July 7, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Stopnica Pas 47 Slup 32 Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny 1938 (scale 1:100,000)
This picture is a map of the villages that Stanczyk’s ancestors were from. The river in the South-East corner of the map is the Wisla / Vistula river. To the South-central area are a few more villages that could not be shown: Oblekon and also Szczucin (across the Vistula). North of the Vistula, was the Russian-Poland partition. South of the Vistula was the Austrian-Poland partition. These partitions arose from Austria (aka Austrian-Hungarian Empire), Prussia, and Russia colluding in 1772, 1792, and finally in 1794 to divvy up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until Poland had vanished from the map of Europe for about 125 years, until it reappeared in 1918. Between 1797 and 1815 various ex-expatriate Polish legions fought along side Napoleon, so the final boundaries of the three partitions continued to evolve until 1815 when Napoleon was finally defeated for good. It is ironic to me that this region on the map above changed hands so many times and that I had ancestors in two kingdoms who would marry across parishes (and indeed national boundaries).
So it was not really surprising to me that my Busia (grandmother) spoke: Polish, Russian and German and most Catholics prior to Vatican II did know a smattering of Latin since church masses were often in Latin. Indeed, my father related to me that my grandmother was fluent enough to make money during the Great Depression by translating letters to/from English to/from Polish/Russian/German for Americans to be able to carry on correspondences in the old country.
Stanczyk remembers my grandmother speaking to me as a child in perfect English (with the lovely/charming Central European accent). I also vividly remember that after her stroke, she could only speak Polish (her native language). I would converse with my dad acting as translator between us in her kitchen over percolated coffee (ye gads — has it been nearly a half century of coffee drinking for me) from when I was about five or six years old. My dad laughingly relates how when he was a boy, my grandmother would chastise him that his Polish was no good and that he should speak to her in English. Obviously his Polish was good enough that years later, the three of us could chit-chat over coffee quite comfortably.
Stanczyk’s remembrances have caused me to digress. The point of this map was to list the villages where I have found vital records / church records for my Eliasz / Leszczynski / Wlecialowski / Kedzierski families. So here is my list (anyone else from here?):
Biechow (parish) – Biechow, Piestrzec, Wojcza, Wojeczka, Chrzanow
Pacanow (parish) – Pacanow, Zabiec, Kwasow
Various Other Parishes/Villages – Zborowek, Ksiaznice, Swiniary, Oblekon, Trzebica, Szczucin and I am sure many of the rest of villages surrounding these villages, but I have yet to see or connect the records to main branches of the family tree.
Now excuse me, I must go get some more coffee.
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Posted in Biechow, Coffee, Eliasz, History, Maps, Musings, Pacanow, Poland, Polish, Polish Church, Religion |
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July 6, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Stanczyk loves maps. But how do you know which map to examine and where Babcia’s village is? Well today’s post is about a Gazetteer:
Skorowidz Miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej [Index of Placenames of the Republic of Poland] circa 1931.
Now this also touches on a previous article, in that I have this Gazetteer bookmarked from a Digital Library in Poznan, Poland. So it is an online resource available through your browser.
A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names (see: toponymy), used in conjunction with a map or a full atlas. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup of a country, region, or continent as well as the social statistics and physical features [source: Wikipedia]. The features genealogists look for are: administrative levels (state/woj., county/pow., township/gmina) or location of parishes/parafialny. So the “Skorowidz” gives us this info, if we can know the name of the place/village we are looking up info upon.
I have created a mini index of this Gazetteer age paging through 2096 pages sequentially or randomly is not very productive. My index page for Skorowidz Miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej is here. So I wish you good research in locating your ancestral village and its parish/synagogue. One final note! There are many excellent Gazetteers for Poland, but that will be another article.
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June 28, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Sto, that is a lot. Stanczyk is getting old, … really, really old. Has it already been a century since the birth of Nobel Laureate, Czeslaw Milosz ? Time flies when you are a royal jester. In two days, we will be celebrating Milosz’s 100th birthday. Milosz is near and dear to moje serce (my heart). When asked about his nationality, Milosz replied …
“I am a Lithuanian to whom it was not given to be a Lithuanian.” and “My family in the sixteenth century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish not a Lithuanian poet.”
