Archive for ‘Languages’

July 1, 2019

Historical Polish Language Newspapers: For Research & Telling Your Family History

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Polish Language Newspaper

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.

 

 

May 10, 2015

Letter From Olivier – #Genealogy, #Polish, #Russian

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Olivier, first thanks for reading/writing the blog …

I’ve been reading your genealogy blog for a year now and I’ve found some nice infomration from and a lot of good humour as well, thank you and good job.
I trying to research my in-law’s side of the family. They come from Lomza and Grajewo region of Poland, I believe it is the Podlaskie District. The names are Bruszkiewicz and Jurkowski, and Trepanowski (a cousin).

I registered with GenBaza.pl and genetyka.pl and metryki but it doesn’t look as easy as how you made it look in your blog stories to find available scans. And then when I go to the Polish State Archives, well the short of it is I don’t read Russian (and I don’t read Polish either but I can read indexes, I can’t in Russian) and I don’t know how to spell Bruszkiewicz in Russian. So when I am faced with an index or i’m looking at a page of 4 birth certificates, i don’t even know what I’m looking at.


Then I will need to find help with translations.

Do you have any tips on how to translate a Polish family name into how it would be spelled in Russian? And written by hand in a civil register?

As anyone indexed these parishes?

Any encouragements or tips would be welcomed if possible 🙂 The whole thing feels like a brick wall!

Thank you for any help, and good job on the blog!

Best, Olivier

Ok let me see in what ways I can help you:

  1. First I am self taught in Russian and Polish from books written by William F. Hoffman and Jon Shea. So I’d recommend purchasing & reading their books, “In Their Own Words …” .  Volumes I & II.
  2. Also it is helpful to know Polish and learn the families and village names in Polish as this will help when you learn to read Russian. Translating names back & forth between Polish & Russian is more art than science.  So knowing family names  before tackling helps. Lets try a few names: Eliasz became Elijasz under Russian (1868-1918) in Russian-Poland partition. So I was expecting to see: елиашь  or элиашь but was surprised to see it as: елияшь  or элияшь in Russian/Cyrillic. So learn the Cyrillic “alphabet”  and the sounds of those letters so you can transliterate Polish/English/Latin letters into Russian/Cyrillic.  SteveMorse.org has a good English-to-Russian (and vice-versa) tool at:   http://stevemorse.org/russian/eng2rus.html

So if we try, “Bruszkiewicz”, we get (try the first one, but keep in mind that you are liable to see any below):

Брушзкивич, Брюшзкивич, Бружзкивич, Брюжзкивич, Брушжкивич, Брюшжкивич, Бружжкивич, Брюжжкивич, Брушзкиевич, Брюшзкиевич, Бружзкиевич, Брюжзкиевич, Брушжкиевич, Брюшжкиевич, Бружжкиевич, Брюжжкиевич

  1. You are correct about Lomza/Grajewo current wojewowdztwo. Both appear to be indexed in Geneteka. You can try the website: http://www.ksiegi-parafialne.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=236&Itemid=331
  2. Grajewo is in Szukajwarchiwach (1890-1912): http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/5/525/0/str/1/15?sort=4&ps=True#tabJednostki . Have you read my documentation for using Szukajwarchiwach?
  3. Let’s see what “Bruszkiewicz” looks like in 1890 index in Cyrillic cursive writing: … ok I could not find Bruszkiewicz in a handful of years that I searched in both Grajewo and Lomza. Perhaps you need to verify the locale.
  4. So I went back to Geneteka and found a Bruszkiewicz in the index that I could locate online. I wanted to show you what it looks like in cursive Cyrillic:

Bruszkiewicz

 

August 28, 2013

Twerk, Selfie, Bitcoin, Others Added To Oxford Dictionary As Silicon Valley, Middle Schoolers Push English Language Forward

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

OEDThe revered OED, that is the Oxford English Dictionary to you neophytes of the English Language, has added:

Twerk, MOOC, Bitcoin, geek chic, selfie, and so much more to the language (see Tech Crunch article: Twerk, Selfie, Bitcoin, Others Added To Oxford Dictionary As Silicon Valley Pushes English Language Forward ).

• See the complete list .

Stanczyk wants to know from the academes out there, do blogs and/or social media extend the English language into other modern languages as well as OED English?

Is the world becoming #MultiLingo ?

Will the growth of these cross-language words ever increase to such a degree that languages begin to converge or what percentage of overlap makes a language distinct (or the same)?

Email me !

April 28, 2013

Tsarnaev Genealogy — #Genealogy, #Russian

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Did you read Stanczyk’s blog from yesterday commenting on the AP Breaking News of the Russian Secret Service having tapes of Zubeidat and Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Царнаев) discussing jihad. I believe the Russians also indicated they had tape of the mother speaking to other person of interest to the FBI also. So go read yesterday’s blog then come back …[I’ll wait for you]

TsarnaevSchoolRegister_2001

Tsarnaev / Tsarnaeva – Lines 9,10,11,12

Perhaps you may have missed a link from yesterday on the fine work by Business Insider. They are a fine source of news for what happens in Europe, for those who want yet another viewpoint on which to be informed. You should click on that link (also here) if you wish to see pictures of the family before they came to the US. After I had read that I thought I would write a blog on the school register, which seems to confirm the children (only four, although I have read another account of a fifth child, an unnamed  married daughter in Chechnya). Alas, the AP Breaking News story over ran my composing a story of a school register. But here it is, albeit belatedly …

Line 9 – Bela Tsarnaeva, born 1988, female, Chechen, Arrived In School 2001, 7th grade, from Kyrgyzstan

Line 10 – Alina Tsarnaeva, born 1990, female, Chechen/Avar, Arrived In School 2001, 5th grade, from Kyrgyzstan

Line 11 – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, n/a, male, Chechen, Arrived In School 2001, 1st grade, from Kyrgyzstan

Line 12 – Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 1986, male, Chechen, Arrived In School 2001, 8th grade, from Kyrgyzstan

The handwriting is in Cyrillic. So if you are trying to learn to read Russian, here is a modern version (much easier than old church registers in Old Russian characters/handwriting) — albeit still difficult for Latin Alphabet readers to discern.

So all children entered the Dagestan school system in 2001. They all came from Kyrgyzstan. We now have credible ages for the daughters and confirmation on their names (Bela/Bella, Alina/Ailina).

It is interesting that one daughter (Alina) had a notation of Chechen/Avar. Her mother was an Avar. Previously, all children were listed as being born in Kyrgyzstan. Why does this one child have Avar by ethnicity? Aren’t all of the Tsarnaevich children Chechen/Avar really — since they all have the same mother.

Even though Dzhokhar’s birth was not given, we know his birthdate from other documents (see also the first story) which indicates: 22-July-1993.

So for those genealogists following the genealogy, those are the best birth dates (or birthyears)  so far that I have seen in news accounts. This data is also from a good source document, not just someone’s notes (or memory). Genealogy in the news.

