Szillagyi Family

My Hevezi/Szillagyi family is amazingly big! – Here’s a bit of an explanation of where everyone falls in. I hope this helps a little. For anyone who is still living, I left off dates out of privacy and didn’t add anyone from the 4th generation.    Joseph and Elizabeth Szillagyi Margaret Szillagyi(1894-1981)/Martin Hevezi Joseph Szillagyi…

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George and Margaret Steele- From Pennsylvania to Indiana

My husband I did what no one in either of our families had done in over 5 generations- We moved away from Indiana. Both our family’s roots grow deep in the Hoosier state, and the romantic in me can’t help to think about how the stars aligned just right for us to meet where we…

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Elizabeth on her 117th Birthday

My post today is simply a photo of my beautiful Great-Grandmother on what would be her 117th Birthday. Born Mary Elizabeth Matthews on March 25, 1900  Happy Birthday    

Gary, Indiana. A Quick Look.

Gary, Indiana has a full and exciting history that started with the American Dream and unfortunately ended in sadness. In the beginning, Gary was a booming town. Founded in 1906, by the U.S Steel Corporation; Gary was the home to their new plant “Gary Works”. The location was prime, with easy access to transport iron…

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Martin and Margaret Hevezi-The Beginning

My Great-Grandparents both immigrated to the United States from Hungary. According to immigration records, Martin Hevezi arrived in the U.S. in 1906 at the age of 28. He first settled in The Miner’s Village in Cornwall, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles west of Philadelphia. He worked as an iron mill laborer. At the time, many immigrants…

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The Heavins- Our Scottish Roots and how Indiana became HOME.

The beginning of my family history journey started with this. The Migration of The Heavin Familes. – written by my Great-Grandmother Elizabeth Matthews Gillespie. I had received a copy of what Elizabeth wrote from my cousin Debbie along with some other information that she kept about her family and it sparked a big interest for me to learn…

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Charles Gillespie v. The People

On December 20, 1900, the Illinois supreme court upheld the ruling of the Vermilion County Court in the case of Gillespie v. Gibbons. Charles Gillespie (my 3rd great-grandfather) was a contractor in Danville, Illinois and employed Reuben Gibbons, a carpenter. While he was employed, Gibbons joined a legal labor union, Local Union No.269. As soon…

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The Branstetters.

My 3rd great grandparents on my maternal grandmother’s side were Elcanah Branstetter and Marena Montgomery. They were married on December 3, 1874 in St. James, Missouri, where they were both born and raised. Together, they had 10 children, Norah, Edna, Dorsey “Doss” , Zaddie (my 2nd great-grandmother), James, Thomas, Mary, Morris, Myrtle, and William. Elcanah…

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How common is your last name?….just for fun.

I came across an article on “Newsday” about the commonality of last names according to the most recent census in 2010. The Census says that about 6.3 million surnames were recorded (according to Newsday), with about 62% of them recorded just once. I thought these statistics were pretty interesting.            …

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Szillagyi – The Name

  My Great-Great-Grandparents came to the United States in the early 1900’s from Hungary. I always found it fascinating that names were misspelled, or changed when coming through Ellis Island, either by error or as a way to “Americanize”. When I was researching my great-grandma her last name kept coming up with different spellings and…

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