St Stanislaus Polish Catholic Church

Happy New Year to all,

Here is another post on "The Search for my Polish Roots". 

Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

During the several weeks of talking and emailing back and forth to my newly found Aunt I had received quite a bit of information on the Shablacks. I now new more of my Great Grandfathers siblings names and I even a bit about their decedents. It was everything that I could have wished for, and made for a great start. I still did not know any of the other relatives and I still did not know what part of Poland and when they had came to the United States. So I still had my work cut out for me.

My next step was to try and find a birth record for my Great Grandfather. I knew the first attempt ended in failure, but I had to try again especially now that I had information from my Aunt that said he was born in Philadelphia, Pa. My Aunt also sent me a baptismal record that dated his birth as August 04, 1904. He was baptized at St. Stanislaus Church on the 14th of August 1904 in Philadelphia, Pa. The baptismal record also listed his birth name differently as well as his parents. My Great Grandfather John Valentine Shablacks name was listed as (John Szablak) his father was listed as (John Szablak) and his mother was listed as (Mary Kiesznowska) which was so odd. Well I knew that his mother my second Great Grandmothers name had changed a few times, but this was the first time I had ever seen the Shablack name change. Now with this new information I knew that I was going to have to use the alternate spelling to search for records as well.  However, this really was the greatest gift, now all I had to do was request a copy of his birth record again, but this time I sent in a copy of the baptismal as proof of his birth. 

While waiting for a reply from the state of Pennsylvania I decided to take my research another step. I contacted St Stanislaus and asked them how to go about searching for records for genealogical purposes. They informed me to just send in a self addressed envelope with a letter stating the names and dates that I would like them to search, I did just that. I wanted to get another copy of my Great Grandfathers baptismal record to see if anything was different, I also requested them to search for his parents names in church records. I wanted to know if they were married in the church or not. 

After a few weeks I had received a response from the state of Pennsylvania. Again they said that John Valentine Shablack (Szablak) had no birth record even under the new name that I had found on the baptismal record. I was so disappointed. I began to think that maybe just maybe he was not born here at all. My Aunt that helped me with all the information had told me that she had seen different record dates, name changes, etc so maybe just maybe it was falsified. I know that immigrants today do it so I am sure they did the same back then. However, this was not a concrete conclusion, I just had my work cut out for me before I could come to that conclusion. 

About a week after receiving the bad news about the birth record I received an envelope from St Stanislaus Catholic Church. I remember the big smile and excitement I felt when I held that letter in my hand. To my amazement, once I had opened letter, I held in my hands a copy of the baptismal record my Aunt had already sent me and a copy of a marriage record for my Great Grandfathers parents that I had not had a copy of. I was grinning from ear to ear! 

The baptismal had the same information on it, except a few of the letters in the witnesses names and John V's mothers name had changed. Of course the excuse given for this in the letter was that, the microfiche were so old that some things were illegible.  On the marriage record it says my second Great Grandparents names were Jan Szablak born in Poland and age 24 and Marianna Kersznowska born in Poland and age 17. They were married August 9th 1903 at St Stanislaus Catholic Church. The things I learned from this is that John was not John at the time but (Jan) and his wife was Marianna instead of (Mary) and her surname was spelled differently now for the fourth time. The record also gave the names of two witnesses and listed their home address as 2339 Callowhill St Philadelphia, Pa which no longer exists in modern day Philly. 

With all the new information my mind back tracked to John Valentines birth, now I was pretty certain that he had to have been born in Philadelphia in 1904. It only made since now that I had proof that his parents were married almost a year before his birth in the same town and at the same church to where he was baptized as a child. I still did not know at the time why I could never find a birth record for him though, it took me a few years before I came to a conclusion. When my second great grandparents immigrated to the United States it was a time when many immigrant family's didn't report birth records at the state level. Not to mention, that coming from Poland it was common to record births at the church level in baptismal form. So to them it was as if they had never left home, they went to St Stanislaus Polish Catholic Church and baptized their new born son John Valentine Shablack (Szablak) and that was his birth record. 

Now with all of this new information I felt that I was getting closer to my goal which was to find out where and when my second Great Grandparents came to America from Poland. I just need more time to research and so the search continued. 

John Valentine's Baptismal Certificate that I received from my Aunt. 

John Valentine's Baptismal Certificate I sent off for.