Stanczyk, is a big fan of using historical newspapers to do research and to tell the family history story.
This was a random image (pdf) this jester selected from Tom Tryniski‘s great Fulton History et. al. website. By happenstance it included a column from the Polish Consulate and its office in Buffalo, NY. This is from The Polish Weekly newspaper of 1930-January-19th, a Niagara Falls / Tonawanda Polish Language Historical newspaper that he had scanned.
One of my projects is to see if I can replicate his efforts on the Dziennik Polski (Detroit) newspaper that I have written about in the blog numerous times and even have ( a partially restored) Rootsweb Free User Page on here.
So my goal is a three part blog (counting today’s article) on Polish Language historical newspapers. I want to build interest in these resource for genealogy and your family history stories, which may be inside your ancestor’s local newspapers.
Today I will deconstruct what you might find in a Polish Consulate column. To follow along, you can click on the image, and then click on the zoom (magnify glass with +) and see a larger image. Let me start off by listing the names found in the article (in case someone is googling their ancestor):
Jozef Jankowski, Jedrzej Porada, Jozef Spiewak, Pietkiewicz (alias Piekiewicz), Albin (aka Alfons), Jozef Zemanek, Aleksander Jarczynski, Wojciech Jablonski, Wojciech Macior, Piotr, Dmytrow, Sebestjan Rychlik, Antoni Wesolowski, Wojciecj Socha, Piotr Rutkowski, Stanislaw Skrzypek, Antoni Sowa, Stanislaw Kuziora, Stefan Kierzak, Jan Magsiuk, Marianna Chlebowicz.
Let me start with the preface in the column, that describes the Polish Consulate’s purpose.
Konsulat uprasza osby nizej wyszczegolnione, lub osoby mogace udzielic o nich informacji …
Which translates (roughly):
The consulate is asking for the people below, or people who can provide information about them …
Ok, so the Polish Consulate is seeking these people or information about these people so that they can contact them for some purpose (usually about something/somebody back in the old country).
Today we will deconstruct the last person and see what kind of info we might find about your ancestor; her name is Marianna Chlebowicz.
zona Stefana, (she is wife of Stefan Chlebowicz).
z domu Maciejewska, corka Franciszka i Jozefa z Dymkowskich. (her maiden name is Maciejewska, daughter of Franciszek Maciejewski & Jozefa Dymkowska).
poszukiwana przez siostre Helena w sprawie bardzo waznej ([She is] wanted by [her] sister Helena in a very important matter).
Wow that is a goldmine of genealogical information about Marianna Chlebowicz. Women are hard to find sometimes after they marry if their husband’s name is not known. We know her maiden name, her husband’s name, her parent’s names, and that she has a sister, Helen.
Please note that you would want to search for ‘Konsulat‘ in any newspaper database to find these Polish Consulate columns. Also, they are written in POLISH! Do not let that deter you, as you can use GOOGLE TRANSLATE (translate.google.com) to translate the text.
I hope this whets your appetite for Polish Language Historical newspapers or even just using local newspapers (written in English). To this point, I have only spoken in context about American newspapers! You can also find Historical Newspapers of Poland too in various Polish Archives or Online Digital Libraries.
First off, let me state that Jan Paluch (1828-1882) is dead. I went to Metryki.genbaza.pl and retrieved his death record (Akt 17 in 1882 Pacanow Deaths) and determined he died (23-February-1882) at age 54. Yet his death seems to be what triggered this court case.
I have 30 images to wade through in old Russian written using cursive Cyrillic characters and filled with legalese. A daunting task to be sure. Putting these loose images together into a coherent narrative is difficult … there’s some blurriness, some pages fold into crease, some Russian/Cyrillic words are hard to translate, the span of time, and some people whose role in the case is not defined or explained.
Participants
Jan Paluch (deceased)
Wojciech Elijasz (unexplained person)
Marcin Elijasz (plaintive, not explained)
Antoni & Agnieszka Janicki Wojtys (defendants)
Kasper & Aniela Paluch Pawlowski (plaintives)
Jozef Eliasz & Maryanna Paluch Elijasz (plaintives)
Walenty Paluch & Magdalena Major Paluch (plaintives)
If Stanczyk may, let me gush over a 4th cousin who went to Poland & remembered this jester! Her name is Martha.
I did not know Martha’s family name from Pacanow. After we worked together I was surprised to see a connection between my 2x great-grandfather Jozef Elijasz and her ancestors! I even found one female, Salomea ELIJASZ that I previously did not know who had married into her family.
She traveled all around Poland meeting her family and doing tourist things. Then she visited the ancestral villages: Biechow & Pacanow (a shared ancestral village). The church pictures & cemetery pictures were sublime. We worked remotely on a church record & I was able to let her know about her friend’s ancestor (Dubiński) being born in Nowy Korczyn & they were able to make a quick jaunt down there for research. Genealogy is truly collaborative. I was envying my 4th cousin’s genealogical adventure.
Then she made her way to the AP Archive in Kielce. She took a ton of pictures and I was able to learn from her sharing her experience & expertise at AP Kielce. She took this jester’s wish list and made a HUGE dent with her finds! More on this tomorrow.
