The Search for Mary Franko

I believe this is Juliánna Kedves’ Hungarian death registry.  It’s absolutely breathtaking, isn’t it?  After discovering Mary’s first marriage license, I quickly plugged in the names of her parents in FamilySearch.org.  This is the record I found:

I think this is a good lead.  Ópályi, Szabolcs, Hungary is where Mary is from per her arrival manifesto and her marriage license to David Franko.  Lajos Simon is also Julianna’s husband.  What is new information, if this is indeed my great-great-grandmother, is that my 3rd great-grandfather was named Ferencz Kedves.

I don’t have words.  I know Mary was married before she married my Great-Grandfather, and that his name was Mihaly Kopasz. I know she is from Opalyi, Hungary.  Lajos is an obvious Hungarian version of “Louis,” or mistaken for “Aloysius”.  This is the Hungary Civil Registration for my Mary Franko’s first marriage to Mihaly Kopasz.  It’s also independent confirmation that that the two documents that Mary filled out are correct. These are MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS!!!!

Ancestry’s record of Mary Franko’s Social Security Application was legit!  Maiden name, address, place of birth, birth date all match. Her SS# (which I blocked on this picture above, matches the SS# I had on record as well.

What is HUGE is that her parents’ names are on here.  They aren’t identical to the handwritten names given on her marriage license, but they are very similar. 

Marriage License:  Aloysius (Simon) and Julia Vedres

Application for SS#:  Louis Simon and Julia Kedves.

Language barriers, sloppy handwriting, Anglicization of names could all have been a contributing factor to why her parents’ names are slightly different from one document to another.  They are so close-- I just one something to link them all together that Mary Franko didn’t fill out herself.

As far as the rest of new information given:  This was filed 11/26/1936, so my Grandma and her sister Mimi would have been considered underage (Mimi was born in Dec 1919).  

I signed back up for Ancestry.com.  I did a basic search and found something that I know I would have found before now.  It must be new: U.S Social Security Applications and Claim Index, 1936-2007.

Brief history lesson (so brief I am cheating and copying/pasting from Wikipedia):  “The Social Security Act was enacted August 14, 1935. The Act was drafted during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term by the President's Committee on Economic Security, under Frances Perkins, and passed by Congress as part of the New Deal. The Act was an attempt to limit what were seen as dangers in the modern American life, including old age, poverty, unemployment, and the burdens of widows and fatherless children.” 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Social_Security_in_the_United_States

David Franko died in 1930, and he and Mary’s daughters were born in 1915, 1917, 1919, and 1921, making the two youngest still under age (assuming 18  was being “of age”) when the Social Security Act was enacted.   

So it was not surprising to me to see an entry for “Mary Simon Franko” on Ancestry,com’s collection of U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007.  

I am a little confused with the information given in the record.  The household members are listed as Mary Simon (maiden name), David Franko, and Irene Franko Bogden.  David died in 1930, but any sort of license or citizenship application always seems to ask about spouses and parents-- whether they are alive or dead.  He most definitely was not a household member any time after 12/30/1930!

What was very interesting was that Irene (the oldest daughter, born in 1915) is listed a) as being a household member, b) under her married name.  If the record can only be as old as 1936, she would have been 21 and likely to be married.  My mother seems to remember she lived with Mary while her husband was off fighting WWII, which would explain why she is listed as a household member, but not her husband. However, why would Mary wait another 6-9 years to file, when the children would have all been of age by then?  There is no issuing date listed in this record.  I suppose Irene and her husband were living with Mary because they were young newlyweds, and she just left him off the the application.

Thanks to my mother, I am getting the genealogy itch again.  Every week she watches this show on PBS, and I only wish I could be a celebrity for a day so I can be on it. Actually, I would prefer “Who Do You Think You Are?” because part of the joy (at times) of this puzzle is finding it out on my own.  I don’t think it would mean as much if I just hired someone to do it.  I don’t need to spend the money, but it’s been a while… maybe there are new documents out there that are new or that I previously overlooked.  