 

April 21, 2013

The Sad Saga of the Tsarnaevich — #Family, #Law, #Terrorism, #Boston, #Tsarnaev

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Stanczyk has not been riveted by a story since the DC Sniper story of October 2002. So today, I chronicle the sad saga of Tsarnaevs (царнаев Tsarnaev in Russian Cyrillic). My story source materials are listed at the end. There are similarities to the DC Sniper story, both were on the east coast. Both had an older man and a younger man dynamic (Allen/Boyd, Tamerlan/Dzhokhar). Both were senseless killings of people. Let’s see what motive Dzhokhar ascribes for his and his brother’s actions. John Allen Muhammad (JAM) said his motive was an Islamicist jihady-thing.

Possibly estrangement played/plays a role in both stories. The DC Sniper case was not allowed to prosecute a case based upon JAM’s estrangement from his wife/kids. Tamerlan/Dzhokhar seemed to be separated from their father and estranged from an aunt and two uncles in the US/Canada. Tamerlan said he was estranged from America, unable to form any friendships (except for a murdered friend?). That estrangement of the brothers Tsarnaev may have been felt more strongly when their father left America to go have a brain hematoma operated on … in Russia. Why not the US? Was it a stroke or a tumor. Someone said it was brain cancer — albeit a tumor could be interpreted as an early stage of cancer. Certainly Anzor, thought he was going to die [perhaps he wanted to die on Russian soil], perhaps the sons thought he would too. In 2011, the FBI asked questions of Tamerlan, at the behest of some foreign nation, if he was involved with a terrorist organization (which the FBI had cleared him and his family of). Perhaps an aunt who is(or will be) a lawyer and two uncles who are doctors made the brothers Tsarnaev feel inadequate (or maybe only Tamerlan). Perhaps Tamerlan was feeling angry and tied down by a wife and daughter and rueing his inability to compete in Olympic boxing.

Anzor (Анзор) Tsarnaev (Царнаев) fled Chechnya for the neighboring safe-harbor of Kyrgyzstan. After a few years of this self-imposed exile, he moved his family to Dagestan, and a year later he comes to the USA in March 2002, under refugee status; This was with help from his sister, Maret (a lawyer or studying law in Canada). Ruslan & Alvi the two brothers of Anzor are doctors (MDs) living in Maryland. In 2003, Tamerlan and his sisters (Bella & Ailina) emigrate to the US and rejoin their family.

The Tsarnaev (Царнаевых) Family (Father, Mother, Tamerlan (Тамерлан), Dzhokhar (Джохар), and two daughters, Bella & Ailina) relocated to USA in 2002/2003 under refugee status with the aid of the aunt (Maret).

Timeline

October 1986 Tamerlan Tsarnaev born, Kyrgyzstan

About 1987 Bella Tsarnaev born, Kyrgyzstan

About 1990 Allina Tsarnaev born Kyrgyzstan

22 July 1993 Dzokhar Tsarnaev born, Kyrgyzstan

Before 1993 Ruslan Tsarnaev (brother of Anzor, uncle to the alleged bombers) emigrates to US

2001 Family moves to Makhachkala, Dagestan (Russian Federation)

2002 Maret Tsarnaeva – after she helped them [Anzor, her brother and his family] apply for refugee status to the US. [source: Maret’s words, from Wash. Post article 4/19/2013]

March 2002 Family moves to US, apply for refugee status (Exact Location unknown), Except Tamerlan & two sisters; [Dzhokhar’s principal said they left March 2002 for US; source: http://www.freeinews.com/global/alvi-and-ruslan-tsarni-two-uncles-speak-on-bombing-suspects]

2003 Tamerlan & two sisters come to US

2003 Tsarnaev family move to Boston area (source: uncle Ruslan in MD)

2006-2008 Tamerlan at Bunker Hill Community College; 2007 Tamerlan becomes legal permanent resident [source: NBC].

2011 Dzokhar graduates Cambridge Rindge & LatinSchool, Receives $2,500 Cambridge city grant, enrolls in UMASS-Dartmouth pre-med program.

about 2011 Anzor returns to Russia [after treatment in Russia for brain cancer or a brain hematoma?]

September 2011 Tamerlan’s friend Brendan Mess is murdered in Waltham, MA

January 2012 Dzokhar visits Dagestan [his father? for operation ??]. It appears Tamerlan went too and stayed for six months in Dagestan area.

13 June 2012 Mother (Zubeidat Tsarnaev) is arrested for alleged shoplifting at Lord & Taylors store

11 Sept 2012 Dzhokhar becomes a Naturalized US citizen (at TD Banknorth Garden, Boston)

15 April 2013 2:50PM Tsarnaevs are alleged to have planted and exploded two bombs at Boston Marathon.

18 April 2013 Photos, Videos place both brothers at scene of crime, Eye Witness and Victim Jeff Bauman witnesses a suspect (Tamerlan) drop bag which blows up 2 minutes later and identifes him to FBI. FBI releases photos & video of two suspects.

19 April 2013 1:35am Tamerlan Tsarnaev dies of wounds: gunshots, explosive burns, injuries from being run over and dragged by car by his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev according to eye witness accounts.

19 April 2013 8:45pm Dzhokhar is captured after a final shoot-out at his hide-out in boat; Captured alive, conscious & transported to hospital.

What does the father say?

Анзор Царнаев, отец Джохара и Тамерлана Царнаевых (Aznor Tsarnaev, father of Dzhokar & Tamerlan — the brothers Tsarnaevich).

The father is sowing the seeds of misinformation in the Russian Federation in a predominantly Muslim state. He has claimed the US has framed his sons (a charge echoed by the Canadian aunt, Maret). Read the Interview from Izvestia. The FBI should, look at the timeline of the father’s comments and the phone records and translate them. Notice the father never came back to the US and supported his children (who had become adults, though Dzhokhar was too young to live alone with an older brother, who was young and married and had a baby, with no adult relatives for support). Stories of 20-April-2013 indicate the mother is in Dagestan. I did not see whether the charges against the mother were resolved (was she innocent or guilty of the crime? Was she deported?). Now the father wants permission to enter the US again??? After his fomenting dissent abroad, I do not think we can risk the father coming back to the US. What crime might he commit because his one son is dead and his other son faces numerous capital crime charges. There is a reason that the doctor brothers have disassociated from the rest of the family. These men are doctors. We must think about their safety too. Who knows what the father might do. The father spoke poorly of our nation to his nation/peoples. We cannot let that kind of radical inside the US, not under the present circumstances. Every American needs to write/call/email their Congressperson and let them know we do not want ANZOR TSARNAEV back in the USA. I also think that MARET TSARNAEV should not be allowed back in for similar reasons, even though she appears to live in Canada.

http://youtu.be/MZIb5xMSoLE (Youtube of father, see translated Interview [below] in Izvestia newspaper with the father from 19-April-2013 about 5:00am EST). The father is either lying or woefully misinformed about his family. Sad.