Stanczyk ‘s wife, (moja żona, Tereza Eliasz-Solomon) is Jewish. Jewish genealogy is even harder then Polish genealogy … due to so much documentation being destroyed or too little remaining.
So I knew her paternal grandmother (Bessie Wolf). I knew of her brother Harry Wolf. I was pretty sure their father was Israel Wolf whose wife had many variations on her first name. I knew Harry’s wife’s name (Rose Itskowicz another family probably from Maramures region (modern day Romania and part now in Ukraine (Drahovo/Kovesliget). So with these tiny bits and records being added to the Internet (Ancestry, FamilySearch, JewishGen, etc.), I have been able to knit together a smallish narrative and more importantly enlarge it.
So I found a death certificate for Harry Wolf. I knew his wife, his birth (roughly), his death, his parents names. But I did learn his FINAL residence/address. I wrote it down (good genealogist) in the tree. I decide to look for his siblings on the basis of Wolf, died in Philly, with a father named ISRAEL. Just those bits and then proceed through each one and look at the mother’s name (for Nancy, Nessie, Gussie, etc.).
So I found a Samuel Wolf. I had Simon, Samuel, Max, Louis and my wife’s grandmother, Bessie. I never knew Samuel’s wife’s name. In Samuel’s death certificate, his wife precede him in death (pity, her name was needed). But he had the right parent names so I was getting comfortable. His birth location and birth date were in the tolerance for correct. So I was more comfortable. I looked at the Informant. His name was Harry Wolf. Unfortunately, Wolf is a common name in Philadelphia (Christian and Jewish families) and Harry & Samuel were common Wolf first names. Oh, the Informant’s address was there? Well what do you know it was the newly learned address for Harry Wolf (who died after his brother Samuel). So, I had reached 100% certainty now. Two death certificates juxtaposed against each other with slim tidbits of info and I had furthered my wife’s family history!
Stanczyk does intensive research. So what do you do when you find a treasure and its not related to your search? I guess I record it (for another time) and blog about it!
So here is another in my ongoing meme, “Things I Find…”. Perhaps you already know that this jester is a bibliophile. As a genealogist, I collect stories and their authors and retell the stories in my way.
So yesterday I was combing through historical newspapers, regarding the blacksheep, Stanley Gawlikowski (aka Gawlick, alias Gawley), who met his demise most unfortunately. That is why, I was reading the Toledo Blade newspapers from August 1924. So its funny or serendipitous when others share genealogical events contemporaneously with the denizens of my family tree.
As you may have surmised, I found an article on the death of Joseph Conrad (reported as from Asthma) on 3-August-1924. And, you would be correct. I found the obituary story, plus another story about the Polish boy AND a third story about Henryk Sienkiewicz whose remains were being exhumed from Vevey, Switzerland to be re-buried in Poland. I guess technically you should record two burial events for Henryk. He now lies entombed in Warsaw’s St. John’s Cathedral (Katedra sw. Jana).
So Stanczyk did not find anything about Stanley, but found August 1924 Polish genealogical events about famous Polish authors: Joseph Conrad & Henryk Sienkiewicz.
Stanczyk almost always feels elated when you can find an image for one of your ancestors. It enhances the tree to see the person’s face. Lacking that I like to put a valuable document as the image for the person.
However, finding the only picture of someone in your tree from a newspaper article, above the fold, seems to be a bittersweet blessing to this jester. You see Stanley Gawlick is shown in the Detroit Free Press from 1927 with a few of his business associates. The bitterness is that and his associates are connected with a story on thugs/criminality (ok, bank robbery / rabuś bankowy).
So dear readers, do you have any blacksheep in your tree?
Stanczyk’s wife, Tereza Eliasz-Solomon, has Italo-Albano blood of Skanderbeg flowing through her veins! So it was a thrill when another Facebook genealogist passed along this marriage record for my wife’s 3x great-grandparents.
Ancestry updated their mobile app. The main feature is now you can view parts of your family tree on a map. So they added a 3rd “tab” at the top. It is after the “Vertical”, “Horizontal” tree orientation, you now have a “Map” orientation of viewing your tree.
If you have NOT been thorough in your place name hierarchy, you may find a few interesting placements of events. It was easy to click on the event and correct the place name hierarchy. So it is a good thing to catch where your genealogy has been a bit sloppy. If your place name is missing or very non-standard (using an old country, ex. Jugoslavia, Czechoslovakia), then your ancestor will not appear on the map.
Stanczyk’s readings have converged. I was reading the book in picture, by author (historian, researcher), Manuel Rosa. This topic has re-occurred, quite a few times. My blog articles on whether Columbus was Polish are here:
There were a few other references in my blog beyond those. I even traded a few emails with the author too! So I guess I am obsessed with this topic.
Today’s blog originates because I was reading Manuel Rosa’s book and I was also looking a wikipedia article about early Poles in America. In the wikipedia was one Franciszek Warnadowicz who arrived 1492??? Warna as in Battle of Varna/Warna and owicz as in: of, from, or connected with. So we have Franciszek who is of/from/connected to Warna. Franciszek moved/lived in Cadiz, Spain. According to materials Franciszek or his son Franciszek/Francisco was enrolled as a member of Columbus/Colon’s crew in 1492. Franciszek Warnadowicz has the dubious distinction of being the first European to die in the Americas (at Hispanola).
