Knowing the past through my fathers parents has made a great impact on my life, but it was only half of who I was. I wanted to know more. What was missing at the time was knowing my mothers side of the family and in order to do this I had work extra hard to find clues that would lead to the trail of my Polish Roots.
Rewind.......
Rewind.......
After finding Wanda's and Norma's birth certificates I thought that it only made common sense to search for John V Shablack's birth certificate. I knew he was born in Philadelphia thanks to his and Norma's marriage license, so I started there. In the past I had searched records on the Shields side in Pennsylvania and thought this would be a breeze, the sad part is that it was not a breeze at all. In fact, I found no birth record for John Valentine Shablack born in Philadelphia, PA. I was so disappointed, I had looked for weeks and could not find anything.
Once I gave up on searching for a record of birth I decided to go the opposite route and find a death certificate. The problem I ran into with finding a death certificate is that I needed to know where my great grandfather had died and I did not know that at the time. So, I used the internet to help me out. One of the search tools that I use to find people is FamilySearch.com it is a genealogy site that is provided by The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints. They have many records and it is free to search when you sign up and this is what I used to find a clue to where John V Shablack passed away.
The Social Security Administration has been around since 1935 and I knew my great grandfather was alive at that time so I figured this would be a great place to start. Once on the site I used the Social Security Death Index to search for John. My hope was that I could find his social security record because I knew it would have his day of death and his last place of residence. Also, with this information I could send off for a copy of the original social security application. The SS application usually shows when they applied, where they lived at the time, their trade and their parents names, all of which is important information to a genealogist.
My search turned out to be worth my while, I not only found his place of death I was able to send off for a copy of the original social security application. The total cost was about $20 and I had to wait a few weeks, but when I received it I was a happy camper.
The Social Security application listed his name as John Valentine Shablack, age at the time of the application was 35 years old. However, his birth date was listed as being August 4th, 1905 and this was wrong. The date of birth should have been August 4th, 1904 and his actual age on the application should have been 36 years in march of 1941. Again, people back then regularly changed their birth dates which can be quite confusing to someone researching their family history. The application also listed his parents as John Shablack and Mary Kiersnowska. Mary's name was an alternate spelling because on the marriage license of John and Norma his mothers surname is spelled Kishlowski. John's occupation at the time states "Business for Self, paid by commission" and address as 408 Clark St. Clarksburg, WV. When I looked up the address in GOOGLE maps the picture shows a vacant lot. The coolest thing I thought on the application was getting to see his signature, if only my own signature could be as pretty as his was.
Now that I had this information I knew the location of John's death, but I was not any closer to knowing where in Poland he was from and when he or his family came to America. I didn't know if he was born in Poland or if it was his parents or their parents, so my next step was to try and get a hold of his death certificate. I thought that if I get his death certificate I could possibly find someone to contact and ask if they knew anymore information on John. The hardest part of my Shablack reseach was that I really had no contacts on the that side of the family, the only Shablack I met was my Great Grandma Norma Marguerite and that was when I was about 5 years of age and she passed away when I was 13 which was way before I started my research. I also knew I could not ask my mom because she was always reluctant to speak about her mom and her mom's side of the family. My Aunt Norma loved to talk to me about family, but she did not speak much about that side of the family either, so at the time I felt like this was my last hope to find some answers and possibly someone else who may have known John Valentine Shablack.
So the search continued....
John Valentine Shablack SS Aplication
The Social Security application listed his name as John Valentine Shablack, age at the time of the application was 35 years old. However, his birth date was listed as being August 4th, 1905 and this was wrong. The date of birth should have been August 4th, 1904 and his actual age on the application should have been 36 years in march of 1941. Again, people back then regularly changed their birth dates which can be quite confusing to someone researching their family history. The application also listed his parents as John Shablack and Mary Kiersnowska. Mary's name was an alternate spelling because on the marriage license of John and Norma his mothers surname is spelled Kishlowski. John's occupation at the time states "Business for Self, paid by commission" and address as 408 Clark St. Clarksburg, WV. When I looked up the address in GOOGLE maps the picture shows a vacant lot. The coolest thing I thought on the application was getting to see his signature, if only my own signature could be as pretty as his was.
Now that I had this information I knew the location of John's death, but I was not any closer to knowing where in Poland he was from and when he or his family came to America. I didn't know if he was born in Poland or if it was his parents or their parents, so my next step was to try and get a hold of his death certificate. I thought that if I get his death certificate I could possibly find someone to contact and ask if they knew anymore information on John. The hardest part of my Shablack reseach was that I really had no contacts on the that side of the family, the only Shablack I met was my Great Grandma Norma Marguerite and that was when I was about 5 years of age and she passed away when I was 13 which was way before I started my research. I also knew I could not ask my mom because she was always reluctant to speak about her mom and her mom's side of the family. My Aunt Norma loved to talk to me about family, but she did not speak much about that side of the family either, so at the time I felt like this was my last hope to find some answers and possibly someone else who may have known John Valentine Shablack.
So the search continued....
John Valentine Shablack SS Aplication
John Valentine Shablack
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