Izvestia newspaper interview (URL: http://izvestia.ru/news/549078), translated:

Father of Tsarnaevich brothers, some years living in Dagestan, is confident that his sons were not involved in bloody events that took place a few days ago in Boston in the United States. The eldest son of Tamerlane, he said, was happily married – with his American wife, that he raised his daughter. And the younger Johar – honors and pride of the family. Tsarnaev Anzor, who lost one son, fears that security forces would kill both.

[Anzor] – My children just set up. One killed, how could they? The same intelligence agencies. They had to hold it simple. Now I’m afraid for the second son. I keep in touch with them. Yes, I live far away, but I know what my kids are doing.

Q: When was the last time you spoke with your sons?

– With Tamerlane, immediately after the terrorist attack in Boston. As soon as I heard on TV, how awful it happened, I immediately dialed the phone the elder son answered, I asked, “Were you there? Since you did not happen? “He said, ‘Dad do not worry, we did not go there. Weare alive and well. “

Q: When you last saw sons?

– A year ago. But all the time we called each other. They talked with myself, I know what my kids are doing. The elder son – a boxer, four-time champion of America, one of the versions[twice Golden Gloves]. In the U.S. everyone knows he is a celebrity [before the Boston Marathon bombing]. Tamerlane is also a musician, playing the piano jazz. Once wanted to become a professional boxer, we tried to dissuade him, we said, what about permanent injury, why do you need it? And then he got married and had a daughter, now she is three and a half years. And he changed his mind to go to the professionals [actually dropped out from accounting studies at Bunker Hill Community College].

Q: He worked somewhere?

– No, he studied at the acting school, and sat with the child. He has worked as a wife. In a social institution – do not remember the name – took care of the disabled. My son did not have any free time. Always is on the clock.

Q: And Johar? When did you last talk to him?

– Three days ago. I Called and asked how things and said that he should come here for a vacation. He agreed. After all, he is the last time the child was, when we left, so he never returned. I briefly talked to him, he was in a hurry to go to class.

– It is known that he went to Cambridge?

– Yes, my youngest – the pride of the family. Always straight A student, dreamed of becoming a great doctor. He received a scholarship to study as the most talented. Never in any radical groups did not participate, hate talkers. With the money he has, of course, there were problems. But I helped him, sent a little bit, and he himself worked. In his free time, got a job as a pool lifeguard. He did not have time for all sorts of nonsense. And then, he could not go for it against the will of Tamerlane and his older brother would not allow to deal with such things.

– You yourself why left the U.S.?

– I went back home to die. I had a hematoma of the brain. I was sure – this is the end. But it has taken out, literally at my grave. And my sons were there.

– They became citizens of the United States?

– No, both of them – the citizens of Russia. For Tamerlane, his wife – an American, but he himself Russian. And Johar too. I fear for my second son. I am afraid that they will kill him, too. But I know – they[my sons] are not to blame.

My Opinion

Neither the mother, the father, nor the aunt should be granted access to travel to the US. The father and mother both have sown the seeds of dissent against the US in a predominantly Muslim state of the Russian Federation. The aunt in Canada (Maret) I am on the fence about whether the aunt should be allowed into the US for access to the trial or to support Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Her rhetoric is inflammatory and this trial will already be a sensation and tension-filled event wherever it is held and we will have to have extra security if the aunt is allowed in her due to her remarks.

I think the presence of the father, mother, and aunt presents an element of risk and the potential to foment further violence, if not actually commit actual crimes [in the case of the parents].

I think Ruslan and his brother Alvi are fine/decent/honorable Americans and we should protect both of them as valuable members of American society who are estranged from their brother Anzor (and his sons). The presence of these other Tsarnaevs on US soil, risks injury to these two valuable Americans who are medical doctors. The two daughters might also be harmed by violent rhetoric if these Tsarnaevich are allowed to re-enter the US. The safety and the protection of our society will be at risk throughout the resulting trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; There is no need to increase that risk further.

I wish Ruslan and Alvi and their families well. I feel empathy for Tamerlan’s widow and 3 year old daughter. I hope for the best for the two sisters who remain in the US.   The rest of the sad Tsarnaevich in this saga we should not support or entertain upon US soil. Dzhokhar the naturalized US citizen is due his legal rights — but those rights do not include the support of those who foment dissent against the US in nations abroad and then wish to egress to our nation afterwards and use the media focus of a sensational event for their own purposes.

What do you say, my fellow Americans? Say it loud enough to be heard in Washington D.C. !

Source Materials

  1. A Quick Search of Ancestry.com for “Tsarnaev
  2. Google.RU search on Анзор, джохар , царнаев (Anzor/Dzhokhar , Tsarnaev) in Russian Cyrillic
  3. NYT/USA Today articles
  4. Washington Post/Baltimore Sun articles
  5. Boston Globe articles, timelines
  6. Izvestia Interview, Youtube Videos (Anzor, Ruslan)
  7. MyLife.com pages on Tsarnaevich with public declared names, ages
April 14, 2013

A Church Register Novelty in Koprzywnica — #Genealogy, #Polish

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Poland_1807_1815_AnnotatedIn another case of finding something interesting whilst researching something else, I found a type of Church Register Index that I have not seen before in any other parish. So today’s blog is about that novel index I found. See the Church Register in the picture (see below).

Dateline Koprzywnica parish, 1810 – In what was after the 3rd partition was Austrian-Hungarian territory (Austrian-Poland in green), has now been annexed by Napoleon in 1809 into the Duchy of Warsaw and in another five years will be Congress Poland (Vistulaland, Russian-Poland). But in 1810 we are speaking of Koprzywnica in the powiat of Staszow and the Departement of Radom. No, that is not wojewodztwo — it is the French, Departement that is the highest level of administration in the Duchy of Warsaw. The map shows that a huge swath of green from the  Austrian-Poland partition (zabior) was annexed into the Duchy in 1809. Stanczyk’s own ancestors once again switched Empires from Austria to France. So too did the citizens of Koprzywnica (and a great many cities, towns, and villages). Poof, now the records go from Latin, in the perfunctory Latin Box (Table) Format to the lingua franca of Polish paragraph with French-style two witnesses.

So Koprzywnica, like Stanczyk’s own ancestral Villages (Biechów and Pacanów) was briefly Austrian, then French (very briefly), then Russian until 1917-1918 whence it became just Poland again. We can find Koprzywnica in the gazetteer, Skorowidz Miejscowoscy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej as being in the powiat Sandomierz, wojewowdztwo Kielce (circa 1920’s/1930’s).

