Calendars – Happy New Year 5772 – #Genealogy, #Calendars, #RoshHashana

Hebrew Calendar

Tonight at sundown the Jewish New Year, 5772 begins. Stanczyk besides being a bibliophile, also loves calendars. Since I am a Polish Catholic (Latin Rite) I follow the Gregorian (the common calendar). The Orthodox Catholics and also genealogists like myself (Russian-Polish, or Russian Empire genealogists) have an affinity for the Julian Calendar, which was replaced by the Gregorian calendar, except for liturgical purposes in the Orthodox denominations.I have also previously written of the Mayan calendar so popular with doomsday curiosity seekers.

But today we speak of the Hebrew Calendar. My wife is Jewish so for her this is the beginning of the Rosh Hashana holiday that culminates in Yom Kippur.The Hebrew Calendar is a lunar based calendar (synchronized to the solar calendar; aka Metonic Cycle). 1 Tishri is the celebration of the creation of the world and the start of a calendar. So as the Jewish peoples celebrate the of Rosh Hashana, they are not only celebrating a New Year’s birth; They are also celebrating the Creation (Genesis). No matter who you are, you MUST read Steve Morse’s, “Jewish Calendar Demystified“. It explains the Hebrew Calendar back to creation and the first Tishri 1. I absolutely need to read it every year at this time. For my Jewish brethren, I offer up a website to create a personalized Hebrew Calendar. Of course, Steve Morse also has his printable Hebrew calendar here. SteveMorse.org also has a calendar converter to convert historical Hebrew dates to the Gregorian Calendar.

For genealogists who a French background, I know I have encountered the French Calendar in genealogy dates. So keep Claus Tøndering’s Calendar page handy. If you wish to know when each country converted from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar (this affects American Historical dates too) the wiki Gregorian page is for you.

Family Search Indexing Tool – #Genealogy – #Polish Radom 1866

Stanczyk wanted to take a moment to say, “Thanks”. You may recall I did my due diligence on the Genealogy Website Rankings. I added my own blog website for reference. At the time of the survey I was a little over 12.8 Million-th most popular website on the Internet. Out of the billions of pages, I thought that was a great start.

For kicks, I went to Alexa.com and inquired if my ranking had changed. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was now the 10.3 Million-th most popular website. That is an improvement of 2.5 Million in about one month !   So I just wanted to say thanks. I am hoping to eventually crack the top 1 Milliion (with perhaps a dream of being in the top 100,000 some day). I asked for your support and I can definitely see that I received it. Thank You very much for lending me your eyes.

I am also looking for people to help me in my volunteer efforts. If you can read Polish (or even Russian, I saw two projects for Ukraine-Kiev church records), then you can join with me on one of two projects: Lublin and/or Radom. I chose Radom as it was close to my grandparent’s ancestral villages (Biechow/Pacanow).

Most projects are for English language records. Of those, many are in the USA, so you could pick your local area and get a local genealogy society or historical society to pitch in. It will provide more data for all of us to research. If you want to thank me, but only read English then perhaps you can pick from a project for: Philadelphia, Buffalo, Toledo, Detroit (or Michigan in general). This is another way you can lend me your eyes and feel good about doing some volunteer work (Random Act of Genealogical Kindness, anyone?).

Two Polish projects open at present.

As I said, I chipped in some effort to read one batch (of 12 birth church records). The records I was given in my first batch were from 1866 in the Radom diocese. This data (index and images) will be free to search from their website: FamilySearch.org (Europe Record Groups) .

Good Luck & Thanks again!

— Stanczyk

#Jewish #Genealogy – A Continuing Homage to Moja żona – Biechow 1821

I am continuing my efforts to retrieve/extract the Jewish records from the Catholic parish of Biechow  (an homage to moja dobra żona, Tereza) during the years when the Catholic Church was ordered to act the civil registration authority for all parties/religions.  My previous postings were for the years 1810-1820  inclusive.

These are the Jewish Births and even the Death records too  from 1821 recorded in Biechow parish. Ergo, this posting brings us upto: 1810-1821 inclusive. The prior post is here .

As per usual, I give permission for all Jewish data that I have been posting to be included in the JRI project.  Happy New Year 5772 [upcoming this week].

In 1821, there were three Jewish births out of a total of 112 births recorded in the Biechow parish. That works out to be 2.7% of the total.

There were no indexes for Marriage or Death. There were 57 death records total and five deaths were Jewish residents. That works out to be 8.8% of the total.

Year: 1821      Priest: Jozef Parzelski         Gmina: Biechow     Powiat: Stopnica     Departement: Krakow      111 Total Births     LDS Microfilm#: 936660

Births

Record #1     Date: 12/31/1820 [yes it was actually in the prior year, but recorded the 1st week of 1821]

Father: Mosiek Simolewicz,  Handlarz, Age 36, Wola Biechowski   House #7

Mother: Serra z Jaklow, age 38

Baby: boy Szmul

Witnesses:  Zelman Majorowicz, Handlarz, age 30 Biechow & Wulf Jaskowicz, Pakiarz,  <no age>, Piestrzec

—-

Record #43     Date: 4/10/1821

Father: Jakob  Majorowicz,  Mlynarz, Age 36, Biechow  House #12

Mother: Hay z Rzelkowna, age 30

Baby: boy Martka

Witnesses:  Gicel   Fulfowicz, Pakiarz, age 45 Biechow & Moska Szmolowicz, Pakiarz,  <no age>, Wojla Biechowski

—-

Record #48    Date: 5/11/1821

Father: Icek  Majorowicz,  Mlynarz, Age 24, Biechow  House #12

Mother: Sara z Moskowiczow, age 20

Baby: girl Haja

Witnesses:  Jakob Majorowicz, Mlynarz,  36, Biechow  & Mindla Abramowicz mlynarz, <no age>, Wojcza

—-

Deaths  – 57 total deaths

Record #12     Date: 3/6/1821

Witness1: Jasek Linden,

Witness2: Salomon Steyberg,

Deceased: Icek Majorkiewicz 30 Biechow

—-

Record #17     Date: 3/10/1821

Witness1: Zelman Steyberg,  <no age> Biechow

Witness2: <none>

Deceased: Jakob Majorkiewicz 36 Biechow

—-

Record #40     Date: 8/28/1821

Witness1: Mendel Fryszman,  Age 46, Wojcza

Witness2: Herszla Herszkowicz, Age 60 Wojcza

Deceased: Ruka 2 weeks? daughter of:  Mendla Fryszman & Sarl z. Sewkowiczow

—-

Record #47     Date:10/26/1821

Witness1: Jasek Linden,  Age 44, Biechow

Witness2: Hycek Bartmanowicz, Age 38 Chrzanow

Deceased: Hansa Mendlowa 36, Biechow, House #217 [? number hand written in afterwards in a gap left]

wife of Abraham Mendlowicz

—-

Record #48     Date: 10/24/1821 [yes this date is earlier than prior record]

Witness1: Jasek Linden,  Age 44, Biechow

Witness2: Hycek Bartmanowicz, Age 38 Chrzanow

Deceased: Hycek Abramowicz <no age>, Biechow

[both deaths, 47 & 48 were recorded on the same day, 10/27/1821]

— Stanczyk

#Genealogy #Polish – Searching ELA database, State Archives (Poland)

Stanczyk was visiting the State Archives in Poland website and he explained about the four databases:

• PRADZIAD – For vital records, both civil and religious. Birth,  Marriage, Death and Alegata records.
• SEZAM – A database containing  detailed descriptions of archival holdings preserved by the State Archives and a few related repositories. Some entries are rather lengthy.
  
• IZA – A catalog of all (really slightly more than a quarter of all) fonds, by archive that holds them and indexed by Key Words. It includes the Archive’s contact info (for each fond). I hope they get around to indexing the other 3/4 of fonds.
  
• ELA – A database of all population registers (Censuses, Lists, Indexes, etc.) in Poland’s State Archives.
  

