Why We Must Do Genealogy!

First, for the record, I need to state that my first calling is not to genealogy. I am a storyteller and a lore keeper. And, in the beginning, I was frustrated by the emphasis I saw placed on genealogy by many because I felt that while many individuals were compiling family history sheets and descendant charts, they did not appear to be learning about the history and the culture that surrounded their ancestors, which I see as the key components of one‘s ethnic identity.

But, I have done (and continue to do) genealogy research on my families. And, my assumption (erroneous as it was) was that most all others do genealogy research on their families as well. It only seems logical because if one cannot follow the paper trail back through time and to Europe, one cannot definitely state where ones ancestors actually resided before coming to America.

Now, it must be wonderful to have a close connection to the Czech lands as some do. It was with a small sense of envy that I listened to those folks talk about their connections.  I am also rather envious of the families in which they chose to continue to speak Czech and to pass that gift on to their children. That did not happen in my family.

But, let me relate the details of my research on one of my family histories to illustrate the situation that many Texas Czech-Moravians find themselves in. My mother died when I was eleven years of age. My father, who had lost the great love of his life, went into a deep depression that lasted around ten years. During that time, he withdrew from church and civic organizations and our contacts with my mother’s family dwindled. So, for around thirty years, I knew very little of my mother’s family lines.

When I finally wanted to know who my ancestors really were, I had difficulty even getting enough information to know where to start the records search on my mother’s family. I spent hours reading grave markers in cemeteries recording names and vital information. Eventually, I found the grave marker for my great grandparents in the Schulenburg City Cemetery. The names on the marker were F. L. Ermis and Clara Michna Ermis. But, I could trace my family no further back.

In the 1970’s, my eldest sister had started to collect data on the Ermis family. She had met a relative at a reunion had been doing genealogy for quite a while and she made notes of what he related to her. Eventually, in the mid-1990’s those notes came to me. She has written that the first Ermis to come to Texas was buried the cemetery in Praha. The notes also recorded that she had spelled her name HERMIS.

In March of 1996, I drove to Praha from Austin, where I lived at the time. I went to find my family. I fell in love with the countryside as I drove out from Schulenburg to Engle and then to Praha. The first time I walked the rows of markers in the Assumption Cemetery, my heart and soul were touched deeply by something I could not identify then. Eventually, I did find the marker for which I searched. But, it, in itself was a frustration too. The marker was a tall obelisk of concrete. The engraved writing was eroded and difficult to even see. Beyond that, the writing was all in Czech and done with a left-hand (backwards) slant. Still, I peered at the letters and ran my fingers through the grooves to see if I discern the letters. I recorded what I found in my notebook.

That night, I called my eldest sister and we tried to figure out what the marker said. All we could tell for sure was that the grave belonged to a person named Marie Hermis who was born in 1823 and died in 1906. From what my sister recalled from her conversation back in the 1970’s, she did not think this was the right marker. I was so frustrated. I would not be able to make advances finding this family line for years.

But, when I did find a connection, the picture soon fell in place. But, if it were not for several people who had been researching the Ermis family name for decades, I would still be lost. I am most indebted to Tom Hrncirek, who has been compiling genealogy information on the Ermis/Hermis name for many, many years. It was through his family history sheet that I finally found a connection.

Now, please remember, I am still tracing my history here in Texas. My mother was Lollie Elizabeth Ermis, the daughter of Louis and Agnes (Palitza) Ermis. The parents of Louis Ermis were F. L. (Franz Louis) and Clara Michna Ermis. Louis Ermis died in 1956. F.L. Ermis died in 1924. Before that I was stumped until the Hrncirek contact.

My great-great grandparents went by the name HERMIS and not Ermis. What a revelation it was to learn that the ancestors who emigrated from Moravia, Europe, were Frantisek and Marianna (Hermis) Hermis. They had come to Texas in 1867 when my great grandfather was still a young man. Eventually, I would find a listing for them in Volume I of the Czech Immigration Passenger Lists compiled by Leo Baca. I still find it remarkable that I ever recognized it given the spelling. This is how the record was made: “ERMISCH, Franz 46, Mariana 44, Franz 20, Joseph 18, Barbara 16, Anna 12, Agnes 9, Joseph 28, Germany, Iris, 13 May 1867.

The entry immediately above the one for “ERMISCH” was one for: “ERMIS, Franz 25, Marianna 22, Agnes 1, Rosina 19, Moravia; Anton Gunther, 4 December 1866. For many years I found records of this family and I mistakenly thought they might be mine. They even settled within a few miles of my Hermis grandparents.

