Any information concerning a house fire in South Boston involving the
Szechul family. A small child died in the fire which occurred
somewhere between 1920 and 1926. All the children in the fire were
girls and the family name may have a slightly different spelling.

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Request for Question Clarification by knowledge_seeker-ga on 11 Sep 2002 11:00 PDT

Hi koleary,

I've sent out a couple of email inquiries. Will let you know if I hear
anything.

Meanwhile, perhaps you can tell us where you heard about this fire.
For example, if it was a newspaper clipping maybe that would give us a
jumping off place for our research.

Thanks - K~

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Clarification of Question by koleary-ga on 12 Sep 2002 07:12 PDT

My mother-in-law was one of the children involved in this fire. She
was born in 1919 and was a small child at the time of the fire. Her
name was Eleanore. Other surviving sisters were Wanda and Edna. The
parents had emigrated from Poland within ten years preceding the fire.

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Request for Question Clarification by ericynot-ga on 12 Sep 2002 10:00 PDT

This one is a real challenge. Without a little more information such
as street name, or year, or accurate family name, the answer may
elude. I have searched extensively and can find no Polish name very
similar to "Szechul". The closest I came was "Szulc". You might want
to consult this site for a huge list of Polish names:
http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/GEN/x.html

Thanks, e

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Request for Question Clarification by websearcher-ga on 14 Sep 2002 13:17 PDT

Hi koleary:

I have made contact with a Boston fire historian/buff. I have sent him
all your information and his latest email reads:

**********************
the first problem is if the fire was not atleast a 2nd alarm or better
i would not have it in my database
may database is multiple alarms from 1852 to 1970 multiple alarms only
from 1970 up it includes working fires also 
you have no idea as to the location of the fire 
that helps a lot 
even a general idea 
**********************

Any ideas on this front? 

Thanks. 

websearcher-ga

"Szechel" appears to be a real (though perhaps uncommon) name.   I
have no idea whether it's the right name, but it's a possibility.

I was thinking that the "sz" might be "szcz", and that the "ch" might
be "cz", but so far no luck with that.  Still, it might be worth
investigating.

Also, Eastern European names may have accent or diacritical marks on
certain letters.  I've noticed in past searches on Google, for
instance, that use of non-English characters can pull up different
results.

Szeczul does indeed sound like a polish name. As already mentioned by
someone, not a common one. I am originally from Poland, and speak
polish. With that I wanted to verify that the name could indeed be
correct. SZ and CH are pretty common in the polish language, and are a
single sound every time. SZ would be closest resembled in the english
language by SH (as in the word SHOP), and CH would be represented by H
(as in the word HAND).

Regards,
slawek-ga

Try this. Go to:

http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/

Click on 'advanced search'

Enter Eleanore and the year of birth 1919, and put Massachusetts in as
the state that issued the SS# (this is just an assumption, but most
people get their SS# in the state they spent their childhood) .This
will bring up 5 records. Of course, there's an assumption Eleanore
married, and so if she's deceased, she may be any one of these ladies.
Then, contact the Social Security Administration and ask for the
copies of the Social Security Application. It will cost about 8
dollars a piece. When you receive them, you will find the full names,
and very likely the maiden name or parents names. Hopefully one of
these ladies will have a maiden name very similiar to the name you
had.
I'm a genealogical researcher, and I use this method all the time to
find info.

I searched for the following surnames through the SSDI, and no one by
these names has died and been reported  in this country in the 65+
years of the Social Security Administration:

Szechul
Szulc
Szechel
Szeczul

I also ran a search through Soundex, but there were too many returns,
to be of any use.