European Family History Trip: Day 6 – Krasnik-Dolny Poland
We arrived in Poland late the previous night around 7:30 p.m. (Poland time). We stayed out in the country in a little village called Krasnik-Dolny, Poland (formerly Nieder Schöfield, Bunzlau, Silesia Germany). This is where David’s great-grandmother “Granny Geerdts” aka Bertha Starke Geerdts lived before migrating by ship to the United States as a young woman in the 1890s.
Dausel Family Connections
Dave connected with a man named Sascha from one of the family history Facebook groups – Ahnenforschung Kreis Bunzlau + Umgebung. Translated, that means “Ancestor Research for Kreis Bunzlau and surrounding area (of Nieder Schlesien).”
Sascha’s neighbor, Bert Dausel, is likely related to Dave through Granny Geerdts’ mother’s line. She was a Dausel (Johanne Anna Dausel Starke).
Wojciech Lipiński, Dave, and Bert Dausel
Dave, Bert Dausel and Sascha
After attending church in Freiberg, Germany, we met Sasha and Bert along with an older Polish gentleman at a Polish restaurant. Then we went searching through cemeteries. The first (and largest) cemetery at one time contained a huge monument with a long list of Dausel family names.
Johanne Dausel Starke wrote to her daughter Bertha Starke Geerdts (aka “Granny Geerdts”) about this large Dausel monument. In the letter, she said that the next time she went to the cemetery, she would write down all the names. Either she did not return to write the names or whatever paper she wrote them on hasn’t been found or has been destroyed.
Time and Carelessness Take Their Toll
Unfortunately, the monument is still there but all the names are gone from the monument. What’s more, someone paid a crew to clean the cemetery, and they bulldozed it all. All the tombstones are shoved over to the side against the wall where leaves and vines now climb over them.
Someone bulldozed the cemetery and lined the tombstones along the wall of the cemetery.
Sascha, Dave and Bert hoping they can find something useful left on the Dausel Family Monument
This building had a space where the bodies would have been displayed before burial.
Reindeer across from the Dausel Monument Cemetery
After not really finding anything useful in the first cemetery, they took lots of pictures in case the stones that were there might mean something to someone else. Next, we moved on to a second small cemetery.
A Prompting to Pray
It was so cold outside, I let the men walk around this overgrown cemetery while I stayed in the car. They were gone long enough for me to take a nap. After I woke up, I felt the impression to pray that Dave would be able to find something useful. I also felt impressed to message his brother and dad and ask them to do the same.
When Dave finally returned to the car, he told me that at first, he thought this cemetery was a waste of time because it was so overgrown. But Sascha insisted there was a Dausel grave in this cemetery and suggested they keep looking. There was a lot of overgrowth and Dave broke the brush with his bare hands clearing it off. He said he wished he had a chainsaw because it was so overgrown and was covered in lots of fallen limbs and brush. They were putting tombstones back together like jigsaw puzzles.
Finally, they found some overgrown gravestones and among them was one for Marie Rothkirch Dausel. Marie Rothkirch was born in Greulich in 1765 and was married to another man named Fuhrmann before marrying Gottfried Dausel in 1792. “Together they had 3 sons and 3 daughters and 16 grandchildren.” Died 12 May 1843.
Marie and Gottfried Dausel could possibly be the grandparents of Johanne Anna Dausel (Born 1836) with one of their sons being the father of Johanne Anna Dausel.
Sascha and Bert Reading Dausel Tombstone
Now we just need to find the connection… Continue reading about our adventures in Poland and on to Prague.
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