This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/RdC.2ACI/117.339.1.1.1 Message Board Post: Hi Joann. Actually your grandmother is from the "other" Arasim family that was in Ironwood, MI. There were two Arasim families at the same time living in Ironwood back then...each had at least a Stephanie and even a John. Small world. I can't offhand remember which street your grandmother grew up on ...but it was at one time only a couple doors down from the Arasim family I am researching. I know this only by finding the phone directory records(1938 & 1947, yours on Curry and mine on Mansfield at those times) and checking ss#'s from back then...plus my MIL remembers the other family during her early marriage years of visiting her inlaws. She told me that your Arasim, was pronounced such as "Ah-ras-im"....where my inlaws pronounced theirs "Air-a-sim". But between my MIL and I, we suspect there might be some connection between the two families prior to coming to America...or at least the name variation was changed to be similiar. My line had Frank (perhaps Frances) and Apolonia (Paula/Pola) as the parents. And nine kids: Stephanie (1897), Aloysius John (A.J. 1901), Bertha (1905), Joseph (1908), Elizabeth (1910), Bernice (1913), Margaret (Maggie 1916), John Leo (my connection, Jack 1918) and Thomas (1920-only living left). Both families had Joes, Stephanies, and Johns...and the Johns even were born the same year, but mine is older by several months. A lot of the kids from both families grew up to be teachers or work in the school system. I'm just trying to figure out where Frank/Paula both came from for sure..and what the original name base is. I know the "stories", but need the facts of immigration, etc. That's where I'm at on my searches...awaiting death certs for clues. Kelley