Posts Tagged ‘iwaniw surname’

From November 13, 2019

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.

 

There are so many tasks to be accomplished when conducting researching into ones family history.  I have confirmed the names of my father’s parents’ names, I have also confirmed the names of my mother’s parents’.  I have filled in the gaps of family members within the family tree.  I have confirmed the death of my paternal grandfather in 1919.

So, now I’m trying to address certain mysteries that I have no details pertaining to them.  I’m going to expand on one of those family mysteries here.  Back in the early 1960’s my family packed up the car and drove about 6 hours to Detroit, Michigan to attend a wedding of a bride who was named Iwaniw.  That’s all I remember from that time (I was between 7 and 10 years old at the time, I think).  My father, at that time, said that the bride and her family were not related.  If true, then why would my parents undertake such a long trip to attend a stranger’s wedding in Windsor, Canada?  What’s the connection with my family?  If not relatives, are they close friends?  I’ve never heard my parents speak of friends named Iwaniw in either Detroit or Windsor.

My mother spoke of a childhood friend who lived in Detroit (we stayed with them while there for the wedding) but never about any Iwaniws that ere close family friends or relatives in that area.  I remember travelling with my parents to visit family friends in Toronto Canada, Troy New York, Kingston Canada, but this was the first (and last) time we travelled to Detroit Michigan/Windsor Canada.  My mother had brothers living in New Jersey.  All the information that I have from that trip is that the bride’s last name was Iwaniw, her parents were divorced, and there seemed to some drama that the bride’s father was going to walk her down the aisle.  I remember that we crossed the US-Canadian border multiple times that weekend.  We stayed with family friends named Andrijyashko <sic> in Detroit, who had 2 boys; one was close to my age and the other one was considerably older.  That was the last time we ever visited them or ever heard of the Iwaniws in that area.

What I’m trying to do is fill in the details in my family narrative.