It’s been a frustrating couple of years with no progress…except the realization I will probably never have the money to hire a genealogist in Hungary. I cancelled my Ancestry and Genealogybank.com accounts because it was costing too much money and I was stuck.

Luckily, I did receive a nice surprise in my email from a @findagravedatabase-blog member who sent me a photo of Mary’s first husband’s grave. It is located at Saint Mary’s Greek Catholic Cemetery in Trenton, NJ.  

I google translated:

“IT NYUKSZIK”– the correct spelling is “Itt nyugszik” and it translates to “It Rests Here.”  I am sure it is really “He rests here,” but you should see my struggles with French and German pronouns!  

“KOPASZ MIHALY” (because it is traditional for surname to be written first).  

“MEG HALT 1912″ = “Died 1912″.  

“JUNIUS 9 DIKEN”- June 9 is obvious, but I have gone through Google Translate and google search for Hungarian words with the suffix “-iken” and came up with nothing,  In Turkish, it means “thorn”.  Need to do some more research on this.

There looks to be a line underneath that is obscured by grass.  I see the tops of some letters poking out under the “UN” in “JUNIUS” and “EN” under “What-looks-to-be-DIKEN.”

Very cool.  I feel it would be the right thing to do to “pay it back”.  There are lots of people who want gravestone pictures of their ancestors that live near me.

The end of an era– the last Franko sister joined the rest of her family.  I hope she is giving Bob hell, and gossiping with her favorite sister– my Grandma.

Well, the genealogy trip didn’t go quite as planned.  I couldn’t get in to the church to view any records.  I didn’t allot enough time in Trenton City Records office. I got lost on the way to the Hungarian Museum and ended up right outside NYC!  The only saving grace was that I got to visit Saint Stephens Roman Catholic Cemetery in Hamilton, New Jersey.  These are the graves of my great-grandparents!  

I am off tomorrow to visit this side of the family in PA/NJ and do some genealogy in Trenton.  I hope to hit several archives (my list is at home), Mary's burial site, the Greek (Byzantine) church she was married, her home at "--" street and the American Hungarian Foundation.http://hstrial-pfazekaz.homestead.com/

Plus pick my godmother's brain, since Mary lived with her for a time when she was a child.

Janos, as I learned from the 1910 ship manifest, was Mary Franko's son, who died in quarantine after arriving at Ellis Island.

So Hoffman Island is where he and Mary were while quarantined.  I am not sure I will find anything else out by ordering a copy of the archive, but worth a shot.  I am sure there is no point going to Mount Olivet Cemetery since it is unlikely May had enough money for a head stone.

FYI I know Nyircsaholy, Hungary is not Ópályi, but it's not on the other side of Hungary either.  It's 7 miles away.  This is one of those discrepancies I can dismiss with prejudice.

I showed the manifests to my god-mother and she thinks it all looks solid.  She does remember her coming over one time with her 2nd son (her first had died in quarantine at Hoffman Island in 1910). 

I had found three entries for Maria Kopasz for 1913 on www.ellisisland,org:

  6/3/1913 arrival where she and Barbara Simon were crossed out

6/10/1913 arrival that I had found

4/24/1913 arrival which is unknown to me

I am having a very hard time reading the manifest, but I do see her father's name on it.  I am unable to zoom in and out on ellisisland.org.  Yet, I am unable to bring up this ship on www.Ancestry.com or www.passengerlists.de (since the ship left from Bremen, Germany). 

It almost looks like her name is crossed out again.  However, she is line 15 of 30 entries, which is a good place for a crease as well. 

Maria Simon Kopasz Franko:  born in Ópályi, Hungary.

Ópályi is a village in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary.

  David Franko: born in Vámosújfalu, Hungary

Vámosújfalu is a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County in northeastern Hungary

It was bugging me why Mary was travelling in 1913 under her married name, since she was widowed, but her marriage announcement was under Mari(a) Simon. 

Then it clicked.  This was an announcement of the marriage license.  Which came directly from the actual marriage license:

  Her maiden name was what was listed on the license, so that is why it was listed in the paper (and why David suddenly became Derze).

