Immigration Research Project

Our client came to us wanting to know more about his Strenk family history. He knew that his great-grandfather, Andrew Strenk was the immigrant. Our client was especially intrigued by his life and children. Andrew Strenk was said to have died in 1918 in New Jersey of the flu. It was known that the young family had been scattered by the time the 1920 census was taken, but the reason why was not clear. One of the goals of this research was to find the out why the children were scattered and living in various homes in the 1920 census.

Despite knowing some details about his Strenk ancestry, the client was having difficulty putting all the pieces together and some were apparently missing. On several occasions asked others for help, including county clerks and other research companies in the quest for several key family documents but had not had as much success as he'd have liked. His great grandfather's death certificate could never be found, and there were problems nailing down all the family members in the various censuses and immigration records. The Strenk surname was spelled so many different ways. Those who had worked on the family previously missed some records because the surname variants were fairly wide in scope. The variations were certainly interesting to document in the various records as our research associates were finally able to positively identify the Strenk family in original records. 

At some point in the research process, another Andrew Strenk was found in New Jersey records. He was very nearly a duplicate of the ancestral Andrew Strenk. However, it was found that this Andrew Strenk lived to the 1950s. So it was then the job of research to prove that the two men were not the same individual. It was our job to prove that the client's ancestor did indeed die in 1918 as his descendants were told.

This was challenging research for many reasons, but it was rewarding for all when the work was completed. This report represents approximately 15 hours of work. 

Research Report

             Research has been conducted on the family of Andrew Strenk (alias Strek) of Sayreville, New Jersey. Among the primary goals requested were the death certificate and passenger list of Andrew Strenk.

New Jersey Research

            A majority of the New Jersey research was conducted by one of our associates on-site. She spent a considerable amount of time carefully digging through vital records and estate records. Members of the family, she remarked, were listed by so many different surname and given name variations that the search was exhaustive and time consuming.

            Andrew Strek married Josepha Wojtowicz in South River, New Jersey on 15 May 1905.[1] Andrew’s parents’ names were given as Paul Strek and Rozalia Majka of Galicia. Joseph Wojtowicz was the daughter of Thomas Wojtowica and Sophie Filipek of Galicia. They were married at the St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church of South River. This marriage was listed as the second marriage of Andrew Strek, thus confirming that he had been married previously. This record was the first one of the family in the United States to have been found at this point in the research process.

            The birth certificates of Joseph, Paul, Ludwig and Stanislaus Strenk[2] were found in New Jersey vitals. It had been reported that the client already had a few of these birth certificates in his possession, however, these were quickly copied (total time about 30 minutes) to see if information about the parents reported the parents’ specific birthplaces – other than Austria or Galicia. Unfortunately, there were no additional details regarding the parents’ specific place of birth in these records.

            Death records were examined for Josephine Strenk. Her certificate was found and the date of death was 13 Dec 1914 at St. Peter’s Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey.[3] Her birth date was not given, but she was aged 30 years. This placed her birth year about 1884, which is roughly equivalent to the birth year of 1881 extrapolated from her 1910 census enumeration in Sayreville, New Jersey.[4] Josephine’s parents were listed as Tamaszi (Thomas) Watzowicz [sic] and Sofi Filipeki, both of Austria. A Mr. Frank Strenki [sic] of Sayreville, New Jersey was listed as the informant. His identity could not be positively determined, as there were no Frank Strenks in the known ancestral family. However, it is clear that this death certificate belongs to Joseph (Wojtowicz) Strenk, wife of Andrew Strenk. Her parents’ names match those listed on her marriage certificate. She was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in South River.

            During the examination of death records, the death record of Stanislof Strck was found, dated 31 Jul 1915.[5] He was only 10 months, 19 days old and had died of cholera. His parents were Andrew Strck [sic] and Josie Vetowich [sic]. The “father of the child” was the informant. Stanislaus Strenk was buried in South River – probably at St. Mary’s Cemetery with his mother.

            Just a few months before Stanislaus Strenk’s death, Andrew Strenk was found to have remarried to Anna Organik. The marriage certificate was dated 10 Jan 1915 and the ceremony was performed at St. Mary’s Church in South River.[6] Andrew reported this marriage as only his second marriage, though all previous research indicates that this marriage is his third. Andrew was 38 years old, born Austria and the son of Paul and Rosy (Maik) Strysik. His new wife was a widow, aged 35 years and born in Russian Poland, the daughter of Stanislaus and Mary (Kulesra) Organik. Of particular note in this record is that a Leon Bassara was the witness. Andrew Strenk was said to have first married one Agata Bassara and certainly this Leon Bassara might have been related. Information on Leon Bassara might offer new evidence of the Bassara origins overseas.

