One thing that doing genealogical research has taught me is that with an increasing ease of travel in the 20th (and now 21st) centuries, people and families become scattered. I look at my own history: in the last 10 years of my life I have lived in Pennsylvania, two addresses in California, Japan, and two addresses in Minnesota. I pity my descendant who has to piece my crazy travels together! But when the grandparents and great grandparents of my mother’s father (Kroliczak / Nowak) came to the United States from Poland circa 1896-1898, they all settled in the same Philadelphia neighborhood: the 45th Ward, more commonly known as Bridesburg. Occasionally a family member or two would travel a little further down the Delaware River to the 25th Ward next door (Port Richmond), but by and large they stuck together. Continue Reading