A complex mind indeed. But I get Milosz. His family was from the era of the Polish-Lithuanian Commnwealth, literately Polish as were most in the circles of power or in the intelligentsia circles. So his thoughts were Polish, but his world view was Lithuanian where he was born. Of course this is in counter-point to Milosz being born into the Russian Empire. On June 30th, 1911 (Milosz’s birth) in the village of Szetejnie, his family was a member of the Russian Empire (Kovno Gubernia), just one of ten provinces in Russian-Poland (occupied Poland) inside the much larger Russian (still Czarist) Empire. Milosz however, was never Russian, not Czarist and no, not ever a Soviet.
I get Milosz. His Slavic soul still whispers to me and his way with words kept rapt, my attention. Much of his poetry/prose was indeed of his memory of Lithuanian places or experiences. That is not to negate his Polish experiences both pre and post Communism. His novel, “The Captive Mind”, a brilliant anti-Stalinist piece that made him well known, … in the Western, non-communist world. His works were unknown in Poland and the West thought of him as a political writer, not a poet. Milosz emigrated to the USA in 1960 and in 1961 started his tenure in Slavic Literature/Studies at UC Berkley, and became a US citizen in 1970. In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Oddly, because his works were banned in Communist Poland, he was largely unknown as a writer in Poland until the award. Gradually, after the fall of Communism (by the 1990’s), Milosz moved back to Poland and lived and died in Krakow in 2004.
Crypt of the Meritorius
After a solemn mass at the Krakow Basilica of St. Mary’s, where a letter was read by the Pope, Blessed John Paul II, of the Pope’s last correspondence with the poet. The funeral procession followed the Royal Road to the church of St. Michael the Archangel & St. Stanislaus on the Rock (na Skalce), where his sarcophagus is interred in its crypt. This crypt holds a Polish National Pantheon of literati.
Stanczyk only owns four works by Milosz: ①The History of Polish Literature, ② New and Collected Poems (1931-2001), ③ Road-Side Dog (two copies), and ④ Milosz’s Alphabet. I hope my readers will not think less of me, because I say, that the Road-Side Dog is my favorite. Milosz, I started writing far too late, but I assure you that there are many of your, Subjects, that I wish, To Let. Mój piesek (my little dog), Java, is not so little and seldom Road-Side, but her and I have a voice and your subjects To Let and some topics of our own to bark at visitors as they go by. Milosz, bless me with your literate spirit. I get you Milosz and you live on in my, and I assume many minds and hearts, forever. Pity you did not live to this era of blogging and Twitter. I doubt you’d have tweeted, but the blog would have been a fine media for your splendid thoughts.
Happy Birthday Czeslaw! Sto lat!
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June 27, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Stanczyk, continues with his favorite websites in Poland. I hope you speak Polish or at least have mastered using Google Translate .
Pay especial attention to: Polskiego Towarzystwa Genealogicznego (Polish Genealogical Society). They have valuable databases online and their forums have experts, some of whom speak English and generally all of them are friendly and knowledgeable. Stanczyk once found a Polish genealogist who had ancestors from the same villages as mine. This fine lad (Jacek) from Krakow even shared images from church books with me and he was amenable to being a genealogy researcher for me on a trip to an Archive! I also found some distant cousins who traded emails with me on the website’s email facility and that was helpful. One of my grandfather’s cousins was a member of Haller’s Army (aka Blue Army) and I was able to find his record amongst the fallen in one of their books, which answered why he was no longer found in any US census or in any US death record [since he had died in World War I overseas in Poland's post WWI battle with Russia]. These snippets of info have been able to enrich my family tree. Finally, they have a database of parishes that is invaluable.
Take a look and see what you find …
Let me know what you find!
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Posted in Books, Data, Genealogical Societies, Genealogy, History, Internet, Languages, Musings, Poland |
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June 26, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
To recap, please look at Stanczyk’s little graphic. We have covered genealogyindexer.org, Poland’s Digital Libraries (Biblioteka Cyfrowa), and now number three in our series: Mapa.Szukacz.pl .
