DONALD AUGUST JASTER - QUESTION 3

 3. When and where was your father born?

[typed] See Reverse Side

No. 7747 D

COPY OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE

FIFTY CENTS

Copy of Birth Certificate

Registration District No. 286

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE

DIVISION OF HEALTH

BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS

CITY OF CLEVELAND

STATE OF OHIO

Registered No. 21707

1. PLACE OF BIRTH

    a.    County   Cuyahoga

    b.    City, Village, Township  Cleveland

    c.    Name of hospital or institution: St. John’s Hospital

         Mother’s stay before delivery:In hospital or institution --

                                                         In this community --

2. USUAL RESIDENCE OF MOTHER

    a.    State: Ohio

    b.    County: Cuyahoga

    c.    City or village: Cleveland

         Street No.: West 93rd St.

3.  FULL NAME OF CHILD:  Donald Jaster

4. DATE OF BIRTH: 8-10-1917

5. Sex: Male

6. Twin/Triplet [blank]

7. Number months of pregnancy: [blank]

    7a. Weight at birth: [blank]

    7b. Congenital malformation: [blank]

8. Is mother married? Yes

FATHER OF CHILD

9. Full name: August Jaster

10. Color or race: White

11. Age at time of this birth: 25 years

12. Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio

13. Usual occupation: Laundry Salesman

14. Industry or business: --

MOTHER OF CHILD

15. Full maiden name: Margaret Sanders

16. Color or race: White

17. Age at time of this birth: 25 years

18. Birthplace: England

19. Usual occupation: Housewife

20. Industry or business: --

21. Children born to this mother not including this child: 0

    a.    How many other children of this mother are now living? 0

    b.    How many other children were born alive but are now dead? --

    c.    How many children were born dead? --

22. Date serologic test for syphilis --

    a.    If none, give reason --

23. Mother’s usual mailing address: West 93rd St.

24. I hereby certify that I attended the birth of this child who was born alive at the hour of A.M. on this date above state and that the information given was furnished by Mrs. Margaret Jaster related to this child as Mother.

25. Registrar’s signature: G. E. Harmon - M.D.

26. Date received by local registrar: Oct. 12, 1922

Signature: Dr. Schneider

Address: St. John’s Hosp.

    I hereby certify that the above is an exact copy of the record of birth of Donald August Jaster which is on file in the Department of Health, Cleveland, Ohio.

    Witness my hand and seal as Local Registrar of Vital Statistics on this 18th day of Nov. 1946. 

/s/ J. G. Smith, Local Registrar

ON REVERSE:

Probate Court, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Vol. 50B, Pg. 302 Case No. 364302

Filed - 11/15/46

NOTE: Case Number above is not related to Donald Jaster.

Centuries of Censuses: What Census Instructions Can Teach Us

 Don't you hate it when work or life gets in the way of your genealogy? Happens way more than I like. So this is quick. This Saturday, 18 September 2021 at 9:30 a.m. MDT, the Colorado Genealogical Society will present Sylvia Tracy-Doolos on the topic "Centuries of Censuses: What Census Instructions Can Teach Us". More information and a link to sign up for the Zoom webinar can be found at:

https://cogensoc.us/programs.php#program

A Weekend of Webinars

 It's always nice to get more information to use while searching ancestors. Last weekend, the Colorado Genealogical Society hosted two sessions with the delightful Crista Cowan about Ancestry DNA and Searching on Ancestry. Both sessions were informative with Crista giving us her tips and hacks on making the search process easier and getting more results from her methods, along with making connections and more hints from Ancestry DNA.

Tomorrow I'm attending the "every-so-often" meeting of the Colorado Czech/Slovak/Rusyn Genealogical Society where we will learn from Kevin Hurbanis, President of CGSI. He will speak on sources available at the CGSI website.

The rest of the week I was babysitting my new granddaughter - so nothing new to report on researching. No complaints there.

Elizabeth Tokar - Question 2

 Where and when was your mother born?

Transcription of my mother's Birth Certificate:

Date Issued OCT 25 1940

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Bureau of the Census

STATE OF OHIO

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

CERTIFICATE OF BIRTH

Place of Birth

County of Cuyahoga

City of Lakewood

Registration District No. 8119

Registered No. 439

No. 2062 Robin Ave.

(If birth occurred in a hospital or institution, give Name instead of street and number)

FULL NAME OF CHILD: Elizabeth Tokar

Sex of Child Fem.

