On this page I tell the story of how I slowly learned more and more about Sophia and Louis Kurlandski, my great-grandparents. Though lightweight compared to most genealogical research, my experience may be of interest to those who have never tried it themselves. I recount the findings as I discovered them back in 2014 or so. Some of the websites I link to may have changed since then.

Where We Begin

Sophia M. Preis was first married to a John Wroblewski, and had two children by him—John and Regina. Later Regina would come to be known as Sister Regina. After her husband, John, died, Sophia married Louis Roy Kurlandski, my great-grandfather. Together they had five sons.

That’s about all the oral version of the family history tells us. But, presumably, with a little bit of digging we can learn more. Other people have done it--why not us? Let's just put our noses to the ground and get started.

Ellis Island

The Ellis Island records are the most complete set of U.S. immigration records we have. Huge numbers of Europeans passed through there at just about the time my ancestors came to this country. This is the first stop for many a successful quest for information on one's ancestors.

Alas, I've tried searching before through the Ellis Island records, and have never had success. I've even searched while visiting Ellis Island itself, which is now a wonderful museum.

Here's what the Ellis Island website displays when you search on the surname Kurlandski:

On the website, if you click on the links, you learn that the 1924 arrivals weren't Cuban. They were just passing through Cuba on their way from Poland. You can paint yourself a picture of this family, as you click on the links and piece together the information. But, as interesting as all this is, these are no relations of mine. At least not direct relations. (Regarding the other Kurlandskis in this table, see Ellis Island Search Results below.)

1964

Sister Regina passed on. I think you can request a copy of her St. Louis Post-Dispatch obituary at the obituary's summary page.

• In case the link goes down, I found it by searching on "Regina Wroblewski".

1960

Sophia died and was buried at Resurrection Cemetery in Afton, Missouri, next to Louis.

1944

Louis died and was buried.

This gravestone is actually what inspired my quest. My daughter, Sophia Kurlandski, googled herself one day and came across this photo. Spooky.

As it turns out, this gravestone is just one of many at Find-a-Grave, a website designed to help genealogical research.

1940

The 1940 US Census has Sophia and Louis in a household of three, with Francis, their youngest. I know that Uncle Frank served in the Pacific during World War II, so I imagine he stayed with them until shortly after we joined the war in 1941.

Notice the middle initials, which we won’t see on the other censuses as we go through them. Notice also that Sophia is transcribed as Sophie—an error or an alternate, sometimes-used, version of her name?

1930

The Census of 1930 has their family looking like this:

1920

Ten years before the 1930 Census, we find a new member of the family.

In this census a child, Catherine, is mentioned. No living relative seems to have any knowledge of her. Did she die prior to the 1930 census? I don’t yet know. (But see Katie Kurlandski, below.) Also notice the subtle differences in how the sons’ names were recorded, and the fact that in this census, unlike in 1930, the person who filled out the form provides a date of immigration for Sophia.

1910

I have no idea how I discovered the record for Sophia and Louis in the 1910 Census. I remember the night: working at my computer, doing searches on Sophia, Louis and John Wroblewski. But I don't remember which search brought me to the following all-important information. I must have been playing around with different spellings of the surname Kurlandski--or I accidentally forgot the "d" in one of my searches.

1910 Notes

• The Louis Kurlandski of 1920 had identified himself as Ludwik Kurlanski ten years earlier. It's entirely possible that this difference may have been partly due to an error on the part of the census taker.
• In her early childhood Catherine was known as Katie.
• The appearance of the two children from Sophia’s previous marriage to John Wroblewski. Note also that the surname in this record has been misspelled. I assume that seven-year-old Sophia listed in this census would later take her vows as Sister Regina. (This is the first indication that I have found that her original name was not Regina.)
• Sophia's year of immigration changed over the three census conducted from 1910-1930. (Apparently this information was not requested after 1930.)
• This census has Louis's place of birth as Germany, whereas, from 1920 onward it was recorded as Poland. The same change occurs in the census data for the Nawrocki side of my family (see Polish-German History).

I Become Distracted

Losing the scent of my quarry

From the ages of the children in the 1910 census, we can be pretty sure that Sophia and Ludwik married sometime between 1900 and 1910. Searching for "Sophia Wroblewski" and "Sophia Wroblenski" hasn’t turned anything up yet.

