Author: Dr. John P. Elcik, IV

Dr. John P. Elcik, IV is married to Pamela McClanahan and they have two children: J.P. and Michelle. John is retired from a marketing career for administrative software in Higher Education. His interests include child advocacy (as a Mason and Shriner); animal rescue, education (especially eLearning), mysteries, and science fiction.
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Website Reviewed

July 23, 2020, 09:33 PM

Beth,

I will fix it. Thanks. Most, not all, my errors had occurred before I learned not to trust Ancestry HINTs and other people’s trees 100%. I’m getting better. At least I hope so. 🙂

You are the first of nine people to accept my offer to see/use the site. With your editor status, you should be able to do anything. For example, you even can see living people and my notes. On your Trees, I must have a contributor or guest status as I can’t see data on living people. That’s ok. I can see what I need to. Also, while you may make changes as an Editor, it is not expected. What you have done by pointed out errors is wonderful. If you notice anything, pass it along. I know I probably sent you too many notes today. Don’t worry; I will slow down as soon as I get over the initial excitement of having my first reviewer. Thank you for the comment about pictures. I have been struggling with how many? What is too much. I may have reached that point. 🙂 I also hope that you can easily download pictures. The 1910 Elcik Family photo may be too big to email. 🙂 Enjoy!

I fixed Loni Beth’s record. I’m embarrassed; I know better as for Eleanor’s name it shows correctly for me. Elinor is an alternate that was picked up in the Census. Eleanor is the preferred spelling.

John, IV

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Visit Us

July 23, 2020, 10:01 PM

Beth,

I agree about the ease of fixing. I also experienced a generation issue. I kept getting John, Jr., and John, Sr’s wives, intertwined. It got worse when I had a 3rd wife that turned out to be married to a brother. Ouch! And the New York Elcik’s were even more difficult!

I don’t think I remember snow. I have pictures, but my body has acclimated to warm weather. It would be best if you visited us. We can accommodate many visitors as Kathy (Pam’s sister) lets us use her house too.

John, IV

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New York Elcik’s

July 23, 2020, 10:15 PM

Beth,

Have you ever googled the Elcik name? If you have, there are a lot more of them than you would think. Many have the same given names. Some of them lived in Lisbon Falls before moving to New York.

My theory is that we are related. I can’t prove it. I suspect that the actual connection occurred before we immigrated to America. I reached out to a John Elcik in Rocky Point, New York, and we together have been exploring the possibility. Two of my messages and several of the Life Stories I have posted are about this theory. To date, we have not been able to identify any common ancestors.

I agree about the virus. I also don’t travel much. I don’t even leave the house much. Pam is adventurous. Not me. I miss cruises.

John Elcik from Rocky Point, New York, and his relatives are in the tree. He is listed as John Elcik, NY.

This also explains my reference to DNA testing. However, this is not my DNA story. It takes longer to tell.

John, IV

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Re: The Elcik Family Tree

July 24, 2020, 02:27 PM

Beth,

First, I think you are awesome. What you have done is incredible. Your work ethic in getting so much done is incredible. It, too, must be DNA. 🙂 I had a Facebook conversation with Janet (Lucas) about her parents and how I remember them as hard working. It is nice to know our children are inheriting these genes.

Karkos is a name I know from my research. I will eMail you something about him as soon as I find it. 🙂 Please let me know when you get the email. I tried adding a picture at the last minute. Its file is larger than some eMail program support. 🙂 

One more question? Can you find out if Annie’s parents came from Parhovjani S, Czechoslovakia? What can she or Terry tell us about how the name would have been spelled in Europe? Elsik? Or something else? You have access to a goldmine of information. Awesome! You are making my day, week, month, year… and more!

Beth, I love the information about our family that we find out in our research. But truthfully, without the software tools, this would have been too much for me to handle. You are the real expert. Interviewing to collect data. That is over the moon. I’m taking a bulldozer approach with software tools, and I feel like the proverbial bull in a china shop. I hope not to break anything.

I’m coming to a “radical” opinion about some of this. I’m beginning to see what we do as a project to PRESERVE FAMILY HISTORY first, and as an ancestry research project second, if at all. Could this shift in goal get us more support? I’m giving thought to ways we can collaborate more. I’m getting so much from this. THANK YOU!

I’m willing to bet that Terry would love to have a copy of Annie’s photo. She is about 5 years old. 🙂

John, IV

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The Elcik Family Tree

July 24, 2020,

Beth,

This Summary is proof that the more I do, the further behind I get. This project won’t be done until every person on the planet is connected. Lol.

  • People – 1,582 (I should have stopped a long time ago)
  • Photos – 697 (About half are mine)
  • Stories – 79 (Much more than Obituaries in this)
  • Records -2,010
  • All people with hints – 758
  • All hints – 6,120 (This number scares me)
  • Record hints – 5,675
  • Member tree hints – 445 (Ouch)

Ancestry has the perfect business model. They will never run out of things for us to do. Lol, John

A little girl asked her father, “How did the human race appear?” The father answered, “God made Adam and Eve, and they had children, and that’s how all mankind was made.” Two days later, the girl asked her mother the same question. The mother answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.” The confused girl returned to her father and said, ” Dad, how is it possible that you told me God created the human race, and Mom said they developed from monkeys?” The Father answered, “Well, dear, it is elementary. I told you about my side of the family, and your mother told you about hers.”

John, IV

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Re: The Elcik Family Tree

July 24, 2020, 09:44 PM

Beth,

I re-read Terry’s notes, which I have not seen for years. He answers some of my questions. In particular, he gives us the maiden name for Annie’s mom [Pelcarsky – Editor], which I would not have understood the significance back then. I’ll go with his answer. The other documents I have are most likely misspelled.

John, IV

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Re: The Elcik Family Tree

July 24, 2020, 10:47 PM

Beth,

Before I retired, I had a career that included working a lot with computers. The result is I exercise every tool and feature the software vendor provides us. I also have a list of features that I will be asking Ancestry to add. I’ve taught myself web design and created a Family website 12 years before investing time into Ancestry.com. I’m still in the process of migrating data from the older site to Ancestry. I also own two other Ancestry programs: Family Tree Maker 2019 and Roots Magic 7. I have just recently been able to synchronize data between the various programs, which gives me some fancy editing tools. I can let the computer find duplicate records, more readily correct style problems like capitalization and spelling. I can also fix place descriptions, so they adhere site-wide to a consistent format: city, county, state, country.

The tools are only as good as the operator using them, and I am still learning. For me, technology is part of the fun. I suspect that not all of Ancestry’s features were available when you started as I use the Ancestry.com site differently. In particular, I use HINTs, Citations, Web Links, and the Gallery more aggressively. This can be good, but not necessarily. I can work faster, but not necessarily with more accuracy. I’m still cleaning up from earlier efforts. Fortunately, as you said, mistakes are easy to fix. But that is true only if you recognize a mistake is made. Your help is invaluable to me. THANK YOU!

Enjoy! John