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.
Stanczyk - Internet Muse™ 
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