Intro

Once I found out that Valentine Bednarek (1868-1905), the eldest brother of my great grandfather Albert (1879-1951), migrated to the US before 1891 I started to check facts and figures for the US Bednareks in genealogical databases and publications on the internet. I also set up the English version of this website, through which contacts with the descendants of Valentine have been established. This website also serves as a doorway to The Bednarek Family on GEDBAS, a multi-lingual genealogical platform. In addition, a List of Descendants can be downloaded from here.

Origin

Bednarek is a Polish family name from a diminutive of "bednarz" - cooper. Our family can be traced in the Poznan area back to the the late 18th century. About 100 years later Stefan (1843-1923) and his younger brother Wojciech III. (1848-1931) came to the Cologne/Düsseldorf area (Rhineland) Stefan worked in coalmines west of Cologne, Wojciech III. on farms as migratory worker during the summer months. During the winter seasons he and his family still went back to Poland. Wojciech III. and his first wife Rossalia Starosta had 5 children, amongst them Valentine and Albert as already mentioned.

American Family 

Valentine's immigration records have not yet been found, but his identiy is clear. The marriage records of St. Hyacinth Church Milwaukee leave no doubt: on Nov 3, 1891 Valentine, son of Albert Bednarek and Rossalia Starosta, married Agnes, daughter of Felix Gastecki and Julianna Jannsz [correct name is Juliane Jarosz].  They had seven children. Their grandson Dennis Bednarek says "I am fairly aware of the Bednarek history in Milwaukee. There was 'my family' who were the descendants of my grandfather that composed all but three entries in the Milwaukee phone book up till the 1970's. The other three were descendants of Joseph or relatives of him. The connection between these two lines is questionable but I do believe there was some. My oldest aunt Pearl Labinski, née Bednarek used to mention that they were her cousins". So far we have no evidence that Valentine had any relatives living in the Milwaukee area besides his own family. (1) When investigating Agnes Garstecka's heritage we found her 1890 immigration. Her family is also rather widespread with relatives in the US and ancestors from the Poznan area. Like Bednarek Garstecki is a common name in the US Northeast. We have done no systematic research on the Garstecki family as it would go beyond the scope of the Bednarek Research. However, information we have compiled about the Garsteckis should be of interest to Agnes' and her siblings' descendants. For that reason  I offer a download with data for 5 generations down from Agnes' grandparents Jan Garstecki and his wife Katarzyna Kozyrowna. Garstecki.zip  (for conversion to Gedcom Format)

Distribution Of The Bednarek Name

In 2016 there have been 487 US phone book entries with the surname Bednarek and approximately 1,754 persons with this name. Currently Bednareks live in 41 US States, most occurrences are in Wisconsin: 113. (2) At this stage the database of ancestry.com contains 808,934 records for Bednarek.(3) The Passenger Records of Ellis Island list immigration of 125 individuals by the name Bednarek between 1892 and 1924.(4) But so far, none of those seems to be related to Valentine.

Latest Issues

There are direct contacts with two of my Bednarek cousins in the US. I am trying to establish more contacts to collect as much infomation as possible from stories being told in the individual families. So all information, documents, photos etc. are most welcome. This is a private project, no commercial interest. It's all free and serious. I hope Valentine's and Albert's descendants will establish many pan-Atlantic contacts after more than 120 years.

Birgit Mostert, a descendant of Stefan Bednarek, went to Poland in 2016 and 2018. She met relatives and sleuthed her forefathers. During her trips she collected new family stories and genealogical data.

More recently I discovered details about the two Bednarek brothers Ludwig and Leo who both lost their lives in Russia during WW II.

Sources:

(1) http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.bednarek/11.13/mb.ashx
(2) http://www.dynastree.com/maps/detail/bednarek.html
(3) http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=ROOT_CATEGORY&rank=1&new=1&so=1&MSAV=0&msT=1&gss=ms_f-2_s&gsln=bednarek&uidh=pm4
(4) http://www.ellisisland.org/search/matchMore.asp?LNM=BEDNAREK&PLNM=BEDNAREK&first_kind=1&kind=exact&offset=0&dwpdone=1

Last Update: December 23, 2020

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