Indexes are so very helpful. It is always a let down when a parish book or a year within the book lacks any kind of index. That means I will have to look at each and every record to see if any are related to me / my research. Early Latin paragraph form church records often do not have any index  — they barely denote the year change. So that means you have to read each and every badly handwritten paragraph of Latin — very rare to find a priest with good Latin handwriting. That is why the Latin Box Format was more welcome. At least I could find the pieces of info and the handwriting was less of an issue. But the Latin Box format did not have indexes either.

So it was helpful when Napoleon implemented the Codex Napoleon in the Duchy of Warsaw. So by 1810 you see the records written in Polish (lingua franca) in a paragraph form that is specified by the Codex Napoleon. And these new records have indexes!

OK, the indexes initially are by letter: A, B, C, …, Z. So you have just under 26 pages of indexes. It is an improvement. Quickly the church realizes it can save paper by running the index all together with all letters on a single (or a few) page(s) in order alphabetically. Very efficient to scan these indexes for your families. And it was also easy to spot when a priest added a late addition to the index at the back after all other names (even though it was evidently in the wrong spot lexicographically speaking).

OK 1868-1918, we find Russian / Cyrillic indexes. In addition to priests not knowing Russian well and ordering names phonetically before later on,  we find the index in Cyrillic proper lexical order you will have to scan carefully. Cyrillic kind of forces that to those of us weaned on a Latin alphabet. But you sometimes find the Russian indexes sorted in Cyrillic lexical order … by the first name ??? That is not very useful. Sometimes the index is in chronological order (akt # / record # order) making it barely more useful then scanning every record.

But when we find a well formed index (or a not so good index) it is always for one event: Birth/Christening, Marriage / Marriage Banns, Death Records. One index for Births, one for Marriages and one for Deaths … assuming none are missing, 3 indexes. That is what makes the following index so very interesting …

The Index (Skorowidz)

1810KoprzywnicaINDEX_pg4_JewishNames_righthalf This was supposed to be a Marriage Index !! But it was five scanned pages! This would have to be an extraordinarily large city to have that many marriages! What are all of those columns ?? That is what I asked myself.

Let’s see what those columns are:  Record # (Akt #), Village Name, Person Name(s), Births (Urodzin), Deaths (Zeyscie), Banns (Zapowiedz), and finally Marriages(Malzenstwa) Kart # (you can safely ignore). This index is an all event index. Births-Deaths-Banns-Marriages all interleaved. In fact, when I look at each event (B/M/D) I see the same 99 event-record pages and the same five index pages. It appears that all events are in the same register! This is rather unique — as I said previously I have not seen this before in other parish registers I have seen.

So in this “combo style” index (which needs a proper name) you cannot have a single name  for marriage record, so marriage records have two names (as usual), but this requires two lines in this style of index — since we are multi-columnar. We also see that Banns are indicated ‘I‘ or ‘II‘ — the third bann being the actual marriage itself. The Roman numeral written above the word Zapowiedz. So since the index is in Akt# order, it is a chronological order too. It could be interesting from a demographic perspective (what time of year do most marriages occur or  do a higher concentration of deaths occur in winter months). If this style index had occurred during an epidemic year, then we could have seen all of the deaths occurring in a great streak without interruption by other events. 1810 in Koprzywnica was not such an epidemic year.

There is one more fascinating aspect to this index. In the Napoleonic era (1807 thru 1829) we find that Catholic priest acts as the civil administrator and that Jewish/Evangelic/Orthodox vital records are written in the Catholic register. How is this noted in the index — which again I have not seen elsewhere? Look at the scanned register image for this blog. Pay attention to Records #’s:

85, 86, and 91.

It so happens that each of these records is a Marriage Banns event type. But, notice that each begins ‘Zyda‘.  Żyd = Jew, hence Żyda is plural for Jews. Żydów = Jewish. This indicates that this is a Jewish civil record being recorded.  Now I know that Jewish vital records are recorded in the Napoleonic era Catholic registers. But it is unusual that it is indicated in the index (as opposed to being in the record itself).

So this was a very fascinating find after all. I was actually looking for a particular Leszczyński but I found a novel index and indeed a novel parish register overall.

Related Posts

The Fourth Partition (23 January 2013) – A Discussion of the Duchy of Warsaw, with a map

Historical Eras of Poland (21 January 2013) – A set of Stanczyk defined eras of Poland of particular use to genealogists. An historical definition of Poland’s eras (1569-present) based upon history’s impact on genealogical research.

 

Post Scriptum

The index from this column was found in the Polish website: genealodzy.pl (PTG) of which I written many times before. Their METRYK project of scanned church books is where I found the 1810 Koprzywnica Index.

April 8, 2012

Happy Easter – A Dziennik Polski Cache From Steven Kalemkiewicz

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

fellow genealogist, Steve Kalemkiewicz was doing some research using the Dziennik Polski – Detroit, Historical Newspapers. He discovered, Stanczyk’s paean to that newspaper (at the preceding link) and graciously provided this jester with a slew of new data/funeral cards. He had collected a funeral card of his ancestor (Marta Dłubisz) and he thought to gather others as well from his research efforts and pass them along to my ever growing database of Detroit Polonia, as chronicled in the former daily newspaper, Dziennik Polski (Detroit). The new funeral cards (all from 1963) can be found with some already existing samples at the follow web address:

http://goo.gl/FYHPt

Here are the names of the new files (Funeral Cards):

Wrobel, JozefSr.jpg

Szwed, Teofila.jpg

Zysk, Stella.jpg

Zajaczkowski, JanK.jpg

Sitek, Katarzyna.jpg

Glowczewski, AntoniP.jpg

Kopycki, Franciszek.jpg

Switaj, Aleksander.jpg

Banka, Klara.jpg

Kosinska, CeciliaR.jpg

Rataj, EugeniuszV.jpg

Pawczuk, Kazimierz.jpg

Zamlynska, Wiktoria.jpg

Dlubisz, Marta.jpg

March 18, 2012

Dziennik Polski Detroit Newspaper Database App Search Page

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Stanczyk,

was finally able to use his training from Steve Morse’s presentation at RootsTech 2012 to create a One-Step Search App for the Dziennik Polski Detroit Newspaper Database.

To search on 30,920 Polish Vital Record Events, just go to the new Dziennik Polski Detroit Newspaper Database App Search page (on the right, under PAGES,  for future reference).

FAQ

For more background on the Dziennik Polski Detroit Newspaper click on the link.

You can search on the following fields:

Last Name – exact means the full last name exactly as you typed it. You can also select the ‘starts with’ radio button and just provide the first few starting characters. Do not use any wild card characters!

First Name – exact means the full first name exactly as you typed it. You can also select the ‘starts with’ radio button and just provide the first few starting characters. Do not use any wild card characters!

Newspaper Date – exact means that you need to enter the full date. Dates are of the format:

06/01/1924 (for June 1st, 1924). Format is MM/DD/YYYY. Leading zeros are required for a match.

You can use ‘contains’ radio button to enter a partial date. The most useful partial is just to provide the Year (YYYY). Do not use any wild card characters!

