Hi, I'm the older brother of Lin Gilay and Ruth Donaldson of the Joseph, Simon, Thomas, Bernard Ignash line. I would like to add a little to the extensive work Lin has done. My grandfather Thomas had a farm on the north side of Port Crescent road, between Kinde and Port Austin. He also did some work at both Grindstone City and at Port Crescent in the sand minng. My father Bernard was the youngest son of seven and the 12th of fourteen children.
I saw an old plat map from the early 1900's and noticed there was another Ignash family almost next door to my grandfather's. I think this was probably the other Ignash family that has been discussed in this group. I asked my father before he died who they were. He said that he thought they were some sort of cousin but that he really didn't know who they were. I always thought that was kind of strange since he knew every other family for miles around. Perhaps it was some sort of age difference where the children in one family were much older than the other. Has anyone ever heard of some sort of family rift from back then? It seems like if your cousins lived practically next door you would have known them better.
I used to stay with my other grandparents (non-Ignash) who had a farm on Moeller Rd along the Willow River (Creek?). To get there we would always pass the barn on Kinde Road with "Ignash" painted on its roof. I always thought it was so cool to see my name painted so big on a roof. Where I grew up there were no other Ignashes that I knew outside of my immediate family. My father always said that he didn't know who owned it. It's been many years since I've been to Michigan and many more since I was in the Kinde area. Is the barn still there?
Some of my father's brothers spell the last name differently so there are Egnash and Ignasiak descendents from my grandfather Thomas as well as Ignash descendents.
My father could speak Polish, but spoke English without an accent. His mother, my grandmother, could barely speak English and had a heavy Polish accent. My grandfather died before I was born so I don't know what he sounded like. Myself and my brothers and sisters never learned to speak Polish while growing up.
My father also told me that he thought the family came from the Poznan area of western Poland, which back then was part of Germany.
Does anyone else have memories of the Ignash family in Huron County?