So my book review ensues…
I was reading “Columbus: The Untold Story“, by Manuel Rosa. The book has 17 chapters & an Epilogue spanning 325 pages. It also has an appendix and a Notes Section that is 12 pages of very interesting citations/notes. So this is no fluff book. It has stretches that are a bit pedantic but over all the author conveys how he reached his conclusion that Christobal Colon was Polish and was in known as Wladyslaw IV a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth noble (Jagiellonian Line).
Mr. Rosa is trying to overturn five centuries of misconceptions, with his thesis that Wladyslaw III, survived the Battle of Varna 1444. History built a tomb for Wladyslaw III and named him Wladyslaw Warnensi (or Warneńczyk). So when I saw that Christobal Colon had a Polish crewman named Franciszek WARNAdowicz with him in 1492. I had an Eureka moment. Suprisingly this historical footnote was missing from Manuel Rosa’s anecdotal arguments in the book, as I think this is another circumstantial argument that supports the author’s claim!
The book has lavish illustrations and pictures to accompany the author’s text. The narrative while not always exciting, is at least compelling. But as a genealogist, Chapter 17 (Son of The Hermit King) was all I really needed to see. Genealogy is History for this jester. I agree he needed to make the detailed and well researched arguments of the the first 16 Chapters and I understand as a Portuguese native these are the compelling part. I mean honestly how could the Polish family, under its pseudonym (double pseudonyms) have such privilege if Columbus were a commoner? He makes the excellent argument of the names (pseudonyms) and the secrecy required by both Wladyslaw III and his son(s) to remain safe. These were marriages of nobles, educated nobles. Poles, Portuguese, Spaniards. They were all royals!
Many Chapters are focused on Spain & Portugal and they too include genealogies and histories. So if you you are Spanish or Portuguese then these first 6 Chapters will be of interest (really the whole book). It is after all Portuguese-centric. The early books were in Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish. So this jester was glad they got around to an English translation. The book is filled with symbols and their decoding. It’s kind of like a real live, Dan Brown tale. There was also an argument about distances and the mathematics and I being an engineer loved that discussion. The double-swapped identity to protect Wladyslaw (III & IV) from the Ottomans or Muslim assassins was a bit beyond Occam’s Razor. I would have loved to see some work on Wladyslaw IV’s brothers and their genealogy. Also, with all of the Genetic Genealogy, why has no Jagiellonian DNA been tested against Christobal Colon? The book seems to rule out Italian ancestry via DNA, but what holds back the Polish confirmation.
Still I believe Christobal Colon was Polish and a noble. But belief is not proof. Manuel Rosa, get some Polish DNA to prove Christobal Colon was Polish. The Slavics have distinctive haplotypes. It should be easy to determine if he’s Polish/Lithuanian (as any Jagiellonian would be) and he has done enough to prove nobility from circumstantial evidence. I do so love the era of #Genetic #Genealogy!
P.S.
I am now reading a book on Colon’s last voyage (the Vizcaina), so I hope to get more info about Warnadowicz.
In the marriage of Wladysław Fras & Agnieszka née Leszczyńska Michniewska, Stanczyk found an unusual section of text not present in most marriage records.
Wladysław was born in Bendin uezd, Piotrkowski gubernia (south-west corner of map). So his ability to marry in the church needed to be verified with a birth/baptism (one alegata purpose).
From the marriage, I found an odd and difficult section of text to decipher (as if all old Russian/Cyrillic cursive handwriting were not enigmatic enough).
From this odd section, if I understand correctly, three things are made known:
Wlad had an urgent requirement to serve in the army.
Wlad’s mom & four witnesses had to attest to his birth on February 10th (after marriage performed January 26th, and before it was recorded February 12th).
So it appears the attestation was good and the marriage was good. Sadly, I never found Wlad’s birth record and my hope was to get it as an alegata at this marriage (I had his siblings’ birth, just not Wlad’s). Dad was dead. Mom attested. Now I wonder who the four witnesses were? Let’s see: Witness1, Witness2, the performing clergy, and ??? Perhaps the godfather was the fourth or the church organist [so many organists in my church records]. Alas, no record of the four witnesses or attestation. I have Wlad’s birth year (derived from age at marriage and fits between two siblings’s births) and that will have to do.
An interesting marriage record! So I ask you, “Do you have any military grooms that needed a quick marriage before shipping out to the Russian (|Prussian|Austrian) army?” If so, please post a comment or email this jester.
The last time we saw the record, Akt#5 in Solec 1890 Marriages bewteen Wladyslaw Fras & Agnieszka Leszczynska.
This is minus one unusual section that is hard to translate/understand.
Here’s an abridged translation:
It happened in Solec on 31-Jan/12-Feb 1890
Witnesses: Jan Majczak 39 of Piestrzec & Jan Biernik of Kikow age 40
Groom: Wladyslaw Fras bachelor, 32 in army born in Uiejsce, parish Wojkowice Koscielne, Bendzin uezd Piotrkowska gubernia residing in Kikow, parish Dobrowoda living with mother , Jan (father deceased) & mother Marianna née Bielasinska;
<additional text goes here>
to
Bride: Agnieszka Leszczynska Michniewska widow of deceased Jozef died 1 year ago; age 23 born in village/parish Biechow & residing in Zwierzyniec, parish Solec daughter of Tomasz & the deceased Julianna Kordos legally Leszczynskich
3 banns:
read in Dobrowoda & Solec parishes on 31-Dec/12-Jan, 7th/19th Jan, 14th/26th Jan this year
The image is in my last blog post below 👇🏻.
