MYSTIC VOYAGE YOUTUBE STATION : DNA AND ETHNICTY

My number three choice of YouTube Channels of interest to the genealogist-historian is MYSTIC VOYAGE.

MYSTIC VOYAGE YOUTUBE CHANNEL - DNA GENETICS / ETHNICITY

Persian? Siberian? Mexican? Jewish?  and many more...  CAN DNA SURVIVE WAR? FORCED RELOCATION? World War II?

I'm linking to one about the origins of the Poles because it takes into consideration language as well as extensive DNA research reports taken from burials of ancient peoples.

SCIENTISTS REVEAL SURPRISING ORIGINS OF THE POLISH PEOPLE : MYSTIC VOYAGE

Posts like this one can be found by clicking on the label YouTube Station Recommend

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES #1 PRO GENEALOGY TIPS FROM ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

HOW TO DEAL WITH SURNAME MYSTERIES  #1  PRO GENEALOGY TIPS FROM ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

Have you ever been blocked in your research because you just can't seem to find the person by the SURNAME you have for them in databases?

Transcription and Indexing projects can be helpful but when the original handwriting is bad or the pages are faded or water damaged or the indexer did not have a clue about the ethnic surnames of the heritage/country/language they are working with, it's frustrating. The indexer was well meaning but it can mean hours of confusion for you. There you are, trying to figure out if that letter is an l or if the giant G you see is actually a J, or a T is an F. Frustration that might not be so acute if you were spinning microfilm. 

I say this because I've tried to recreate years of personal research on some of the most popular databases and I can tell you that NO, I would NOT find what I did using microfilm coming up on these databases.  (And in one case the clue I needed wasn't even on a microfilm but on the BACK OF A PAPER INDEX CARD! - which no one noticed when they were microfilming.)

That is why we always want to go to the original source material and see for ourselves what the index or database has taken us to. (And why I fear the destruction of source material.)

An indexer had the chance to properly translate a surname.

You have the chance.

You can use the Internet to your advantage.

I'm sure you've had the experience here on Google of searching for a topic but forgetting how to spell the word or words. The suggestion Google's intelligent search engine came up with makes all the difference because it spelled it correctly for you.  IT OFTEN CAN DO THE SAME WITH A SURNAME.

(I'm also sure at least some of you have had the hideous experience of automatic word corrections doing serious damage to your message - your text.  (I know my defunct cell phone did that and I started to hate texting because of all the wasted time fixing the words to what I had originally intended; sometimes the message still somehow went out wrong.)

This post is NOT to tell you that you should sit there and loose hours of your life, feeling ready to tear your hair out, trying to figure out what an indexer did not, though trying those T's that are J's and C's that are G's does sometimes make all the difference.

So here is my first tip...

USE AN ON-LINE LANGUAGE TRANSLATOR first to see if the name as you have is spelled HAS A MEANING. The translators are not always all-encompassing with their libraries of words and meanings, but this is a first step. You may be surprised at some of the meanings. Perhaps your ancestor went through life being known as Mrs. Dumpling.  Or Mr. Bellybutton.

At the same time, consider that some names, such as Baker, have variations that are close to each other in various languages.

If the surname has a suffix and the translator is not bringing up a meaning, but simply restating it as a word, try that surname without the suffix.

Be sensitive to the suffix as a particular language's way of adding words that mean - of, son, daughter, or some other possessive. This may be your clue to the ethnicity and language of the person and a way of confirming that you're looking at the right documents.  Sure, in some parts of the world there was ethnic mixing going on centuries ago and you may find Italians in Hungary or Scots in Poland. The incoming ethnic people may have slightly changed their name to fit into their new culture.

AN EXAMPLE:

In Polish a ski ending infers masculinity or the father, the patriarch side of the family.  Ska ending infers femininity and the mother, the matriarch side of the family. However, the name may though time move into the ski ending.  Ski indicates eastern slav origins and Sky indicates western sav origins.  

Szke is a Hungarian suffix meaning the same. In in some families both were used or you will notice the suffix evolving.

Ski, sky, vich, iew, ow, dotter, all indicate that somewhere along the line, a person took the original root name and added a possessive.  Which means that you may just find the link between the surnames in a sensible way, because you find the name without that suffix.

The name with an ow suffix may mean  "The man from Krak"  i.e. Krakow.

You'll notice that some possessives indicate a relationship with a person and others a relationship with a PLACE.

When it comes to places and times where people did not have to have a surname because everyone knew who was who in their village or the subculture they lived in within the village, there are two ethnic groups I can think of off hand here in which surnames were recent and did not stabilize for some time, and there was no need for legal name changes.

