Things I Find Whilst Searching For Other Things — #Meme #Epidemic

Stanczyk loves reading genealogy magazines / e-zines. In particular, William Hoffman’s monthly, Gen Dobry. This month(November 30th, 2018), had an email written about the Russo-Japan War 1904-1905 and this genealogist/tour-guide published his findings from “Kielce Gazeta” on his website which was informed to readers of Gen Dobry.

So this jester, thinks I go looking through 1904,1905,1906 years of Kielce Gazeta looking for the pictures of these war time announcements. It is while doing this that I found today’s article whilst I was searching for those war announcements.

Scarlet Fever

It seems war & epidemics are the biggest contributors to genealogy events, in particular deaths!

So look back at the image, inside the red box. The word that caught my eye was: “Szkarlatyna“. It means scarlet fever. It also noted in the village if Beszowa. So both of these drew my eye since an epidemic in a nearby ancestral village can have repercussions. I noted how the 1831 Cholera epidemic in my grandmother’s village, Biechów was responsible for one in two deaths that year.

Here’s the translation:

In the village of Beszowa, in the last 6 weeks, 29 children were registered for scarlet fever. Of this number, 5 “oro”(??) children died. The district doctor has taken vigorous measures to stop this epidemic.

Perhaps oro was a typo. But 5 (or about 5) children died. This is from the, Kielce Gazeta, March 4th 1906 issue.

By the way, Stanczyk has seen these epidemic outbreaks in Kielce Gazeta before and in EVERY case, “The district doctor has taken vigorous measures to stop this epidemic.” That seems to be routine phrasing to keep the populace from panicking.

The point is if you research deaths in 1906 Beszowa, then keep an eye out for those five children. If they are yours then today’s image is for your family history!

1772 Polish Wojewodztwo, Diocese, and Deaconates — #Polish #Genealogy #Maps

Stanczyk is busy with holiday chores, including wishing you, my dear readers a Happy Holidays & a Happy, Healthy New Year too. As most regular readers know, I spend a lot of my time writing about genealogy with a focus on Polish genealogy and in particular in the geographical areas surrounding my paternal grandparent’s ancestral villages (Biechow & Pacanow in old wojewodztwa Kieleckie, now a part of SwietoKrzyskie woj.). Like most areas in and around Eastern /Central Europe the borders change … frequently. So today’s blog article is about 1772 just before the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned amongst the neighboring empires (you know who you are/were, you Black Eagle Empires).

It is interesting to note that Pacanow was a much more important regional village in 1772. It was in fact, a deaconate, subordinate to the diocese of Krakow in the Gniezno Wojewodztwa. At that time, there were only two Wojewodztwo (Provinces): Gniezno in the west and Lwow (Lviv, Lemberg, Leopolis, the city of Lions in whatever language) in the east. Any other wojewodztwo were in the Lithuanian portion of the Commonwealth. So the civil/religious hierarchy of the time was: Poland->Gniezno->Krakow->Pacanow, which  along with Opatowiec deaconate contained most of the villages this author writes about [you might be tempted to toss in Polaniec and Sandomierz too]. That area is shown in the map at the top. I do a lot of research for my family in the above map, west of Polaniec and south of Pinczow (the lower/left quadrant) in almost every parish north of the Vistula (Wisla) river I have located a record for someone in my family tree  —  you might say, the bones of Stanczyk’s DNA are rooted here.

So let me enumerate the parishes from this 1772 map that are present in my genealogy:

Biechow & Pacanow (grandparents), Stopnica, Ksziaznice, Zborowek, Swiniary, Olesnica, Szczebrzusz, Beszowa, Opatowiec, Busko and probably another 8-9 other villages with a person here or there. I think Solec too, but I have not found that record yet. I also a few stray, unconnected family records from Szczucin (the only parish south of the Vistula … so far). Are these in your bones too? Drop me a line in the New Year and we can compare family trees.

By the way, this research is from the PGSA’s CD-ROM, “The Latin Church in the Polish Commonwealth in 1772” [ISBN – 978-0-924207-12-9 ].