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Eight Steps Later: Following Up on the Blackman/Peck Marriage Record

Image: rawpixel.com   In the never-ending quest to get my act together, I've been doing some email clean up lately. I'm finding emails I did not follow up on, including ones with photos I neglected to download, correspondence with other researchers I'd forgotten about, family stories that I didn't write down, etc. I've been assigning follow up on these emails to random days in the coming week to finally process them. Here's one example I worked on this week. Back in 2024 I was on the trail of a marriage record for the Hub's 4x great-grandparents Sylvester Blackman and Clarissa Peck. I was working from an entry in the Ancestry database "New York City, Compiled Marriage Index, 1600s-1800s " where I found an entry for the couple. 1   This Ancestry database source was the book Early Settlers of New York State, Their Ancestors and Descendants , Extracts from Vol. 4, No. 5 (Nov 1937).  I found the book digitized on FamilySearch and the entry that Ancestr...

BARA CELINŠĆAK - RECORD FOUND, PARENTS LOST

The translation of "agricola" from this marriage record was one of two discoveries today.1

31 Days of Writing Family History Challenge

February 2, 2022:  Maternal Great, Great Grandmother #2 - Bara Celinšćak (1846-1918)


by Nancy Gilbride Casey

This writing challenge has proven fruitful for a number of reasons. First, I have not researched some of these ancestors in a while. It is fun to revisit their records, and spend some time finding missing documents and facts to fill in their timelines. Second, I am always looking for interesting discoveries about them, and today I discovered not one, but two things.

One important discovery: a mistake. It happens, but I actually had the incorrect baptismal record for today's subject, Barbara "Bara" Celinšćak. Once more, while looking for Bara and Petar's marriage record, I found something else: a different set of parents for Bara. 

A baptismal record for a Bara Celinšćak had been previously found with parents Mikule Baltorinic and Bare Stanecék. The wedding of Petar and Bara, however, listed Georgu Celinšćak and Hellena Kupina as her parents. Did I have the wrong baptism record?2

Detail of Petar and Barbara's marriage record.
 

It turns out, yes. Based on Bara's age at her marriage of 20 in 1867, I search for a baptism record starting around 1847. There on 11 April 1846 was another Barbara Celinšćak born to Georgu and Hellena Celinšćak.3


 

Bara was born in Celine and Peter in Srednjak. The church where they were baptized and married is in Gorica Svetojanska.

Second: A fun fact. I learned was the meaning of the word, "agricola," which I noticed below the names of Peter, Bara and both sets of their parents in the couple's marriage record. As might be obvious to some, this Latin word means "farmer." So now we know their occupations.4

Petar and Bara married on 20 February 1867, and went on to have nine children, including our great grandmother Vjekoslava Baltornic Kozlina. 

Bara lived to be 72 years old, and passed away on 18 November 1918. She died of "starost," or "old age," and was buried on 20 November 1918.5

The details of Bara's death were clearly noted in this church record. Bara was "r. Celinšćak" or "born Celinšćak," and "udova" or a "widow." The cross next to Petar's name shows he had died. Bara's birthplace is shown as Celine and her residence Srednjak 1. "Rim kat" translates to "Roman Catholic." She was 72 "god" or "years."

BONUS: More on the surname Celinsćak

  • Celinšćak families are Croats and they are mostly from Jastrebarsko. In the past century, the surname was mostly found in Zagreb and Jastrebarsko.
  • Today, about 80 people with family name Celinšćak live in Croatia, in 40 households.6


NOTES

1 Roman Catholic (Rimokatolička crkva) Gorica Svetojanska, Marriages (Vjenčani) 1878-1906, p. 45, marriage of Petar Baltornic and Barbara Celinšćak, 20 February 1867; "Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-899X-69LP : accessed 2 February 2022); citing FHL film  5493816, image 132; Arhiva Hrvatske u Zagrebu (Croatia State Archives), Zagreb. 

2 Ibid.

3 Roman Catholic (Rimokatolička crkva) Gorica Svetojanska, Births (Rođeni) 1789-1857, p. 234, baptism of Barbara Celinšćak, 11 April 1856; "Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-899C-T99Z-S : accessed 2 February 2022); citing FHL film 5484836, image 402; Arhiva Hrvatske u Zagrebu (Croatia State Archives), Zagreb. 

4 Robert Jerin. Searching for Your Croatian Roots: A Handbook. (Self Published : Shaker Heights, 2018), p. 37.

5 Roman Catholic (Rimokatolička crkva) Gorica Svetojanska, Deaths (Umrli) 1900-1920, p. 276, #77, Bara Baltorinic 26 November 1918; database with images, "Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99X-DG7D : accessed 2 February 2022); citing FHL film 5493817, image 554; Arhiva Hrvatske u Zagrebu (Croatia State Archives), Zagreb. 

6 ActoCroatica, (https://actacroatica.com/en/surname/Celin%C5%A1%C4%87ak/ : accessed 2 February 2022), "Surname Celinšćak."


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