When I wrote about ELA, I said it was not very useful. But I  wanted to correct my errant statement (due to my own misconception about what data they had available). By the descriptions, you can see that PRADZIAD is the most important to a genealogist, but that the ELA database with its population lists can provide additional opportunities to find an ancestor and in some context (a list of soldiers, those being deported, a census, eligible voters list, etc.) for some timeframe. Now let me hasten to add that in the Russian Partition of Poland you are not going to find much in the way of censuses — it seems you can find Russian Empire censuses in all Russian Gubernias, but the ten gubernias in the Polish Kingdom (of the Russian Empire, aka Congress Poland).

Using ELA

This is the English language version of the ELA database (click on link to go to ELA) search form.

You can leave “Town” empty and just search on the “Register’s title” field. Here are some possible search strings (enter Polish words):

1. Listy osób
2. Listy osób uprawnionych do głosowania w guberni kieleckiej
3. listy osób deportowanych z Cesarstwa Rosyjskiego

The first is just the generic, “Lists of People”. All strings must be in Polish (get your Google Translator out). The diacriticals (accents) are not required. The second is the list of eligible voters (in Kielce Gubernia).  The third one is a list of people deported from the Russian Empire.

Leave town blank if you want to search all towns. Fill in town or gmina or powiat (if these are also town names) if you want to limit yourself to an area where you know your ancestors were from. You can also use “Register’s title” if you want to search a whole wojewodztwo (gubernia) and not just the town Kielce.

I have family from the Kielce Gubernia, so I clicked on “more” to find out what FOND and Archive has this data of interest to me (#2 of the list above).

So I should use the contact info to go to the Kielce State Archive and ask for FOND # 59 to see the list of eligible voters in Kielce Gubernia in 1906.

Perhaps I’ll find Elijasz, Leszczynski, Wlecial, and Kedzierski families listed among the eligible voters. From that era, my paternal grandparents are still there  and I expect  that I’d find my great-grandparents too. Now I do not know that I will find more than their names. But perhaps, I’ll get ages and addresses too. Who knows what else (military service, occupation, date of prior elections or number of elections voted — who knows).

There is no actual data or images online. It just a big library catalog file of what you can expect to find, if you visit or hire a genealogist to visit the State Archives.

Technology in #Genealogy – Google Books, iPhone/iPad

Stanczyk wanted to elaborate on a few new ideas for incorporating Technology into your genealogy:

• Roots Tech 2012 – registration is open. Get all your tech on Feb 2-4, 2012 in Salt Lake City
• Google Books – Many good books are in the public domain, road map to the rest
• iPhone/iPad – genealogy on the go
• Hash Tags in your blog, blog title and link your blog to Twitter

The second Roots Tech 2012 conference is coming up soon. If you are trying to make better use of your scant genealogy time, then perhaps using more technology to organize, find, backup or present your research may be the order of the day. This year many big tech companies will be there, as well as genealogy software vendors. Here is your chance to learn and to try out new ideas.

Google Books may help you locate material specific to genealogy, such as a gazetteer or a heritage book like the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). It can also help you with reference materials, such as Latin. Look for “Free Books” (i.e. public domain), such as, “The Poles in America” By Paul Fox. If you are looking for a book that is in copyright, Google Books can help you locate the book in the nearest library/archive or a vendor who sells it.

iPhone/iPad – Genealogy has gone portable with the advent of smart phones. Laptops were fine but smart phones are now better. I have grown fond of the Ancestry app for iPhone. It keeps getting better. I use it to shoot an image of a document and then attach it to a person in the tree. So now you can take pictures of the microfilm and attach the document in the tree. It synchs virtually immediately so you can see in on the web at Ancestry.com as soon as the upload from the phone has finished. I have one of those public domain Latin books from Google or the Gutenberg Project on my iPhone in iBooks app. So you have your family tree software, digital camera, and reference materials all in one device —  your phone.

#HashTags – You see them in twitter all of the time. They are like Key Words in a library catalog. Twitter can produce “What’s Trending” from these hash tags. But you can hook up your blog to twitter and so you should put Hash Tags in your Posting’s title to help people find it on Twitter or in Google. I even use them in Facebook.

Stanczyk – Internet Muse #Blog #Enhancements #genealogy

Recently, I have been pondering how to improve this blog. So I have implemented a few things and I pray you will let me know your kind thoughts.  Thanks

Changes

Here are the list of changes I have made today. Let me know if you think there are others that would be beneficial.

1. Emails to me are easier. Just click on the pic [here in this post] or permanently on right sidebar.
2. RSS subscriptions are more obvious – top right of the blog
3. Access to other Pages moved up
4. Thank You. – At the bottom (and here and now) I thank you for visiting me
5. Previously I added my  twitter feeds – mostly I announce new blogs posts, plus a few quips.

An Analysis of Biechow LDS Microfilm By Film/Year/Event

Its a rainy day today and Stanczyk threw himself at the unfinished Survey Spreadsheet of his grandmother’s ancestral village: Biechow (old woj./gubernia Kielce). So I made a pot of coffee and I started at the highest level.

My spreadsheet is for each of the years, 1792-1860 inclusive. So there is each year going down the leftside. I have each the three events: Birth, Marriage, Death (Urodzen, Malzenstwo, Zgonow) in separate columns. Please note in some years there are marriage banns (zapowiedz), so you may need to divide by three to get an idea of the actual number of marriages (round up to the next integer). The counts provided are the actual record counts in the church registers. For Biechow, I used LDS microfilm: 936660 .. 936664 inclusive (five film). Finally, I added a column of derived data, “Growth Rate”. This column is simply the number of births minus the number of deaths. Most years there is an increase. However, there are some negatives that show a population decrease. In one year (1831), I know for certainty, that there was a cholera epidemic. Hence a steep decrease in population in 1831. In other years, it may be pestilence/disease or it may be war or something else, but I have no info to explain the negative growth.

[click on read more to see spreadsheet data]  

#Genealogy #News – MyHeritage.com Acquires BackupMyTree

MyHeritage.com who would be the 2nd most popular genealogy website on our survey [see chart below]:

#	Website	Ranking
1	Ancestry.com	1,073
2	myHeritage.com	3,360
3	FindAGrave.com	7,294
4	Familysearch.org	8,331
5	Genealogy.com	11,875
6	GeneaNet	13,684
7	The British Monarchy	53,320
8	Family Tree DNA	57,911
9	RootsWeb	62,662
10	Footnote.org (now fold3)	76,309

is buying BackupMyTree a private genealogy software company from St Louis, MO (at least its server) in the US. For more info on the company, here is an analysis.

Poland’s President Komorowski opens WallStreet Today

According to: NYSE EuroNext,  and also mentioned on MSNBC.

H.E. Bronislaw Komorowski, President of the Republic of Poland, visits the NYSE. In honor of the occasion, H.E. Bronislaw Komorowski rings The Opening Bell^SM.

Hooray for Polonia! Welcome to NYC and the USA,  President Komorowski. Wall Street and I am sure a UN meeting — a good ally of the USA.

Smithsonian Institution Libraries – Books, Images Online

Brown Tree Duck

Being a jester brings with it a lot of name calling and chief among them is “bird-brain” — which Stanczyk has taken to heart.

A Number of times, I have written about the Smithsonian Libraries & Museums or the Library of Congress. These treasures of America should be enjoyed  and are provided for the diffusion of information. Every American should make a pilgrimage to Washington D.C. and see the statues and museums — taking care not to wander too close to politicians lest you contract a serious case of lunacy.

I have lived in the Village of Audubon, the hometown of the Franco-American Naturalist, John James Audubon. My connection to my genealogy is a fascinating one. Many of the persons from my grandparent’s ancestral villages have Bird Names! Names like: Czapla, Dudek, Kruk, łuszcz, Orzeł{owski}, Ptak, Siewki(Siwiec), Sroka, Skowronek, Sokol(owski),   Szczygieł,  Wrobel, Zięba, żuraw(ski), (and even Włecial=flew) etc. Now one thing had nothing to do with the other; It was just a weird juxtaposition of my life. To couple these two things with my obsession with ducks and yea verily all manner of water fowl — well you get today’s posting. Maybe birds really are in my DNA (in more ways than one).

