In my last post I detailed some of the different documents that I received pertaining to my father’s time in Germany. So, my best guesstimate is that while he was in Sulmingen he was a farm laborer and while he was in Ulm he was a shoemaker/cobbler. While in Sulmingen his occupation as a farm laborer listed his employer as Theresia Ackermann. But I haven’t been able to find anything more about Theresia Ackermann. In Ulm, was my father an owner of a shoemaking shop or an employee of one? I have no details on either.
As I progress with my research my questions result in more questions and not answers. According to a record that I received from Arolsen Archives my father was taken from his home in Lutowiska to Germany in 1942. I can only presume that he was taken to a labor camp in Sulmingen Germany. But which labor camp? I cannot find any information on a labor camp in the region of Sulmingen.
I wrote to someone in the municipal office of the City of Sulmingen requesting any information about the marriage of my parent in 1945. I did receive a reply that they had found no information but had forward my request to the registry office in that city. I then received a response from the registry office stating that they had no record of the marriage there. However, they felt that the request was sent to the incorrect location. They believed that the request should have been sent to the Town of Sulmingen, which is now part of the Municipality of Maselheim. That person has forwarded my inquiry forward to there.
So, that’s where my research stands right now. I’m just waiting for information, I’m waiting to hear from whoever was forwarded my inquiry in Maselheim, I’m waiting to hear back from the Red Cross Tracing Service about their inquiry in the 1960’s regarding my father, and I’m waiting to find out additional information on church records from my father’s village of Lutowiska.
My next post I will update the status of the inquiry to the Red Cross Tracing Service.
As I was browsing a few of the genealogical groups on Facebook I came across a posting showing a picture of a church. The church looked familiar like I’ve seen the picture previously. I did. My father had a photograph of this church and he had commissioned a painting to be made from it.
At the time I didn’t know that name of the church just that my father said that it was the church from the village that he grew up in, Lutowiska. According to the information I now have is that the name of the church is Church of Archangel Michael in Lutowiska. The information on this church is in Polish (you’ll have to enable Google translator to read the details).
Church of Archangel Michael in Lutowiska
Unfortunately, according to the information about this church it no longer exists. In 1979, the church was handed over to the local Latin parish, which in May 1980 demolished the church, and used wood for further use in the construction of the church in Dwernik.
Now I’ve got a few more gaps in my father life filled in and more research material to investigate. From the documents that I had previously received I know that my father was a Greek Catholic. I didn’t know which parish records I had to chase down. Having stumbled onto this bit of information has helped in filling that gap. What I need to find out now is where are the records from this church and do they even still exist? If anyone has any information on this church or its records I’d appreciate hearing from you. You can contact me through this site or via Facebook Messenger.
The following is a re-post of a blog article of mine from October 19, 2019. I am re-posting this blog post because I will be posting an update with new infrmation.
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I’m at the point of my research where I am now attempting to search records in Eastern Europe. I have already found records pertaining to my father’s time spent in Germany during WWII. I know that he was forcibly taken from his home to Germany in 1942. I know that he married my mother in 1945 in Sulingen Germany. I have the passenger list showing him and his family arriving into the Port of New York in 1950.
Now I’m trying to locate church records for my grandfather, Michael. Thanks to a couple of people on Galicia Family History Group I was directed to another site called State Archives in Przemysl where I was told records from my father’s church in Lutowiska were stored and scanned. At this point I am just searching for anyone with the surname of Iwaniw. The difficulty is that the handwriting is a very elaborate cursive and some of the writing is very faint. Lastly, none of these records are indexed.
This is one of those family research tasks that are very labor intensive and tedious. I usually only spend about an hour doing this and/or tend to take a lot of breaks. Another problem is that I have no way of knowing if the records are complete.
