After leaving Gmerek genealogy for several years, I was contacted by Dave Slowik who has done an amazing job of tracing Simon (my grandfather), his father and brothers. Dave has a site on Ancestry.com under Slowik surname, but it includes fascinating information on Simon and his/our family. He even learned that Simon's father, Mikolaj Gmerek, actually came to Buffalo, NY about 1885 and died in 1886. We now know where they came from in Prussian Poland, around the county of Sroda.