More on that in the next post!

This post is one of a series on the subject.  Click on the tag Surname Help - AWG to get to all the posts.

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All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

image from Graphics Fairy

DEDUCTIVE REASONING in GENEALOGY - NARROWING DOWN THE AGE OF DEATH TO FIND THE RECORD

Now that I've had my big breakthrough in my Polish line research, I've easily gone back a few generations but records I focused upon and would like very much remain missing or undiscovered. They are yet to be indexed for sure.  I've not found that the death records have much to offer in identifying who the dead person was married to. The death records seem to be the least indexed as well.

TO FOCUS and potentially reduce the time spent on looking for records page by page here is what I do.

I look at the marriages of the children.  If there have been two - three - four - marriages, I look at the marriages of the children from those marriages too because in these records there is a notation about each partner's heritage.  If possible start with the first married child and work forward in time.  If it says the parent is p.d. (parent deceased) you'll know that at the date of that wedding, that parent is dead.  Or both are.

ie. Jan's marriage  1835 parents both alive

     Marianna's marriage 1838 note that her father is diseased

      Sophia's marriage 1843 note that both parents are deceased.  

Therefore I know that I need to look from 1838 to 1835 for the death of these children's father.  And from 1843 to 1838 for the death of these children's mother.

I BUST THROUGH A PERSONAL GENEALOGY MYSTERY - EUPHORIA!

EUPHORIA!

On the tail of my last post about genealogy screw ups, let me tell you that on Sunday December 12th, 2021, around noon, I had a long awaited and hunted breakthrough in my own personal genealogy.  In fact, I'm writing this post a couple hours later, while the elation I feel is at a high, for future posting.  OK, I'm congratulating myself on my endurance and patience as well as my know-how. I'm thinking this post will be a positive start for the new year, 2022 and maybe it will inspire you.

During Covid shutdowns I did a lot of personal research using archives in other countries and saw documents that HAVE NOT BEEN SOLD OR SHARED to any of the "big" database companies that so many have come to depend on too much.  I think these countries are right to keep possession of their archival documents and I want to honor their volunteers as well (although I caution you that some of them are not reading correctly and posting widow's married name rather than their maiden names on remarriages, which should be corrected.)

One of these countries is Poland though this line of my ancestors lived in Galicia which was Austria at the time. 

The cell phone I downloaded on became defunct since then but on it I had downloaded dozens of pages "of interest" because what I wanted and needed and looked all over for - page by page in some cases - hundreds of pages - was not coming up. I eliminated the possibilities of finding birth records and a marriage record where they "should" have been - and read a wide range of villages which appear to have their own churches as part of a larger parish system. Then I got busy and failed to review what I had downloaded in the spring and summer of 2021. Until the evening of December 11th and the morning of December 12th - the first day of Christmas.

If I had not, on a trip over 20 years ago, gone to see a relative and asked her a couple questions about my ancestor's maiden name and heritage - which she strained to remember. If my great grandmother had not reported a dream  - a visitation - she had to this same relative (a few months before she died) which caused her to reveal that she had an older half brother and that they shared a mother - I might not have realized what I was looking at.

What if my great-grandmother had not had the dream? 

What if she had not told my relative?  

What if I had not asked my relative while she was still alive?

So here is the story.  

My great-grandmother was an "orphan." Her children never met an aunt or uncle. When I asked my relative what had happened to great-grandma's parents, she said her mother reported that one of them was "killed on the road" and the other "burned up in a fire." She was repeating what my great-grandmother had told her in Polish, trying not to elaborate.  

From that day on, I was trying to find out what town fire - or maybe it was the home hearth - might have burned up my great grandmother's mother. I thought it made sense that the mother would burn up and the father would be killed on the road but I still do not know. I imaged my great grandfather as a merchant traveling through the Carpathian mountains into Hungary, perhaps being surprised by highway robbers who wanted his silver... I look forward to finding death records of these ancestors which might have some notes.

My mother (and her sibling) seemed not to know anything much about their own grandparents, whom they never met. They seemed satisfied with moving forward into their own lives as if no one else had ever made this possible. In fact my grandmother had told them not to look back.

I once rejected renting a wood house because when I got inside it, as the wind blew and it creaked, I thought, "This place is a fire hazard!  I once rejected living in a certain apartment because the big window looked over the roof and I thought "If there is a fire, how can one escape across a hot asphalted roof?"  Not that I think I was once the woman who burned up in another life, but knowing I had such an ancestor in my lineage scared me. I would not want to live in an all wood house.

