Trunk that started it all-Hermann 1861-??

The modern beginnings of our

can be traced back to the summer of 1969. Edna (Theriault) Ciriacks had begun research on her own Acadian surname, as attested to in the final paragraph of her 1966 Christmas letter (pop-up) to Canadian relatives that year. By 1969, she'd moved on to her husband's surname and made contact with the eldest of his cousins in to set up a meeting at Covered Bridge Park in nearby .

That not very well attended meeting was described by John Ciriacks, Edna's eldest child, in a subsequent write-up:

August/September 1969 - Initial meeting of Ciriacks-Cyriacks family history project at Covered Bridge park on the Cedar Creek several miles east of the Ciriacks homestead farm. Edna Ciriacks, my mother who was looking into her Acadian-French Thériault family roots, had phoned Lester "Pete" Ciriacks (1907-1973), who willingly setup this meeting. Grandpa Alfred Ciriacks (1887-1971) joined us with his always fragrant pipe (top left photo). My oldest child, Lynne Ann age 4, sits on the knees of her Uncle Ruben "Ben" J. Ciriacks, 26.
Grandpa Alfred's younger sister, Adela Kleman (1895-1983), attended and "overflowed" with family history facts, which neither Ben nor I had ever heard. I knew we had Cyriacks cousins in Minnesota, but Adela said that a 3rd German-born Cyriacks brother raised his family in Nebraska. Then Aunt Adela told us that she knew the address of her Cyriacks first-cousin Betti Biermann (geboren Cyriacks) in Bremen, Germany. It was Betti who kindly helped the genealogist that I found in Hamburg, Germany. Our Cyriacks roots were traced back to the 1630s.
Pete Ciriacks' and Aunt Adela's help was invaluable in propelling the history project. Reunions starting in 1970 were organized by Pete. Pete and Adela along with many others in Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin wrote the stories in the "History of the Cyriacks, Ciriacks and Cyriaks Families of the United States and Hanover," 1972 edition and 1984 update (300+pages). JAC

Cyriacks

accurate spelling

That first meeting led to another a week later in , closer to where Claus Hinrich , Paterfamilias of our Wisconsin Branch, settled in the early 1870s after migrating to the USA several years earlier from Bremen, Germany.

Uncle Pete's honour system picnic area at Artesian lake in Jackson was donated by him for the 2nd meeting on Sep. 6th, 1969.

[ Even though we've yet to discover any pictures taken at the 9/6/1969 Artesian Lake reunion, we do know the exact date, because Chuck & Nannette (Ciriacks) Krause first met at the Bavarian Wurst Haus' Octoberfest in Milwaukee the previous evening - Nannette told Chuck to meet her at the reunion the next day -- he showed up but found Nannette's brothers Jack, Mike & Ben (ex-U. S. Navy) instead of Nannette --- the brothers got to know more about U. S. Naval Reserve Officer (and eventual submarine Captain/Commander) Chuck than Nannette had the night before! ]

'Uncle' Pete had the rights to the 'honour system' picnic grounds at the southwest edge of Artisian Lake nearest the intersection of Wisconsin State Highways 60 and 45. He was also the relative who had saved the New York Times article about the shooting of "Peter the Great", another movie dog around the era of Rin Tin Tin. The December 1927 article indicated that an award of $125,000 had been adjudicated against "Fred Cyriacks, wealthy North Hollywood land owner, ..." Neither Pete nor anyone else had been able to discover anything about this mysterious Fred but some thought our missing Uncle Hermann may have been connected to him somehow. In any case, that was the first specific mystery needing to be resolved at the very beginning of our

[ 'Uncle' Pete (1907~1973) was really one of our dad's 31 first cousins, but we always called him Uncle Pete. There were 34 Ciriacks first cousins, including 8 step-cousins in our father's generation; 12 from an aunt and uncle born to Hinrich and his first wife, Augusta (1849-1884) and another 22 cousins from the other 5 uncles and 1 aunt born to Hinrich and his 2nd wife, Emilie (1861-1940) - Emilie was Augusta's younger sister. ]

That first Artesian Lake meeting was where the

surname 'burnt into the wood' on the handcrafted wooden trunk was first seen by both John and his youngest brother, Ben. IT WAS A REVELATION that has changed, by way of further revelations, the history of our family, forever.

The writing on that trunk is worth a thousand words in describing how the Wisconsin branch of the family surname became instead of the more historically correct high german . That trunk was sitting atop a picnic table. Burned into the side was the name of the sender, Hermann, along with the address of his older brother (by 15 years), our Wisconsin Paterfamilias. The fancy lettering displayed the high german y in both the family surname and at the end of Counti. That y looked just like an i with a tiny tail underneath it.

Upon asking what that was, John & Ben were told it was a high german y and that our name should really be spelled Cyriacks instead of ! Ben, who had unsuccessfully searched for other surnamed individuals in telephone and other name lists during his travels around the world over the prior decade was ASTOUNDED! He should have been looking under Cy, too!

This may help explain how our Wisconsin paterfamilias had his y changed to an i after arriving here around 1870 - thereby making us all instead of ! ! One possible scenario, in the days when very few people were literate, especially in the language of their new country, was that some recording clerk dropped the tail off the y - leaving ; the spelling Hinrich also had inscribed in stone on his newly built barn at what became his family homestead in Jackson, thereby reflecting his acceptance of the new spelling - thus beginning another of the largest single spelling branches of our family surname in the world.

The sudden realization of the 'correct' spelling of our family name, ie.

began a much more informed quest for knowledge about our family and the formailization of the

. Ben's initial research involved 'lunch hour' tabulations of the many Cyriac (et al) surnames listed in telephone books kept by the research department of The American Appraisal Company, his empoloyer at the time. Passing those along to John allowed him to begin making telephone contacts with previously unknown cousins, and well ..., the rest of the story is being preserved at this web site.

[ Mostly due to resources at hand and natural inclination, an efficient working research relationship developed between the two brothers - with John handling contacts with living relatives, the oral histories only they could provide and the publication of the 300+ page written family history published therefrom - while Ben looked into family and other notable individuals having lived and died before the 20th century. Much of Ben's original research was done in the University of New Mexico Library (UNM) in Albuquerque during the Summer/Fall/Spring of 1970/71. Many late 19th/early 20th century encyclopedias had references to various Cyriac (et al) (sur)named persons. Many of the older encyclopedias disappeared from the UNM Library subsequent to Ben's research. Since then, many libraries have belatedly discovered that segregated 'Special Collections' areas are more secure places to keep their older and more valuable books. (Ben's undergraduate budget didn't allow for 5 cent photocopies, so he hand transcribed all the information he discovered into spiral notebooks.) ]