Thankful Thursday: Finally Finding My Great-Grandfather's DI

Today I would like to give thanks for my latest genealogy find. I've been searching for my great-grandfather's naturalization papers for years and years. I wrote to all of the courts in Chicago where Konstanty Gonszewski could have filed his papers, but I failed to find anything. Then the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court created a database of its more than 500,000 Declarations of Intention. The only thing was, I still could not find Konstanty Gonszewski's papers.

I thought his name might have been misspelled. There were a few candidates with similar names but the birth dates were wrong. I kept thinking his birth date should be the same as the one I had found in several documents, so I did not try to order any of the possibilities. Turns out it was a good thing I didn't.

Even though the database was searchable, it was still in the process of being compiled when I first searched it. After reading all the information available on the website (always a good idea), I learned that researchers were encouraged to check back if they could not find their ancestor. It was hard not to give up hope. I had even had the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services look for the record to no avail. I thought they would have had a copy of the record even if it had been filed in circuit court.

Much to my surprise, I searched the database again recently and I found it! I found Konstanty's online index record. Already, this provided me with an important detail that had been eluding me all these years - Konstanty's birthplace. This record cited it as Stanislawowo. All the other documents I have for him only list Poland, not a specific city. I just have to figure out which Stanislawowo this is, since there is more than one in Poland. But I think it may be the one near Bialystok because the census records list Konstanty's birthplace as Russia Poland. The record also notes that Konstanty arrived in the US on Nov. 15, 1897. I still haven't been able to find his ship manifest, even when I put this arrival date into the Ancestry search engine, but maybe I will find it one day. You never know, the records I get might have an arrival record included.

Now I just have to send in a form and payment and wait to get the records. Maybe they will tell me more. Thank you Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court Archives!

Record Details for Volume 405
Page Number:	122
Declaration Number:	206822

FIRST NAME	LAST NAME	OCCUPATION
KONSTANTY	GONSEUSKI [GONSEWSKI]	LABORER
BIRTH CITY	BIRTH COUNTRY	BIRTH DATE
STANISLAWOWO	POLAND	3/10/1879
CURRENT ADDRESS	CURRENT CITY
1030 W. IRVING AVE.	CHICAGO
DEPARTURE LOCATION	ARRIVAL DATE	DECLARATION DATE
BREMEN, GERMANY	11/15/1897	6/15/1929