If you want to trace Polish genealogy a good many skills are required of the researcher. The ability to read a map or a gazetteer is critical. Where is Babcia’s village? So mapa.szukacz.pl is good for locating today’s existing villages/towns/cities. If you use Google Maps, then the basic concept should be familiar to you. But Stanczyk likes mapa.szukacz.pl because you lookup the village. To lookup a placename you enter the village in the field with the title ‘Miejscowość’ in the pink dialog box with the title, ‘Pokaż na mapie’ (‘Show on Map’). Finally, you press the button named, ‘Pokaż’ (Show). That is it. The village appears, assuming it still exists and you are fortunate enough to spell it correctly. If the placename you entered is a common one, then you may see a list of choices to examine and pick from. That is it and you have located dziadek’s (grandfather’s) home town. Of course, you have probably done some extensive research to get to this point. But now you have the lay of the land of your ancestral village. The radio buttions by ‘Zebliż’ change the zoom of the map; so adjust to your needs. All this is well and good and mostly just like Google Maps, except the ability lookup by name. But there have been a few new tricks added to this wonderful tool.
It already gave you the population (ex. 1275 osób, like for Pacanow). You need not enter the diacriticals. It also gave you woj. , pow. , and gmina. Which you may think of as state, county, and township/borrough. Write these down, you will need them over and over again. Sadly, these levels of administration have changed since your grandparent’s time. You also get a postal code and telephone prefix in case you seek out family in the mother country. If that were all it would be a useful tool. But as I said, they have enhanced this web application. There is a valuable drop down named, ‘Przydatne punkty’ (“Useful points’). It only allows you to pick one selection. I find ‘kościoły’ (Churches) and ‘cmentarze’ (Cemeteries) the most useful to a genealogist. A word to the wise. The symbols that pop-up on the map (if any, at your zoom level) are woefully incomplete. So the church you are seeking may not show, as in my case. But I am hopeful that they will keep adding to his valuable resource. This option is akin to that of ‘search nearby’ in Google Maps. Originally, I did not use Google Maps for Poland or Ukraine because it was woeful in listing villages and its ability to search nearby was no good for countries that did not have English as their primary language. But I see today that those issues have been resolved by Google. But Mapa.szukacz.pl still gives you the population and administration levels and other demographics that Google has yet to provide. Stanczyk does have to praise Google in one way. The ‘little yellow man’ that you can place on most US roads to get a web-cam still panoramic view of the location is replaced with little blue ‘dots’ where you can drop him and see photographs from that spot (Which Pacanow seemed to have many). So I guess you should use both maps.google.com and mapa.szukacz.pl to geo-locate your ancestral village. To get the spelling correct, perhaps you can use JewishGen’s (also now in ancestry.com) Shtetl Seeker tool to help you get the spelling correct. Alas, that is another useful website for another day….
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June 25, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Stanczyk was combing the many Digital Libraries in and around my ancestral villages looking for clues, contacts or vital records as published in periodicals or guild books. So I was at: Swietokrzyska Digital Library
That is when I found this funeral ad. This I knew in a minute when I saw, as it was very familiar from reading the Dziennik Polski (Detroit) ethnic newspaper, which is itself an historic newspaper now. At any rate, I hate to leave vital records behind and since this was the only vital record in the 4 pages of the Gazeta Kielecka, I could afford to spend some of my effort to help some other poor genealogist(s).
Poor Jozefa was survived by her husband and children (no names provided). She died in Pinczow on January 17th, 1899 at the age of 37 (born/ur. about 1862). Her maiden name was Baranow (Baranowskich family) and married name was Pogorzelska. It is unclear to me whether she was the wife of a duty collector or whether her occupation was duty/excise tax collector (inspektora akcyzy).
- Jozefa Pogorzelska z Baranow died (zmarla) 17-Jan-1899
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June 25, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Yesterday I wrote about Poland’s great website resources that we in the English speaking world should be using. I was thinking of the State Archives (national/regional), Libraries, and Ecclesiastical Archives. Now these are not the civil registration offices (USC) nor are these the parish church books. These are the duplicate records in the archives.
Furthermore, I was emphasizing the resources that have online resources, like a catalog (in the case of the PRADZIAD database) or even better digital images of documents or historical items. Yesterday’s article was already running long. So today, I am including a sampling of these resources (while I test/cleanup the others). With these you should be able to find the others yourself. I also apologize that these are heavily influenced by where I have ancestors.