But I did find a John Wroblewski who was two at the time of the 1900 census. That’s about the right age for the boy who was 13 at the time of the 1910 census, above.

But this John's father and mother were named Frank and Paladia, not John and Sophia. For a while—too long—I let wishful thinking make me imagine that this census information had something to do with my great-grandmother Sophia Wroblewski/Kurlandski. I even looked up the meaning of the name Paladia, and was amazed to learn that, like Sophia, it means "wisdom" in Greek.

Another misstep occurred while I searched immigration records at the Family Search website. I tried out variations on the spelling of both the first name and the surname, and came up with this record for a Ludwig Kurlansky.

This Ludwig was 8 when he immigrated in 1884. That puts his birth at 1876 or so--remember that Louis's gravestone, above, has 1875. The fact that this person came from Russia rather than Poland means nothing--Poland did not exist as a nation-state at the time.

I was pretty excited to find this record. Especially when I found other records for other Kurlandskys coming in with him. A whole family. You know, like the mouse family in the movie An American Tail.

But there is one piece of information we have that suggests this is not our boy. The census records are fairly insistent that he immigrated between 1900 and 1902. Of course, they're all over the map when it comes to Sophia's date of immigration, which tells us we shouldn't take the dates for Louis too seriously. But still...

The Hound Dog is Back on the Trail

... and back to Ellis Island

So bravely this hound dog soldiered on (a metaphor that wouldn't be mixed if the army were open-minded enough to allow dogs to enlist). I decided to take the 1900-02 date of immigration as a given. I looked for online immigration records for cities other than New York--maybe Ludwig had come in via New Orleans and got to St. Louis by going up the Mississippi. But I couldn't find anything.

Finally I came around full circle: I went back to the Ellis Island site and started searching for "L or Ludwig or Ludwik" "Kurlandski or Kurlandsky or Kurlanski or Kurlansky" immigrating sometime around 1901.

And there he was. To see what I've learned, visit my Ludwig Kurlandsky, Immigrant page.

But what about Sophia?

Still no details. The scent is cold. I've tried going back to 1910 to pick up the trail again from there, but with no luck.

My father reports that Sophia had a sister named Ida who married a John Sikorski. They lived on Pulaski Street across the street from St. Hedwig church. I quick search brought me to John Sikorsky - 1900 Census Record Summary.

With some clicking which I no longer remember, I eventually found John Sikorsky's exact census record. At the top this page reads "Image 40 of 41." By navigating to Image 39, you see on the left-hand side that the census taker was covering North 11th Street, and that the numbers in the leftmost column must refer to street addresses. Going back to Image 40, we can pretty safely conclude that in 1900 John and Ida lived at 1321 North 11th Street. In other words, they hadn't yet moved to the place my dad remembers.

All very interesting, but trying to find out more about Ida, such as her maiden name, brought me to just as much of a dead-end as I'd found for Sophia. (But see Sophia M. Preis, below.)

Notes

Some of my information comes from FamilySearch.org. I provide more details about this website in separate notes.

Ellis Island Search Results

(referenced in Ellis Island)

When I originally wrote this web page in 2014, the only arrivals who appeared on the Ellis Island search for 'Kurlandski' were the 1924 family. Since then we have two new groups:

• the 1939-1946 arrivals of Munosz, Jacob and Rose: Not my people, for sure, but perhaps they are WW II refugees related to Pincus Kurlandski.
• Tobie and 'Ch' Kurlandski: These two are interesting leads, especially in light of the fact that Louis was preceded by his brother (see The Ellis Island Records). See also Kurlandski Ellis Island on the separate Notes page.

Katie Kurlandski

(referenced in 1920)

See Katie Kurlandski for the little bit I have managed to learn about her.

Sophia M. Preis

One explanation for why I can't find anything on Sophia could be that I have her maiden name wrong. Ida Sikorsky's record for the 1910 census, which can be found via the link to John Sikorsky's page, is frustrating because it doesn't give her (and Sophia's) maiden name. But it does have her as emigrating here from Poland/Germany in 1881, at the age of 11. Surely her sister would have emigrated at the same time, on the same ship, wouldn't she? Thinking this might be a new lead, I went to the Ellis Island website and searched on "Ida Preis": there was an Ida Preiss who came in 1885, but this Ida came with just one person, a man.