The not knowing who your people were is not so unusual actually.  It's one of the things that has propelled so many to do genealogy in the first place, to solve mysteries and set the record straight.

My great-grandparent's immigration documents and naturalization documents repeated the names of a few locations. I looked at maps going way back, the districting of parishes. I was sure that my great-grandmother's wedding - that of an orphaned girl who was match-made by friends - had been the creation of a caring priest, because who might attend?

So of course I immediately went to those mentioned places, those records and documents, and around them, on guard for genealogy myopia, looking at the correct dates or a few days, months, or years either way, and NOTHING!  Would it be my luck, my fate, that the very pages I needed were somehow missing? I'm terrific at figuring out bad handwriting and misspellings - that was not it. Or had these people been too far up in the mountains to come down and have an actual baptism in a church?  (On some records the midwife is named as the person who baptised.)

In genealogy deductive reasoning is good so long as you detail your path.

On my immigration posts full of advice last year I mentioned you should GO TO THE ADDRESS THEY GAVE ON THE SHIP and see who is living there.  I did this years ago, using microfilm and now old fashioned methods of finding an enumeration district per census year.

To my amazement I found the half brother (or someone with his very same name) and two other men there with the same surname as my grandmother. However, these names were fairly common in the area they mentioned coming from. I concluded that my great-grandfather might simply have headed for a boarding house where other men he knew in the Old Country headed but I hoped they could be related or intermarried somehow.  

As the records did not show up where they "should've" been, as volunteers in Poland continued to give of their time to create databases that did not yet have death records, I relied on marriages and births and I began to go page to page, reasoning that if these people had siblings, then probably siblings would show up somehow.  I ran into common names and dozens of candidates.

Using the information on the census of 1910 at the address in the United States my great-grandfather had headed, I took down the names, ages, and marital status of other men living there.  *** He was no longer there - having already moved to another city for work.

As it turned out this is the very thing that made all the difference.

I looked for all documents taken at the location in Poland where my great-grandmother listed herself as having been living with a "sister" before coming to America.  It turns out that someone from that very town actually ran a boarding house in the same area that my great-grandfather had gone to. My great-grandmother lived there while he took a train into another city for work!

Using all those saved documents held in Polish archives on the cell phone, I read one after another again, taking notes by hand. I FOUND THAT THE HALF BROTHER and one of the other men at that boarding house with my great-grandmother's maiden name as a surname DID INDEED HAVE THE SAME MOTHER. Using their marriage records rather than my great-grandmother's missing record, I determined her mother's maiden name.  These men's marriage records give their ages and also mention that the parents are deceased. They were the men at that boarding house in 1910 - the census ages and their ages on birth records match. Therefore, I learned they too were orphans at the time of their marriages and I now have the names of my great-grandmother's birth parents and my great great-grandparents on that line.

Additionally, by reading around and around records for the big parish church mentioned verbally as the place of their marriage - which has not been found - I have learned that my great-grandfather's surname was quite rare in that location, but there is ONE marriage of a person with that name and he is listed as in the military at his marriage. As a military man he probably wasn't living where he was born or his family lived. There is also a mention of a child being born who would be about two years older than my great-grandfather that has a mention of a village nearby - the village he listed as his birth place.  It may be a little soon to conclude on this line as well, but I have a sense that I may have found my great-grandfather's line.

In the many years prior to these databases being uploaded by volunteers in Poland, I could have written to archives in Poland and paid genealogists there, and if I'd had the money, I probably would have.  Although the archivist would be more familiar with the records, they would have looked at the records I'm looking at myself... gone to the dates and places given... found nothing... sent me a bill or asked me if I wanted to spend more...

THERE IS ALWAYS THE POSSIBILITY MORE WILL BE FOUND THERE and that some things will only be available by special requests.  However, I now have so much more information to provide when I write.

By reading these records I noted that in towns where the Greek Catholic church prevailed, Roman Catholic children are recorded in the "big parish" nearest with a note of their village.  I have tripped over two curious listings that are not related to my family.  In one it is noted that a child has been born illegitimately - the woman is a convert and her Jewish father's name is listed.  In another, it is noted that a Jewish father, who did not marry another woman whose child is illegitimate, did show up for the baptism and want his name recorded. In these cases there is a strong story about changing times - Fiddler on the Roof times - in which there was forbidden love and lust.

A dozen lemon menthol cough drops later...  still overjoyed!