            Also during the examination of death records, the death certificate of one Wofos Strank was found in Sayreville, New Jersey.[7] He was the son of Semon Strank of Poland and Hasbital Clok of Poland. This child could not have been the son of Simon (Samuel) Strenk born 1899, however, this Strenk family’s location in Sayreville is worth noting for possible follow-up research. Perhaps Andrew Strenk had a brother or other relative named Simon Strenk, who also lived in Sayreville at this time.

            A great deal of time was spent searching for the death certificate of the immigrant ancestor, Andrew Strenk. Family records suggested that he died in 1918; the victim of a flu epidemic, but some other records suggested that perhaps he might have lived past this date. There was concern that another Andrew Streczyk that was found in Middlesex County, New Jersey in later records might have represented the ancestral Andrew Strenk. All previous requests that the client had placed with the New Jersey Vital Statistics department returned ‘no record found’ for any death of Andrew Strenk during the 1915-1920 time period.

            After an exhaustive search, the death record of Oinzej Streng was found dated 6 Oct 1918.[8] Oinzej is a Polish variant of the given name Andrew, but with the ancestor having gone by the name Andrew for all of his life in the United States, it was very surprising to find the death certificate filed under this name. We can be certain that this represents the proper ancestor, Andrew Strenk, because of the fact that Pavel and Rozy Streng were listed as his parents. This set of parents matches information from Andrew’s 1905 and 1915 marriage certificates. The one notable difference was that Rozy’s last name was given as Frilijrek [sic]. The informant for this death certificate was Andrew’s third wife, Anna Streng, so it is very possible that Anna was mixing up the maiden name of her mother-in-law with the maiden name of Josephine (Wojtowicz) Strenk’s mother. Certainly, this discrepancy should be kept in mind as research progresses. It is strongly suspected that the 1905 and 1915 marriage certificates wherein Andrew Strenk was the informant would have been the record most likely to list his parents’ names correctly.

            So, it is the case that Andrew Strenk died in 1918, as the family folklore mentioned. Work was done in estate records to see if any settlement might have included the home in which he lived in 1915. [9] However, the only Strenk (alias Strek) estate record in Middlesex County was one for John Strek, deceased, of Sayreville.[10] He died intestate on 9 Jun 1954 and his wife and children were listed in this document. The children appear to be married adults, so it is likely that John was aged at the time of his passing. It may have been the case that he was the Jan Strek found enumerated in the 1917 WWI Draft records of Sayreville, New Jersey, born in 1893.[11]

            Later probate records of Middlesex County, New Jersey included Anna Strek died 1975; John Strek died 1989 and George Strenk, Sr. died 1992.[12] George Strenk, Sr. who died in 1992 is most likely the son of Andrew Strenk, died 1918. Apparently, at least he remained in the Middlesex County area. To confirm that George Strenk was the son of Andrew, a search for his obituary was undertaken. The obituary reports that he was George ‘Sam’ Strenk, Sr. of South River.[13] His parents were not listed, but he was reported to have been born in Sayreville and a communicant of St. Mary’s R. C. Church in South River. There is little doubt that this man was the son of Andrew Strenk. The obituary reported that his wife, Helen Zakrzewski, died in 1975 but that he had a son, George Strenk, Jr. and two granddaughters, Valerie and Nancy, of East Brunswick who survived him. Burial was at St. Mary’s Cemetery in East Brunswick.

            Had there been a dispute of some type over the estate of Andrew Strenk, died 1918, then it would have been recorded in the Surrogate Court records of Middlesex County. Since no record was found for Andrew Strenk’s estate, then perhaps his estate was not sufficient enough to have been listed in Surrogate Court records. This is speculation and would best be pursued by more in-depth research of the Surrogate Court records and perhaps with the given name variant, Oinzej, under which his death certificate was filed.

            Naturalization records were silent regarding any naturalization for Andrew Strenk from 1907 to 1958.[14] Also included in this search were the military naturalizations (immigrant soldiers from WWI were naturalized under special provisions due to their service). The genealogist in New Jersey reported that no possibilities were found under any surname variations beginning with the letter ‘S.’

            Andrew Strenk reported that he was still an alien in both the 1910 Federal[15] and 1915 New Jersey State[16] censuses. Since he died in 1918, it is certainly conceivable that he never did get to the point in his life wherein he applied for his naturalization certificate. At least it is evident that he did not naturalize in Middlesex County. Federal Court naturalization records can be checked for the time period from 1915 to 1918 in future research. A naturalization record from this time period, if found, will give considerable genealogical information for Andrew Strenk and probably confirm his origins overseas.