Now given the above: Groom born elsewhere, Bride born elsewhere, Bride widowed, I would expect … about 4 pages of alegata to include Wladyslaw’s birth record, Agnieszka’s birth record, Agnieszka’s 1st husband’s death record and the image at the top of this blog post. But the reality is that I only received the image at the top.
Does anyone know why? Email or comment on the blog please.
My Guess
Agnieszka’s husband died in this parish and the death was last year (1889). I did confirm that the death record did exist in the parish (Solec) books for 1889 Deaths. Ok, the priest did not feel the need to include an alegata for the death. Agnieszka born in Biechow and now living in Zwierzyniec made her a known entity in the parish, even though she was born in Biechow and she married 1st husband (Jozef Michniewski) in Biechow. So the priest did not feel the need for her birth alegata either; Especially since she and her 1st husband had two kids and they were baptised and living in Solec. But what about Wladyslaw?
He was not just born in another parish. His parish was in another gubernia too! Why no birth alegata for him? Tomorrow, my guess about the puzzling text that was unusual in most marriage records. Also another question too!
Christmas came early for Stanczyk this year. The metryki at Genbaza & Genealodzy were updated. This jester was able to find the second marriage of my great-grandfather’s daughter (not my grandmother, her half-sister, Agnieszka Leszczynska Michniewska Fras)!
At Genbaza they added Solec Zdroj (1875-1913). At Genealodzy they added Stopnica (1875-1917) to the Busko powiat. Now Stopnica was already at Genbaza, but Genealodzy added the years 1910-1917 on top of what Genbaza already had.
So I’ll be busy searching through the end of 2018! Next time, a question about the Alegata for the above marriage record.
Prince Harry & Duchess of Sussex Meghan will have children who are 19th cousins to Władysław Jagiełło King of Poland & Grand Duchy Of Lithuania (& Queen Jadwiga)!
Stanczyk loves alegata. Let’s see you have Birth (urodzony/chrzest), Marriage (małżeństwo/słuby, zapiowiedzi), Alegata, Death (Zgony/Śmierci). The cycle of life via church records (sacrements). Reading alegata are very interesting indeed. Sometimes its like gossip… “Do you know who is getting married here?” Other times its solemn, like the death of a soldier. But it is a time machine of sorts, that allows you to see backward and on rare occasions forward. It is this time machine capability that may help you locate missing records.
What are Alegata?
Alegat is a Polish word of Latin origin, from allegatio, “sending someone as an intermediary; a citation of proof; a submitted document.”
It is not only an interesting relic of phraseology from ecclesiastical language, it provides great potential genealogical documents of significance. This word, seemingly forgotten and archaic, is currently undergoing a rebirth, precisely because of genealogy. Many beginning researchers do not know about the existence and meaning of these documents. Alegata is the plural of Alegat. Sometimes they are found at the end of church books as loose pages. When they are found in their own books, they are called Alegata or Aneksy. They are most common in the former Russian-Poland partition. As is shown in the picture (by red arrows) they date to just after the Napoleonic Era.
What were Alegata Used For?
These are Polish Church documents to establish an eligibility for a church sacrament. Most often they are used for marriages. Their purpose is often to document a death and thus making the widow/widower eligible to remarry in the church. Sometimes its used where the groom (most often) if from a remote/foreign parish is a baptised Catholic. I have seen a few other purposes: name change, soldier’s death, etc. Often the inquiries in later years are from courts or remote Polish parishes and are forms. However, for the genealogist, they can fill in the gap for a missing church record. Often because of the marriage aspect, they can help you (the genealogist) track movements of your ancestors across parishes. In the coming articles, we’ll look at a few examples.
A ponderously long search for an ancestral parish is over!
Stanczyk was humbled. This jester could always find someone’s ancestral parish in the Russian-Poland partition (zabory). Yet in his own family tree the Sobieszczanski (aka Sobb) I was unable to locate.
Doubling the frustration is I had Stanisław (Stanley) Roman Sobieszczanski ‘s Naturalization papers. It plainly said Lesnik, Russian Poland.
The problem? In the Skorowidz Miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej there were 19 Lesnik/Lesniki and in the Russian-Poland Gazetteer there were another handful (some possibly overlapping as they were different time periods. There were no LESNIK. I had to consider diacriticals (accents). The L could be Ł and the e could be ę and the s could be ś and the n could be ń. Thankfully, the i and k did not have diacritics. But that still left a lot of combinations. But one-by-one I searched. I looked up in the gazeteers and found parishes. Some were not online, but many were. Alas, those online did not have any Sobieszczanski. I searched http://regestry.lubgens.eu/news.php (Lubgens) and there were Sobieszczanski, but I could not confirm they were mine. No Lesnik. I searched in geneszukacz.genealodzy.pl too and again I found Sobieszczanski but again no good matches and not good enough locations to believe that is what Stanley meant.