Actually, today’s posting came from my iGoogle page (Genealogy & Libraries). I have hooked the Smithsonian Libraries blog into the iGoogle page. Today they blogged about their Gallery of Images. Now I thought this was going to be another mention of their flickr pages. But I was wrong. WARNING: do not go to the Gallery of Images if you suffer from ADD. You can easily become lost in the SIL efforts to bring these images and their information online.

The picture at the top is not from Audubon’s Birds of North America, but it is from “The Birds of North America” by Spencer Fullerton Baird, published in 1860 (Philadelphia).

[click on read more to Polish-English Bord List]                                  

#Genealogy #Polish – Notes & Notices; Searching IZA

Stanczyk was visiting the State Archives in Poland and he saw the news…

The State Archive in Wroclaw is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its opening. They published a monograph, “The State Archive in Wrocław 1811-2011. Past and Present “, The main celebration  will take place on 28th of September. If the Archive is 200 years old, then I wonder how old its oldest documents are? Please note if you click on the Union Jack flag (for English) you will miss this announcement which only listed on the Polish language version of the page.

Shoemaker’s Guild

I wanted to search their IZA database to do a “Key Word” search across all State Archive Offices on the topic of Guilds, in particular Shoemaker’s Guild (cechu szewskiego). I have previously written about these guilds before in this blog. I used the ‘cechu’ AND ‘szewc’ as my keywords and I got back seven results:

I circled the Catalog Number (sygnatura) which is a link that can be clicked. When you click on it, you are taken to the specific page for the archive that has the material you need.

The first part of the four parts indicates the archive office (see drop down below). The second is “series”, the third is “sub-series” and the fourth part is file number. Now the material retrieved from the IZA database is in Polish, so if you are not fluent in Polish, you will need your Google Translate webpage.

So when you click on the Catalog number the top of the page should look like …

The address and phone number at the top left. Further down the page it describes the archival file(s) from your search — in Polish!

The initial database search screen also has a drop-down field that maps the State Archive Offices to the number (the first part of the Catalog Number). You may want to limit results to a specific office if you are only searching in a specific archive office when you visit Poland.

So you see at the bottom of my drop down that 32 = Krakow State Archive in the Nowy Targ office. The 32 was the first part of my catalog number: 32/1/0/64 .

You can click these images at the left to see a large size image that will be easier to read.

In terms of vocabulary, the series + the sub-series (parts 2 & 3) are the FOND. The fourth part, the file number, is also called ‘OPIS‘.

You will see these words used with the other databases, in particular, the PRADZIAD database that has the vital records (church registers -or- civil office records).

It is this jester’s hope that this info can help you navigate the State Archives of Poland’s three databases (also a fourth database, ELA which is not very useful):

• PRADZIAD
• SEZAM
• IZA

Preparing for 1940 Census

1940 US Census Form

If you go to Steve Morse’s One-Step Website or you go to the US National Archives, you will see that as right now you have 198 days (and 17+ hours) to prepare for the 1940 US Census (which arrives 72 years after census, to protect privacy). This time it will be on April 2nd (2012).

Are you preparing? Ancestry.com says they will give us free access to the 1940 census (for a while). The last time (10 years ago) there were no indexes at the release and you had to do a lot of brute force searching page-by-page through an Enumeration District (ED), so you had to know the whereabouts of your family and be able to use the ED’s boundary cross streets to figure out which ED you needed to go page-by-page through. “Supposedly”, Ancestry.com says the indexes will be there (all of them?  on day 1?). I hope they are correct and I hope this year they do not use foreign people to index the names — which was quite a snafu the last time and of course they were re-indexed (always time/money to do it a second time, but not enough time/money to do it right the first time — Stanczyk was a consultant too long and saw this again and again in many industries).

How can you prepare?

• Locate a 1940 (or 1939 or 1941) City Directory if you know the street address and verify that family were there
• If they are somewhere else, then you will need to use SteveMorse.org and his Census tools to change the new address into a 1940 ED
• Determine the ED ahead of time in case there are no indexes or the indexes are BAD.
• No City Directory available? SteveMorse has a census tool to convert the 1930 ED into a 1940 ED [assuming your family stayed at the same address]
• Figure out ahead of time some novel misspellings of the surnames your are searching for in case the indexer or the Census taker messed up your ancestor’s name.
• DO NOT lock yourself into assuming they are in the same state (or county or city).
• At first try with many details filled in, then relax a field at a time until you find your family -or- you can go in the opposite direction if your name is not common and start with the fewest fields filled in (usually just surname) and add in fields if you need to cut down the number of results.
• Use an address from any document prior to 1940, (ex. Naturalization Forms) if you do not have any idea where they live in 1940. Use the latest document’s address that you have to guess at an ED [again using SteveMorse.org].
• If the above fails try and find the address, the earliest as possible  after the 1940 Census and see if they were. The Old Man’s WWII Draft might fit the bill for most people.

Those are my tips. Any other tips you are using? Then email this jester or make a comment, please.  Prepare as if you were going to a Library or an archive or the Family History Library.

This is a War Census, so I do not know how they dealt with the many households that had soldiers away at war. Were soldiers listed on the Census or not?

General Info & 1940 Census Questions

Many good questions on this census, including …

1. Residence, April 1, 1935
2. For all women who are or have been married:  Number of children ever born (do not include stillbirths).
3. Veterans: War or military service.

Searching for Clues in 1913 Immigration

In Stanczyk’s last post I was pondering why my grandmother did not disembark in NYC, but disembarked from Philadelphia instead heading to Buffalo area by train.

So I brainstormed two possible explanations:

1. Hurricane
2. Dock Strike

Sorry my brain is tired these days I am sure there are even more besides the obvious, “Maybe she just missed her embarkation point in NYC.”

As the picture shows, a mild season, but Tropical Storm (#4 — no names in those years) may have influenced the ship crossing as it was in the same time frame. But coming from the south I would have thought it may have driven the ship to NYC, not to the more southerly Philadelphia in an emergency. So perhaps a hurricane is not the explanation. I will have to keep searching.

I guess it was Hurricane Irene that came by this season with its horrific floods in the north-east (and here in PA and NJ as well as the VT pics we have all seen) that made me think of and search for that. After I wrote the article I realized it is exactly 98 years today (9/15), since my grandmother arrived in Philadelphia.

In my searches, I also found out about the Hurricane of 1913 on the Great Lakes (called the “Big Blow”). Check out these Ohio Historical Society Newspaper pages. This may at least partially explain why my Aunt Kitty was born in Depew (St Augustine parish) in 1914 and not in Toledo, OH, as her next three siblings were. This “Big Blow” caused a blizzard,  wreaking havoc in Ohio/Ontario and eliminating chances to migrate further west (by train or Lake Steamship) for many months. Something like 250-300 men lost their lives upon 14 vessels that were lost on the Great Lakes during this EPIC storm of 1913. Even the trains were stranded and food left undelivered for a long time — causing food shortages.

I wonder if my KUSCHWANTZ (Toledo) blogger pal has any posts about that 1913 winter in Ohio. See my blogroll for Donna’s very well done blog about Polish genealogy in Toledo area.

On to the next possibility …

[To see what Donna from the Kuschwantz blog wrote, click on read more]

#Genealogy – #Historical #Newspapers – Philadelphia Inquirer 9/15/1913

Philadelphia Inquirer 9/15/1913

Stanczyk, loves using newspapers for historical research or genealogical research. Most of the time I am doing genealogy research. So I look for vital records in marriage announcements or birth announcements or perhaps death notices / obituaries. But there are so many other reasons  to use historical newspapers.

Today I wanted to give you an idea for using the historical newspaper in the port city where your ancestor arrived.

My grandmother, Walerya Eliasz, arrived in America on the SS Prinz Adalbert on 15th September 1913. I have a picture of the ship, but then the thought occurred to me, what if I get a copy of the newspaper from the day my Busia arrived in Philadelphia! It would make a nice graphic image in the story of the ELIASZ family in America.So that is my tip for another use of the historical newspaper to tell your family history. Use it to find the “Ship Arrivals” in the port city where your ancestor(s) arrived.

