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 five 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 second 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 fourth cousin, two 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 second great-grandparents, Melchior Korcz and Katarzyna Neumann. Melchior was the grand-nephew of my second great-grandmother, the above Balbina Korcz.
Melchior was born December 28, 1878 in Trzek, Poland and Katarzyna was born May 4,1877 in Ługowiny, Poland. They were married approximately April 1,1901 in Poland. Melchior passed away in 1952 in Swarzędz, Poland and Katarzyna passed away in 1955 also in Swarzędz, Poland. Both are buried in the Cmentarz Parafialny w Swarzędz (Municipal cemetery in Swarzędz, Poland). Melchior was my second cousin, two 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 and 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 three 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 October 24,1869 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 July 12,1861 in Detroit, Michigan. Rudolph and Elizabeth were married February 20, 1907 in Detroit. Rudolph passed away on April 1, 1940 in Detroit and Elizabeth passed away on February 17, 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 two of my favorite ancestral photos but I feel they are well suited to this blog post.
copyright 2025, Cheryl J. Schulte