That’s when I thought to look at a map that indicated parishes. I still thought Lesnik was a parish. So I went to: http://ipgs.us/mapinfo/atlas1907/main.html . I looked at the Lublin powiat (map 31); nothing promising, but I did see a village on the border of an adjacent powiat named Sobieszczany, so I thought perhaps they came from there. So I looked in the adjacent Janow (map39) and I found a couple of Lesnik (duzy/maly) villages in B3 quadrant.
I could not find Lesnik Duzy or Maly in any gazetteer???. Frustration. In looking at map 39, I saw Marynopol looked to be near a circle with a cross that indicated a parish. But I could not find Marynopol in the gazetteer. Very puzzling. I tried to find nearly named towns and I did find one but it was in Kielce gubernia, not Lublin. So I looked and saw GOSCIERADOW. I quick checked metryki.genebaza.pl and saw they had GOSCIERADOW in Kielce-AP Sandomierz. Only 1890-1901 but at least I could see if there were any Sobieszczanski and get my bearings as too what Sobieszczanski looked like in Russian/Cyrillic and in cursive handwriting. My first try I found Jan Sobieszcanski in 1891 (see top pic). His record indicated he lived in LISNIK. Well what do you know Jan’s parents were Michal Sobieszczanski & Stanislawa Kowalska and these were the names I had from Stanley’s first marriage record in USA (Depew, NY). So I was pretty sure (99%) that I had my parish. But they did not go back before 1890 and Stanley clearly enumerated many times his birth year was 1886. However, his younger brother Tadeusz had come to the USA as well and I had his info, so I looked up the birth year and it was 1896! Ok, they had that year in the range 1890-1901, so I should find a Tadeusz in 1896 (+/- 1 year). Ok, his birthday was in October (not December), but the year and the parent names were exact matches, the village a very close match. I was now 100% certain I had my parish and my family. Success!
P.S.
LISNIK DUZY was in the gazetteer and GOSCIERADOW was the parish.
Stanczyk, always thought that while Poland was partitioned (1772-1918) and from 1868-1918 that the vital records and other “official” documentation in the Russian partition (zabór) were written in Russian / Cyrillic. Perhaps that is not PRECISELY true.
Consider for example the image with this article. In fact let us examine marriage #4 (at the bottom image), bewteen Waclaw Balabanski & Maryanna Zwolska. All of the text is written in Polish (not Russian, nor Latin). Even the index for 1916 was written in Polish/Latin characters. However, in 1915 the records were written in Russian/Cyrillic characters. Now this is a rural part of Poland and perhaps lacking in oversight, but cognizant of the politics/war raging.
What may be happening and reflected in the church records is, that in 1915 a temporary client-state was setup by Germany & Austria-Hungary due to the Russia’s withdrawal from the World War (I) and the chaos in the Russian Empire (with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917). So the Russian-Poland partition was not so obliged to write in Russian any more now that there was no more Russian hegemony in Poland.
What lovely information these books show, besides the marriage in 13-February-1916, we also see the death dates for the bride groom in 1951, 1979. We also get precise birthdays for the newlyweds as well as their ages.
Well earlier (a few blogs ago, 20-February-2018)), Stanczyk, dropped his favorite meme, “Things I Found…“. In actuality, this jester was searching for military conscript lists. I had one and needed help interpreting the data. That bit of seeking help resulted in my finding a news account of my great-great-grandfather Marcin Elijasz in an historical Polish newspaper from 1879.
I found two conscript lists (poborowi) in digitized historical newspapers from the 1930’s (Poland between the Wars era). I am struggling with what to do as the amount of data is in 2,000[1933 list], 7,328[1932 list] (9,328 total) names from both articles. After analyzing the data, what I found was:
While Stanczyk was searching newspapers for military conscripts, he found many items useful to genealogy…
Today was a landholders chart for Niegosławice village, in Pacanów gmina, Stopnica powiat of 22-June-1933.
Found in Newspaper: Kielecki Dziennik Wojewódzki
Stanczyk would like to call your attention to one of his ancestors, on line 12 (Leon Wleciał).
This chart had four columns:
Line Number, Landholder(s), Plot Number, Plot area in ha (hectares).
So on Line #12 (col. 1), we see Leon Wleciał (col. 2), Plot #18 (col. 3), 6.1019ha (col. 4).
This Leon was not the Leon who came to America, but the Leon who was a witness/god-father in church records for the Wleciałowscy who came to America (and some who stayed in Poland too).
The above image is from an Alegata in support of an 1878 marriage where the bride was from out parish (Biechów parish / parafia, Kielce Gubernia, Russian-Poland; the bride was originally born in Dębica parish, Austrian Empire, Galicia Kingdom, Pilzno District, Tarnów diocese.
Baby: Marianna Czajka daughter of Joseph Czajka & Catharina Golec
Joseph Czajka son of Apolonia Czajka (Illeg. )
Catharina Golec dau. of Sebastian Golec & Sophia Bielacik
Born: 28-February-1854
Extracted: 5-January-1878 for alegata in support of 1878 Biechów Marriage Akt. 1
Stanczyk believes in persistence and serendipity when it comes to genealogical research. This jester believes a genealogical researcher makes his/her serendipity through that persistence, the bull-dogged determinism and hard work that yields the sweet fruit.
