Genealogical Gems

The Lancaster County Historical Society has announced that it will be closed to the public from 31 December through 10 January. The staff will use this time to prepare for the coming year. The Society will reopen on Monday, 12 January. The Regional History Colloquiums will begin again on 22 January. Richard Hertzler will present My Lancaster County through Photographs at 4 p.m. that Thursday. The following Thursday, the 29 th , Bill Rothermal will present The Shutte Car Company: Custom Cars in Lancaster . All Colloquiums are free to the public. The Historical Society, known also as LancasterHistory.org, is located at 230 N. President Avenue. Society Saturday is a genealogical prompt of the GeneaBloggers.

Genealogy has been a hobby of mine for as long as I can recall. Since I got interested early on, I knew some of my great aunts who were great at telling family stories! I found it easier to write them then schedule a time and travel to them (even the ones who were close). Catherine Rothermal was one of those great aunts. Catherine was the daughter of my great grandmother's brother and she knew her! This meant I was able to ask (and receive) personal information. I did however have to remember that Catherine knew her as a child and we do tend to see things differently as children. I wrote her once asking what she recalled of my great grandmother, Bessie Matys. She wrote: 18 September 1986 Dear Jeanne, I enjoyed hearing from you. It's great that you want to know more about the family tree. I'm afraid I won't be too much of help. My father Frank, who was your great grandmother's brother, told us he was born in Galicia. The family name was Matys. There were ...

Bessie Matys, my great grandmother, was born 5 June 1895. She came to America in 1912, leaving her father and three older sisters in Fraga, to join her brother in Coatesville, Chester County, PA. It was there she met and married Panko Hruszczak in 1915. Together they had 10 children. One passed in infancy but the others lived full lives. But today, I'd like to focus on Bessie herself. Little is known of her life before she immigrated. She was born in Fraga, Rohatya, Galicia to, according to church records here, Joseph Matys and Olena Vaspleship. I know of her four sisters only because of a letter from her brother's oldest daughter, Catherine. Catherine Matys Rothermel immigrated with her parents. We wrote and visited several times. She wrote once that there was four girls and her father and that Bessie was the youngest of all. She was 18 when she boarded the ship Cincinnati in Hamburg, Germany to join her brother, Frank, here in America. She arrived, according ...