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Klubek Family in Western New York

When a group of people all match one another with DNA, it provides an opportunity to analyze common ancestors and where they came from. When a new person is introduced into the cluster, it’s interesting to try to discover how they belong.

A distant DNA match on Ancestry, OK, shares 46 centiMorgans of DNA across 4 segments with me, with a longest segment of 24 centiMorgans. Eighteen of our shared matches are descendants of my great-grandparents Marcin Szczepański and Anna Kalinowska, who immigrated to the United States from West Prussia in 1881, and settled in western New York.

OK and I also share DNA with KE, whose family descended from John Carll and Matilda Hartman. I wrote about our possible DNA connection in More Kalinowski DNA Relatives! While OK, KE, and I do not necessarily descend from the same ancestors, it is likely our common ancestors came from West Prussia, now the Kujawsko-Pomorskie province of Poland.

Although OK did not have a family tree on Ancestry, the surname Klubek is found in western New York, so I looked for a possible connection. I found three families who came to Buffalo and Lackawanna, Erie, New York, from Galicia, the part of Poland that was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1800s and early 1900s. While the Klubek line is not a link to our shared DNA, these death notices from the Dziennik dla Wszystkich,“Everybody’s Daily,” the Buffalo, New York, Polish daily newspaper from 1911 to 1957, and the family’s original Polish names, may be interesting to Klubek descendants, so I am sharing them here.

Wojciech Klubek and Julianna Galus

Wojciech Klubek and Julianna Galus were married at Transfiguration Church in Buffalo, Erie, New York, on 7 November 1906. The Roman Catholic church used Latin names for records, so Wojciech is listed as Adalbertus Klubek.

1906 marriage of Adalbertus Klubek and Julia Galus, Transfiguration Roman Catholic Church, Buffalo, New York

The family later lived in Lackawanna, Erie, New York, and Wojciech died at age 42 in 1927. Because there is no English equivalent for the Polish name Wojciech, he was sometimes called Albert or George in America.

Dziennik dla Wszystkich, Buffalo, New York, 8 August 1927

Wojciech was survived by his wife Julianna, children Władysław, Stanisława, Maryanna, Bronisława, and Leonard; his brother Ludwik, and his sister Maryanna.

Wojciech‘s widow Julia Klubek married Stanisław/Stanley Zielinski in Cheektowaga, Erie, New York, on 22 June 1932. Julie Zielinski (nee Galus) died in 1986. and her death notice was on page 25 of the Buffalo News.

Buffalo News, Buffalo, New York, 12 January 1986

Ludwik Klubek and Elżbieta Sierosławska


Ludwik Klubek and Elżbieta Sierosławska were married at Transfiguration Church in Buffalo, Erie, New York on 2 February 1904. The Roman Catholic church used Latin names for records, so Ludwik is listed as Ludavicus Klubek and Elżbieta as Elisabeth Sierosławska.

1904 marriage of Ludavicus Klubek and Elisabeth Sierosławska, Transfiguration Roman Catholic Church, Buffalo, New York

Ludwik Klubek died in 1942. He was survived by his wife, Elżbieta Sierosławska Klubek, who died in 1955. They left behind a large family. Her obituary “Elżbieta Klubek Znana Obywatelka Miasta Lackawanna Nie Żyje” [Elżbieta Klubek A well-known citizen of the city of Lackawanna has died], with a picture, was on page 13 of the Dziennik dla Wszystkich on May 6, 1955.

Dziennik dla Wszystkich, Buffalo, New York, 6 May 1955

Elżbieta Klubek was survived by fifteen of her sixteen children–Jadwiga Tomasik, Franciszka, Bolesław, Henryk, Bronisław, Kazimiera, Stefania, Kazimierz, Edwin, Władysław, Janina, Natalia, Irena, Malwina, and Wanda–their husbands and wives, her brother Bronisław Sierosławski, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as listed in her death notice.

Dziennik dla Wszystkich, Buffalo, New York, 5 May 1955

There was also an article for Mrs Elizabeth Klubek on page 4 of the Lackawanna Leader newspaper on May 12, 1955.

Lackawanna Leader, Lackawanna, New York, 12 May 1955

Maryanna Klubek and Wojciech Kęska


Wojciech and Ludwik Klubek‘s sister Maryanna joined her husband Wojciech Kenska in Buffalo, arriving in New York on the ship Kronprinz Wilhelm on 25 July 1906. The manifest was stamped “non-immigrant alien” and she had previously been in the United States from 1893 to 1906. Because the Polish letter ę has an “en” sound, the name Kęska was sometimes written as Keska or Kenska. Maryanna Kenska died 4 October 1948. The Polish phrase z domu Klubek means “from the house of Klubek,” and indicates her maiden name. While Maryanna was the mother of Ludwik and Jan Kęska, the death notice on page 16 of the Polish newspaper Dziennik dla Wszystkich on October 6, 1948 for Maryanna Kenska said that she was survived by Rodzina, “Family” in English.

Dziennik dla Wszystkich, Buffalo, New York, 6 October 1948

The Polish abbreviation Śp. is Świętej Pamięci – “Of Holy Memory” and is often translated as “late” in English.

Sources

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