Oh and after a few years of experience THEN you may trust your instincts. First learn. Learn genealogical research. Learn your family including friends and geography; understand that social network then you play your hunches and trust your instincts in the face of scant or missing data.
As usual, I have a personal story to demonstrate what I mean. This small story is part of a larger story which is part of an even larger story. But I will start with small story and roll-up fractal-like into the larger fractal pictures (uh stories).
I was trying to find Stanislaw Krzyzycki (Stanisław Krzyżycki po polskiu), specifically his birth record in Poland in the area of my paternal grandparents (cluster genealogy / social-network-analysis). That was my goal. I had many US documents and knew a lot about Stanley and his brother Walter/Wladyslaw and their life in Niagara Falls / Buffalo NY. I also saw a soft connection to my grandparents and to a Stanley Eliasz that for years I suspected was a cousin of my grandfather Joseph Eliasz. But Stanley Eliasz and Stanley Krzyzycki remained opaque to me. I tucked them into a virtual shoe-box that I would return to. This is a part of the next larger story/goal.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the old country, “Poland” I had a parallel situation. I had an Antoni Elijasz who was married to Katarzyna Krzyzycka. With the launch of Genbaza (metryki.genbaza.pl) I had new avenues of research to connect America to Poland. I had a couple of Elusive Stanley Eliasz/Elyasz to resolve.
Stanley Elyasz came to Detroit from Pacanów the same as my grandfather but there was no family memory of Stanley Elyasz. Stanley Eliasz in Buffalo was even more opaque. Eventually genbaza solved both puzzles. I knew Stanley Elyasz (Detroit) was the son of Marcin Elijasz & his 2nd of three wives, Agnieszka Skwara. I also knew that Marcin Elijasz and my great-grandfather Jozef Elijasz were brothers (two sons of Marcin Elijasz & Anna Zasucha my 2x-greatgrandparents). So I finally had Genealogical proof, not just a hunch that Stanley Elyasz was my grandfather’s first-cousin.
I also connected Stanley Eliasz to his parents, Antoni Elijasz/Katarzyna Krzyzycki and his sister, Helena through genbaza birth records. Antoni Elijasz was still opaque and as yet not drawn as a son of Marcin Elijasz/Anna Zasucha (though that is a long held hunch). So Stanley Eliasz (Buffalo) I could not yet confirm as another first-cousin to my grandfather. But I now know his parents.
Anyway, this small story is about Stanley Krzyzycki. For a long time I suspected my grandparent’s picture from 1913 was taken by a Krzyzycki in Buffalo/Niagara area. So any way the documents in the US led me to believe these NY Krzyzycki (Krzyzyckich ?) were related to Antoni’s wife, Katarzyna Krzyzycki. With the websites: Geneszukacz & Genbaza I was able to locate Krzyzycki in Pacanow & Szczebrzusz (try and get those American teeth & tongues around those Polish phonemes!!).
I found Ludwik Krzyzycki & Franciszka Sikora. Easily enough I found Stanley Krzyzycki’s brother, Walter/Wladyslaw and his birth record. I also found Aleksander Jan Krzyzycki too. But no Stanislaw. I did see a few possible female Krzyzyckich who could also be siblings too. But I focused on a marriage record for a Joanna Krzyzycka because I knew if she was a sister then she would be older and would be a bookend child (along with Wladyslaw) and I would expect Stanislaw to be born between these two children. So I persisted. I read Joanna’s marriage record and yes she was a sister of Stanley Krzyzycki. She also married a man whose family name I did not recognize. So I looked at Joanna’s husband and indeed he was born outside the parish (Pacanów). Now from long experience I knew there would be an alegata or two about Joanna & her husband (Antoni Bąk). I found that Joanna’s age indicated an 1880 birth. Ergo, she was older. I had my bookend child. What I did not expect to find was an Alegata of Joanna’s birth. Great I had her exact birthdate. But wait that meant Joanna was born elsewhere too, another parish besides Pacanow. Joanna was born in Zborówek! Zborówek is an adjoining parish to Pacanów.
Ok now its getting interesting. First, I confirm Joanna’s birth by finding her actual birth record (Akt42) in 1880 Zborówek. Good. Now I walk forward, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, …,bingo! In 1885, (April 12th 1885), I found Stanisław Krzyżycki and this date matches some of his US records too! Wow that is persistence! Oh and the serendipity of such persistence? It turns out that Stanisław Krzyzycki’s Godfather is Antoni Elijasz.
Wow, Stanley Eliasz & Stanley Krzyzycki are 1st cousins (not proven but a 75% likelihood by my estimate). So Katarzyna Krzyzycki & Ludwik Krzyzycki are siblings. Now I had proven a hard connection between Eliasz & Krzyzycki who came to America.
I also have Eliasz & Krzyzycki in:
Pacanów, Zborówek and Szczebrzusz.
This can lead to many new facts (with research):
Krzyzycki photographer took 1913 Eliasz photo in NY.