SS Prinz Adalbert

Walerya arrived that day, age 27 with her four year daughter Aleksandra in tow. They were coming from her father Tomasz Leszczynski in Pacanow and going to her husband Jozef Eliasz in Depew, NY.  [Can anyone tell me why she did not get off in NYC and take the train to Depew from NYC?] This ship departed from the port of Hamburg and I am pretty sure it stopped at NYC before arriving in Philadelphia.

So Walerya was born and married in Biechow, Poland. She got married there in 1907. She had her first two children there in 1908 and 1909. Her husband Jozef Elijasz came to the USA in 1910 from Zabiec. She left Poland in 1913 from Pacanow. She arrived in Philadelphia and went by train to Depew, NY. She had a daughter Catherine (ok really Casimiera) in Depew. Moved to Toledo, OH where she gave birth to Stephen, Joseph, and Bernice. Immediately after Bernice was born , they moved to Detroit, MI (1920) where she had Thadeus, Henry, and Chester. She was widowed in 1930 (bad time to be a widow, during the Great Depression). She remarried in 1947 and moved to Beech Grove, IN. She was widowed again in 1953 and her children helped move her back to MI, to her seven acre farm in Macomb Township on Fairchild Road — which is the only home I ever remembered my grandmother living in.

Musing about the Cholera Epidemic of 1831

I frequently browse my blog’s web analytics (who refers, what they searched on, etc.). I noticed that someone landed on my blog searching about Cholera in the Biechow parish (in Piestrzec to be specific).

First let me take a moment to pay due to Rosemary Chorzempa(Toledo Genealogical Society, author) whose book, Polish Roots, was my first genealogy book and from whence I began the study of this craft. I still refer back to it — a real classic. I bring her book up because it has a timeline in it and one of the entries is 1831 – “First[sic Second] Asiatic Cholera Epidemic“. This is when Cholera came to the villages: Biechow, Piestrzec, Wojcza, Chrzanow, etc. Besides the obvious HIGH death rates, we also saw low birth rates too.

Stanczyk has mentioned this before, but one of my ancestors, Marcin Heliasz, age 50 (b. about 1781) was listed as death number 232 (the last one) and Marcin and number 231 did not even have death dates or witnesses. I surmise that the parish priest as he visited on or before the Feast of Epiphany to inscribe the door lintel with the three wise men’s initials (K,M,B) he found these two villagers dead. Their record is after the other records and the end of year notation the priest usually makes.

The number of deaths were between 49-88 (from 1816-1827). Then 1828- 122 deaths, 1829- 149 deaths, 1830- 142 deaths, perhaps these might have been due to a growth spurt, but in 1831- 232 deaths (and cholera was noted in the church registers). In 1832- 80, 1833- 61, 1834- 71. So we see a return to normal death rates of the early 1820’s. This may also reflect the low birth rate in 1831- just 46. Typically, the birth rate exceeds the death rate by a handful (or a couple dozen in times of plenty) in this parish.

So for the year 1831 with only 46 births and then 232 deaths meant this parish had a net drop in population of 186 in ONE year! If we assume/project from the Parish Censuses (at the top of this blog) that Biechow’s parish population was between 1800-1900 people, then in one year they lost about 10% of the people ! Perhaps half a million Europeans died during this epidemic. In many countries there were actually Cholera Riots — as people were suspicious of their governments.

For more information on epidemics or Cholera Epidemics see Wikipedia.

#Genealogy #Website #Rankings – Revisited With A Documented Methodology

Stanczyk got one comment recently. It was the first one I ever deleted. It was rude and was in reference to my rant at Genealogy Rankings posted by EOGN. Eastman, had just reposted some blogger’s effort without checking the results (a genealogical mistake — which we all make at some time or other).

Stanczyk, however is a natural skeptic. So when I looked at the results and they differed from my experience … WILDLY. I knew they were wrong or at least that the methodology employed was flawed and the info was misinformation. So I searched for another more credible ranking — which I did find and repost myself. This info was more representative of the real world and while a methodology was also not documented for this, I did cite my source of data.

However, bothered I was by my comment that I deleted for its obvious bias and rudeness, I had to admit I needed to study this and document my methodology. The commenter proffered that ALEXA.com be the source. So I obliged. I used Alexa.com and made the following search for data:

• All countries (hint hint)
• Society->Genealogy [the topic]
• All languages (although come on, Genealogy is only genealogy in English)
• All rankings
• No filter
• I eliminated results without any numbers (how could they be ranked)
• I added a handful off the top of my head to see where they fit
• I used Global Ranking (since I wanted all countries/languages)

My Additions

I added FamilySearch.org,  I knew this must be big! I added Genealodzy.pl which most people probably do not know (unless they read my blog), because it was a credible Genealogical Society Website (and probably not the most popular genealogy website in Poland). I added Footnote (now Fold3) — I was sure this was huge too. I also added CastelGarden, SteveMorse, and my own humble blog for reference — I am sure many other Polish Genealogy blogs are higher ranked. My additions are  bolded and in RED.

I could not compare my results to his results because he used the URL instead of the name so I am not certain which of mine are his and vice-versa. Also since we did these studies at different times, our results differ slightly in numbers. I am also puzzled as to how he got so many .UK or .CA websites. These did not get returned by my Alexa.com search — perhaps he limited his methodology  or added in many websites that he knew. I think Alexa.com needs to return a consistent set of websites so rankings can be compared. I also think that some websites need to describe or META tag their website better so sites like Alexa.com and its competitors can do a better job of collecting statistics. I think GENEALOGY as a topic is MUCH more popular than Alexa.com shows. Also, perhaps Alexa.com data is NOT reproducible.  So maybe my critique of EOGN is unwarranted and the Anglo-Celtic blog is also correct (as I am too). That would not be a good thing for Alexa.com. I wish other competitors in Web Analytics would publish a Genealogy/Family History Ranking study. I hope they include genealogia or other foreign renditions of the English ‘Genealogy’ so we can get a true World-Wide study. I also question whether Ancestry.com (and Ancestry.ca, Ancestry.uk, Ancestry.de, etc) should be separate or combined.

When you view the rankings, the lower the number, the better. It means there are that many websites (-1) that are more popular. So for example, my blog that you are reading has 12.8 Million other websites (like Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.) ahead of me in popularity in the WORLD. Pay close attention to my additions, they are in bold/red and for the most part are near to the top.

Genealogy Websites top 113 (I am number 106 — come-on readers)

