Kevin’s Vent

Last week in the “History of Cambria County Pennsylvania” I read that “Alfred Groke died in 1918 at the age of 36 years old”. There was no mention if he had in family.

I actually found his WWI  draft registration card which was signed Sept 12, 1918 and lists the nearest relative as Pearl A Groke.

I just now found Pearl in the 1920 census, a 34 year old widow with a little boy and a little girl.

War sucks. When it kills people in my family it sucks even more.

But wait a second, it’s not that cut and dry. World War I actually ended in 1918 (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month). So if he signed his draft registration card on 12 Sept, that would have left only 2 months for getting drafted, basic training, a long sea voyage to Europe, and getting killed somewhere. We Grokes believe in efficiency, but not when death is on the line. So what happened to Alfred?

A Google search found where he was buried, Prospect Cemetery in Portage, Cambria Pennsylvania. There’s not much here, just his name and the years he lived:

Alfred Gustav Groke
1884 – 1918

More proof he wasn’t killed abroad in the war, they wouldn’t have shipped him home, he’d still be in Europe. Poking around on the cemetery website, I found this:

Near the center of the cemetery, there is a flag pole and a granite marker that was dedicated in 1998 by the Portage Area Historical Society to a mass grave. The mass grave was the burial ground to 108 people who died as a result of an outbreak of influenza in Portage in the year 1918 and 1919. There are no records available to identify who is buried there.

I have a great Grandmother that was killed in Canada in 1918 by this global Influenza pandemic.  Was Alfred one of the first ones in his town killed by it, while there was still time for individual burials? Or was it something else? I don’t know yet, but maybe I’ll order his death certificate and find out.

I did find several other family members in this cemetery. Including his wife Pearl.  She lived a very long life after he died and it looks like like she eventually remarried:
Pearl Groke Evans
1885 – 1976

While I haven’t even proved I’m related to these people yet – does it really matter? As I explore their lives I feel joy, sorrow, happiness and pain.

We went for a walk in the cemetery earlier this week, and someone had placed valentines on his wife’s grave with notes to his “gorgeous girl” that she was his sweetheart. – I love to give notes to my Valentine too, his has been dead for 10 years and he’s still leaving her notes. I just teared up again thinking about it . Perhaps taking the time to focus on others, rather living or dead, makes us more aware of the things we take for granted in our own lives. I hope Alfred and Pearl enjoyed their short time together.

In my last post I traced Linton Groke’s ancestors back several generations. Today I’ve been working on his grandfather, Gustav H. R. Groke. I found him in the 1930, 1920, and 1910 census. Not much new information, but little tidbits here and there. Then I found something awesome, a passport application. He applied for this passport when he was 62. His wife and he wanted to go and tour Europe a few years after WWI. In this application, he listed the birth cities for both him and Elvina. Guess what, he was born in the same tiny town in Germany as my 2nd great Grandfather, Henry Groke, Haynau.  From the Late Middle Ages until 1945 Haynau was thoroughly ethnic German, part of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic.

After the war the German population was ethnically cleansed from the region and it was annexed to Poland. At that time it was renamed to Chojnów. You can see some pretty cool photos of modern day Chojnów at Panoramio.com. Henry was born in Haynau and his father’s name was Herman. According to the biography I found last week, Gustav has a brother named Herman and a brother named Henry. I’m positive one of those two will tie Linton’s family line to my family line.

I think my next step will be to order the microfilmed church records from the LDS Family History Library. I found Henry’s birth certificate in that collection. Hopefully I can find his family’s records there as well.

In my last post I mentioned I had been contacted by a possible relative. His grandpa is Linton Groke. I had seen that name a few times in my research but it’s not in my family file, so I decided to spend a few hours digging around to see what I could find.

First stop, FamilySearch.org’s free Social Security Death Index, where I find two Lintons, one died in 1971, and the other died in 1987.

Just last night my wife and I decided to pony up the cash for the extensive (and expensive) genealogy website, ancestry.com. Let’s see what we can find there.

Federal Census. Census records are open to the public after they are 72 years old, so the earliest census we have to work with is the 1930 census. And lo and behold, two Linton Grokes appear in the 1930 Census, both on the same page in Portage, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Turns out there’s a 6 year old Linton Jr and a Linton Sr; the mom’s name is Kathryn. There’s also a lot more information about where people are born and how old they are – click the image to see the full record.

Moving on to the 1920 Census, we find Linton Sr and Kathryn living with his in-laws, the Turner Family, so we just learned Kathryn’s maiden name.

Moving back a few more years, I found Linton Seniors WWI draft registration. card. Which includes his birthday, his address, the name of his nearest relative, G.H.R. Groke, a physical description, and even his signature – cool stuff.

Things are shaping up nicely for Linton Sr. For most of the people I’ve researched, this is about all I find about the person. I’ve got the birth date, the death date, the occupation and the name of several new family members I can research. I hope you filled out the last census correctly, because it may be all your great grandkids ever know about you…

But sometime you get lucky and strike the real genealogy pay dirt. I kept looking on Ancestry.com and stumbled on “The History of Cambria County Pennsylvania”, written in 1926 by John E. Gable. Page 924 features a full page biography about Linton Senior and his family. It paints a wonderful picture of his extended family, and gives information about 25 family members. WOW!

With just these five records and in a few hours I was able to put together a pretty impressive four generation family tree for this branch of the Groke family.

Hopefully as I research each of the people referenced here, I can keep adding to this, and eventually tie into my own family tree.

If you are interested in working on this genealogy yourself, here is the GEDCOM file for this research. You can use PAF(free) or any other genealogy program to work with this file. I just ask that you let me know what you find out so I can update my records as well. Thanks!

There are few people in the world that have the honor of having “Groke” as their last name. I was contacted last week by a previously unknown Groke who wanted to know if we we’re related. My church encourages us to find our more about our ancestors and I love the challenge of hunting down information, it’s like the biggest puzzle in the world. So here’s what I know about the Groke name:

From what I’ve been able to find, there are two main groupings of Grokes in the Americas, one set from Germany, and one from Great Britain. The German group came over in the late 1800s and settled primarily in the Wisconsin area. The British Grokes  came much earlier, and were concentrated in the Pennsylvania area.

My Second Great Grandfather, Johann Heinrich Paul Groke immigrated to America from Germany in 1888 and spent the next 30 years as a tanner in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Here is a breakdown of his posterity. Edward William Groke is my grandfather. If you are related to anyone on this list, please let me know