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All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

MARRIAGE RECORDS; POLAND GENEALOGY #4

I hope if you have not yet, you'll read the  previous posts of this series.

Without reading headings, it's obvious you're looking at a church record for births, marriages and deaths. Indexing projects seem to focus on births. While this is helpful, it's not the start of research for some. So it's my hope that marriage indexes will be next, be it the Polish Genealogy society people busy indexing at GENETEKA or the Latter Day Saint's FAMILYSEARCH projects.

You'll probably be able to make out the names, ages, parents of the couple, and so on.

If a surname seems unreadable or questionable, try running a Google search for the surname as you think it's spelled. Often a suggestion will come up that's the correct spelling and if not then my guess is that if you keep reading you will find it spelled clearly in better handwriting elsewhere in the book.

Some things to consider:

The given name in Latin has a Polish equivalent. Watch the Ls turn into Ws. The Ws into Vs. Valentius is Valentine is Walenty.  (Wally, Wallace, or Val in America?) Is your Aunt Betty not Elizabeth but Bronteslava? (Bronte?) So much is in Latin but consider the translation of given names.

Next, if a person has been widowed it will be noted and it may say who they were married to previously and that's before the name of the parents and grandparents! This is terrific if you can find the birth/ baptismal too, the previous marriage, all the children and step children.

Ok you're maybe going to see three dates, say, 1/4, 1/11, 1/18. Or I, II, III. These are the banns of marriages, the announcement of the intended marriage. Today these are posted in church bulletins and even end up on the net. Soap Operas / Day Time dramas love to include into the plot that during the very marriage ceremony someone will object to the marriage. But the original idea was to cause a person with an objection to come forward to the priest before the ceremony to cancel it. Objections in the 19th century and past could include knowing someone is already married or that someone is homosexual, or that they are a criminal on the run, or that an agreement about who will live where or own land has not been peacefully decided. 

My research leads me to think remarriage was a pragmatic contract but there were more concerns too as I have found records where there's no mention of banns when it's two never- married individuals joining their lives but only on the remarriage of those widows and widowers! 

Now, there are often notes that need to be translated as well. I believe one priest was writing in 2 or 3 after "widower" to state the person lost two or three previous wives. Also, I've seen notes that banns were posted in two villages. Maybe they were stuck on a door of a church but since few could read and write, I think verbal announcements were made.

Another note on marriage records is a house number. Possibly if you can find a cadastral map of the habituation from the same year you can see where they lived but these don't usually relate to today's house numbers.

Testifiers or witnesses may or may not be related to the couple. Note them but sometimes they are elders of the community, employers/ farm owners (implying the groom has employment), and you'll see two, or three, or four, all or mostly men. In villages where surnames are repetitive be especially careful not to assume the testimonial people are related. Don't think of them as best men, maids of honor, or the wedding party. 

Also valuable are those records that include where the person was born and where they live/habituate at the time. If no remark is made, the person is local, a part of the parish. That may mean a neighboring village which is part of that parish. If they're from somewhere else you'll go to those records for baptismal.

I've noticed some listings that give the birth dates of bride and groom. Thank You!

Remember, priests were hard working, had influence, were called upon for advice, were able to read and write, and church was central to the people's lives.

But farmers and farm laborers couldn't always make it to church. They didn't have tractors back in the day and had to hoe, plant, water, and harvest by hand or might be lucky to have horses or mules.

Professions may also be listed but more by industry. Agriculture is general and covers a wide range of possibilities.

Cobbler. Military. Official.

D. may indicate a person is of nobility - implied is of importance. Note the Germanic names in the Austrian Empire.

Notes can include statements. One I read was "person is low" a servent. Another was "this man is rustic." 

So what was a peasant? Actually peasant is supposed to mean that they lived a countrified existence; that was most people. Peasant started to infer that a person was ignorant or poor, perhaps maintaining folk beliefs, and became a put down. There's no reason to think that way. Landless people who could not live off their own land became like our migrant farm workers, going from farm to farm to work odd jobs or harvest. Others went into trades and became skilled craftsman and artisans. There were traveling salesman and shop keepers and some few became more educated. 

See if a statistical almanac or gazetteer is available for the habituation. Learn about mines, forestry, and industry. Oil wells, steel mills, and market towns.

Finally, note the name of the priest and try to find the name of the church.

There's a lot on line, especially the beautiful churches that tourists go to see with Baroque interiors. The wooden churches of the Greek Catholics are also wonderful.

Once you've found s marriage, see what the church where the marriage was performed looked like.