#	Website	Ranking
1	Ancestry.com	1,073
2	Familysearch.org	8,331
3	Genealogy.com	11,875
4	GeneaNet	13,684
5	The British Monarchy	53,320
6	Family Tree DNA	57,911
7	RootsWeb	62,662
8	Footnote.org (now fold3)	76,309
9	JewishGen	85,873
10	What’s New in Genealogy Today	116,942
11	Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Resources on the Internet	124,819
12	TribalPages	125,404
13	Stevemorse.org	137,026
14	Eastman’s Online Genealogy News	138,037
15	Access Genealogy	140,165
16	GenoPro	164,723
17	World Vital Records	186,504
18	Genealodzy.pl	187,329
19	One Great Family	203,284
20	Polish Genealogical Society of America	203,550
21	ProGenealogists, Inc.	230,037
22	Genealogy and Family History Data at DistantCousin.com	240,451
23	AncientFaces	271,220
24	Kindred Konnections	273,644
25	National Genealogical Society	300,259
26	Family Tree Magazine	304,602
27	Family Research	317,401
28	Legacy Family Tree	334,708
29	British Royal Family History	337,957
30	Curious Fox	450,455
31	museumsusa.org	478,027
32	Olive Tree Genealogy	478,202
33	GenealogyLinks.net	526,395
34	NCGenWeb	529,784
35	Family Tree Guide	540,734
36	Oxford Ancestors	540,969
37	Irish Genealogy	542,221
38	RootsMagic	546,245
39	CousinConnect.com	556,154
40	Family Tree Circles	560,472
41	Monmouth County Library	664,876
42	Castlegarden.org	736,651
43	Avotaynu	790,666
44	Genealogy Search Engine	794,553
45	Genealogy Search Engine	794,553
46	Genealogy Articles, Tips & Research Guides	867,921
47	CensusDiggins.com	903,350
48	Genealogy Blog	981,796
49	Reunion	988,538
50	Obituary Links Page	1,080,372
51	Dear Myrtle	1,084,424
52	Dead Fred’s Photo Genealogy Archive	1,149,953
53	GeneaLinks	1,168,516
54	Ultimate Family Tree	1,527,831
55	Holmes, Doug	1,569,874
56	RoyaList Online	1,608,515
57	Kerchner	1,624,302
58	phpmyfamily – Genealogical website builder	1,635,669
59	Jewish Web Index	1,713,993
60	Couch: USA	1,766,283
61	The Ohio Genealogical Society	1,792,377
62	Board for Certification of Genealogists	1,854,544
63	Ancestral Quest	1,856,546
64	GenealogyPro.com	1,892,255
65	Scot Roots	2,170,754
66	Genealogy Magazine	2,175,330
67	Black Sheep Ancestors	2,243,157
68	Eneclann	2,298,226
69	Sephardim.com	2,456,171
70	Odessa German-Russian Genealogical Library	2,531,031
71	Journal of Genetic Genealogy	2,585,838
72	Genealogical Journeys In Time	2,780,736
73	Colonial Ancestors	2,932,587
74	Genealogy Register	3,016,245
75	The Genealogue	3,033,136
76	Winslow	3,189,607
77	Family Chronicle Magazine	3,248,384
78	GEDitCOM	3,527,586
79	Gen Source	3,718,359
80	Brother’s Keeper	3,788,856
81	Surname Site	3,854,351
82	GenealogySpot.com	4,028,763
83	GenSmarts	4,070,308
84	Palatines to America	4,161,788
85	Looking 4 Kin Genealogy Links and Chat	4,650,889
86	Genealogical Forum of Oregon	5,079,038
87	Helm’s Genealogy Toolbox	5,229,636
88	Family Origins	5,240,600
89	Genealogy Research Associates, Inc	5,416,307
90	Surname Genealogy Archive	5,462,264
91	Spansoft – Kith and Kin Genealogy Software	5,477,484
92	Historic Genealogy in New England	5,550,789
93	Ancestor Genealogy Photo Archive	5,999,968
94	Genealogy Roots Blog	6,048,790
95	Lineages, Inc	6,852,004
96	Surname Guide	7,252,646
97	Debrett Ancestry Research	8,431,123
98	Geneabios	8,649,736
99	MudCreek Software	9,461,331
100	Family Tree Connection	9,693,244
101	Association of Scottish Genealogists and Record Agents	9,785,665
102	nbgs.ca	10,632,352
103	Scottish Roots	10,912,588
104	Georgia Genealogical Society	11,944,069
105	Rogue Valley Genealogical Society	12,287,030
106	mikeeliasz.wordpress.com (Stanczyk)	12,805,138
107	Genealogy Software News	15,592,001
108	Wheelock	20,518,710
109	FamilyWebHost	20,769,903
110	Genealogy Home Page	23,241,140
111	Root Cellar – Sacramento Genealogical Society	25,363,263
112	Upper Canada Genealogy	26,691,115
113	GenDesigner	26,900,547

It is clear that Great Britain is much more genealogy crazy than the USA. If I were to do this again, I would probably go through my favorites/bookmarks and add in a few blogs (Polish Genealogy), Polish Genealogical Societies (US & Poland), FindAGrave.com, Interment.net, and Everett Genealogy Magazine. What would you add?

–Stanczyk

#Meme – Things I Find While Looking Up Other Things (Heraldic Genealogy)

The Bohemian Nobility

Stanczyk, in one of my continuing memes, offers my latest account of ADD researching. What is ADD researching? It is a case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), whereby I become distracted by curiosity into something more interesting than what I am actually looking up. Today’s ADD Researching brings me to Heraldic Genealogy. Something in Stanczyk’s DNA can be distracted by colorful, Germanic graphic images — hence “The Bohemian Nobility” cover image was what distracted me in my latest adventure. Let me hasten to add, that as yet, I have not located any Bohemian branches of Eliasz (although I believe there are some).

Many genealogists become fascinated by the notion of tracing their family back to a Royal Lineage. Stanczyk too has a family folklore, shared by distant branches (2nd, 3rd cousins) all telling the same tale that we are related to royalty, but nobody seems to recall the Royal from whom we are all related ???

In Stanczyk’s case, the connecting and convergent point seems to point to the Leszczynski line, though try as I may, that Royal Line seems to end with women and thus the Leszczynski line should not continue down to us via the Leszczynski name, but that is what all of our families that share the family folklore, share as a family name. Alas, I fear that I shall have to content myself with having jestered for three kings.

I found the “The Bohemian Nobility” in one of Poland’s Online Digital Libraries. The link is via the SBC here. This digital book is 464 “pages”. It starts with an index of family names. I scanned the list of names and did not find any from my family tree. Heavy Sigh! So I then looked for a connection to me in some fashion to keep my curiosity piqued. I found one: Hoffman in the index.

So my example and an homage to the great Polish Genealogist, Linguist, and All-Around-Amusing-Curmudgeon, Fred Hoffman, author of many books/treatises on language and genealogy. I found a Hoffman — perhaps this is where Fred’s line comes from (but Stanczyk does not know Fred that well). So the book follows the index with pages of descriptions about the families and then pages (aka “Tafels”/Tables) of Heraldic Symbols (sheilds). So each family name is in three places: index, description, heraldic symbol.

Hoffman

You can click for a larger, more readable version of the Hoffman description and I cannot do it justice as it is written in German and Stanczyk lacks his grandmother’s acumen for German (and Russian and Polish, although my Latin and English are better).

Notice it has a reference to ‘Taf 9’ in parentheses after the family name. The Heraldic Symbols start on page(uh image) 313.  So by adding nine (and subtracting one) we get to page 321 where ‘Taf 9’ is found. This algorithm should work for all names.

The name, Hoffman, is found above the heraldic symbol for that family. I found the heraldic symbol interesting  and ornate (as most usually are). The Hoffman family crest seems to include an anchor (and a castle)  — I seem to recall that Bohemia is landlocked, so the anchor is interesting indeed. There must be a story behind that heraldic symbol (shown below):

I did find some other digital books on the Polish Nobility (Szlachta) you may want to peruse:

• Almanach Szlechecki (4 vols:   A-Belijosz)
• LESZCZYNSCY Herbu Wienawa
• Account of Poles Elevated to the Rank of Nobility by the Austrian
• Spis nazwisk szlachty polskiej (List of Names of Polish Nobility)

You may not recall, but the Polish Digital Libraries require a DjVu plug-in for your browser (or a DjVu applet, written in Java) to view the above digitized books — indeed all digitized content in Polish Online Libraries and Archives use this software. DjVu software is here . Do yourself a favor and download this software(I have used on MS Windows and on MACs).

#Jewish #Genealogy – A Continuing Homage to Moja żona – Biechow 1820

I am continuing my efforts to retrieve/extract the Jewish records from the Catholic parish of Biechow  (an homage to moja dobra żona, Tereza) during the years when the Catholic Church was ordered to act the civil registration authority for all parties/religions.  My previous postings were for the years 1810-1819  inclusive.

These are the Jewish Births from 1820 recorded in Biechow parish. Ergo, this posting brings us upto: 1810-1820 inclusive. The prior post is here .

As per usual, I give permission for all Jewish data that I have been posting to be included in the JRI project. In 1820, there were four Jewish births out of a total of 111 births recorded in the Biechow parish. That works out to be 3.6% of the total.

