Ryan's Roots

Just a quick story of how genealogy can surprise you when you least expect it.

I’ve been away from the research for several months now, but have recently picked back up again. Even well underway with a “Genealogy Do Over”, starting both my paternal and maternal trees from scratch, giving me a chance to retrace my steps, look for new records, review old records for missed details, etc.

One of those details that I’ve known about in the back of my mind, but has bugged me for a while, is the 1910 census for my paternal great-great-grandparents, Aleksander Szerszen and Franciszka Ruskowska. I’ve written about Aleksander before, and his disappearance after the 1910 census.

I’ve also noticed that in Franciszka’s entry, it lists her as having 4 children, with 2 living at the time of the census. We know Stanislaus (Stanley) and Bronislawa (Bertha) were the living children. We also know that Jan Szerszen (born c. 1901) was on the ship manifest when the rest of the family immigrated to Baltimore. I presume that he died sometime between their arrival in August 1906, and the census in the spring of 1910.

But who was the fourth child?

As part of my tree do over, I’ve been spending some time in the Maryland State Archives, looking through indexes of deaths in the city between 1906 and the mid 1920s. These records aren’t searchable, so the only way to research is to go page by page, scanning for a Sersen surname (or a plausible mispelling, given how many there are in other documents). It can be a chore, and I’ve done this a couple times now, looking for a sign of either Aleksander or Jan. So far I’ve come up empty.

But this time, I did notice a couple Szerszens and Sersens that I had either missed before, or didn’t pay attention. No names that I recognized, but I decided to roll the dice and order their death certificates anyway. For a total of $20, I placed an order for four certificates – Eva Serszen (d. 1917), Magdalena Serszen (d. 1921), Peter Sersin (d. 1924), and Anton Sersen (d. 1909).

That was a week ago, and then I kind of forgot about it, and moved onto other research. Figuring this was a hail mary attempt to begin with, and that the MSA isn’t typically fast about responses, sometimes taking several weeks to mail hard copies of the requested records. Apparently they’ve migrated to email now, and to my pleasant surprise, I got my four certificates only a few days later.

The certificates for Eva, Magdalena, and Peter were as I feared. No recognizable names, informants, or locations. Still, I’ll keep these to the side for future reference, you never know when they might be useful.

And then lastly, I opened Anton’s certificate…..and was shocked to see my great-great-grandparents names.

Just like that, without even trying, I had solved that years-old mystery of Aleksander and Franciszka’s 4th child. Sometimes it pays to throw that hail mary, you never know when it’ll pay off.

Sadly, Anton died at only 15 months old. The search continues for Aleksander and Jan, and Anton’s certificate doesn’t reveal much additional information that wasn’t already known about his parents. But now an ancestor that was lost to time will be remembered by his family. Seems like $5 pretty well spent.