How could Mary have travelled May 24, 1913 from Bremen to NYC, arriving June 3, 1913, then at the same time leave again May 31, 1913 and arrive June 10, 1913?

I attempted help from https://www.facebook.com/groups/HungaryGenealogy/

I had some contradictory answers, but they were very helpful.  I finally found this on http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/eidbfaq.html

That makes sense.  On the June 3, 1913 manifest, there is a line through both Maria and Barbara-- what I originally thought was a crease line.

The discovery that Mary Franko would have been Mary Kopasz when she immigrated to the US, not Mary Simon, has been essential.

Manifest #1

Maria Kopasz

Nov 3, 1910, from Fiume, on the Ultonia 

Birth- about 1888

From Opalyi, Hungary

She was put in quarantine on 11/4/1910

She had an 11 month-old child with her, Janos.       His name is crossed out and beside it, “Dead at quarantine” 12/7/1910.       

Final Destination- Trenton, NJ

Her husband paid for her journey

She was to live with her husband, Kaposz Mihaly, which      is the same name on her marriage license. 

She was going to meet her husband at 818 S Warren Street, Trenton, NJ.  818 S Warren Street is also the same address David Franko was at in his wedding announcement to Mary.  My guess it was a boarding house.   That is a very big coincidence.

    From the findagrave.com website, I found a Mihaly Kaposz grave from June 9, 1912, buried at the same church Mary and David got married at two years later. 

Manifest #2

    Maria Kopasz

June 3, 1913, from Bremen on the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm

When asked if she had been in in the country before, she had: between “1910 -1912”. 

From Opalyi, Hungary (which was on her marriage license)

Going to Trenton, NJ

The name of “the nearest relative in country where alien came was “Simon Layos”.  From her marriage license, we know her father’s name was Aloysius, in which Layos could be a nickname or misspelling.  I can't really read where he is living, looks like it ends in a "y".

She was also travelling with Babara (Barbara?) Simon.  Her maiden name was Simon. [My mother thinks it was a sister, which is the first I have heard of a sister].

  Manifest # 3

What is bizarre is that there is a Maria Kopasz with the exact same info arriving a week later on June 10, 1913, on a different ship (the George Washington).  Everything is identical except she is on line item #1 on this manifest, not #24 as on June 3, and there is no Barbara with her.  It is definitely a different manifest.   That makes little sense to me.   I don’t think it was possible for her to go back and forth in a week, and why would she?  But everything else is the same—including her father Simon Layos.  This is intriguing.

Mihály (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈmihaːj]) is a Hungarian masculine given name, It is a cognate of the English Michael(. www.wikipedia.org

In the Hungarian language, whether written or spoken, these names are invariably given in the "Eastern name order", or family name followed by given name (In foreign language texts, names are often given with the family name last). (www.wikipedia.org)

Traditionally, when women married they used their husband's complete name and added the suffix -ne (meaning approximately "Mrs"). This practice is no longer as common. Sometimes only the family name and -ne suffix are adopted, and the women keep their given name. (www.behindthename.com)

So for example Szendrey Júlia, marrying Petőfi Sándor, became Petőfi Sándorné (the -né suffix approximately means "wife of", and this is the Hungarian equivalent of "Mrs." as in "Mrs. John Smith. (www.wikipedia.org)

  Obviously, her first husband's forname was Mihaly and surname Kopasz.  On the marriage license she would not have written the "-ne" on the end of Mihaly because she was a widow... but would she have written her name as "Kopasz Mihályné on the ship manifest, since at the time of her arrival she (thought she was) still married?

The State of NJ and Vital Statistics comes through!

I got the marriage license for my great-grandparents!  This is huge!!!!

She was born in Ópályi, Hungary

Her maiden name is Simon, not the surname of her first husband.

The surname/her name (it's not clear off the bat) of her first husband was Kopasz Mihaly.

Her father's, my great-great-grandfather's, name was Aloysius.

Her mother's, my great-great-grandmother's, name was Julia Verdres (maybe)

Equally new and exciting info on my great-grandmother's side, but one genealogy project at a time.