United States Passenger Lists

            Passenger lists for the United States had been previously researched using the old soundex card index, which is generally known to be incomplete. It only rarely includes children under the age of 10 years old and much of the old handwriting on the ships lists was so difficult to read that those who originally indexed these records had a difficult time consistently interpreting the entries. In doing the soundex immigration searches for Ellis Island, no convincing records of the immigrant, Andrew Strenk’s emigration to the United States had been found. There was a Ruthenian Andrew Strecyzk found to have immigrated in 1906 and going to Egypt, Pennsylvania. It was suspected that though this Andrew was from Wolica Piaskowa and the proper age to have been the ancestor, that he did not, in fact, represent the ancestor. However, this could not be accurately determined without additional research because the passenger list did not give much other identifying information.

            A new index to the Ellis Island immigration records has recently been compiled. This new index includes every passenger and they were read and interpreted by trained volunteers. The search mechanism for the index includes exact matches, close matches and variant spellings. In searching this new index, the records for Wincenty, Syzmon, and Andrew Strenk were found. The index offers the name of the ship, the date and the ‘page’ and line number for each passenger. It was still quite time consuming to find the entries in the original passenger lists. Even given this specific information, the average search was 45 minutes for each entry.

            On 6 May 1902, the SS Bremen sailed into the Port of New York and on board was Andrzej Strenk.[17] He was aged 26 years, married, and a laborer. His age matches information from U.S. census records, however, his date of immigration was 1-3 years ‘off’ the reported 1903 and 1905 immigration years from the same census records. Even with this discrepancy, the fact that Andrzej Strenk is going to Sayreville, New Jersey most certainly indicates that this is the ancestral Andrew Strenk. His last place of residence was Ostrawo, Galicia. A placed called Ostrow, Poland was found within 10 miles of present-day Wolica Piaskowa, Wojewodztwo Podkarpackie, Poland.[18] There were places named Ostrawo, Poland in other parts of Poland, but they weren’t very near to the Wojewodztwo Podkarpackie region at all.

            It was interesting to read that Andrew Strenk’s brother-in-law was responsible for having paid Andrew’s passage to the United States. The brother-in-law was not named in this record, however. Andrew Strenk was going to see Jakob Krzacazk of Fisier St. in Sayreville, New Jersey.

            The brothers Szymon and Wincenty Strek, ages 7 and 6 respectively, were found on the SS Kroonland that arrived in Ellis Island on 3 Jul 1906.[19] They were traveling together and apparently with one Florian Tisot or Tilot, age 38. All three males were from Wolica Piaskowa and were en route to Sayreville, New Jersey. Florian had been in the United States in 1900 and in 1902 and had stayed at Reading, Pennsylvania at that time. The passenger list records Andrzej Strek as the brother-in-law of Florian Tisot (or Tilot) and the father of the two children, Wincenty and Szymon. 

Summary

            Death records confirmed family tradition and oral history regarding the demise of Andrew Strenk in 1918 of the flu. His marriages were found to both Josephine Wojtowicz and Anna Organik. These records and his death certificate identified his parents’ names as Paul and Rose (Majka) Strenk of Austria. Andrew Strenk’s passenger list dated May 1902 reported that his last residence was Ostrawo, Galicia and there was an Ostrow, Poland found only 10 miles from Wolica Piaskowa, Poland – the reported birthplace and last residence of his immigrant sons, Simon and Vincent.

            Birth, marriage, obituary and death records confirmed the vital records of many of the remaining spouses and children of Andrew Strenk. No naturalization records were found in Middlesex County records for any of the immigrant Strenks.

            Additionally, several clues to other relatives in the Sayreville regions were found. A Leon Bassara was found as a witness to his marriage in 1915 and Andrew Strenk was supposed to have had a first wife named Agata (Agatha) Bassara. Perhaps Leon and Agata were related. Additional research on Leon Bassara might tell us more about his relationship to Andrew Strenk.

            Frank Strenk was the informant for Josephine (Wojtowicz) Strenk’s death in 1915. He cannot be identified as a family member of Andrew Strenk’s nuclear family. Perhaps Frank Strenk is a brother or other relative of Andrew Strenk.

            The two immigrant sons of Andrew Strenk – Vincent and Simon – were accompanied to the U.S. by Andrew Strenk’s brother-in-law, Florian Tisot or Tilot. He had been in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1900 and 1902 so it is likely that Florian had his wife (presumably Andrew’s sister) in the United States somewhere, too. Certainly, continued research on Florian Tisot (Tilot) is recommended to see if Andrew Strenk’s sister did immigrate to the United States.

            It should be worth trying to track down George Strenk, Jr., son of George Ludwig Strenk, to see what he might know of the family. Since that family lived for all their lives in the South River and Sayreville area, perhaps family bibles or photos are still maintained by that branch of the family.

            It would be prudent to trace other relatives in the United States and to ask a specialist in Polish research to positively identify the places of origin in Poland so that Church records can be found for the ancestral families overseas. This has been an extremely successful research period and we look forward to continuing research on this family.

Natalie Cottrill, Genealogist
Suzanne Nurnberg, NJ Research Associate