Legitimate? Yes

Date of birth Aug. 9 1920

FATHER

FULL NAME  Andrew Tokar

RESIDENCE 2062 Robin Ave., (Lakewood, Ohio)

COLOR or RACE  White

AGE AT LAST BIRTHDAY 30  years

Birthplace: Austria

a. Trade, profession or particular kind of work done - Painters Helper

b. Industry or business in which work was done: --

c. Date (month and year) klast engaged in this work: --

g. Total time (years) spent in this work: --

MOTHER

FULL MAIDEN NAME Anna Joseph

RESIDENCE 2062 Robin Ave., (Lakewood, Ohio)

COLOR or RACE White

AGE AT LAST BIRTHDAY  25 Years

Birthplace: Same

d. Trade, profession or particular kind of work - H.W.

e. Industry or business in which work was done: --

f. Date (month and year) last engaged in this work: --

h. Total time (years) spent in this work: --

Number of children of this mother (At time of this birth and including this child) 3

(a) Born alive and now living  3

Is this child congenitally deformed? --

Was Prophylactic against Ophthalmia Neonatorum used? Yes

CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDING PHYSICIAN OR MIDWIFE

I hereby certify that I attended the birth of this child, who was born alive at 6:30 A.m. on the date above stated.

(signed) Geo. H. Mraz, M.D.

Address 1640 Alameda Ave.

Filed 8-21-, 1940

A. J. Phelps, Registrar

Some takeaways from this document:

1. I had always heard that Mom was born in Cleveland, but it appears she was born at home in Lakewood (also known as Bird Town because of the names of the streets). 

2. The Birth Certificate was issued in 1940, perhaps because she needed one to apply for Social Security.

3. Her mother was using her Americanized name of Anna Joseph rather than Jozefova or Josef as she would have been called at home

4. Both parents list their birthplace as Austria. No. That's wishful thinking on their part, or that they were embarrassed about where they came from. Their towns were in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time, but from what is now Eastern Slovakia which would have been Upper Hungary then.

5. My mother was the third of three children in 1920, meaning two children older than her. Personal knowledge verifies that since she had two older sisters.

6. Geo. H. Mraz is a Slovak name. My grandmother had a doctor from the same ethnic group as she and my grandfather belonged.

First Post in a Long Time

 FIRST POST IN A LONG TIME

So, it's been what? Six years. Haven't accomplished a whole lot in new genealogy findings in that time and now I think it's time to get serious. I've been reading for the second time

The Family Tree Toolkit: A Comprehensive Guide to Uncovering Your Ancestry and Researching Genealogy

by Kenyatta D. Berry. If you have African American or indigenous heritage, you should get this book. But even as an intermediate home genealogist, I'm finding plenty of tips. I've taken her questionnaire for your own personal history and reworked it to use as a guide for getting information into my trees (at least). I can always flesh out the individuals as time permits and/or at a latter date. I work on three tree, mine, my husband's and my son-in-law's. So here goes.

What are your parents' names? Easy peasy. 

My parents: Donald August Jaster and Elizabeth Tokar.

My husband's parents: Lawrence Philip Hartlaub and Helen Elizabeth Bruhn. 

My son-in-law's parents are still living, so we will skip this for now. 

That's it for this post. I'll continue the conversation later today or tomorrow. 

I began this blog about a two years ago with no idea what I was going to do. Sporadic posts followed, which had no rhyme or reason. It was, quite literally, a piece of junk. Everything's deleted now and I am starting fresh. That's what the New Year if for, right?

Now I have a better idea of what I want to do. My tree roots do, indeed, start in Europe and not that far back. I am firmly planted in the US, but I am second generation. All except one of my grandparents were immigrants. My father's grandparents were immigrants, making me third generation American for that line. My husband has a little longer family history in the US, dating in one line back to before the Civil War. He is firmly rooted in the US, too. And between us, we have two saplings that are growing and flourishing.

But the purpose of this blog is to document our ancestors, both his and mine. I have a lot of miscellaneous documents that need sorting, scanning, indexing and posting to family trees. Along with the documents should come a few stories here and there, a few photos, a couple of recipes from the old country that shouldn't be forgotten, and a general nod to the people who came before us.

To set the stage, the families I will be documenting are, in alphabetical order:

Behl
Bruhn
Byrne
Gerver
Jaster
Joseph
Hartlaub
McAvoy
Mikulo
Mulcahey
Sanders
Savka (or maybe it's Szauka)
Tokar

From the countries of England, Ireland, Germany (Prussia) and the Slovak Republic (Upper Hungary).

Let's see where this journey takes us, who we'll meet and where we'll go.