What's So Great About a Declaration of Intention?: Finding Konstanty Gonsewski's Village

Konstanty Gonsewski's Declaration of Intention

So why is this piece of paper so important?

When I finally found my great-grandfather Konstanty Gonsewski's index card in the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court Naturalization Declarations of Intention database, I finally opened the door to stepping back into my family history on the line that gave me my maiden name, Gonsewski. If you have ancestors from Chicago (Cook County), I highly recommend checking out this database. As mentioned in an earlier blog post Thankful Thursday: Finding Konstanty Gonsewski's Birthplace, I could not pin down the ancestral village for the Gonsewski line until I found Konstanty indexed here. Although several of the U.S. censuses noted that he was naturalized, I never could find any naturalization papers - even when I wrote to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services  (check out this link for more information from the History and Genealogy page of the organization). So far, it seems that Konstanty only filed his Declaration of Intention and never completed the naturalization process ... either that it was happened, or his files are still somewhere waiting to be found! As you can see, he only filled out this DI when he was 50 years old ... on June 15, 1929. His wife Apolonia (aka Pauline, maiden name Wykowski) had passed away in 1924. He died in 1940, so maybe he completed the process. Only time will tell. I sent for a copy of Konstanty's DI and received it in the mail. (&Note: You can click on the documents on this page and then you will be able to "zoom in" to be able to read them.)

Here is the important information contained in Konstanty Gonsewski's DI:

1.   He listed his name as Konstanty Gonsewski

2.   He was 50 years old (on the date of June 5, 1929).

3.   He was a laborer.

4.   He was described as having a dark complexion, being 5 feet 10 inches tall, having dark brown hair, blue eyes, and one leg shorter than the other.

5.   His birthplace was Stanislawowo, Poland.

6.   He was born on March 10, 1979.

7.   His residence was 1030 N. Irving Avenue, Chicago, IL.

8.   He emigrated to the U.S. from Bremen, Germany.

9.   He did not know the name of the ship.

10. His last residence before emigrating was Poland.

11. He was a widower.

12. He renounced allegiance to any other country and proclaimed his desire to become a U.S. citizen.

13. He arrived at the port of New York, New York on approximately Nov. 15, 1897.

14. He signed his name (that is his original signature!).

15. He filed this DI with the Clerk of the Superior Court (M. S. Szymczak) in Chicago, IL.

16. He filed this DI on June 5, 1929.

Using this information, I think I found the correct ancestral village to be Stanislawowo, Podlaskie, Poland which is near Lomza. However, it could be one of several other villages named Stanislawowo that you can see here. So, I continue my research to try to verify that this is the correct place. One piece of evidence is also related to the DI ... Konstanty says he emigrated to the U.S. on a ship travelling from Bremen, Germany and arriving in New York on approximately Nov. 15, 1897. Here is the only ship manifest that I can find that might match that information:

Here is the important information contained in this ship manifest:

1.   I think this is Konstanty Gonsewski but he is listed on line 1 as Const. Gantzki.

2.   His ship was the S.S. Stuttgart and it sailed from Bremen, Germany to New York, New York.

3.   His ship left Bremen on Oct. 30, 1897 and arrived in New York on Nov. 12, 1897.

(Note: As shown above, his DI says he arrived in New York on approximately Nov. 15, 1897.)

4.   He said he was 20 years old and single. He also was listed as male, of course.

(Note: Konstanty Gonsewski's birthday was March 10, 1879, so he would have been 18 years old. However, it was common for immigrants to state an older age on their ship manifests if they thought being older would be beneficial. Also, many Poles did not keep track of their exact birth dates and ages at this time in history.)

5.   He said he was able to read and write.

6.   His occupation is listed as laborer.

7.   He is listed as Russian (He was Polish, but Poland was ruled by the Russian Empire then.)

8.   He listed his last residence as Lomza.

9.   He said he was going to New York (brother is written over that).

10.  He said he had a ticket to final destination and paid for himself.

11.  He said he had $2. (Wow! Only arrived with $2 in his pocket!)

12.  He said he had never been in the U.S. before.

13.  He said he was going to stay with his brother in Brooklyn, NY.

14.  He does not seem to have a street address listed, although it might be the same as those listed below him: 20 Delancy Street. 

15.  There is a notation 110-45 by his line here, but not sure if it means anything. There is not a notation saying he was naturalized, like the one on line 5 for Theofil Godlewski.

So, where do I go from here? I looked at church records for Stanislawowo, Podlaskie, Poland and found some that might be related to him. More about that in my next blog post! 

Konstanty Gonsewski's ship, S.S. Stuttgart

* Please comment and let me know what you think about all this! Also, if you're a cousin or relative, I would love it if you would add any stories that you know or have been told about the Gonsewski family and ask any questions that you may have for me.