A word of note to my cautious readers. The digital libraries all use a product called Dj Vu ( a browser plug-in) from LizardTech. I strongly urge you to utilize this software! I have used it for years with no worries. It works in both MS Windows and in MAC OS. I have used with many types of browsers and can usually get it to work as an add-in/plug-in to the browser or as a local applet that runs on the PC.
As for the websites, I have some advice there as well. First off, if you are comfortable working in Polish (język polski) then you should use this language. The reason is some sites offer more content only in Polish. If you are language challenged, then your next best option is to look for a little flag. The flag looks like the UK’s Union Jack or the USA’s Old Glory or sometimes a hybrid of the two. Clicking on that icon usually translates a page’s content into “mostly” English. Some button or menus or other user interface features may still be in Polish. For the most part, the websites do not force you to use the accented letters (diacriticals). You should test to verify you get the same results in your searches by doing it both ways. Some websites offer a little keyboard to help Americans enter the diacriticals when they are necessary. The GenealogIndexer website actually had a nice keyboard (see image above) that included the Cyrillic characters (in case you are searching in Russian/Ukrainian/BeloRussian/etc.), Hebrew characters and other Euro/Slavic characters.
Stanczyk wishes to thank Poland and its many archives and museums for providing these resources. I promise to come visit as a tourist and a RESEARCHER because you so kindly made it possible for me to extend my vacation/holiday to do some historical/genealogical research by providing these resources ahead of time while I am still at home and can prepare. Final word of advice, to those planning a research trip to Poland; Try these websites out to help you on locating the resources and their locations and even the details (i.e. FONDS, etc.). Make yourself familiar with access rules or have your guide do the leg-work so you can walk right in and begin your research without delay. Do not forget or ignore the parishes or the USC offices (civil records authority, like county-clerk in USA) or cemeteries; make time for parishes and archives both to ensure you see as much as you possibly can in one trip.
Now my sample resources are in the table below:
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June 24, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Donna Pointkouski ‘s question (about the Shoemaker’s Guild) reminded Stanczyk that he has needed for a while to collect his bookmarks/favorites/URLs together on the useful websites in Poland. In particular, the Online Archives. Some of the nifty historical images in this blog have been gathered from these valuable resources.
Most genealogists know that you can use the LDS website familysearch.org and search for microfilm of Polish parishes or synagogues. But what if you wanted to search what was available in Poland itself as a way to see what else is available if you go to Poland to search its civil or ecclesiastical archives. Well, Stanczyk uses The Head Office of State Archives (the state archives of Poland) and in particular, I search the PRADZIAD database. You may also want to look at SEZAM, or ELA databases too.
But my images have been coming from Digital Libraries (in Polish = Biblioteka Cyfrowa). I have been collecting a spreadsheet of these digital libraries. They frequently use Dj Vu plug-in to display the scanned images of the books (or other materials). Some regional genealogy societies also have digitized books (Książki Bibliotek Cyfrowych) on their websites. The one Stanczyk uses for his research is: Digital Library of Malopolska (LittlePoland) .
The National Digital Archive has 15 million photos and thousands of audio files too. Recently they also implemented an interface (which seems to be implemented at a handful of Polish Archives) to search multiple Polish Archives. The image at left is “Search in Archives” in Polish.
So I have compiled a spreadsheet of Poland’s Archives and their websites. I believe most have an online catalog and some have also digitized some collections and placed those online too. So I have a TAB for Digital Libraries. Finally, I have compiled the Eclesiastical/Diocessan Archives. Since collecting these from Polish websites, I have determined that Poland and its websites are very dynamic and many links are broken. I have been researching them and correcting them where possible. Since this article is already too long … tomorrow a partial sample of the spreadsheet to enlighten people on what to search for.
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June 22, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Pretty nifty poster or book page huh? Stanczyk found this in a Polish Digital Library. This masonic-looking page, with the all-seeing eye in the clouds with cherubs, etc. is a notice of a Shoemaker’s Guild from the “Year of Our Lord 1842″ in the gubernia of Kielce.
Now this is of interest to me because my great-grandfather, Tomasz Leszczynski listed his occupation in the church birth records on the 1860′s, as shoemaker & innkeeper — which I always thought was a rather clever combination as travelers would need shoe repairs and why not get those while you are staying at the inn. So this image is contemporaneous (roughly) with my great-grandfather and the thought occurred to me perhaps I can find records in a Guild Book about my great-grandfather.