Event Type – exact means the full event type. This is not recommended. You SHOULD select the ‘starts with’ radio button and just provide the first few starting characters. Do not use any wild card characters! Uppercase is not required.

Valid Events Types: BIRTH,  CONSULAR,  DEATH,  or MARRIAGE

Indexer – exact means the full indexer exactly as you typed it. You can also select the ‘starts with’ radio button and just provide the first few starting characters. Do not use any wild card characters!

The Indexer is meant to be informational only, but you could conceivably want to search on this field too, so it is provided.

November 2, 2011

Dziennik Polski, Detroit, MI – Index, Summary Update #HistoricalNewspaper

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Well Stanczyk have been busy for a few days, trying to update the Rootsweb page dedicated to the Dziennik Polski, Detroit, MI Polish Language Ethnic Newspaper.

The Index page with the names has been updated with nearly 7,000 new names / dates from 1936.  The Summary of all Dziennik Polski transcriptions now totals 48,217 of which 26,745 of those names are indexed and the summary page is here.

The Index page is alphabetical by Last Name, First Name, Date of Newspaper (when the name appeared).  Use your browser’s FIND capability (Ctrl-F in Windows, Cmd-F in Mac) to search for a name or just scroll the page.

 

October 6, 2011

Ukase – Decree … #Genealogy, #History, #Russian, #Polish

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

This jester thanks my Slavic readers from: Poland, Russian Federation, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, Slovakia, etc and of course their American emigres and American born of that heritage. This is after all predominantly a blog of genealogy that focuses on its Slavic Heritage and especially the heritage of Stanczyk‘s paternal grandparents who were born, married, had children and emigrated from Poland … Russian-Poland also known as Congress Kingdom of Poland and to a lesser degree, Vistulaland (a collection of ten gubernia in the czarist Russian Empire). Poland was occupied and partitioned between three Empires: Prussian (German), Austrian (Austro-Hungarian / Hapsburg), and Russian from 1792-1918. As such, in the Russian partition, they were subject to the Czar’s ukases (decrees).

A UKASE (указ) is formally an “imposition” , usually by the czar, but possibly by an Orthodox Patriarch. But ukase is usually translated as decree or edict.

My ancestors were from the Russian-Poland partition, but just across the Vistula (Wisla) river from the Austrian-Poland partition — which had, to me, a surprising number cross-Empire interaction in vital records. The Russian-Poland nominally a fiefdom of the Russian Czar, who was also titled as King of Poland, as well as Russian Emperor.

There were many Ukases from each czar/czarina. So many so, that Czar Nicholas in 1827 ordered a collation of these edicts (a kind of codification Russian law). The result was a 48 volume collection of ukases. Some notable ukases …

  • Created (1791) and others amended the Pale of Settlement
  • 1821 Territorial waters off Alaska (affecting British Empire and a young America)
  • 1861 Freeing the Serfs
  • 1868 Decreed that vital records in the Kingdom of Poland be recorded in Russian

Stanczyk is fascinated by the last one. It is said that it is in the Polish DNA to be multi-lingual. Certainly, my grandmother was capable of four languages (Polish, Russian, German, and finally English). But how did the Catholic priests do this? Switching from recording vital records in Polish to recording them into Russian? The year of the switch-over was 1868. The records start out in Polish but switch during the year to being in Russian ??? Admittedly, the Russian in most cases was a bit … uh “problematic”.

Can you imagine that happening in America? Most of the world thinks of the USA as being linguistically challenged. This jester is fluent only in English. I did receive much French tutelage and can read French. With my genealogy, I have been self taught in Polish, Russian and Latin. Thankfully, Google provides the Google Translator, flawed as it is, for Polish. Still as it was, I was able to use it communicate with a distant cousin in Poland who could not speak any English and my ability to write Polish was so very limited. Yet we overcame and I was blessed with the gift of my grandparent’s marriage record from Biechow church and a civil record of their marriage from a local USC office.

And it was a good thing my cousin sent me both. As the USC mistranslated the Russian language church record on my grandmother’s age. They had accidentally added five years to my grandmother’s age, which I would not have known if I did not have the original church record in Russian (which apparently the local USC could not read as well as I could).

So here is Stanczyk’s UKASE …

All Polish Genealogists must be able to read Latin, Polish, and Russian. (Who can read that German handwriting?)

July 15, 2011

Knock … Knock

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Well, I did ask. Thank you Netizens of the World !  I see many flags. It has only been 11 days, so I am pleasantly surprised. Are those the Polish Enclaves? If Israel and Brazil checks-in then I will believe. Welcome one and all to my musings.

I even see Portugal. Is that because I wrote about your favorite son, Christopher Columbus (son of Wladyslaw III) or is the excellent Portuguese researcher, Manuel Rosa just checking in on Stanczyk? You can catch up on that story here . Or perhaps on his Polish father, Wladyslaw III .

July 14, 2011

#Jewish #Genealogy – An Homage to Moja żona

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Moja żona (my wife) Tereza is a very good wife indeed. So I wished to honor her by doing some research for the Jewish faithful. I suppose many genealogists are unaware that much of Europe owes its church records and their format to the Codex Napoleon. Another side effect of this edict was to create a new civil registry of civil records, which Napoleon originally placed responsibility with the Catholic church. So peoples of all faiths had to register with the Catholic church for the years 1810-1830 [approximately] until civil data could be collected by all faiths in their own church/temple/synagogue.

So whilst I was collecting other genealogical research data, I decided to pay extra attention to the Jewish births listed to honor my wife. I am sure this was an onerous requirement for Jewish citizens to have to record their vital records with the Catholic church. This village of my ancestors has NOT been indexed by JRI, as there was no significant Jewish presence in these villages, but there were Jews indeed! So what was probably an imposition for Jews may now be a blessing and a mitzvah for me (and my wife). Why a blessing? So many Jewish records were destroyed during World War II (and possibly in other pogroms) that any echo, any echo at all of those who were here is a blessing.

Births in Biechow (departement de Krakow) for years 1810, 1811, 1813 and 1815

[ source: LDS microfilm # 936660]

First note that 1812 and 1814 had no registry at all for anyone. In 1810 there 50 recorded births and of those fifty, one record was Jewish:

1810 Births – Record #24 – Pinkiesz Szmulowicz (father), Hercyk (baby) and Marya Manasow (mother)

In 1811 there were 116 births and three records were Jewish:

#68 Zelmanowiczowna, Rywka (baby)

#91 Faycer, Jasek (baby)

#96 Menkierowna, Bela (baby)

In 1813 there were 76 births and two records were Jewish:

#26 Wulfowna, Chaja

#36 Fisolowna, Faytsia

In 1815 there were 99 births and one record was Jewish:

#62 Wolf, Sura (baby);  Jasek Wolf (father); Blima Haymnowiczow (mother).