Antoni Elijasz is a brother of my 2nd greatgrandfather, Jozef Elijasz.
Stanley Eliasz (son of Antoni) is a cousin of Julian Elijasz (son of Ludwik Elijasz). I already know that their two wives are sisters from Pacanów. These two Janicki sisters are a sister and a cousin of my two Dorota Elijasz 2nd-cousins’ grandmothers!
So oddly enough I have connected Stanley Eliasz (Buffalo) to my family tree via the JANICKI affiliated family.
I have since found more Eliasz Godparents to Krzyzycki children. Thus the Eliasz-Krzyzycki connection was further strengthened.
But that is a part of the bigger next story and my connection to Nancy Langer. Well of course, today’s story is also part of Nancy’s story and it in fact grew out of her story and my long-term virtual shoe-box. It just turned out that both Julian & Stanley Eliasz were a part of Nancy’s family and I am her affiliated family! Or are we actually related? Her trip to Poland this summer may answer that question.
That is Stanczyk’s short (longish) story on persistence & serendipity. Go make some serendipity yourself.
Stanczyk has been very busy! A long overdue update to my Rootsweb page on Dziennik Polski has been done … more to come!
Also this jester has added 6,000 names to the Complete Index (nearly 42,000 Poles) including adding names (& relationships to deceased) listed on the Funeral Cards. The One-Step db app based on this data needs to be re-done.
Stanczyk has the instincts of an hard-boiled detective. Now this is not the story of forensic genealogy. Nor am I infringing on Tim Firkowski (Genealogy Assistant / Family History Detective). I guess my hard-boiled detective work stems from my reading Michael Chabon right now.
No I am investigating / researching an affiliated family of my ELIASZ /ELIJASZ ancestors: the ZASUCHA. You see, Anna Zasucha, is my 2nd-great-grandmother and wife of Marcin/Martin Eliasz. She is a part of my direct DNA. Like in DNA, the ZASUCHA are a genetic marker for my Eliasz family of village Pacanów. Hence, my curiosity.
Now for a while this jester has noticed the Zasucha were engaged in some chain-migration genealogy involving many families from Pacanów to the USA, including among others, my Eliasz family.
So I find Zasucha in many of the same locales as my Eliasz:
Buffalo, Syracuse, Niagara Falls, Cleveland, Toledo and Detroit.
But there was NO family memory of ZASUCHA among my direct Eliasz family. Indeed, nobody knew Anna Zasucha was our 2nd-great-grandmother.
But I notice things and patterns and I have employed SNA (Social Network Analysis), aka as cluster genealogy before and made breakthroughs in finding out more about my direct lineage by studying these genetic markers (affiliated families) as they immigrated to the USA in a chain-migration fashion. Whole branches have been discovered. I would welcome geneslogists with:
Kędzierski/Kendzierski, Pieszczachowicz, Fras/Frass, Hajek, Zwolski, and Zasucha (all affiliated to Eliasz/Pacanów or Leszczyński/Biechów).
You will be happy I have connected back your families to those two ancestral parishes(Biechów and Pacanów) whence my paternal grandparents originated from. Indeed, I have found many 2nd/3rd and further distant cousin-genealogists via this blog’s research. However, I am still waiting on a Zasucha genealogist.
So this blog is about a lovely couple: Feliks Zasucha & Antonina Łuszcz Zasucha (both from Pacanów).
I want to end this blog with the Zasucha in my tree and pick up in the next blog article with my struggles to find data on Feliks & Antonina.
Stanczyk attended Ceil Jensen’s PARI webinar yesterday. Ceil graciously mentioned my Rootsweb page on Dziennik Polski (Detroit), a Polish historical newspaper.
I was excited for the shout-out and since I had not been on Rootsweb since it came back up, I decided a visit was in order.
Much to my horror the pages were recovered to 2013. Any work since was lost. I was able to quickly restore the current pages from my local files on my laptop. I uploaded the changed files and everything was fine.
But I now wondered how much on Rootsweb private/user pages were not completely restored to their latest version?
Please check your pages on Rootsweb in case you may need to recover your work/research!
It’s here! Family Tree Maker is BACK.And its available RIGHT NOW!
FTM updates
They started with Ancestry’s FTM 2014 and FTM Mac 3 and set the focus on stability and performance improvements. Some bugs were also eliminated. The application is more responsive – you will find some actions that previously took minutes now take seconds. New features
We managed to sneak in just a few surprises, like 100 beautiful new backgrounds you can use to make professional looking charts and reports. And we’ve integrated a service for printing high resolution genealogy charts through the good folks at Family ChartMasters. It’s a modest start, but we hope you will be happy with our new updates. Compatibility
Mac Kiev sure that the new updates are completely compatible with the latest operating systems (Windows 10 and Mac, El Capitan). They made sure that your old trees will open seamlessly. There is nothing to move.
That your Ancestry account if you have one will continue to work with the new versions. And that TreeSync and all the other things you have come to like about FTM are still there for you.
Get The Update
What you will get and when depends on what FTM version you currently have:
1. Users of FTM 2014 and Mac 3: FREE updates are coming. They will be available in about a week or so through the software’s built-in update feature. Registered users will receive an email to let them know as soon available.
