As you must know by now, Stanczyk’s paternal family is from Pacanow. I like to use the website: http://mapa.szukacz.pl/ very valuable. It helps you distinguish between same name villages by providing valuable info, like Pacanow’s, gmina, powiat, or wojewodztwo. It also says that is has a population of 1,275 people. If you read the church records from 1868-1918 (which are in Russian/Cyrillic) they describe Pacanow as a settlement. So in my mind’s eye, it is a small place.
So, when I find records of an Elijasz or other family from that village/parish (Pacanow is also the parish locale), I think they must be related to me. How then, can there be this whole little community of Pacanow Elijasz/Elyasz/Eliasz/Heliasz who came to be in Cleveland, Ohio and I and my family have no collective memory of them? So I have used the LDS resource, http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=0 , and also the Cleveland Public Library’s Necrology database and collected much info which I have augmented with Footnote.com and Ancestry.com data. With that info I have built a profile of these people which I will list today in hopes that somebody who lives on the Internet will see their ancestor and contact this jester.
Let me start with Agnieszka Elijasz (aka Eliasz). She came to Cleveland (which is true of the rest, so I will not mention this again). She married a Stanislaw Hajek. She came from her brother Roman Eliasz to a cousin Zwolski in the Pasaic, NJ, USA. So we have Elijasz, Zwolski, and Hajek and all of these are families from Pacanow. Because she names Roman Eliasz, my theory is her parents are: Jozef Elijasz (aka Heliasz) and Theresa Siwiec. She became more interesting recently because I received an email from a genealogist who named Roman Zwolski of Pasaic, NJ as a son of Petronella Elijasz (and a Jan Zwolski). I did find the birth record for this Roman Zwolski and confirmed that his mother was indeed Petronella Zwolski (a previously unknown Elijasz)! So Hajek-Elijasz from Cleveland let me hear from you.
One final aside, the Roman Eliasz named above from Agnieszka’s ship manifest, his granddaughter, Elzbieta (nee Heliasz) Kapusta, whom I met on the Polish social networking website, Nasza-klasa.pl, out the kindness of her heart, without any prodding from this jester, drove back to Biechow, and retrieved a copy of my grandparent’s marriage record from the church and also a copy of the civil record and mailed them to me — forever endearing her to me.
Now I have a long list so I will skip all the stories of the rest. But this next one is interesting because a L. Baran (from genealodzy.pl) emailed me from Poland having knowledge of Elijasz from Pacanow and she named an Anna Elijasz. This Anna I believe is the one that married Stanislaw Domagalski. I also think Domagalski is a Pacanow family too. So Domagalski from Cleveland let me hear from you.
I hope all of the rest also contact me. Tekla Eliasz & Alexander Musial. Musial is another Pacanow family name and some went to Michigan too. Antoni Boza & Franciszka Eliasz, or Paul Budka & Elizabeth Elijasz, or finally Ignacy Elijasz & Augusta Ciaplenska.
Now as you may have noticed, most in this blog were female Elijasz, meaning the family name going forward is something else. Indeed, even Boza, Budka, Hajek, Musial or Domagalski may not remain, but they are links in the chain. Those elusive female ancestors!
Just for good measure will the ancestors of Stanley Elyasz of Detroit (a first cousin of my grandfather) or the Stanley Eliasz (aka Ellis?) of Buffalo who are also Pacanow Elijasz also contact me. I won’t even go into the Elijasz from Massachusetts who I believe are a very far branch (and for the most part not from Pacanow, although I saw a Szczucin Elijasz in Massachusetts) of the family.
Jak się masz, Elijasz?
P.S. – I hope you noticed the several Polish websites mentioned. American genealogists need to get on these Polish websites and search for their families in Poland there too.
Stanczyk - Internet Muse™ 