Year: 1820      Priest: Jozef Parzelski         Gmina: Biechow     Powiat: Stopnica     Departement: Krakow      111 Total Births     LDS Microfilm#: 936660

Record #8     Date: 1/24/1820

Father: Szmul  Abramowicz,  Handlarz, Age 30, Piestrzec   House #77 (recorded as Karol Jaworski’s house)

Mother: Wiktula z Berkow, age 36

Baby: girl Chanka

Witnesses:  Leyb Berkowicz, Handlarz, age 26 Piestrzec & Judka Moskowicz, Handlarz,  <no age>, Piestrzec

—-

Record #13     Date: 2/5/1820

Father: Leyb  Szlamkiewicz,  Szkolnik, Age 50, Wojcza  House #2

Mother: Faydosz z Herszkow, age 30

Baby: boy Szlama

Witnesses:  Walsa  Jaskowicz, Pakiarz, age 40 Biechow & Mendla Moskowicz, Pakiarz,  <no age>, Wojcza

—-

Record #54     Date: 6/30/1820

Father: Mendel  Moskowicz,  Pakiarz, Age 36, Wojcza  House #64

Mother: Serla z Lewkowiczow, age 36

Baby: girl Rucka

Witnesses:  Moska  Szymolowicz, Pakiarz, age 36 Wola Biechowska & Zelman Majorkiewicz, Pakiarz,  <no age>, Biechow

—-

Record #79     Date: 8/2/1820

Father: Zelman Steyberg,  Handlarz, Age 29, Biechow  House #46

Mother: Malka z Jaskowiczow, age 24

Baby: boy Herszla

Witnesses:  Jaska Wolfowicz, Pakiarz,  44, Biechow & Moska  Szymolowicz, Pakiarz, <no age>,  Wola Biechowska

–Stanczyk

#Polish #Genealogy #Maps – Just Another Manic Map Day

Kielce - Radom (Stopnica pow. - Sandomierz pow.)

Stanczyk has a new meme: “Just Another Manic Map Day”.

The map with this article is a cross section of the old Kielce province (aka Wojewwodztwo, Gubernia). I was looking at this because of an email I received from Jonathan B. His ancestors are from Kloda with perhaps a tie to my village of Pacanow. Hence this map shows both. [Click on image to see full image]

I noticed that Jonathan’s village was JUST across the Kielce border into Radom gubernia. At one time these were both in the original Sandomierz gubernia from which the Kielce and Radom gubernias were formed from. That caused my mind to think about other resources I have stumbled across on the Internet. So let me take today to introduce a useful link for Polish researchers of Kielce / Radom gubernias (wojewwodztwo).

This is a part of the JewishGen.org website. They have copies of a Journal (which I have seen in libraries) named appropriately: Kielce-Radom Journal. The journal has now been defunct for a few years — so this Special Interrest Group (SIG) is no more, but its journals can be read online (in PDF format). Click on the link to see the list of journals.

That is my tip. Go look at their back issues. There are many useful methodology articles. It is mostly a Jewish centric journal, but the methodology applies to all genealogists who have ancestors from Kielce–Radom areas.

 

P.S.

I thought I would add a post script. In order to place this map visually, you need to know that Krakow is further south-west along the Vistula river [at the bottom]. Just off the north edge is the town of Staszow. Off the bottom edge, across the Vistula river is Szczucin [follow the road from Pacanow south across the bridge].

#Jewish #Genealogy – A Continuing Homage to Moja żona – Biechow 1819

I am continuing my efforts to retrieve/extract the Jewish records from the Catholic parish of Biechow during the years when the Catholic Church was ordered to act the civil registration authority.  My previous postings were for the years 1810-1818. inclusive.

These are the Jewish Births from 1819 recorded in Biechow parish. Ergo, this posting brings us upto: 1810-1819 inclusive. The prior post is here .

Before I begin, I have been watching the evolution of names in the church register and I thought I would offer a few observations. First off, I am a gentile genealogist. So my treatment of Jewish names as rendered in the Polish language with its complex grammar is suspect — but I am learning.

So earlier I have been struggling with the surname: Golbarka or Goberka (also rendered as Golbarkow). First off, the assumption of ‘bark’ vs ‘berk’ due to poor writing and page condition is definitely off. I now know the name is Golberg (or we would probably render in 20th century English as Goldberg/Goldburg). I think I will keep the Golberkow ending as this is the grammatical construct for referring to the family as when writing the woman’s maiden name.

Notice I have decided to drop the ending ‘a’ on men’s names — which I am also thinking I should do on many first names as well, but my lack of experience with Jewish names of the 19th century Poland causes me to wonder how to apply what William Hoffman calls, ‘The Chopping Block’ to both first and last names when Jewish. So forgive me when I write: Moska, Mendla and Herszla(which in 20th century America I’d write as Herschel as in Herschel Walker). I know I need to drop the ending ‘a’, but I am not certain as to how to write those names, so I leave them as I find them for someone more expert than I to correct. My apologies in advance.

We see three births out of 104 total births. That represents a population of about 2.88% of the total parish population. So we are in the range of 3% +/- 0.25% which seems to be what I have seen in previous years. Again realize I am trying to give an in idea of the Jewish population in proportion to the entire population of the parish in (not intimating that the Jewish peoples are participants in the church parish activities). The 3% represents a modest growth from the 2.6% in Biechow census from 1787. [See Parish Census at the top of this blog]. According to that same census, the entire set of parishes in the surrounding area was about 6.4% Jewish.

My reason for doing this assessment is to convince the JRI, that it should at some point visit all Catholic parishes to pull out the remaining Jewish people without looking at the amount of effort required to yeild such tiny results. We know they are there  — do not leave them behind. After my Social Network Analysis, I am thinking that these non-shtetl Jews are a kind of glue between the surrounding towns/shtetls.

The assessment also shows that Jews and Catholics lived side by side and not segregated [in this very rural area very near to the Austria-Poland partition]. Now this may only be true in Poland and not the rest of “The Pale of Settlement” as defined by the Czars of the Russian Empire. According to Wikipedia,  Jews (of the Pale) were not forbidden by the Czars from rural areas until 1882.

Year: 1819      Priest: Jozef Parzelski         Gmina: Biechow     Powiat: Stopnica     Departement: Krakow      104 Total Births     LDS Microfilm#: 936660

Record #38     Date: 4/17/1819 [about 1 month earlier than the 5/15/1819 record date]

Father: Mosiek Golberg,  Arendarz, Age 34, Wojcza   House #60

Mother: Fraydla z Jakow, age 32

Baby: girl Cyra

Witnesses:  Moska Samulowicz, kaczmarz, age 36 Biechow & Mendla Abramowicz, pakiarz,  <no age>, Wojcza

—-

Record #53     Date: 7/7/1819

Father: Nat Belel,  Mlynarz, Age 25, Wojcza   House #3 (listed as Jozef Pawelec ‘s house)

Mother: Rucha  z Golberkow, age 22

Baby: girl Eydla

Witnesses:  Mendla Abramowicz, pakiarz,  28, Wojcza   &  Moska Szmulowicz, pakiarz, <no age> Wola Biechowska

—-

Record #104     Date: 12/23/1819

Father: Jasek Wolf,  pakiarz, Age 45, Biechow   House #48

Mother: Blima  z Chaymowicz, age 38

Baby: boy Herszla

Witnesses:  Zalman Stemberk(Stemberg??), pakiarz,  28, Biechow   &  Berka Chaymowicz, Handlarz, <no age>  Biechow

–Stanczyk

#Genealogy #Website #Rankings – 2011

Stanczyk just read EOGN (Eastman Online Genealogy Network) and could not believe what he read. So I followed the source and read that and still did not believe. So I checked further – because I could NOT locate the benchmark/methodology of the survey which is NOT credible. I  then Googled and found this source here:  http://www.progenealogists.com/top50genealogy2011.htm .  I certainly would agree with these rankings as these are what I use most often throughout the year.

