A New Search Begins

I spoke with a woman the other day who heard that I was good at finding dead people and wondered if I could find out more about her mother's biological family. This is the information she shared with me:

"My mother was born on March 14, 1922 in Binghamton, NY. A nurse took her by train up to Utica, NY to the St. Joseph's Infant Home. Her mother came up a month later to give permission for the infant to be adopted. Her mother was said to have been Helen Turesky who came from a small town in Pennsylvania."

Not a whole lot to go on, but I gave it a shot.

I started with Ancestry.com and found Helen almost immediately. 

Helen Teroski age 18 [birthdate ca. 1902] was listed as a boarder in the home of Mike (age 38) & Susie Novak (& children) in the 1920 U.S. Census in the city of Binghamton, NY. She was born in Pennsylvania of Slovakian parentage. The Novaks were Slovakian as well. She was a roller in a cigar factory.

Unfortunately, there were no other Teroski families living in Binghamton. Neither can I poinpoint Helen or the Mike Novak family in the 1910 census in Pennsylvania at this point. I'll keep working...

Search suggestions welcome!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bannerman Family Mystery

Image
Among the many old photographs originally in my grandfather's possession, there is one that has haunted me and has remained a mystery all these years. The photograph is of three children with their names and ages typeset at the bottom of the photograph. “William, 10 years, Robert 8, and Maggie Bennerman, 4 Years Old.” Who were they? My grandfather was not able to identify them, though his memory was remarkably sharp and accurate until his death at the age of 96. I first noticed this picture and the others that my grandfather had in 1989 when I embarked on the adventure of genealogy. Since then I have traced all of my father's ancestors at least back to the early 1800s (and a lot beyond). But I never ran into the Bennerman name, anywhere. Not as ancestors of mine, not even as neighbors. I am lucky enough to even have a name to match the faces in the photograph in the first place. Early in my research, I visited the Tampa stake of the LDS church and I mentioned the Bennerman na
Read more

Friday Faces from the Past: Moorefield

Image
I am perusing through old photographs from my paternal grandparents side these days. In essence, I have been visiting Kentucky although really only in my mind. Things like this come and go in spurts. I have not looked at the research I have done on these lines in a number of years but every now and them something draws me back. What pulled me this time was an email from a gentleman who saw a photograph on my blog that was taken by Randolph in Cadiz, Kentucky (see the photo here ). This gentleman informed me that he and another local historian were doing research on this photographer who did work in Cadiz from about 1893 to 1913. He wanted to know if I would share an electronic copy of the photograph and also asked if I had anymore photographs taken by Randolph. I hunted around and found one more. This is a photograph identified by my grandfather as "My daddy's first cousin [John Willis Watts], Otis Moorefield." Otis Moorefield (1875-1958) Until I put the two tog
Read more

COG: The Love of Reading

Life is funny sometimes, wouldn’t you agree? I sit here this evening checking out my blogger dashboard and find Jasia’s post about reading for the Carnival Of Genealogy . Ah, reading! One of my absolute favorite pastimes. And Jasia wants to know my family’s history of reading? How ironic that on the third anniversary of my father’s death, I am asked that question, for he was influential in the development of my love of reading. Furthermore, I was in a training at work today and we were asked to discuss characteristics about our fathers that we would like to keep, toss, or add in reference to their values, beliefs, etc. One of the items I listed in the “keep” column was his emphasis on the importance of reading and education. My mother tells the story that my father had heard that reading to your child was a good thing, so he instructed my mother to read to me every night. (Until I was about eight, he was often away because of his Navy service.) He purchased several books for me,
Read more