So here is Stanczyk’s million dollar question: “Has anyone done any research in Poland and located these guild books in any Archive or Library and been able to locate ancestors?” Question two, “Was the search worthwhile — what kind of info did you find?”
Come on genealogists, let’s crowd-source, collaborate, or social network a solution here. OK? Anyone near Biechow parish, Pinczow Archive or Kielce Ecclesiastical Archive or a Library in or around one of those three cities in Poland? Can you help a Polish-American jester out? Email me or even comment on this blog… I’ll be waiting.
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June 18, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Since Genealogy Indexer website has grown so much since my last exploration, Stanczyk decided to do some rummaging through the new data. I was searching for Pacanow with and without my anctesor’s surnames. I hit upon the page on Stopnica (actually the second page) from the digital book: Geographic Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries, vol. 11 (1890) (in Polish: Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polska i inne kraje ..). This time frame is just after the birth of my paternal grandparents. So it is an accurate context for their lifetime in Poland. On page 373 of the book, I was reading about the deaconate of Stopnica (in the diocese of Kielce) and it listed the 32 parishes that made up Stopnica’s deaconate. Here is the list of 32 parishes:
Beszowa, Busko, Chmielnik, Gnojno, Janina, Dobrowda, Drugnia, Kargow, Koniemloty, Kotuszow, Ksiaznice, Kurozweki, Lisow, Nowe Miasto Korczyn (Nowy Korczyn), Olesnica, Ostrowce, Pacanow, Piasek-Wielki, Pierzchnica, Piotrkowice, Potok, Sedziejowice, Solec Stopnica, Strozyska, Szaniec, Szczaworyk, Szydlow, Swiniary, Tuczepy, and Zborowek.
Stanczyk has seen microfilm on many of these parishes or seen ancestor surnames in many of these places at the genealodzy.pl website. Anyone else from here?
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June 17, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Yesterday, Stanczyk was extoling the virtues of the Genealogy Indexer web site. This site has OCR’ed Historical City Directories from Poland’s Digital Libraries and built a database of names from this OCR work.
I also recommended Americans not use diacriticals (accents) unless you can use them correctly as incorrect use will cause you to miss records. Using correct diacriticals or none gives the same results, so mis-used diacriticals is the only way you can miss data. So do NOT use diacriticals.
The image above shows the query screen, where Stanczyk queried on ‘pacanów, eljasz‘, using the keyboard symbol next to the query field to enter diacriticals (I know some of you will want to do this despite my admonitions otherwise). This is actually a handy tool for entering Cyrillic or other Slavic characters on our USA keyboards. Just cut/paste from this website to another website or form or document. At any rate, my query returned five results (only three shown above). I chose the second one to illustrate in this article. The links will take you to a digital image of the document (using Deja Vu browser plug-in) that matches your query result. How cool is that?
So I selected the second link (1930 above).
The resulting digital image was a City Directory Phone book. The language is Polish, but there is a second language (French) too! So if the image is unreadable in one language perhaps you can read the other and figure out what was unreadable in the other. It is also helpful in translating too, to have two languages. The first part is a description of the place-name (like a Gazetteer) written in both Polish and French.
The top two paragraphs are Polish, then French Gazetteer description of the place-name (Pacanow). We can see that 1930 Pacanow had 2598 residents an interesting fact to know. After these first two paragraphs we see, what we would call “Yellow Page” listings by business type. It starts with Doctor(s) (Lekarze) and then from there on it flows alphabetically (in Polish) with Midwife, Pharmacy, etc. Each business type is followed by one or more names. These names are your putable ancestors.
I was interested in Kolowdzieje (Wheelwright) business Eljasz M. [This is possibly my grandfather's uncle Marcin Eliasz]. Also the Wiatraki (Wind Mills) business was VERY interesting because we find both Eljasz and Zasucha names. Now this makes Stanczyk’s day as my 2nd great grandfather was Martin (aka Marcin) Elijasz and he married an Anna Zasucha. These Wind Mill owners are very likely close ancestors of Stanczyk.