Perhaps I am not Canadian as the source EOGN quoted was and perhaps the methodology was geographic based (in Canada, with UK add-in). Dick Eastman should do some extra checking rather than just re-broadcasting bogus news. That is my expectation for EOGN. Read the EOGN blog post that  I am railing against here: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2011/09/genealogy-site-rankings.html

Certainly if I surveyed Polish Genealogy websites, my list would look differently too.

Here is the only credible 2011 Rankings:

Rank    Website                     Coverage/Content

1. Ancestry.com $ – Ancestry.com is the leading genealogical data site, and includes articles, instruction, and reference help.
2. MyHeritage.com – Focuses on genealogy community building and networking.
3. FindAGrave.com – This database of 57 million cemetery inscriptions adds about a million per month and often includes tombstone photos.
4. FamilySearch.org – This major data website sponsored by the LDS Church includes the IGI, census records, the library’s catalog and a growing collection of historical records from throughout the world, along with instruction and reference help. (4>5>5)
5. Genealogy.com $ – A major data site, includes family trees, instruction and reference help. (5>2>4)
6. Geni.com – Free, with the world’s largest collaborative family. (31>8>18)
7. MyFamily.com – Hosts family websites for sharing photos, genealogy, and more. (33>5>5)
8. FamilyLink.com $ – One of the most popular FaceBook applications helps people identify and network with their family and search billions of records. (2>80>72)
9. RootsWeb.com – One of the largest, free, user-contributed data sites, includes 575 million names in family trees, also instruction and reference help. (6>4>2)
10. AncestorHunt.com – Free genealogy search engine linking to free data. (11>11>12)
11. AccessGenealogy.com – Millions of names in 250,000 pages, along with links to free data; especially useful for Native American information, and some data. (13>14>13)
12. SearchForAncestors.com – Interactive directory of free genealogy websites and data. (12>19>21)
13. GenealogyBank.com $ – 1 billion exclusive records from 4500 newspapers and historical books. (19>31>41)
14. USGWArchives.net – A large collection of free data, arranged by state and searchable across the entire collection. (8>not ranked)
15. CyndisList.com – The best subject catalog of genealogy webpage links. (14>17>15)
16. Interment.net – Transcribed and indexed cemetery inscriptions. (16>16>16)
17. OneGreatFamily.com$ – A family tree sharing and collaboration website. (9>11>9)
18. GenealogyToday.com – Includes instruction, reference articles, and some unique data collections. (10>12>11)
19. SurnameWeb.org – A collection of surname website links; online since 1996. (48>62>26)
20. FindMyPast.co.uk$ – (Back in) 650 million British records of many types [formerly FindMyPast.com]. (57>46>50)
21. Geneanet.org – (Back in) A European collection of 400 million names in family trees, community, and submitted records. (58>42>36)
22. DeathIndexes.com – Lists of links to United States death records, by state. (23>25>31)
23. Linkpendium.com – Nine million genealogy links organized by state/county and surname. (24>24>35)
24. EllisIsland.org – Database of 24 million New York passenger arrivals that is free to search. Actual passenger list images can be printed or purchased. (15>20>14)
25. GeneBase.com – A DNA ancestry cataloguing project with 675,000 users. (21>24>24)
26. GenealogyTrails.com – Five year old site with free U.S. data contributed by volunteers. (25>35>NR)
27. GenealogyBuff.com – A free genealogy search site with hundreds of data sources. (27>134>NR)
28. FamilyTreeMaker.com – Homepage for Ancestry.com’s genealogical software. (28>21>20)
29. USGennet.org – Historical and genealogical web hosting service. (18>15>17)
30. WorldVitalRecords.com $ – The data collection provided by Family Link, with over a billion records, as well as instruction and reference help. (17>13>10)
31. FamilyTreeDNA.com – DNA testing service focused upon family history test types. (20>26>27)
32. Footnote.com $ – In conjunction with the U.S. National Archives, Footnote offers data, original records images, and more. (37>9>8)
33. KindredKonnections.com $ – Grassroots created data site with compiled family trees, and some extracted records. (29>22>19)
34. CensusFinder.com – Links to free census records. (22>29>40)
35. Archives.com $ – A major new subscription data site, launched in July 2009 and already with more than a billion names. (41>New)
36. DistantCousin.com – An online archive of genealogy records and images of historical documents. (34>23>22)
37. FamilyHistory101.com – Less than four years old and full of instruction and guidance for genealogists. (38>47>107)
38. ThePeerage.com – A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe. (44>53>58)
39. TribalPages.com – Family trees hosting with 300,000 members and 80 million names. (35>28>25)
40. RootsChat.com – (New) Free family history messaging forum with almost 3 million mostly UK messages. (57>54>NR)
41. HeritageQuestOnline.com $ – Census, PERSI (the periodical index), books, all free to you at many libraries. (32>39>39)
42. NewspaperObituaries.net – (New) A directory of obituary databases and archives on the web. (91>84>126)
43. AncientFaces.com – Share genealogy research, community pages, family photos & records more for free. (46>48>38)
44. JewishGen.org – Jewish, reference, instruction, coordination, and databases. (26>32>28)
45. PoliticalGraveyard.com – Comprehensive source of U.S. political biography that tells where many dead politicians are buried. (36>33>34)
46. CousinConnect.com – A large free queries website. (39>27>23)
47. DAR.org – Site of the largest lineage society; includes their library catalog and 32 million name index. (43>49>67)
48. FamilyTreeMagazine.com – (New) Website for popular magazine that includes shopping, links, and research tools. (55>67>47)
49. AmericanAncestors.org $ – (New) The new name for the NEHGS website and their 3,000 databases.  (73>89>87)
50. GenealogyLinks.net – 50,000 links to free sites, arranged by state and county. (53>50>43)

Dropping out of the top 50:

• GenWed.com– Online marriage records, where to order, some indexes, and more. (42>43>42)
• ObitLinksPage.com– State-by-state directory of obituaries and obituary resources. (47>not ranked)
• Genuki.org.uk– Large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. (50>34>32)
• GenoPro.com– Genealogy software that produces genograms (40>37>53)
• US-Census.org– Census abstracts (U.S. GenWeb Census Project) (49>45>37)
• Genealogy.org– (New) A listing of 400+ registered websites, ranked weekly by hits. (45>69>56)
• FamilyTiez.com– (New) A site where families can establish their own pages to share news, photos, events and genealogy with each other. (30>not ranked)

Send Me your  top 10 Polish Genealogy Websites. This will be a non-scientific survey and I will only publish my findings if I can get 36 emails and I will add in my own top 10 Polish Genealogy sites too. Do not include from the above “generic” genealogy sites. I will allow only Polish (or German, Russian, Austrian, Slavic, Czech, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Jewish, or Hungarian genealogy websites that have ties to Poland).

Email your top 10 to: Stanczyk Email

#Genealogy – Without the Sermon: Introducing “The Catholic Gene”

A new take on Genealogy and a very polished blog to boot.  Welcome to “The Catholic Gene“. Just look at these bloggers …

Jasia (Creative Gene), Donna Pointkouski who also writes What’s Past is Prologue, Stephen Danko, Sheri Fenley, Lisa (Smallest Leaf), Lisa A. Alzo, Denise Levenick, Craig Manson, and Ceil Jensen.  That’s not a blog, that’s a full blown Polish Genealogy Conference!

I had seen mention of it via my rootsweb genealogy mailing lists, then I saw it pop up on my iGoogle Genealogy Page.  I had to check it out after reading Creative Gene (see my blog roll — in fact most of these people are on it). Naturally, Stanczyk‘s curiosity  was piqued by the blog roll entry, “The Curt Jester”  — clever.

Make this a part of your Sunday ritual, its good for the soul and should be good for your genealogy too.

College Football Is Back !!!

Tuff Wolverine

Well a little diversion from my more erudite pursuits…

Somehow Stanczyk feels a case of Football Interruptus. What a crazy week!  Baylor knocks off TCU — good for the Bears. Utah St vs Auburn provided late hysterics to make for an interesting game. UM and ND interrupted by Climate Change. A Win for Big Blue and the Blues for the Irish. But next week the College World arrives in Ann Arbor. What ? “College Game Day” comes to Ann Arbor for the Throwback Jersey Game – “UNDER THE LIGHTS” of:   MICHIGAN vs NOTRE DAME .

