Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Ancestral Name Roulette!

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing has Saturday Night Genealogy Fun every week and this week he is asking us to focus on one of our ancestors.

• We start by picking the year our paternal grandfather was born.  My grandfather, William Cyril Hork was born 1899.  
• Now divide that date by 100 and round up.  So that would make 19.  
• I now find no. 19 in my pedigree.  That is Susanna Raduntz.  
• Now I tell three things I know about her.

1. Susanna Raduntz was born around 1832 in Posen, Prussia (which is in present day Poland).  This information is from the marriage record of her daughter, Julia Ann Sievert to Anton Hork at St. John's Catholic Church in Joliet, Ill.  (This record was a gold mine, listing the birth towns of both sets of parents).
2. She married Vincent Sievert on 10 Feb 1950 in Schneidemuhl, Posen, Prussia.  After first son was born, they came to the U.S. and settled in Joliet, Will Co, Illinois  They then had an additional 10 children born in the U.S.
3. She died 11 Mar 1911 and is buried in St. John's Cemetery in Joliet.

Here is the 1870 census of the family:

1870 US Federal Census, Will Co, Illinois, Joliet 2nd ward, p 211, Vincent Severt household

This has made me realize that I do not know much about Susanna.  Her obituary stated she was a pioneer of the city.  I guess to someone in 1911, a person arriving in Joliet in the 1850's would be a "pioneer."

Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past