A History Lesson

Recently, I learned that my friend Kathy was researching her family tree and had added 3000 names and could trace the family back to basically the Medieval age (I might be exaggerating a tiny bit). I got jealous. I can get back to my great-grandparents and then everybody's back in Europe and I can't trace that so well. I griped about it and Kathy was kind and pointed out that yes, her family has been in the US since forever and they've even been in basically the same area for much of that time, so she can catch a break that way. Even so, I got motivated and quizzed my parents some more (again) on what they knew and tried to get some names and dates out of them. Its tricky, especially on my dad's side, because they just weren't great communicators. There are secrets, or at least things that people considered secrets because he just doesn't know things that most people (I think) would know. Like his maternal grandmother's name. I mean, I know my grandmothers' names! But his grandmother died early and I guess his mother never mentioned her again. I don't know; I really don't. I've tried the various sites for researching families, your Ancestry.com and the like, and I get nothing. However, I do have some info and better than that, I have some awesome photos (although sometimes I don't know who is in them) and I have killer stories. So here's what I do know...

Everything starts here, at Ellis Island. Only, that's not really true, since I have photos of some great-grandparents before they got to the US. Also, its an assumption that all of my family passed through Ellis Island, but its a pretty good assumption. I know (from my history classes) that people came into the country through Boston as well as New York, but I can state with some level of certainty that my people didn't come from Boston. My grandparents are all from northern New Jersey or Cleveland and it seems to me that people from those places came in through New York. I'd like to have a look at the immigration records, but so far I can't find a free site that will let me. I'm still looking.
~~Intermission~~
Hey! I found a free site! I'm now a big fan of the Ellis Island Organization. Here's what I know about one side of my mother's family:

This is my great grand-mother, Frances Haffner (or maybe Hafner, we're just not sure). She was born around 1887 (plus or minus a couple years) in Kranje, Slovenia. Sometimes this shows up as Krain, Austria; but she was a Slav. I know this because my Uncle Larry was terrified of her when he was a boy because she never learned to speak English and she was not a tiny woman. This photo was taken in Ljubljana, the capital city. I'm guessing they didn't have professional photo studios in Kranje (oh, rhymes with wine). I have no idea what year this is, but I'm fairly certain she arrived in the US around 1905, so you can guess as well as I can. I don't think its much earlier than that. She moved to Cleveland, Ohio because all Slavs moved there. Yes, I'm sure there's another reason, but I don't know what it is. *sigh*

Once there, she met a man named Martin Valetich (VAL-uh-tish) and they got married. I like how the groom is the special one in this wedding picture. The wedding was in October of 1907 and my grandfather was born in December of that year. Um, yeh. I think this wedding photo was taken later, because I just don't think any woman could be that pregnant and have it not show. We've debated that a lot. We have no answers. Now, Martin, I can tell you a little more about him. Also from Kranje, he was born in 1883 and came to the US in 1901 at the age of 18. If he made the trip with anyone, they weren't family because he's the only Valetic (vul-LET-titch) on the boat. I do not know when or why he changed his last name. I had assumed they did that when he arrived, but now that I've seen the paperwork, that's not true. He did it himself and I really don't see how Valetich is anymore "American" or easier to pronounce than Valetic, so go figure.

And this would be the ship he arrived on, the Kaiserin Maria Theresia. Its hard for me to fathom how an 18 year old managed to make this trip all by himself. Maybe he did have a friend with him. Maybe 18 year olds were much older in 1901 than they are now. Maybe Martin was a very confident young man; he seemed to stay that way. Every picture I've ever seen of him and there aren't many, shows a very well dressed man. He was always in a suit and he always wore a hat. Oh, and if we're to get really technical about this, Valetic is not a Slovenian name. Its Serbian. Since I know nothing prior to Martin, I don't know why his family left Serbia. I'd like to believe there was a big scandal, because it just seems unlikely that a family of Serbs would up and move to a not-big town in Slovenia in the mid 1800's. But there's no one left to ask, so that will have to remain my mystery.
Anyways, Frances and Martin got married and had 5 children. My grandfather, Sylvester, was the first. Then there were 3 girls and a boy. One of the girls, Julia, died as a child from something that children died of then; scarlet fever, tb, the flu, I just don't know. I cannot find any pictures of them as children. I have pictures of my gramps as a middle-aged man with his kids, but the only picture I have of all of them is this one. This was in 1980-something; my gramps is on the upper left, next to him is my Great Uncle Martin, who took the name changing a step further and became a Vale. See; now that's easy to pronounce. The ladies are Great Aunt Frances (L) and Josephine (R). At some point, I'll call my mother and find out which one is older and what the heck their married names are and if either are still alive. I'm doubting it; Martin was the baby and he died a few years back.
Next time I'll deal with my mother's mother and they're Irish and there are far too many of them and it gets terribly confusing.