Thanks for all the information. Still having trouble tracking down the two brothers Jan(1856-1935) and Frank(1862-1904) Przelenski before they got to the US. Also I can't find any ship records from 1881-1882, when they apparently came to the US. The oldest spellings in 1880's are Scherlinski in 1886. Frank then married in 1887 under the name Prelenski. I need to get to that church that has all the archives. They have the baptismal records in polish for several of the catholic churches.
Anyways, the Frank (1882-1946)that went to prison... Seems Frank killed a police officer in 1917 named Henry Seamon. According to reports, Seamon was responding to a domestic dispute. Frank was armed and threatening to kill his wife. Seamon tried to disarm him, and in the struggle, was shot in the neck. Frank was found guilty of 1st degree murder. For a year, Frank requested a new trial. In 1918, he dropped the new trial plea for reasons unknown, and went to the WV state penitentiary for life
Here's where it gets weird. They executed cop killers back then. For some reason, Frank got a conditional pardon after 7 years. Saying it's rare for a cop killer to be released is an understatement. Back then it was a miracle. Once out, he was arrested in 1929 for drunk and disorderly, and a supposed threat on an officer. That got him another 4 years in prison. Turns out, Seamon was sleeping with his wife, and that was the reason he shot him. Members of the police force corroborated that and every member signed the request for his pardon, along with the prosecutor in 1933. Unbelievable, if you ask me.
After talking to my uncle, who is around 80, he remembers the story about a uncle called "Fluffy" that killed a cop for sleeping with his wife. I guess he lived an uneventful last 13 years. Still can't find his wife's death anywhere, although I did find 2 of her sons at the cemetery. Schewinski is how their names were spelled. Found most of the tombstones in the family, I'd say around 45-50, both the elder John and Frank, along with bad Frank. Even found Henrietta Sonnenfeld's grave, although it's knocked over and very badly worn. He's buried with his dad, mom, and sister. But Frank's tombstone is gone, probably vandalized. The cemetery office confirmed where he was buried. I googled Henry Seamon and found a web page memorial for him telling a lot of the story. If you have access to ancestry.com, search my starkey-lapp tree and I loaded up most of the legal papers.
http://www.odmp.org/officer/11984-patro ... y-c-seamon
I'm going to go back through some of the city registers and check some of the variations you mentioned. There's a gap from 1886-1898, and I'm almost positive they never left the area in between.
Thanks again
John
Edit: Not sure if this helps, but John and Anna Przelenski had a child named Mary in 1880. She would have been the only child they had born in Poland.