This last week, I have been working on entering various family trees. First, I finished the Fons family. Then I moved on to several family trees which show the intertwining of the Filip, Mateja and Kleba families. (These family names had various spellings over time, but for the purposes of this post, I'll just stick to one each because this is going to be confusing enough as it is.)
The Filip, Mateja and Kleba families form what I like to call a “family braid.” A braid occurs when two or more families inter-marry multiple times over several generations. ( As we all know from “I Am My Own Grandpa,” it can make describing the relationships very confusing.) This particular braid went like this:
Joannes Kleba and Justina (Plichta) Kleba had at least five children. The oldest, Paulina, married Joseph Mateja in Poland. Paulina's sister, Victoria, married Joseph's first cousin, Victor. So now we have two couples: Joseph and Paulina (Kleba) Mateja and Victor and Victoria (Kleba) Mateja.
Meanwhile, Plaulina and Victoria's sister, Theresia, married Frank Filip and their brother Joseph married Martha Filip. However, Frank and Martha Filip were not brother and sister, they were first cousins. Martha was the daughter of August Filip and Mary (Klinkosz) Filip and Frank was the son of Frank Filip and Anna Bejrowski Filip.
Simple enough you say, that's just some siblings marrying some people that were first cousins to one another. Yes, EXCEPT, the mother of Pauline and Joseph Mateja was Pauline (Filip) Mateja, the sister of Frank Filip. No, not the Frank Filip who married Theresia Kleba, but HIS father.
Now, remember that I mentioned that Joseph Mateja and Victor Mateja were first cousins, that's because their mothers, Pauline and Julianna were sisters. You remember Pauline (Filip) Mateja. I just mentioned her. She's the sister of Frank Filip whose son, Frank Filip married Theresia Kleba. Anyway, Pauline (Filip) Mateja and Frank Filip had a sister, Julianna and she's the mother of Victor Mateja, which is why Victor Mateja and Albert Mateja (who married the sisters of Theresia Kleba) are first cousins.
But wait. If Victor Mateja and Joseph Mateja are first cousins because their mothers are sisters, why do they have the same last name? Well, Victor's father was Joseph Mateja. Of course, not that Joseph Mateja, but one generation up. And the father of Joseph Mateja (first cousin and brother-in-law of Victor Mateja) was Albert Mateja. It seems likely that Joseph Mateja and Albert Mateja were related, but at this point, we don't know how.
Now, about Victor Mateja and Victoria (Kleba) Mateja. Victor died in 1938 and Victoria remarried. I guessed she liked her in-laws, because she married Alexander Mateja, her first husband's brother.
One last twist to knot things up. I mentioned it up above, but you might have forgotten: Pauline (Filip) Mateja, Frank Filip and Julianna (Filip) Mateja had a brother, August. August married Mary Klinkosz. August Filip and Mary (Klinkosz) Filip had several children, one of whom was the Martha Filip who married Joseph Kleba. However, August Filip died young, so Mary Klinkosz married Frank Kitzke. The families must have known one another. Not only had they been in the same brawl, but Frank Kitzke's brother and sister-in-law, Gustaf (August) Kitzke and Victoria (Rosploch) Kitzke were god parents to Victora (Kleba) Mateja, the widow of Victor Mateja and bride of Victor's brother, Alexander Mateja. Anyway, one of Frank and Mary's children (and remember, Mary is the widow of August Filip) was Clara Kitzke. She married Paul Friday, and they had one daughter, Clara Friday, who apparently went by “Mavis”. Mavis married Victor Raymond Mateja, who was the son of Victor Mateja and Victoria (Kleba) Mateja, which is one of the couples we started with.
Names added: Bertling, Binkowski, Bolka, Gerlich, Grim, Hueske, Kazmierczak, Keniaz, Liban, Maczewski, Malischewsky, Perszowski, Polcyn, Starost, Todryk