Well I guess you can see why JRI ignored LDS Microfilm #936660. Out of 341 births only seven (just 2%) were Jewish births. Jewish genealogists, feel free to collect this data and add it to your database. These records are in Polish in this era.

Stanczyk

July 11, 2011

#Polish #Genealogy – The Biechow Clergy 1326-1919 r.

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Today, I wanted to follow up with the images of the list of priests of the parish of Biechow (parafii Biechów). Please read yesterday’s post for the web link (URL) to image of the digital book I used.

Stanczyk cobbled together the “digital” pages 27-29 into a single GIF image, so you my faithful reader could examine for yourself.

Yesterday we were looking at a Latin paragraph image of a birth/baptism from 1674. The priest was indeed Jozef Walcerz as I read from the priest’s own handwriting (to verify that I could read the handwriting accurately).

Father (Ks.) Michal Krolikowski’s service from 1852-1900 put him on many of the images of Stanczyk’s family. Those were mostly from the years of Russian-Poland occupation (and language mandate/ukase), so I have his signature upon Russian/Cyrillic church records. Because the records for Biechow are extensive, I am able to confirm many of the priests on this list, so this book confirms my church records and the church records confirm this book’s scholarly research.

So we have Latin records, then Polish records, then Russian records (1868-1918) and finally Polish again.

I added this cross-research because I was trying to add a context for my ancestor’s lives to my family history to pass on to my ancestors. It was also a good exercise in verifying my ability to read the old style handwriting (whatever langauage) you see in church records.

Below I would like to share Father Michal Krolikowski’s signature upon the happy day and event of my great-grandfather Tomasz Leszczynski ‘s   marriage to his second wife and my great-grandmother, Aniela Major (pronounce My-Yore). It seems I have a family history of short Polish names that do not look Polish because they are short and vowel filled. This signature was upon an allegata describing the marriage and happily providing my great-grandmother’s birth information. No need to rub your eyes, the signature and seal are in Russian (a Cyrillic “alphabet”).

For those who do not read Russian …

Biechow October  5/17 th day 1885 th year

Father Michal Krolikowski

?-title (NastoJatel  — not in my Russian-English dictionary, probably ADMINISTRATOR) of Biechow

[NOTE: there are two day numbers (double-dating) because Russia was still using the Julian calendar while Poland had long since switched to the modern Gregorian calendar that we use today. Notice that in 1885 the difference was 12 days. Knowledge of this may help you decipher the date when you can only read one date. Starting sometime in 1900 the difference would grow to 13 days. Russia did not switch from the Old Style dates to the Gregorian calendar until january 31st,  1918 (thus eliminating the need for double-dating).]

July 10, 2011

#Polish #Genealogy – A Noble Birth in Biechow 1674

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

11th-July-1674 Birth of Maryanna Niedzwiedz

Stanczyk was combing through dusty tomes again. Cough, Cough — excuse me.

This picture is from my cell phone. It is the earliest noble birth I have found for the village of Biechow (near Pacanow in the old wojewodztwo of Kielce). Let me humbly offer the translation (from Latin) …

Jozef Wałcerz, Biechow parish priest, baptized Maryanna, daughter of the Nobleman Jan Gaspar Niedzwiedzki & Agnes of Biechow. Her God Parents both were of noble birth were  Jerzy Paczakowski of Słupia and Ewa Pawłowska of Sobowice. [regrettably I was not able to read Jerzy/George’s job/title].

In a fit of boredom I decided to do some cross-research for verification. Previously, I have mentioned the digital libraries in various regions of Poland. So…

From The SwietoKrzyskie Digital Library, in the book,
Historical Description of Churches, Cities, Monuments, & Memorials of Stopnica“,
written by Jan Wisniewska in 1929, see pages 20 and 28 (in Polish):

A Father Jozef Walcerz pastor of Biechow, tithe of/to Pacanow, started his work in
1671 and worked until 1693. In 1672,  Fr. Walcerz fixed half of the church  roof, the bell tower,
and  the chancel floors and repaired the graveyard chapel damaged by a hailstorm.

So indeed, my ability to read priestly Latin handwriting from 1674 is fairly accurate (assuming my ability to translate early 20th century Polish is acceptable). The 1929 book does not put a slashed ‘l’ in Walcerz, but the priest himself did use the, ‘ł’ as the image above shows. At least, I verified the priest. Can anyone verify the nobelman(Nobilium) or the two noble born (generosa) god parents from this church record?

The Church book is from 1674-1675, so I am certain of the date. This was not from ‘Martius’, because on the facing page, this record and others were under the heading, ‘Julius’. The page tops were labeled with 1674. The heading of the record indicates ‘the 11th day in the morning’. The numbers in this tome do indeed range from 1 to 31, so this is indeed the day number and not the hour of the day.

Anyone related to Jan Gaspar/Kasper Niedzwiedzki or his wife Agnes of Biechow or their daughter Maryanna? Send me a note and let me know. Have a blessed Sunday.

–Stanczyk

Post Scriptum

The digital book cited above listed the following parishes, for which you can find these descriptions and lists of priests. The parishes in bold are connected to my genealogy:
Balice , Beszowa , Biechów ,  Busko , Chmielnik, Dobrowoda , Drugnia , Gnojno , Janina , Kargów , Koniemłoty , Kotuszów , Książnice , Kurozwęki , Lisów , Oleśnica , Ostrowce , Pacanów , Piasek Wielki , Pierzchnica , Piotrkowice , Potok , Sędziejowice , Solec , Stopnica , Strożyska , Szaniec , Szczaworyż , Szczebrzusz , Szydłów (woj. świętokrzyskie) , Świniary , Tuczępy , Widuchowa , and  Zborówek

July 8, 2011

#Genealogy & #Technology – #1: iGoogle To Keep Tabs On Genealogy –

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

How do you keep the pulse of the Internet? At present (and for a good while now), there are over a billion websites. You can Google/Bing searches and possibly save the searches for future use or make them a Bookmark/Favorite. That is ok. But I want to go somewhere and see what my agents dug up for me to look at and examine. It is almost a Genealogy Newsletter (ok, but I want more than Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter). But I want it is tailored to my needs and interests. Eastman is broad,  but seldom specific to Slavic (Polish, Russian, Czech, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.) research, or to a specific locale: Detroit, Toledo, Buffalo, Philadelphia, etc.

Enter iGoogle. I have been using it for a year or two now and  have steadily tweaked it to my purpose and tastes. iGoogle is what we techies call a customized portal (similar to Yahoo or AOL, but more like My-Yahoo). People may be vaguely aware that Google has more software available than its iconic Search Engine. But where is this software? The Google products are located:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/index.html

iGoogle is near the top (presently second). Ok, so now you register for an account and login to Google and igoogle.com instead of google.com (for both search and portal capabilities). You can use Classic Google or iGoogle (so you are not locked in to the new search portal) and go back and forth. Now you need to add TABs (I pick one per subject: Genealogy, Science, Financial, etc.). So create a “Genealogy” Tab.  Now you can add gadgets or feeds. I have a mix of some of each on my Genealogy TAB. I like to have Google’s Translator gadget and Sirius Genealogy Date Calculator as handy gadgets. Useful tools to my research right at hand.