There are many surnames from my family tree besides Eljasz and Zasucha, we find: Poniewierski, Pytko, Siwiec, Wlecial, and Wojtys. Now I can put an occupation by my ancestors. Nice. Very Nice!
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June 15, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Stanczyk wants to collect under this continuing subject line good URLs / links to websites that provide very good to excellent Polish Genealogy data or possibly reference materials for genealogical research.
GENEALOGY INDEXER – http://www.genealogyindexer.org/
Twitter – @gindexer
This first website (URL) is one I wrote about in the Polish Genealogists LinkedIn Group (here) back in October 2009. Its name is Genealogy Indexer . Back in October, 2009 they had: 77,000 pages of historical directories (business, address, telephone, etc.), 28,000 pages of 64 yizkor books (memorials to Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust). Now 20 months later they have: 141,000 pages of historical directories (business, address, telephone, etc.), 28,000 pages of 64 yizkor books (memorials to Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust), 11,000 pages of lists of Polish military officers, and 17,000 pages of community and personal histories. That is an +83% increase, so we can say this is a very active website/database to add to your bookmarks/favorites.
PLEASE take note they list what page # (usually on a digital book from a Polish Archive/ University) you need to look at in their search results. Stanczyk personally loves those digital books/documents made available online by Polish Libraries and Archives.
I have already had some successes. They OCR’ed these digital resources and built indexes — very nice!
For example I searched on “Pacanow, Eljasz” to find ancestors from ancestral village of PACANOW. You do NOT need to supply diacriticals (like the slahsed ł ) — so notice in the ‘o’ in Pacanow does not have the accent ( ó ) on it.
It also worked for “Pacanow, Wlecial” — where I do have a slashed ł at the end. The results were identical whether I used the diacritical or not. Being an American, I liked the convenience of not having to type (or cut/paste) a diacritical character on my searches.
You do need a browser add-in called Deja-Vu (.DjVu plug-in) to view the actual image associated with the OCR data.
I use Historical City Directories for my American ancestors. Now I can do the same for my Polish Ancestors too.
A big thanks to genealogist Logan Kleinwaks for providing this excellent Polish (Catholic and Jewish) genealogy resource !
Tomorrow: An example of my genealogyindexer findings…
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June 10, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
If you are a loyal reader of Stanczyk’s then you must be aware of the penchant for ethnic newspapers; In particular for Polish language ethnic newspapers. I like using Historical newspapers to fill-in otherwise missing info or spots in my research where there are gaps and no other viable resource to turn to.
They used to say, “Everyone gets in the newspaper three times (if you are lucky): birth announcement, marriage announcement and death notice.”. If you are {un}lucky then perhaps you will also have other magazine or newspaper articles written about you too.
Well Stanczyk has a page dedicated to the places where you can research the Dziennik Polski (Polish Daily) of Detroit, MI. The Dziennik Polski page list the archives where you can read/research your family history. Now this jester needs to add in some more info from Orchard Lakes, St. Mary, MI. They host a program on their campus called, “Polonica Americanna Research Institue” (PARI). Ceil Wendt Jensen, the Director of PARI at Polish Mission has informed me that they are another source of Dziennik Polski (Detroit) newspapers. They have both bound copies (from the 1930′s and forward) and microfilm from 1904-1920 [they are still completing their inventory of microfilm], but that range is close.
So look for this jester to make a visit to their campus sometime this year and see for himself what is happening at PARI. Look for an update after my visit. Also look for an update to my Dziennik Polski web page with the updated info when I have verified the findings.
Oh, one more thing, loyal readers, please consider answering the call in their “Friend of Polish Mission Membership Drive”. Their membership form is here.
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May 23, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
This Jester does not recall so much discussion on a president’s genealogy / vital records before. So as the President goes off to Europe, we once again hear about his ancestry ( Kenya, Hawaii, IRELAND). President O’bama through his mother has a 3g grandfather named Falmouth Kearney (and 3g grandmother Charlotte Holloway — let’s not forget the women) from Moneygall, (County Offaly), Ireland. The President’s direct ancestry back through the Dunham lineage can be proudly found at Moneygall’s website.
Apparently the good genealogical research is due to the village’s Anglican priest, Stephen Neill (a muse himself), who barely has any parishioners in the overwhelmingly Catholic area but is arguably its most popular figure.