2. Users of older FTM editions: No matter how old your copy of FTM is, or whether its running on Windows or Mac, you can download an upgrade for $29.95 .
3. New users: If you have never owned a copy of Family Tree Maker before, for a limited time, you can download a full edition from their online store for $49.95 .
Family Tree Maker users who do not currently have an Ancestry.com subscription, will be offered a 14-day free trial.
If you would like a backup disc, you can purchase a CD in a jewel case for an extra $10 including shipping and handling.
Most everything you will need to know can be found on the Family Tree Maker home page: www.mackiev.com/ftm
Stanczyk has been reading the 1908 Marriages of Pacanow in order to build a spreadsheet/index of the newlyweds. There are some findings from this very preliminary set of data (1st year of data). First the men are noticeably older than the women. Men are often widowers ( and very much more so than the women). The men also frequently come from another parish. Now I collected that statistic for two reasons: (1) There will be an alegata record to document this cross-parish marriage (2) So you can find the groom’s birth record (since it will not be in Pacanow). I was surprised at how often the bride had come from another parish too. This data also confirms that the marriage is performed in the bride’s parish and its place is listed as the bride’s (current) village. I did find that one mother was an ELIJASZ so once again, this is an affirmation that social network analysis (SNA) can yield helpful results. In fact, I am hoping to use do a full scale SNA on Pacanow some day (1875-1908).
The spreadsheet is available to the public (and if genealodzy.pl wants it for its indexes of Geneteka/Geneszukacz then you have my permission/blessing). The spreadsheet is HERE (PDF) .
P.S. – One of the things I have learned is that the online indexes I have seen are incomplete (not missing). What I mean is that I have recently found data that was not present in an index that existed and I was puzzled by the omission.
Stanczyk is stuck on Pacanow. So I thought I would collect the metric statistics for all events (Births/Marriages/Deaths — Ur./Mal./Zg.) and individuals from the marriages.
— sample data collected:
On marriages, I wanted to figure out how many times a person was from outside the parish. On all events, I wanted to know how many of each per year and the totals, plus the net growth (Births-Deaths) of Pacanow population (catholic).
I also hope that someone from Poland a genealogist or a resident of Pacanow or an archivist can answer one question: Is there any existing metric data for Pacanow before 1875? It would also be nice to know why, if there is no data or where if there is data.
A neighboring parish, Biechow (my grandmother’s parish), has the same data available online from the National Archive (AP), but has data from late 17th century (w.) up to about 1850 (from Diocesan Archive – AD). Again why is there a gap between 1850 and 1875 in Biechow in the AD/AP data? Why is there no record of Pacanow data in the Diocesan Archive (AD)?
Birth #22 from 1908 Łoniow Births – Maryanna Adamczak daughter of Walenty Adamczak & Elzieta Kamuda God Parents: Wicenty Adamczak & Rozalia Adamczak all from Trzebieslawice in Parish Łoniow
Stanczyk received an email from the old country … Poland. It was from a distant cousin who only spoke/wrote in Polish. Aleksandra, wrote in enough detail that I could place her family in my family tree. She was most appreciative of my research and thankful that she could ask someone about her Wleciał family in America. She was very kind and shared some photos … (see below).
What made this a special email for me was that Aleksandra had been born in Pacanów, my paternal grandfather’s home village. Sadly, she no longer lived there. Besides the connection to Pacanów, she shared her family photos from the cemetery in Pacanów (which I assume is the church graveyard). This jester has long wanted to return to the ancestral village and see the parish and its graveyard and with some hope, the parish books. But something about seeing the church graveyard in my grandfather’s birthplace touched me very deeply and deepened the longing to see with my own eyes, Pacanów.
I emailed back to Aleksandra and I hope to get some more emails back. I sent her what she was looking for in terms of her Wleciał family in America. What I am hoping for from Aleksandra is to see if she has any photos of her grandparents, one of which is Katarzyna Elijasz (daughter of Marcin Elijasz & Anna Zasucha). Katarzyna Elijasz is my great-great-aunt, born about 1866 in Pacanów. She married Maciej Wleciał on 19-October-1890 in Pacanów. This was according to Akt#38, of Pacanów 1890 Marriages. Katarzyna was 24 at the time of her marriage, implying a birth about 1866.
At any rate, here are the photos from “Pacanów cemetery” that Aleksandra sent. This jester does not know all of the people, but the image of Jozef Wleciał ‘s (Katarzyna’s son) grave was beautiful.
partial pdf table of Kielce church/synagouge books
Stanczyk, was looking at the GenBaza news of what was being indexed and loaded in order to see what was coming online (… eventually). This jester noticed a PDF document of the inventory of books at Diocessan Archives (AD), State Archive (AP) and in some of the parishes too.
Now let me hasten to add that this is NOT an inventory of online records/images. It is only a list of what may yet come and of course some of these are already online, but many more are just potential data available to be indexed and loaded.
The actual PDF document is here . A final note the Fond# is similar to what the Library of Congress calls a Record Group. It is the identifier for requesting the resource inside the archive. Only State Archives have a Fond#, not the church archive nor the church parish.
Stanczyk has noted an uptick in interest in my Army Conscripts (poborowe) pages.
Stanczyk - Internet Muse™ 
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