LSU is able to set aside the distractions and in the biggest game of the week, stuffs Oregon in Arlington, TX in a first week Top-5 match-up where the lower rated team wins! Gotta love that Les Miles (LSU Coach).  Georgia and UCLA fizzle — pity Stanczyk likes Richt & Neuheisel . Minnesota played well against USC. All-in-all, I think the Pac-12 looked bad. The Big10 (uh 12) looked pretty good (IND excepted) — Welcome Big RED (Nebraska in the BIG10 AWESOME).

Post Office Department – Stanczyk’s Mailbag

From the Post Office Department

From my Mail Bag …

 

FROM:   MaryAnne
MaryAnne asked about “readability” of the blog,

REPLY:

The format of the blog/website is due to wordpress (my blogging software and website provider). Their programs/widgets dictate the “style” which I have very little control over. I will try and write using a bigger “format” (ex. Heading 4 instead of paragraph). I cannot write in all bold as that will actually make things harder to read for more people.

But I suspect the problem is really your browser. Fortunately, most browsers now allow a “zoom” feature. I can give you help with either Internet Explorer or Firefox(Mozilla) browsers.

In Internet Explorer (popular in Windows computers), you would hit ‘Alt-X’. That is press and hold the ‘Alt’ key next to spacebar, and while still holding down the ‘Alt’ key press ‘x’. Hence Alt-x. This will bring up a “contextual” menu near the top of your browser window. “Zoom” is the third choice. It will bring up a list of zoom-levels. I recommend 125% or 150% for you. That should improve the readability for you.

In Firefox, you press “Ctrl-Shift-+” to zoom in and “Ctrl–” That is Control-plus to zoom in and Control-minus to zoom out. As with the “Alt” key, the “Ctrl” key must be pressed and held down while you type the other key(s).

Let me know if you use another browser. I do have Safari for Windows (sadly Stanczyk is making do with a Windows computer instead of his beloved MAC).

If the “zoom” feature improves your ability to read my blog, then I will not make any changes. You may also want to have someone to adjust the contrast/color on your monitor for you too. I know I had to really tinker with these Windows computers to get the colors to give me the proper contrast. This was something I took for granted in the MAC world.

Stanczyk too has “very aged” eyes from years of working on computers. Thanks MaryAnne!

 

—————————-

FROM: Jonathan

Jonathan asked about Pacanów and Kłoda, his Pytko family,  and how hard it is to read “Old Russian”.

REPLY:

Jonathan, thanks for writing. As for emails – you can send me A church record and I will be happy to read it for you and send you a translation of the “Old Russian” (pre-1918 reforms). You can write to me at: Stanczyk@eliasz.com . OK?  Any pictures you send me via email may or may not be used in the blog as part of the answer [fair use].

As for Pacanów, the LDS have four microfilm of the Pacanów(Busko-Zdroj) in Kielce(old woj.). There are a few Kłoda villages. Is yours the one near Radom? That Kłoda has parish of Magnuszew (no microfilm for this parish). Here are the four microfilm (1875-1884) for Pacanów(Busko-Zdroj):

Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów 1875 – FHL INTL Film [ 1192351 Item 10 ]
Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów 1876-1877 – FHL INTL Film [ 1192352 Items 1-2 ]
Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów 1878-1881 – FHL INTL Film [ 1807621 Items 8-11 ]
Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów 1882-1884 – FHL INTL Film [ 1807622 Items 1-3 ]

Akta urodzeń, małżeństw, zgonów = Birth, Marriage, Death records.

I have seen Pytko/Pytka in Pacanów and Świniary parishes.

–Stanczyk

#Jewish #Genealogy – A Continuing Homage to Moja żona – Biechow 1818

I am continuing my efforts to retrieve/extract the Jewish records from the Catholic parish of Biechow during the years when the Catholic Church was ordered to act the civil registration authority.  My previous postings were for the years 1810-1817. inclusive.

These are the Jewish Births from 1818 in Biechow parish. Ergo, this posting brings us upto: 1810-1818 inclusive. The prior post is here .

Year: 1818      Priest: Jozef Parzelski         Gmina: Biechow     Powiat: Stopnica     Departement: Krakow      85 Total Births

Record #3     Date: 1/1/1818

Father: Mosiek Merzdal, Handlarz, Age 28, Wojcza   House #50

Mother: Sorli z Lewkow, age 24

Baby: boy Herczyk

Witnesses:  Jaska Jaskowicz, pakiarz, age 42 Wojcza & Moska Szymolewicz, kaczmarz,  <no age>, Biechow

—-

Record #12     Date: 2/1/1818

Father: Jasek Jaskowicz, Pakiarz, Age 42, Wojcza   House #2

Mother: Estera z Nutow, age 36

Baby: girl Ruskla

Witnesses:  Moska Golbarka, Arendarz, age 34 Wojcza & Moska Szymolewicz, szynkarz,  <no age>, Biechow

—-

Record #15     Date: 2/14/1818

Father: Mosiek Szymolewicz, Szynkasz, Age 36, Biechow   Biechow Inn #77

Mother: Setla z Slorkow, age 36

Baby: girl Esterka

Witnesses:  Moska Golbarka, arendarz, age 34 Wojcza & Simela Komnan, kaczmarzek,  56, Jastrzebica (parish Stopnica)

So we have 3 births in 1818 out of 84 total births, which is 3.6% of birth population. Also note that Mosiek Szymolewicz was in all three records with no age given in the first two records where he was a witness, finally we get his age as the father in the third birth record. Also note the visiting witness from Jastrzebica village which is identified as being in the Stopnica parish.

As usual, I give the JRI permission to use these Jewish records in their databases [if they ever get around to visiting my blog].

I can quickly pick out the Jewish records out  as they hand-write their names in Hebrew script. It is possible that my using this method may cause me to miss a Jewish record if the record was not signed with Hebrew [although let me hasten to add that very few records are signed, maybe another 4-5 beyond the Hebrew signatures and most of those other signatures I recognize as Catholic families that I have in my family tree.]

#Polish #Genealogy #Blog – Stanczyk Thanks His Visitors …

Visitors Last 60 Days - Cumulative

About two months ago, on the 4th of July, Stanczyk decided to put a counter on the blog/website to see who you, my gentle readers are. Thank you for coming and for your emails — please keep them coming.

Since the blog is written in English, with a smattering of Polish, or Russian or even Latin, I suspected the English speaking world (US, CA, GB, AU) would be the majority. As you can see by the flags of the world and the numbers besides the flags,  representing yourselves, that is true.

Since much of the subject matter is Polish/Slavic genealogy based, then I was not surprised to find Poland my second largest country of interested viewers — Dziękuję bardzo . Indeed my thanks to all of the Central/Eastern Europeans from: PL, DE, RU, CZ, AT, UA, BY, LT and even HR — you know who you are.

I am pleased with Canada since many Polish genealogists or genealogists in general  who trace the Polonian diaspora came through Canada, as was the case in some of Stanczyk’s family tree. I am pleasantly surprised by the Nordic nations (SE, NO, DK), but of course there was much intermingling with the Polish peoples in a time long ago, including Mieszko I ‘s grandson Canute (aka Cnut the Great) who went on to great influence in the Nordic countries and finally in the United Kingdom itself.

As for the rest of the world, I am glad you came too. I thank you for your polite inquisitiveness.

I would urge all interested parties who blog, to use the Flag Counter — why not? I think the experiment was a success. I now know I am reaching my target audience (and a bit more besides) globally.

You can find the flag on the Map pages or the Dziennik Polski (Detroit, MI) pages. Click on the flags and it will take you the Flags Counter website where you can get your own.

Thanks for being a part of my experiment. For my part, I think I will keep it going to see how many Flags of the world I can collect or how many US states (32 so far) or Canadian provinces (5) I can wrangle in.

 

Your Host,

–Stanczyk