It was he who, in 2007, pored through birth and baptism records of the Templeharry Church of Ireland, 3 miles (5 kilometers) outside Moneygall, and made the fateful discovery of Falmouth Kearney’s baptism. He had received calls from American genealogist Megan Smolenyak who was pursuing the many branches of President Obama’s family heritage. Megan, too, will be in Moneygall to meet the president. [see also "Finding O’Bama" ]
Stanczyk also awaits the President’s visit to Poland on Saturday. Let’s change the VISA requirements for Polish people to come to the USA to match the rest of the EU nations. After-all, Poland has been a part of the coalition in Afghanistan. Let’s reward this loyal ally with the same privileges as the UK or France or Germany! I would like to remind people that Poland was the nation who upon being restored to its rightful borders after World War I, took the time to honor America’s 150th Anniversary with their Emblem of Friendship in 1926 from the children of Poland to the citizens of America (see prior Stanczyk musing here).
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May 1, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
✠ The Blessed John Paul II ✠
Today this Jester was moved to tears at the Mass of Beatification for The Blessed John Paul II. The Mass just completed was beautiful ! Bless His Holiness, Pope Benedict and all others whose preparation and works made today such a moving mass.
Today is Part Two – This is where Stanczyk wanted to write about Karol Józef Wojtyła‘s genealogical lineage. Blessed be those whose long lineage gave us this magnificent man.
Karol Józef Wojtyła b. 18-May-1920 in Wadowice. He was youngest of three children born to Emilia Kaczorowska + Karol Józef Wojtyła Sr. His beloved mother died in childbirth in 1929 and thus the 4th child within her too must have perished.
Karol Józef Wojtyła’s parents were as named above. Karol Józef Wojtyła Sr. was born 18-July-1879 in Lipnik (near Bielsko). His mother, Emilia Kaczorowska was born 26-March-1884 in Krakow. They were married 10-February-1906 in Wadowice. Karol Józef Wojtyła’s family died in 1914 (sister Olga), 1923 (grandfather Maciej Wojtyła), 1929 (mother Emilia), 1932 (brother Edmund), 1941 (father Karol) leaving him a solitary pilgrim throughout his life.
Maciej WOJTYLA (paternal grandfather) was born 01-January-1852 in Czaniec. Anna PRZECZEK (paternal grandmother) was born 03-September-1878. Maciej also had a second wife: Maria ZALEWSKA born: 01-February-1861 in Lipnik , the daughter of Jozef ZALEWSKI. Feliks KACZOROWSKI (maternal grandfather) was born 26-June-1849 in Biala. Maria Anna SCHOLTZ (maternal grandmother) was born circa 1853.
The Wojtyła line continues backward with: Franciszek WOJTYLA + Franciszka GALUSZKA and one final generation: Bartlomiej WOJTYLA born circa 1788 Czaniec + Anna HUDECKA born 1792 Bulowice. The Wojtyła family are purported to be from Czaniec originally (near Biala in the south of Poland).
As a genealogist, I should point out that all of this information is not sourced and should be verified by church records.
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April 30, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Stanczyk honors, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, who is being beatified tomorrow (1st-May-2011).
I want to write two parts upon this pope. Part One, is I want to write about his religious lineage. Part Two (on 5/1/2011), I want write about his genealogical lineage. The parallels to that statement should be obvious, so I will not draw it. If you do not get it, then read a good book.
Both parts will start with Karol Józef Wojtyła‘s birth. If you look at the prayer card to the left, you will see:
Birth-Priest-Bishop-Cardinal-Pope-Deceased-Beatified. That is the timeline: 1920-1946-1958-1967-1978-2005-2011, a period 91 years. If canonization occurs then we may well be speaking about a century or more. The dates are to the left (uh, or above) on the prayer card. But that is not what I meant by the great pope’s religious lineage. What I mean is right here (Catholic-Hierarchy.org). So here is his religious lineage:
Episcopal Lineage / Apostolic Succession:
There is also another religious lineage. The great pope is the 264th pope in direct line back to Saint Peter (the Apostle). John Paul II, was not the longest reigning pope, nor was he the oldest pope. That is his papal lineage (also a religious lineage).
