Kollars
Family Tree

The surname Kollars is fairly unusual. Likely all the folks with that surname in the USA are distantly related. The name —originally pronounced Kolash ("wheel maker"), possibly spelled Kolaś or Kolas or Kolář— came from Grav‑Vol‑Holta Bohemia (later part of Czechoslovakia). The old family name remained largely intact during immigration (despite some earlier versions of this webpage opining differently:-).

The family name was re-standardized sometime later, perhaps shortly after immigration or perhaps as late as the 1890s. (Most likely the re-standardized name was in common use well before the 1890s, as a later change would have needed to be coordinated across several states, and so could have been rather awkward if the name hadn't already been in common use. It's possible that in fact multi-location coordination still didn't work quite right [or didn't give enough heed to spellings], and as a result some descendants of the Wisconsin branch of the family spell their surname Kollar rather than Kollars.)

(Note the above interpretation is rather uncertain in its details, and events are given a different spin —or even outright contradicted— by some sources. One reason the above interpretation is so uncertain is there was quite a difference between the spelling and the pronunciation of the name in different languages and countries.)

(This very brief summary tries to cover the whole family, but offers nothing more than names. A much fuller description of a part of the Kollars family, including much general family history, has been provided elsewhere. Also, you may be interested by these reminiscences of one particular family member which include her parents homesteading on the prairie.)

The family patriarch together with his wife and his eldest son and another young daughter and son immigrated as a farming family in 186?. They went first to Wisconsin (most likely the town of Menominee), then just two or three years later moved on further west to (or through) Iowa to northeast Nebraska near Yankton South Dakota, about the time Nebraska became a state. Just a couple years later they claimed a 160 acre homestead in that area. Apparently at that time the nearest Nebraska town of any standing was called Menominee (yes, there are towns named Menominee in both Wisconsin and Nebraska:-). Eventually the smaller town of Crofton Nebraska was incorporated nearer their homestead. Many of the Kollars diaspora trace back to either Crofton or Wisconsin.

(Please note some of the dates and spellings -particularly the older ones- are rather dubious.
[ex: Josephina or Josephine? b. 1822 or 1829? does Josephina's 1894 death date really belong to Julia? Menominee Wisconsin or Menominee Nebraska? and so forth...])

It's clear that the family patriarch was married twice, and that both his wives are buried in this country. However I'm not certain exactly what the circumstances were, whether Menominee means Wisconsin or Nebraska, what links there were between Wisconsin and Nebraska, whether he knew of both wives in the old country, or even in which order he married them. Most likely Julia was his first wife, bore some of his children in the old country, immigrated with him to Wisconsin and then to Iowa and Nebraska, bore more of his children, then died (or at least disappeared from the picture). He then married Josephina either shortly before or shortly after claiming the Nebraska homestead. Josephina bore him one more son, and is remembered as the family matriarch.

Content Last Updated April 2016

Much of this information was originally compiled and published to the web by Mike Krzywicki. This copy was made in September 200? and was republished on the web after the original became unavailable in this format. Then for several years I made additions and corrections as information was sent to me.