William Bogdon and Anna Kirklis Bogdon were the parents of my maternal grandfather Albert Edward Bogdon. His parents were immigrants from Poland, then a part of Russia. William was born in 1870, Anna in 1864, according to a 1900 U. S census. According to the same census, William spoke English, while Anna did not. They certainly spoke Russian and Polish. In some sources, Anna is called Franciska, and in others, she is called Anna Frances Schmeltz – Schmeltz possibly being the name of a later husband, whom we know nothing about. Albert was born in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1891. His only sibling, Helen, was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on August 30, 1896. She is sometimes referred to as Helen Frances or Helena. By 1900, the Bogdon family was settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a section called Homestead. 

I learned about my great-grandmother’s Lithuanian ancestry from my mother’s mother, Edithe Alois Lane, who was Albert Edward Bogdon’s first wife. She said she met Anna a couple of times in Pittsburgh, when my mother, born in 1911, was a baby. Edithe said Anna was Lithuanian and spoke little English. Edithe knew little about Bogdon’s early life, except that his family was poor and that his father, William Bogdon, did not stay with the family very long.