The known Catholic lineages are:
1. The Patriarchate of Constantinople claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Andrew.
2. The Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Mark.
3. The Russian Orthodox Church claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Andrew.
4. The Armenian Apostolic Church claims unbroken succession to the Thrones of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Thaddeus (Jude).
5. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Mark.
6. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian) claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Thomas.
7. The Orthodox Church of Cyprus claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Barnabas.
8. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims succession to the Throne of Saint Philip.
9. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem claims succession to the Throne of Saint James the Just, although this line includes Patriarchs in exile.
10. The Roman Catholic Church claim unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Peter called “Prince of the Apostles”. This is the
papal lineage of John Paul II.
Interestingly, the only religious lineage that does not go back to an undisputed Apostle is #9 above (the Patriarch of Jerusalem). Saint James the Just was not the Apostle James (brother of Saint John the Apostle), but the hotly disputed brother of Jesus. Having said that why are there no Orthodox Churches with lineages back to the two Apostles (and brothers), James and John? Stanczyk does not know! If anyone does, please email me.
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April 24, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
Happy Easter ✞ Wesołych Świąt
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April 23, 2011
by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon
In 1926, on the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, the children and government of Poland had undertaken a massive effort of friendship with their Polish Declaration of Admiration & Friendship for the USA. Poland had only re-emerged 8 years earlier at the end of World War I, from nearly a 150 years of occupation! Imagine if you will, a nation occupied nearly the entire history of these United States of America who with the help of the Allied Powers in World War I (including the USA) and with the aid of Americans (USA and Canadians) who formed an expatriate army, known as Haller’s Army or the Polish Army in France. These Allied Powers through 1918 and Haller’s Army through the early 1920 skirmishes, re-established the borders of Poland between the two World Wars and bottled up Communism for another two decades.
You will be forgiven gentle reader if you have never heard of this gift from the people and government of Poland to the people and government of the USA on their 150th Anniversary of our nation’s founding. President Calvin Coolidge received the gift and placed it into the Library of Congress (LOC) where it was forgotten until 70 years later in 1996 when it was re-discovered. The LOC has digitized 13 of the 111 volumes which has the signatures of approximately 5.5 Million Polish school children. There is also an index to the location names of the schools in the other volumes that have not yet been digitized. The main LOC page (also reachable from the index page above is here):
http://memory.loc.gov/intldl/pldechtml/pldechome.html
The LOC has not produced a searchable index person names from the digitized volumes. Fortunately, there exists a web app with nearly 3,000 pages scanned to produce a person name index of nearly 250,000 people by the the PTG (Polish Genealogical Society) with a summary of the project so far here. The PTG searchable index is reachable from their main page:
http://genealodzy.pl/index.php?&newlang=eng
and clicking upon ‘Declarations‘ on the left side of the main page. The page is in Polish. ‘Tom’ = Volume (type 1 – 13) and ‘Strona’ = Page. You can use the LOC website to locate the volume and page of interest to you and reach the same page here at PTG. You enter the TOM and the STRONA and click on the ‘Pokaz’ button to go to the image of that volume and page to read the names. Remember that most schools have more than one page. PTG however, also has a way to search on the names. In the first field (no name) you can type a last name and click on the ‘Wyszukaj’ button to search on the name. The check box (‘dokladnie’) should be left unchecked (to avoid having to enter diacritics) for the name you are searching on. Many American Polish names are spelled differently from their original names in Poland. You can overcome this somewhat by using a wildcard character at the end. For example, if Stanczyk wanted to search for ELIASZ or ELIJASZ or ELJASZ, he could enter ‘EL%’ and click on the ‘Wyszukaj’ button to search for those possible spellings.
The wildcard can also be used in the middle as shown in the picture below:
Stanczyk got all good matches except for number 2. In particular, matches 3,4,5 are probably Stanczyk’s ancestors, since Tom/Volume 13, Strona/Page 419-420 is for the school in the village of Pacanow from whence Stanczyk’s direct lineage comes from. Now I could use those Tom’s and Strona’s to bring up the image of the page with those signatures and save the image in my family history.
There is also a nice web page in the LOC, called Emblem of Goodwill with many details of the friendship between Poland and the USA. It also includes pictures of the artwork in the volumes and even a few photos of two classes.
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