTINE was still a permanent resident through 1930—this means that ‘generation three’ does, in fact, qualify to apply for Polish citizenship.
Radoslaw then decided that he would drive to the hamlet in Poland. The plan was to visit the cemeteries and leave letters, but as luck had it, there was a person for Radoslaw to actually speak to the day he visited, and advised that K relatives lived in the house next door, in the hamlet in Poland. The picture to the left is Henryk—he is ANIELA’s nephew born in 1932. His mother is ANIELA’s youngest sister, also Bronislawa (my grandmother named her first daughter after her). Not only were we able to get connected quickly with Henryk family, we also learned that the house VALENTINE & ANIELA left, was abandoned and falling apart, but still standing.
We were so excited—we couldn’t believe that we were able to find this much data, detail and connection. We were not sure what to expect when we started this research, but when we started this journey, we had already planned to visit Poland in the summer months. We received these preliminary research results in June 2024, and knew that when we visited in July of 2024, we may or may not have the opportunity, connection or enough research to actually visit Polish relatives. They still had no idea we existed and that we were looking for them! We knew we were going to visit Poland no matter what. It would be incredible to see or meet relatives, but we didn’t have our hopes because we were running out of time.
Visiting Poland
In the weeks before our visit to Poland in July 2024, Radoslaw helped us make so much progress with this incredible information—we made connections. Radoslaw called and spoke to our family. G from the family notified other family members of us and our intention to visit Poland—and they gave us a date to visit during our trip, but also told us that we should hire an interpreter because a few family members spoke basic English, but holding conversations would be difficult. After searching the internet and posting on ‘English Speakers in Poland’ websites and Facebook sites, we finally were led to a local school teacher, Kat. We were so happy that this was coming together.
Reilly and I landed in Warsaw in July. We had our plan from the family member in the hamlet in Poland to meet Henryk. and his family—we couldn’t believe this was truly happening. The entire day before, we spent organizing all of our research from Radoslaw, making family trees to show where we were on the K line and also printing copies of Radoslaw’s research in Polish. We rented a car, confirmed our interpreter, bought gifts from the United States—and snacks from the local bakery in Warsaw, found a hotel closer to the hamlet in Poland, and waited with excitement.
Visiting the Hamlet in Poland
We left Warsaw and drove to the hamlet in Poland. We got off the main highway and drove down a dirt road. We couldn’t believe we were entering the hamlet in Poland. I could not believe that I was driving on the same road that VALENTINE & ANIELA likely walked out of or took a horse out of, over 100 years earlier.
We arrived before our interpreter, and of course, these wonderful people were talking to us in Polish and we were talking to them in English. It made me so nervous, but we tend to be early and Kat was on time. We were so excited and so grateful to be welcomed. When Kat arrived, we started talking through the history. It was on a Wednesday that we visited (on very short notice), so we were grateful that we were able to meet so many family members at once on a work day. We were greeted with curiosity and food, of course. We spent the afternoon in group conversation asking questions about the history of our family and learning as much as we could (with one interpreter) about each other. For Reilly and I, it was so overwhelming, and yet, we didn’t want the visit to end. We were so happy in those moments learning about our family and being in the place where my family originated from. We met all these wonderful people and when they introduced themselves, neither of us could pronounce (or even Americanize the pronunciation of), their names. We felt so silly. They spent so, so much time preparing food for our visit, we were so grateful and so amazed. We honestly didn’t know what to expect. During our visit, I spent a lot of time talking through what I knew about ANIELA & VALENTINE—and shared this picture of ANIELA and her five children. I shared that this was the last picture we had of all of them together. I shared whatever I could remember on ‘generation one’ and ‘generation two.’
Visiting VALENTINE & ANIELA’s house – the Hamlet in Poland
We knew we would have the opportunity to actually visit inside the house where VALENTINE & ANIELA lived. It was surreal to me that we were actually there. It was like everything Radoslaw explained to us. After our meal, we decided to walk down to their old house. We knew that no one lived there any longer. We wanted to try and figure out who was the last family to live there and what year they left. The only thing we found (that I could read), was a calendar from 2010. This house was definitely falling apart. As we explored, one of the relatives, E, decided to take the box of documents left behind. As Reilly and I were looking at everything, we couldn’t believe that there were still a lot of belongings there, but we also knew that someone owned the property and technically, we were trespassing into someone else’s property. It was such an adventure to be in the house knowing that is where VALENTINE & ANIELA lived. We just couldn’t not believe that months earlier, we didn’t know what town they came from and here we were, standing in the house they left over 100 years ago. Incredible.
As we walk down the road, E stops everyone and cannot believe what she found in the box of documents. She found a copy of the picture I had shown them an hour earlier of ANIELA and her five children—in the documents box from the old house, the abandoned house! We were all so shocked! We knew there was no doubt we were all related, but that picture was the last picture taken of all of them alive and in that moment, I felt so connected to the Kat line in the Hamlet in Poland. Reilly and I felt truly connected to Poland. What an emotional discovery.
As our day winded down, we were just so emotionally exhausted from nervousness and excitement. I truly hoped that our family did not feel like we were a nuisance, wanting to connect and reconnect to our heritage. Reilly, Kat and I left. Reilly and I were just in awe with excitement as we headed back to our hotel. We couldn’t believe we got this far.
We are nearing the ability to apply for Polish citizenship. All of the official, certified documents on the Polish side are ready for submission by Radoslaw. It has taken me almost six months to be granted permission to obtain official documents needed from my line in the United States—to prove my line. Certified copies of deceased peoples’ birth or death records in the United State have to go through the State Supreme Court and requests be granted permission by court order. Yes, a court order. We have received the permission, now we need to request the certified documents. We are one step closer and looking forward to continuing on this journey.
What’s next?
We will continue seeking Polish citizenship. I share this with people and they ask why? I have so many reasons, but mostly because I am proud to be of Polish dissent. I miss the togetherness of family that we experienced growing up—everything centered around family togetherness and food for us as a large Polish-American family. As we consider ‘quarter three’ of life and hopefully someday retirement, wouldn’t it be good to plant some roots where it all began, back in Poland? We love travel so much; we hope to retire, buy property in Poland continue connecting with our family in Poland and travel.
We have started a Facebook page to connect with our relatives. Because of technology, we can use digital translation to be able to write and speak to each other.
We have booked our trip back to the Hamlet in Poland in 2025. We hope the relatives welcome us again for another visit!
We continue on this journey!
