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