C 2021 Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

 

EAST GREEK OR WEST ROMAN CATHOLIC AND ETHNICITY : POLAND GENEALOGY

Earlier I mentioned that you might think a person to be Polish but discover a person had a Ruthenian, Ukrainian, or other ethnic identity. You may also discover in your search for archival documents that there are religious records and duplicates called "city" or "town" records - Civil Records. You may notice the start date on these is about 1860 - compliance was not immediate. What happened is that Priests were told to make duplicates of parish records of births, marriages, and deaths to be submitted to government so then these second sets got called Civil. It's a good thing because two handwritten copies meant more survived. However, I've noticed the year dates are not always the same between church and civil as if some records were lost. You may have to look at both.

I recently had an experience that made me question previous research that went to a date I was seeking for a baptismal. Not finding it, I decided to read every page of marriages, taking notes by hand. And there I found a selection of dates out of order. However, sometimes the civil copies are more readable since an effort was being made to copy.

Some collections are clearly from Roman Catholic parishes and others are clearly Greek Catholic. Also called Eastern Orthodox, in archives and databases I see "Greek." Generally there was an implied ethnic difference in religion. Ruthenians tended to be Greek Catholics or Uniates (accepting the Roman Catholic Pope but following their own rituals, saints, and calendar). They also tended to be living closer to the Carpathian Mountains or where the eastern part of Poland was, about where Ukraine is now.***

But take the following into consideration:

Ruthenians had three sub-ethnic groups or tribes within their ethnicity. The most familiar to us today are the Lemko and if you're looking at records for Village up close to mountains or mountain passes. they are probably Lemko.***

Then, the Ruthenian people had their own language but back in the day when few people went to school - girls were often not sent at all even when their family had means - just about everyone was multilingual, especially because these were Slavic languages and had many similarities, they could understand each other. (German would be the most popular language after the Slavic.) In market and trade towns very many languages were spoken. Some documents are in Latin, German, or French. Or Ukrainian, which is the only one I panic about due to Cyrillic alphabet.

Last but not least, there were marriages between people of different faiths. And it's not clearly recorded. I suspect priests might have felt that if a person was being baptized, married, or buried in their church then that's enough to claim them. I've seen one note in a Roman Catholic record that says "This man comes from Ruthenian lands."

So here are some clues which may help.

The first is the given name of a child. Children are often named after a saint because of the day they were born that honored that saint or thereabouts - so you'll see a lot of girls who are baptized in a Franciscan run Roman Catholic church named Rose/Rosalia after Italian Saint Rose of Viterbo in early September. There isn't much diversity of names or honorifics of parents or family in Polish records. Children chose a Confirmation name that might honor a parent. (And use that as a middle name.)

When you get to names such as Basilius, Anastasia, Demeter and Tatiana you're probably looking at a child who has a Greek Catholic heritage, at least one parent because that name honors an Eastern saint. I've found these names in Roman Catholic records. They don't just sound Greek. They sound Russian.

Second, you'll find certain settlements had substantial populations and separate churches but others required travel.  It might be easier to just go into the closest church. 

Or, home births with family or midwives being the common way, a baptism could occur after birth and people might not make it into church, staying up in the mountains.

Third, you may find you do have to move over to Greek Catholic records and into records of other countries so it's worth checking into in any case if a village that figures into your heritage had a Greek Catholic Church. 

Interesting to me is that Polish Roman and Greek Catholic records and Jewish records record the name of the midwife which I feel is part of a testimonial such as, "I know who the mother is. I delivered the baby." Midwives did baptized babies after birth. (Anyone can.) Notice any pattern on day born and day baptized ? The same day might mean baptized at birth.

A question of the Ruthenian ethnic identity has existed for hundreds of years, a controversial subject for sure. They are considered to be of the country from where they lived. (i.e. Russia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania....)

But if you know someone who is Ruthenian, ask them how they wish to be identified.

Here is the last but sometimes most important thing. There may be a ten to twelve day difference in the dates from the Eastern, Julian calendar that was the old calendar begun by Julius Caesar and used until 1582 throughout Europe and the Gregorian, begun by Pope Gregory used by most of Roman Catholic Europe. So basically if you're reading records of the Eastern Orthodox or Greek Catholic Church, read the dates forward and back of the date you're targeting.  (Many of you are familiar with the difference in when Christmas is celebrated.

***

So, the three groups of Ruthenians are the Lemko, who are usually found in Ukraine,  Poland, and Slovakia. The Hutsels, usually found in Ukraine, Romania, and Bukovina. And the Boykos, usually found in the mountains of Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary. Ruthenians are also called Carpatho- Rusyns, Kiev Rus, Eastern Slavs, Uniates, Belarusians, and mostly Ukrainian...

