A family history project

The Family Archive

Four branches of the family — the four grandparents of Thomas Kosmicki and Marlea Mahnken — each with its own searchable records, genograms, a zoomable timeline, and a migration map.

Kosmicki

Prussian Poland → Illinois → Nebraska

Kashubian and Wielkopolska Poles who left partitioned Poland for Lemont, Illinois and the farms of Sherman and Perkins counties.

Open this branch →

Schmitt

Rhineland & the Volga → Nebraska

Rhenish and Volga-German Catholic families — the Schmitt and Klein lines — who crossed to Illinois, Missouri and the plains.

Open this branch →

Mahnken

Bremen & Lower Saxony → Nebraska

North-German forebears from the Osnabrück country and the Bremen coast, with Iowa kin, settling the Nebraska prairie.

Open this branch →

Bauer

Alsace, the Alps & the Volga → Nebraska

Alsatian, Swiss and German-American families — joined to the Meyers and Friday line — reaching back to the 1600s.

Open this branch →
A note on living people. To protect privacy, anyone who may still be living is shown by name only — birth and death dates, places, and marriages are left blank. Everything else is drawn from parish books, census sheets, ship lists, and family memory.