Next we need to define the blogs or RSS feeds of websites that we need to cull information from on a “regular” basis. Now a blog is just an article (or web log) that an author creates with useful info/data. The RSS thingys are just the Internet’s way of broadcasting to you what has changed at a website, but you must subscribe (no fee). This is how I can stay on top of what is happening elsewhere on the Internet (without intensive googling, web surfing or reading many emails/newsletters or magazines).   HINT: you may want to subscribe to this blog if you are a Polish Genealogist or a genealogist with some Polish ancestors.

OK, I did add Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter to my Genealogy Tab as he does one of the finest newsletters on genealogy. I also subscribe to Tracing The Tribe and many other Polish genealogy websites. Libraries, Genealogy/Historical Societies,  and Archives specific to locations where my ancestors lived are excellent candidates for my Genealogy Portal that I am creating in iGoogle.  Here’s a winning tip, I use what’s changed in Ancestry.com (in my shared area) as a feed. That is the essence. Tailored like a nice suit.

Now left-brain people will thrill that you can arrange your page and set how many lines each feed gets or how many columns you can have (1,2,3 or 4). You can even “skin” your page to improve the esthetics (eye of the beholder). Now I put my feeds up near the top and the gadgets near the bottom, so I do not have to scroll to see info. I do in fact tweak my page periodically to get the most useful feeds near the top or to get rid of feeds that are not useful or are too static (unchanging). Since I am researching ancestors across the ocean, I do have foreign-language websites too (hence Google Translator). Here’s what a finished product looks like ( a partial screenshot) …

So now iGoogle is my Hubble-Space-Telescope into the vastness of the Internet taking snapshots and presenting me a daily synopsis of what is going on far and wide that I may want to apprise myself of. That’s it,  a technological solution to information overload and time management — as this is my window and I make it a discipline to make a quick daily check of what is going on.

July 2, 2011

#Polish #Genealogy – Library Of Congress Chronicling America

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Stanczyk was reading the Genealogical Society of PA email/newsletter. They were talking about the Library of Congress’ (LOC)  Chronicling America program. This program is about saving/collecting/digitizing Historical US Newspapers, including Ethnic Language (i.e. Polish) newspapers.

Casual readers of Stanczyk will realize that I favor using Historical newspapers to fill in gaps or to provide context in your family history. My own ojciec (father) told me about an ethnic newspaper (Dziennik Polski) that his mother used to read daily in Detroit. That was over a meal the night before Stanczyk was going to the state of Michigan’s Library & Archives and I had plans to read microfilm of Dziennik Polski. So, on the basis of this kismet I searched Dziennik Polski and the first time I searched, I found my grandmother listed as a mother giving birth to a baby boy (my uncle Ted) and it listed the address where my grandparents lived so I was able to confirm it was my family. Thereafter, I was hooked on Historical newspapers.

At any rate, I digress (but I hope I have motivated you to look). Stanczyk’s own Dziennik Polski (Detroit) newspaper page came from the LOC’s Chronicling America program and adding their info to my own research to create my Rootsweb page. That is specific to just the Dziennik Polski (Detroit) newspaper (with a small mention to other MI Polish language newspapers). But today I searched the LOC for Polish Language newspapers in the LOC and my results are below:

American Historical Polish Language US Newspapers in LOC – http://t.co/CeEjpWv

Happy and Blessed 4th of July everyone !

June 27, 2011

#Polish #Genealogy – Useful Websites … #4 Genealogical Societies in Poland

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Stanczyk, continues with his favorite websites in Poland. I hope you speak Polish or at least have mastered using Google Translate .

Pay especial attention to: Polskiego Towarzystwa Genealogicznego (Polish Genealogical Society). They have valuable databases online and their forums have experts, some of whom speak English and generally all of them are friendly and knowledgeable. Stanczyk once found a Polish genealogist who had ancestors from the same villages as mine. This fine lad (Jacek) from Krakow even shared images from church books with me and he was amenable to being a genealogy researcher for me on a trip to an Archive! I also found some distant cousins who traded emails with me on the website’s email facility and that was helpful. One of my grandfather’s cousins was a member of Haller’s Army (aka Blue Army)  and I was able to find his record amongst the fallen in one of their books, which answered why he was no longer found in any US census or in any US death record [since he had died in World War I overseas in Poland’s post WWI battle with Russia]. These snippets of info have been able to enrich my family tree. Finally, they have a database of parishes that is invaluable.

Take a look and see what you find …

Genealogical Societies (Some w/ Heraldic Info) WebSite
Bydgoskie Towarzystwo Heraldyczno–Genealogiczne http://www.mok.bydgoszcz.pl/index.php?cid=199
Galicyjskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne  http://www.republika.pl/slucki/gtg.htm
Kaliskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne http://genealogia.kalisz.pl/
Kujawsko-Pomorskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne http://kptg.pl/
Lubelskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne  http://www.ltg.zg.pl/index.html
MaloPolska Towarzystwa Genealogicznego http://www.mtg-malopolska.org.pl/index.html
Opolskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne http://www.otg.mojeforum.net/search.php
Ostrowskiego Towarzystwa Genealogicznego  http://www.otg.xt.pl/
Polskiego Towarzystwa Genealogicznego (Polish Genealogucal Society) http://genealodzy.pl/changelang-eng.phtml
Pomorskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne  http://www.ptg.gda.pl
Śląskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne  http://gento.free.ngo.pl/
Suwalskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne  http://www.mem.net.pl/stg/
Świętokrzyskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne “Świętogen” http://www.genealodzy-kielce.pl/beta2/index.php
Towarzystwo Genealogiczne Centralnej Polski  http://www.tgcp.pl
Towarzystwo Genealogiczne Ziemi Częstochowskiej  http://www.genealodzy.czestochowa.pl/
Towarzystwo Genealogiczno – Heraldyczne w Poznaniu  http://www.tgh.friko.pl/info.html
Warszawskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne  http://genealogysociety.republika.pl/
Wielkopolskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne „Gniazdo” http://www.wtg-gniazdo.org/wiki.php?page=Info_English
Heraldic Societies in Poland WebSite
Polskie Towarzystwo Heraldyczne http://www.sejm-wielki.pl/
Związek Szlachty Polskiej http://www.szlachta.org.pl/

Let me know what you find!

June 26, 2011

#Polish #Genealogy – Useful Websites … #3 Mapa.Szukacz.pl

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

To recap, please look at Stanczyk’s little graphic. We have covered genealogyindexer.org, Poland’s Digital Libraries (Biblioteka Cyfrowa), and now number three in our series:  Mapa.Szukacz.pl  .