If you learn you're Ruthenian or are simply intrigued to know there's an ethnic group you never heard of, you may find the nation's first cultural center in the Pittsburgh area.

They bought Saint John the Baptist cathedral.

NATIONAL CARPATHO-RUSYN CULTURAL CENTER

POLAND GENEALOGY : EVER BETTER RESOURCES #2

POLAND GENEALOGY :  EVER BETTER RESOURCES #2

Those of you doing Polish / Poland genealogy research feel you're facing obstacles unknown in research for other parts of Europe. Political upheavels and war, the disappearance of a country called Poland for about 170 years, changes in borders between Poland and Russia, the creation of Galicia as part of the Austrian Empire, border changes with Slovakia, the partition called Prussia, changes of names of villages by spelling or languages, and changes in Diocese, can be confusing. 

Don't despair! Remind yourself Poland fits in the state of Colorado and the population wasn't what it is today. You may hit into obstacles but you may be rewarded.

There is lots of information so easily and quickly available compared to the days when traveling to Poland or writing to archives was the only way to research.

While location of records has been confusing, you can find detailed information at AGAD (Run by the Central Archives of Historical Records) which is online, based in Warsaw. It includes information about Poland/ Ukraine. It can link you elsewhere.

Additionally, while multiple archives and resources hold originals, some were microfilmed, and some were scanned, digitalized, and some were uploaded to be searched on line, image by image. 

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, be patient.

First, be aware that sites accessed from the US in Poland may raise an alert on your phone or computer because they're not "secure" with an https. (I ignore the warning. I also clear my cookies, history, etc. frequently.) Or simply because Poland is not considered to be a country reliable for security and I've even found the whole country to be blocked on public computers!

Look in the PRADZIAD database. This is a regional archive locator. If you seek information more quickly after exhausting what is readily available on line, you can still do the time honored contact with an archive. 

NAC is slowly replacing this site and I love it. I've found the best way to pull up the collection you may be seeking in it is to search by location - TOWN / settlement name. Yes, you will browse image by image because it's not indexed but hey I too prefer rolling microfilm. You can get to a date fairly quickly. I've used NAC extensively to take me to image collections when I know the TOWN/ settlement name. But you will face the fact that collections are missing years, especially the World War I era. Also Poland privacy laws are stricter than America but that doesn't account for year gaps.

Google translates Polish into English so titles of collection are easy.

You can also search a terrific database that is volunteer driven called GENETEKA hosted by the Polish Genealogy Society (of and in Poland) which is perhaps the best but not the only indexing project in Poland. It is being added to every week - I know this from trying it - you can volunteer to index or donate. Though I'm not big on posting to ask for information through sharing, you can - in Polish. I suggest you do this only when you've done everything possible and have hit into the brick wall and think only other people will have the documents you need or you want to network. Other aspects of the site can be turned to English or German.

Though far from complete, it is worth trying first and then going to the previously mentioned site(s) if they don't yet have what you want on line. 

You can run surname searches in GENETEKA and some family groups emerge. However, I think marriages are also quite important. This is because you can get the ages, who is widowed, and the names of parents and grandparents on the marriage. For instance, Marianna, the widow of Jan Borek, the daughter of Walenty Sliwa and Marianna Baran, age 29, marrying the widower Wincenty Jacobowicz, age 51, tells you to expect a blended family, gives you a birth year, and allows you to confirm a birth date via parents.   

You begin to imagine the world as it was not so long ago. Babies and children dying before adulthood pre vaccinations and antibiotics. Women giving birth at home with a family member or midwife there, not a hospital and a C-section. That women died and left children orphaned. That people remarried and family became blended due to death rather than divorce. Not many really old people. And, I know there were love stories and affairs but 19th century and past was a time when people were pragmatic about marriage and were matchmade - of all religions though rarely between Jews and Christians or Protestants and Catholics but up to 20 percent of Roman and Greek Catholic.

Sometimes families or a village all had a say and determined who would marry who because of who owned land which they wanted to keep in the family. A couple of old people might marry having experienced the loss of a few spouces. As a result of being cousins by blood or marriage with much of the village there could be a bit more of "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality. Yet, I also see that there are people who waited into their thirties to marry suggesting resistance, a wait to inherit a farm, or some other issue. (More on marriage records later!) Also, sad to say, the abandoned died of starvation.

