Genealogy Story – Adolph Cincush

As mentioned in part one, Mathus and Wilhelmina were married around 1848 and had four children before Mathus passed away around 1858.  Since most records from the mid-19^th century Prussia have either been destroyed during the World Wars or are not accessible to me, we have to look other places to verify Mathus’ last name.

When Wilhelmina and her second husband, Michael Kowalske, came to the US, most people asking for family information would record the name of the husband, and simply write “do” (for “ditto”) on the subsequent lines for the wife and children.  Thus, the ship’s manifest and all census records about the family listed Wilhelmina’s children from her first marriage as “Kowalske” as well.  But Michael had never formally adopted those four children.  Thus it was not until the children became of age that they would be able to list their “real” family name.

Amelia married her step-father’s brother around July, 1870, thus changing her last name to Kowalske.  I was unable to locate any marriage record, so there are no records showing what her former last name was.

Emil died before he became of age, so there are no records for him.

Minnie’s marriage record in 1871 has her listed as “Mina E. Cynkush”.  However, since she would have still had a strong German accent, this is what the recorder wrote down.  Since he got the “Minnie” as “Mina” (or perhaps she gave “Mina” as yet another diminutive for “Wilhelmina”) and the “C.” as “E.”, one cannot trust the “Cynkush” either.  But it at least sounded like that.

The best records would have come from Adolph as he kept his last name throughout his life and passed it on to his children.  But he was only two years old when his father died so had no first-hand knowledge of it.  He fairly consistently used the spelling “Cincush” in the census records from 1900 and following, and his children also used this spelling consistently.  However, the last name of Cincush appears nowhere else – no other individuals in the US, none in Germany or Poland, nowhere!  So it is obviously an “Americanization” of the original Prussian name.

After much searching, I have come to the conclusion that the original name was spelled “Czenkusch”.  There are other individuals with that name, including others who came to the US from Prussia around the same time.  Certainly the name Cincush is a bit easier for people to spell than Czenkusch, and they sound nearly the same – especially with the appropriate accent.