FAVORITE PHOTO(S)
Over the 47 years of my genealogical research I have acquired thousands of photos of ancestors from family members who have willingly allowed me to scan and return their photos to them. Naturally there are many that I would deem "favorites" and I have chosen two such photos to feature today.
These two photos are from both my father's side and my mother's side, they are from different countries and different periods of time but it is amazing how the two photos tie together.
Over the last several years I have had amazing success with DNA matches via the My Heritage website. While I use the Ancestry site exclusively for my research, I ventured into My Heritage 5 years ago hoping to make connections with European cousins. I had been informed that more people in Germany and Poland (my areas of interest) use My Heritage so I downloaded my family tree to My Heritage hoping to have some matches.
It took over a year but then the results started coming in with amazing DNA matches that have allowed me to grow my family lines back many generations.
One such DNA match came to me a few years ago from a young gentleman in Warsaw, Poland. This match was on the line of my 2nd great-grandmother, Balbina Korcz who was my mother's great-grandmother. I had very little information on my Korcz ancestors and was just fortunate to find US records originally that indicated her name. In the decades since then I had never had any luck learning anything more about her.
With this DNA match though I found a correspondent who was willing to share his records and the information he had uncovered. He turned out to be my 4th cousin, 2 times removed which was amazing since we actually had high numbers of shared DNA.
One of the photos he shared with me were of his 2nd great-grandparents, Melchior Korcz and Katarzyna Neumann. Melchior was the grand-nephew of my 2nd great-grandmother, the above Balbina Korcz.
Melchior was born 28 December 1878 in Trzek, Poland and Katarzyna was born 04 May 1877 in Ługowiny, Poland. They were married approximately 01 April 1901 in Poland. Melchior passed away in 1952 in Swarzędzu, Poland and Katarzyna passed away in 1955 also in Swarzędzu, Poland. Both are buried in the Cmentarz Parafialny w Swarzędzu (Municipal cemetery in Swarzędzu, Poland). Melchior was my 2nd cousin, 2 times removed. Here is a photo of the two of them taken in Poland. I would estimate this photo was taken in the later years of their marriage. I fell in love with this photo and the way they were posed.
Melchior & Katarzyna Korcz:
While going through my multitudes of photos I came across another one that caught my eye showing another interesting way of posing a couple.
This photo is of my great-grandfather, Rudolph Myer Schulte and his second wife, Elizabeth Feucht. Rudolph was my father's grandfather. While I never knew this great-grandfather I had enormous amounts of genealogical information on him and his 3 wives that I had acquired over the years from my paternal grandparents. Rudolph's first wife, Juliana Feucht, was my great-grandmother and she unfortunately passed away at the young age of 36. Two months after her death, Rudolph married her sister, Elizabeth, and they combined their families.
Rudolph had been born on 24 October 1869 in Germany. US records show he was born in Beckum, Westfalen, Germany but research has not found positive evidence of that (YET)! Elizabeth Feucht was born 12 July 1861 in Detroit, Michigan. Rudolph and Elizabeth were married 20 February 1907 in Detroit. Rudolph passed away on 01 April, 1940 in Detroit and Elizabeth passed away on 17 February 1937 also in Detroit.
This photo of Rudolph and Elizabeth was taken, I believe, at Riverview Park in Detroit, Michigan in approximately 1912.
Rudolph and Elizabeth Schulte:
What a fun experience this must have been.
These are just 2 of my favorite ancestral photos but I feel they are well suited to this blog post.
copyright 2025, Cheryl J. Schulte
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