If you want to trace Polish genealogy a good many skills are required of the researcher. The ability to read a map or a gazetteer is critical. Where is Babcia’s village?  So mapa.szukacz.pl is good for locating today’s existing villages/towns/cities. If you use Google Maps, then the basic concept should be familiar to you. But Stanczyk likes mapa.szukacz.pl because you lookup the village. To lookup a placename you enter the village in the field with the title ‘Miejscowość’ in the pink dialog box with the title, ‘Pokaż na mapie’ (‘Show on Map’). Finally, you press the button named, ‘Pokaż’ (Show). That is it. The village appears, assuming it still exists and you are fortunate enough to spell it correctly. If the placename you entered is a common one, then you may see a list of choices to examine and pick from. That is it and you have located dziadek’s (grandfather’s) home town. Of course, you have probably done some extensive research to get to this point. But now you have the lay of the land of your ancestral village. The radio buttions by ‘Zebliż’ change the zoom of the map; so adjust to your needs. All this is well and good and mostly just like Google Maps, except the ability lookup by name. But there have been a few new tricks added to this wonderful tool.

It already gave you the population (ex. 1275 osób, like for Pacanow). You need not enter the diacriticals. It also gave you woj. ,  pow. ,  and gmina. Which you may think of as  state, county, and township/borrough. Write these down, you will need them over and over again. Sadly, these levels of administration have changed since your grandparent’s time. You also get a postal code and telephone prefix in case you seek out family in the mother country. If that were all it would be a useful tool. But as I said, they have enhanced this web application. There is a valuable drop down named, ‘Przydatne punkty’ (“Useful points’). It only allows you to pick one selection. I find ‘kościoły’ (Churches) and ‘cmentarze’ (Cemeteries) the most useful to a genealogist. A word to the wise. The symbols that pop-up on the map (if any,  at your zoom level) are woefully incomplete. So the church you are seeking may not show, as in my case. But I am hopeful that they will keep adding to his valuable resource. This option is akin to that of ‘search nearby’ in Google Maps. Originally, I did not use Google Maps for Poland or Ukraine because it was woeful in listing villages and its ability to search nearby was no good for countries that did not have English as their primary language. But I see today that those issues have been resolved by Google. But Mapa.szukacz.pl still gives you the population and administration levels and other demographics that Google has yet to provide. Stanczyk does have to praise Google in one way. The ‘little yellow man’ that you can place on most US roads to get a web-cam still panoramic view of the location is replaced with little blue ‘dots’ where you can drop him and see photographs from that spot (Which Pacanow seemed to have many). So I guess you should use both maps.google.com and mapa.szukacz.pl to geo-locate your ancestral village. To get  the spelling correct, perhaps you can use JewishGen’s (also now in ancestry.com) Shtetl Seeker tool to help you get the spelling correct. Alas, that is another useful website for another day….

June 25, 2011

Polish Genealogy: Useful Websites #2 … Digital Archives, Libraries, Church Archives

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

Yesterday I wrote about Poland’s great website resources that we in the English speaking world should be using. I was thinking of the State Archives (national/regional), Libraries, and Ecclesiastical Archives. Now these are not the civil registration offices (USC) nor are these the parish church books. These are the duplicate records in the archives.

Furthermore, I was emphasizing the resources that have online resources, like a catalog (in the case of the PRADZIAD database) or even better digital images of documents or historical items. Yesterday’s article was already running long. So today, I am including a sampling of these resources (while I test/cleanup the others). With these you should be able to find the others yourself. I also apologize that these are heavily influenced by where I have ancestors.

A word of note to my cautious readers. The digital libraries all use a product called Dj Vu ( a browser plug-in) from LizardTech. I strongly urge you to utilize this software! I have used it for years with no worries. It works in both MS Windows and in MAC OS. I have used with many types of browsers and can usually get it to work as an add-in/plug-in to the browser or as a local applet that runs on the PC.

As for the websites, I have some advice there as well. First off, if you are comfortable working in Polish (język polski) then you should use this language. The reason is some sites offer more content only in Polish. If you are language challenged, then your next best option is to look for a little flag. The flag looks like the UK’s Union Jack or the USA’s Old Glory or sometimes a hybrid of the two. Clicking on that icon usually translates a page’s content into “mostly” English. Some button or menus or other user interface features may still be in Polish. For the most part, the websites do not force you to use the accented letters (diacriticals). You should test to verify you get the same results in your searches by doing it both ways. Some websites offer a little keyboard to help Americans enter the diacriticals when they are necessary. The GenealogIndexer website actually had a nice keyboard (see image above) that included the Cyrillic characters (in case you are searching in Russian/Ukrainian/BeloRussian/etc.), Hebrew characters and other Euro/Slavic characters.

Stanczyk wishes to thank Poland and its many archives and museums for providing these resources. I promise to come visit as a tourist and a RESEARCHER because you so kindly made it possible for me to extend my vacation/holiday to do some historical/genealogical research by providing these resources ahead of time while I am still at home and can prepare. Final word of advice, to those planning a research trip to Poland; Try these websites out to help you on locating the resources and their locations and even the details (i.e. FONDS, etc.). Make yourself familiar with access rules or have your guide do the leg-work so you can walk right in and begin your research without delay. Do not forget or ignore the parishes or the USC offices (civil records authority, like county-clerk in USA) or cemeteries; make time for parishes and archives both to ensure you see as much as you possibly can in one trip.

Now my sample resources are in the table below:

Digital Content from Poland’s Archives / Museums / Churches English Translation Websites
Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych The Head Office of State Archives http://archiwa.gov.pl/en/data-bases.html
MaloPolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa Digital Library of Malopolska (LittlePoland) http://mbc.malopolska.pl/dlibra
WielkoPolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa Digital Library of Greater Poland in Poznan http://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra
Slaska Biblioteka Cyfrowa Digital Library of Silesia http://www.sbc.org.pl/dlibra
Podlaska Biblioteka Cyfrowa Digital Library of Podlaska http://pbc.biaman.pl/dlibra
Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych AGAD – Central Archives of Historical Records http://www.agad.archiwa.gov.pl/
Archiwum Państwowe w Kielcach State Archive in Kielce http://www.kielce.ap.gov.pl/
Archiwum Państwowe w Rzeszowie State Archive in Rzeszów http://www.rzeszow.ap.gov.pl
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (NAC) National Digital Archives http://nac.gov.pl/en/node/58
NAC – Search Archives link Search the Archives (Lublin, Poznan, Warsaw, Hoover Inst.) http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/
Archiwum Diecezjalne – Kielce Kielce Diocessan Archives http://www.kielce.opoka.org.pl/?mod=contents&g=kuria&id=archiwum
Archiwum Diecezjalne – Tarnów Tarnów Diocessan Archives http://www.archiwum.diecezja.tarnow.pl
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