drevesa - hawlina

DREVESA
The Family Quest in USA
and Slovenia
Mary Widdowson
Researching my relatives in the US has been quite a
challenge. I have no close relatives so I cannot ask for them
to help me. I am only going from the stories I remember
from a little girl and the thing my brother has told up until
last year. I have been doing research on the Fifolt family
for about 3 years and have found many inconsistencies. My
objective was to get everybody back on the boat that they
came on. I knew it would be impossible for me to continue
the search after that because I would have needed to go to
churches in the old country and look at the history they
had recorded. So to continue here I joined Ancestry.com
and began. My family was started.
I knew my grandfather's name and knew they all lived
in Cleveland but finding them was a real challenge I began
by getting death certificates. This I thought would give
me the most facts to go on. My father signed the death
certificate for his dad. First mistake. I found out he didn't
know he dad's name so I got the wrong grandfather and
it wasn't until I looked at his brother's and sister's death
certificate did I find the real name.
The next problem I found was when immigrants came
to our country. Not only did they have a language barrier
but, the people living here taking census reports couldn't
spell. They probably made up a spelling of what they thought
the names sounded like. Thus Fifolt became Trifolt,
Fefolt and other erroneous misspellings. I was thrown off
course a million times but you just have to stick with the
ancestry search. I encountered many dead ends but my
family was growing!
I got army enlistment papers that had the wrong birth
date. My father told the government the wrong year so
he could enlist. I got marriage licenses that the priest
switched the brides. My uncle was married to the wrong
woman and didn't even know it. That was interesting, I
found that out when I looked at microfilm and the wives
were switched because they were cousins married one day
apart by the same priest. But the priest didn't record them
until months later and he must have forgotten. I am sure
they didn't know. When I looked for where my father and
mother were married I found out they were married in
two different churches on the same day! Both churches
had the record. I chose the church closest to what I think
was right. At least I have the right date. My family was
growing at a fast rate.
When I went to cemeteries I got all kinds of errors.
My great uncle was buried before his son but his son died
years before. They switched the names. The names were
recorded wrong and I had to take a picture of the tombsto-
52
ne to prove I was right. I can't figure out how this could
happen but it did. My family grew.
I also found the best way to find out information is
not from an index list. You need to see the real record.
Sometimes people don't record the entire fact and when
you go to match things up they seem right until you are
down the wrong road and find out that sometime on the
real record might not have matched. Another uncle of mine
matched all but the children. Some children were from
another man - same name different children. Be careful
of other family trees because copying all their information
might seem right but not be right in actuality. 2000 people
and growing.
Try to find someone who can help you is sometimes the
best solution when you have reached a dead end. I have
been so lucky with that. When I was at what I thought
was the end of my searching I found a cousin to help. He
actually found me on the internet. He is Uros Fifolt. He
turned out to be not only a great help with my research
but has become my favorite cousin. He has located our
family home, the place where my grandfather grew up
and left for the US. He found out things at the Ljubljana
archives that filled in big gaps in my ancestry. I found an
uncle and two aunts that I did not know I had and I found
a Cousin of my mother who was still alive and well. I have
learned so many wonderful things about my homeland and
the people and places there. I feel through Uros I have
again made the connection to the family 1 never dreamed
I would find much less get to know. Now over 3000 people
are on my tree and my husbands. His goes back to
1400's. We are growing together and happily finding new
relatives each day.
Good luck with your search and don't give up. Ask lots
of questions and take lots of pictures. Be sure to label the
pictures, believe me as you get older you won't remember
who is in the picture or where it was taken. Always think
these people deserve to be remembered and honored because
without them you would not be reading this!
1/2011