Now, when everything seems to be settling down, let me explain two more factors. The first is that the maiden name of my great-great grandmother was Marianna HERMIS. When she married, she married another HERMIS. It turns out that these are two separate lines of HERMIS from the area of Hukvaldy in Moravia. Once in Texas, the HERMIS-HERMIS must have been a problem. In the book “Texas and the Texans” there is a two-page biography of my great grandfather, Frank L. Ermis. In it it is written that his father’s name was ERMIS while his mother’s name was HERMIS. History was rewritten. For I now know where the grave marker for my great great grandfather HERMIS is located in the Praha cemetery and when he died the name on the marker was inscribed as “FRANTISEK HERMIS.” The end result of this is that a Hermis married an Ermis, they moved to Texas, and their children changed the family name to ERMIS.

Now, here is the most intriguing factor (at least to me). There were rumors of this even in my mother’s family but it took a genealogist to discover the truth. Those two HERMIS families who lived in the village of Merkovice, near Hukvaldy, remember them? Well, one line was stone workers and the other ironworkers. They had come to Hukvaldy to work on the renovation of the castle. But, where had the families lived before that? France. Yes, France. And where had the families lived before that Greece. Yes, Greece.

In the 16^th century there were two families in Greece named HERMES. One line was stone masons and the other ironworkers. There was work in France so a man and his family from each of the two lines migrated to France to work. A couple of generations later, a man and his family of each line of HERMIS migrated to Moravia to work on Hukvaldy.

How do we know this, because during WWII one of the Hermis women in Moravia was a sister in the Catholic Church. In order to be allowed to tend to the German soldiers in the hospitals, it had to be established that she had no Jewish connection for at least five previous generations. Her father was able to trace the family back to first France and then Greece. Tom Hrncirek has spent much time in the Czech archives trying to find the source documents.

And, this is just an account of one of my families. I am a fifth generation Palitza descendant (the original spelling of that name was Palica). I would have had an equally hard time tracing it back to before the American Civil War if it had not been for a relative who had been tracing that genealogy for over twenty years.

Why have my families lost the connections to the past?  When most of the Czech-Moravians arrived in Texas after the American Civil War, there was still a strong “Anti-foreigner” sentiment. It was so bad that in Panna Maria, Texas, hostile and bitter supporters of the Confederate cause rode their horses in the Catholic Church there during services, they fired their rifles and pistols, and terrorized the church goers. Eventually, Federal troops had to be stationed there to keep the peace.

And, my Rektorik family settled in Moravia, Fayette County, Texas, and they had their fences cut by their Anglo neighbors. In addition, when my great Uncle, John (Jan), and grandfather, Louis (Alois) moved to Nueces County in 1907, they were soon thereafter threatened at gunpoint by a drunk Anglo. This man pointed a rifle at them IN TOWN. He told his companion that he was going to shoot one of them because “He had never shot a Bohemian before.”

And, my father, Julius, he was born in 1913. He and his brothers were not allowed to attend school with the Anglo children. A special ward school was constructed in the middle of the Moravian farms near Robstown. Only English was spoken on the school grounds. If the teacher heard a child speak Czech, that child had to stay after school and pull weeds. It was only when they reached high-school age that my father and his brothers were allowed to attend school in town.

Beyond that, both my mother and my father spoke English without a trace of a European accent and they each earned a college degree from a major Texas University. Yet; at least through the 1940’s, they were not treated as peers in the Robstown Independent School District in which they both taught. They were treated in a disparate manner not only because they were Czech but also because they were farm people. Because of all this, my parents made sure that their children did not face the same discrimination that they did. They taught us that we were “Americans” and that English was our only language. At times, I am resentful because I lost so much of my ethnic identity; at the same time, as a parent living in those times, I might have done the same thing, believing it was in the best interest of my children.

There are many more Czech-Moravians in the same predicament as I. We need to fight for every bit of information and every connection. Genealogy books are our maps. We need these books and more. We need to document individual family histories because time is stealing our connections to Europe. We also need lectures and other educational presentations to help us fill in the history.

With each generation, it becomes more difficult to follow the trail back to Moravia, Silesia, and Bohemia. Each book that contains ship immigration passenger lists, extractions from census records, church records, inscriptions on grave markers, etc.; for some of us, they are our only hope of reconstructing our family history.

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