Looking for Paul Primas

I have been looking for my great-grandfather Paul Primas for a long time.  When I started my family history research for a school project in 6^th grade, he had already been gone for over 50 years. 

What I knew about Paul Primas when I began was that he was my grandfather Oscar Primas’ father and my father’s grandfather.  I knew he had a wife who lived for over 20 years past his death.  He had five children, four boys and one girl.  I was told he was from a town called Nekla in what is present day Poland but was Prussia when he lived there. 

I wrote to my grand-uncles who still survived and asked for more details.  There was another son who died young.  Paul’s wife was Emma Natalie Stroschein.  They had been married in Prussia before they made the trip over.  Her parents were Ludwig and Susanna Stroschein.  I was never told anything further about Paul.

Later I learned that Paul and Emma had come to the US in about 1887.  They came to Chicago yet three of their children were born in Wisconsin.  Paul died in Chicago in December 1906 at the age of 46 years old leaving his wife with five children ranging in age from 18 years old to 9 years old (my grandfather).

Paul Primas' sons:  Otto, Fred, Frank and Oscar c.1948

Over the years I have been searching, researching, writing letters and trying to find out more about Paul Primas.  As a teenager I wrote to the German Consulate to ask how to find records I was looking for and was told all the records were lost in the war (World War II) and any that did survive were now behind the Iron Curtain and unavailable.  I kept looking and asking.

As more information came on-line, I started to get little hints and clues.  He arrived in Baltimore, not Ellis Island.  He came with his wife Emma and their son Franz on the ship Köln from Bremen  I found his citizenship was granted in Dunn County Wisconsin, even though his Declaration of Intent was filed in Cook County.  In the 1891 City Directory for Chicago he is listed as a tailor.  Based on his children’s birth records, between 1893 and 1897 when he was in Wisconsin he was a laborer in the lumber camps.   In the 1900 US Census he and his family are living at 156 North Kedzie in Chicago and he is listed as a janitor.

In 2012 I decided I needed to go to Poland and try to find out more information about my elusive great-grandfather Paul.  I still had many questions.

Circuit Court of Cook County Archives on-line

            I recently visited the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives on-line at http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/NR/about.aspx.  I found it by chance via a Google search.   

            I found a few people I was looking for in the database search, downloaded the form, completed it and mailed it, per instructions on the web site, with my check.  I was totally surprised to receive it back with the documents in about a week!   I received a copy of the original Declaration of Intent which was loaded with details I did not have before:  the ship of arrival, the ports of departure and arrival, place of birth and physical description with “visible distinctive marks” (in this case a birthmark on the left cheek).

What I received in the mail

Here is the detail from the web site:

The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives is home to more than 500,000 naturalization petitions covering the years 1871 to 1929. More than 400,000 of these records are Declarations of Intention, 1906-1929 which were usually the first papers to be filed by those who wished to become U.S. citizens.

Because the Declaration may be the only public record of an individual immigrant, it is a significant source of documentation for genealogists and scholars.

Also, taken as a whole, the Declarations of Intention document the social changes of the immigrant experience during this era and so can be of interest to scholars and researchers from many disciplines.

This database of Declarations of Intention was created thanks to a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a division of the National Archives.

Where do I find records filed before 1906 and after 1929?
For records filed before 1906 in Cook County refer to the following Clerk of the Circuit Court Archive web page:   http://12.218.239.55/?section=RecArchivePage&RecArchivePage=naturalization_search

After 1929, the local Cook County courts stopped granting naturalizations, and the task was given entirely to the Federal Courts. To find local naturalizations after 1929, please contact a local branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Chicago is served by NARA Great Lakes Region. You can find them here:  http://www.archives.gov/great-lakes/.