Villages a few miles apart meant a potential groom could walk or ride a horse to go see a potential bride. After you read the records for an ancestral village you'll begin to see that you're probably genetically related to everyone there and begin to wonder how alike people looked and you'll wonder if this reinforced certain characteristics of physical and mental health. Undoubtedly!

Currently the database has very little marriage or death records indexed or linked. So what I've done because the marriage isn't indexed and scanned is find the marriage at another resource.

If they've indexed it at GENETEKA, you will go directly to the image scan of the page and can go forwards or backwards from there. So without leaving the site you can read an entire book of birth records by town. Otherwise it will take you to images to browse the collection at the archive where it's sourced and you can page through. (S is for Scan, I is for image.)

If this database does not go right to the information you want, you can check back in a week or month or try the previously mentioned archive site. Don't assume marriage, death, or records for settlements not listed do not exist.

Here is a research strategy for you to follow and some hints. I'll get more into it in future posts.

Most Americans who know little of their Polish/ Poland heritage find the name of a settlement - a village, town, or city, that the immigrant left through Naturalization papers or ship manifests or a death certificate (though the person providing information for this document may not know). Be careful with this. Asking where they left is not the same as asking where they were born. See my posts about Ellis Island from earlier in this year, even if you're sure they didn't come through Ellis.) 

You want your timeline to begin at the ancestors birth and take them through the historical and archival changes. This can help you locate the right place and thus the archive storing documents.

Situate yourself by searching first by TOWN or settlement but don't be surprised if you find your ancestor gave the name of a county, a diocese, or the town where they went to church rather than the family home. This would be like if someone from Westwood near UCLA said they were from Los Angeles but their baptism took place in Santa Monica which is not far away but a separate city within Los Angeles County. Ask them where they're from.

Print out an all county map of present day Poland. Print out maps of the county you're focused on which show habitations today. Print out a map from the closest date in which your ancestor lived there. A good site is MAPIRE.

Take a good look at the names of habitations, how far they are from each other and present day borders. Encyclopedia can give you historical information. If you find yourself with a rather vague location such as Krosno, as there are a few, you can refer to these maps and circle each village you've seen the documents for, perhaps progressing in a circle out.

Also run searches of settlement names because there are many times multiple locations in various counties with the same or similar place names.

This research also helps understand historical changes such as German place names or because a settlement name changed spelling over time. A gazetteer may also show these town name changes.

A web site called Gesher Galicia proves to have the best free chart that's Galicia focused, giving the name of the settlement, and where both civil and religious records are kept for Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Jewish records. Even if you aren't doing Jewish research, Jewish sites have lots of information about places where Jewish people settled and Christians lived there too.

Some documents will be titled in Polish, some in Latin or German, but the TOWN name is the key which will lead you to what's available and you can use a translator from there.

Another resource is the Polish Genealogical Society of America, which has a web site, is based in Chicago and has a focus on Poles who settled in Chicago. You may find there are Polish genealogy or history special collections in American city libraries. Check WORLDCAT. 

You may just find yourself looking into the Familysearch catalogue and database as well. However, due to national pride in the archives of Poland and database projects in that country, I do not think Familysearch will have a comprehensive Poland database any time soon, if ever.

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This icon is in public domain through wikimedia.

Links mentioned:

AGAD in Poland 

Stands for Program for Registration of Records for Parish and Cival Registration Offices;

PRADZIAD

GENETEKA

POLISH GENEALOGY SOCIETY DATABASES IN POLAND

NAC

MAPIRE Europe in English

GESHER GALICIA

COMING UP - POLAND RESEARCH - IT'S HAPPENING!

I have an ancestral line to Poland and know some of you are frustrated by POLAND RESEARCH. So I'll be posting on the subject of Poland genealogy soon - come back here to ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BlogSpot on May 5th. See you then!

HER DNA SUGGESTS RACE AND ETHNICITY - WAS IT MARRIAGE OR RAPE? : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

Question for Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

(Please note that this person showed me her results and asked me to interpret them.)

My genealogy research takes me back to Southern Poland and parts of what is now Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine. I know this was the Austrian Empire, but my ancestors always had their "ethnic I'm" as these ethnicities. I'm showing Asian ancestry on one side and Near Eastern ancestry on the other. Percentages would l be about one sixteenth of each - so that would be great great grandparents - right? Is this the end of my standard paper trail research?  Please comment.  Thanks.

G.

Answer from Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

Not necessarily.

