I had noticed some of the discrepancies in other records…incorrect birthdates, not knowing a parent’s name. A big mistake really caught my eye when a volunteer had taken a photo of her tombstone for FindAGrave. Why did someone not take care in knowing her specifics?

I had never met her as she passed away more than two years before my birth. My father had always spoken lovingly about his mother. He shared how devoted she was to her children. He related how she took menial jobs to bring in money for the household. The few pictures he had of his mother always showed her with her children. Only one remained of her and her husband, my grandfather.

My grandmother was an emigrant from Poland who arrived at Ellis Island in 1906. It took much detective work to find basic information about her. In addition to a ship’s manifest, the first real record I found was her marriage certificate from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It contained her birthdate as 10 April 1892. It contained her parents’ names as Stanislaw and Tekla Mroz. The second record I obtained was a copy of her naturalization papers, which contained the birthdates of her three children. It also recorded 1892 as her birth year.

Then two records really showed that the informant did not know her correct information. The first was her Commonwealth of Pennsylvania death certificate. It recorded that her birth year was 1894…a mistake. It stated that her mother’s name was unknown. The informant was her husband, my grandfather. The second record was the photo of my grandparents’ tombstone. Etched in granite was the wrong birth year…Anna’s birth year is stated as 1895.

It is sad to me that supposed facts were never checked and double checked for my grandmother.