First remember that all results are statistically based and dependent on all the people who have chosen to contribute their personal data to that particular company's results and that stats are reworked based on an ever-growing number of considerations. Also, as more understanding of genetics and DNA comes forth, it can get more specific - such as what tribe (be that Native American or Native European - so to speak). Sometimes this information can lead us past a block.

One sixteenth could be a great great grandparents. We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, and sixteen great-great grandparents. However, it could be some other combination such as four of the thirty two great great great grandparents. Or some small strain in many ancestors that adds up.

Today many people simply feel American or Canadian or British - or whatever - though only one of their lines show that. Other people relate to an ethnicity or way of life - including attitudes and lifestyle - that they may be criticized for adopting because there is no biological evidence for it.  (This is one of the reasons I think sometimes that a past life experience is why.)

As for the paper trail - standard genealogy - it is always worth pursing even if it is at odds with the DNA or genetic results.  However, the notions that genealogy will prove generations of marriages - chosen and happy marriages - or unite a fractured family are myths. People may have lives that were more controlled or regimented or limited than we have come to expect as Americans, but there were still affairs and there was rape. Rape is so common that I doubt there is anyone alive who doesn't have some DNA as a result of rape.

Some areas of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine, experienced invasions and occupations that included murder and rape. I suspect you will not likely find church or temple records going into the 19th or 18th century that reveal that. You might want to read about the Tatars, Mongols, and Ottoman Turks.

In my years as a genealogist, I've rarely found notations in records that expand on the explanation of illegitimacy, for instance. (Once in a while an understanding priest wrote in "father in America" or something about a death before marriage - alluding to a romance or plan to be married when the unfortunate happened.)  It's so sad to me when I find a woman in the records who had one child after another without a father and see how soon those children died. I always wonder if she was a woman repeatedly taken advantage of by men in the village - perhaps an orphan or someone born without average intelligence - someone who might have been forced into prostitution.

A W G

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SHOULD SHE HIRE A RESEARCHER IN POLAND? : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

Question:

Hi there.  I'm trying to trace a line of ancestors that came from Galicia, Poland, and am not Jewish.  I joined Jewish Gen and have looked at their databases but wasn't actually expecting anything to come up for me.  Latter Day Saints doesn't have anything useful.  Should I hire someone in Poland to do the research for me?  Any advice would be appreciated.   Anna


Answer:


Anna,

As I understand it there are reliable people in that part of Poland who can walk into archives and do research for you. Before you hire someone though, at least research what archives you can expect the information to be in. Be prepared to hand over - by mail - the research you've done that would lead the researcher to these people, some documentation that you deserve to have the information, such as an explanation in a letter - preferably translated into Polish - on how you are related to them. Present any researcher with a list of the goals you want to achieve and have focused upon. Have a clear idea about how much you can afford and how much time you want to allow for the research to be done. As you know, sometimes information is found very easily and sometimes you have to dig.  There is no such thing as a "rush order" genealogy.

What you are hoping for is someone who knows their way around and has developed a personal relationship with some of the people who work in the state run and church run archives that hold documents. You can always reassess as the project goes on.  Have the person mail you copies of what documents they find, even if this can all be done by e-mail, uploading photos and so on. Be sure that they are checking in with you and giving a progress report at least every other week.

As for how to hire someone who does this professionally and what their background might be, for this I think I would make some phone calls and other inquires based on the region and town where you expect they lived before immigration. JewishGen might be a useful tool for you, since they have groups based on towns and regions and people reporting in when they do heritage tours.  However, consider contacting the priest at the local church for a referral.  Call heritage tour operators, even if you have no plan to go soon yourself, and ask them who they might know there.  Also the Polish Genealogical Society in Chicago might have some leads.  See if you can talk to the people who have hired someone on the phone to get a feel for how it went. 
Yes there are some areas of Poland, some areas all over the world where the Latter Day Saint Missionaries have not been allowed to copy or film.  We are spoiled by the ease of renting films from them instead of traveling ourselves or hiring others.

Wishing you the best on this, Anne!

C 2016 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

GREEK POLISH CATHOLIC RECORDS GIVEN NAMES GIVE YOU A CLUE!

Maybe you are not sure if your "Polish" (Galician/Ruthenian/Austrian) ancestors are Roman or Greek Catholic. (They might also be Jewish or Uniate or Protestant).

Recently I posted about SAINTS NAMES DAYS as the means for naming children.

NAMING PATTERNS (or RELIGIOUS BELIEFS) may help you determine what religion your ancestors practiced in the Old Country. So here are some names that I wrote down after reading through a GREEK CATHOLIC PARISH film at LDS that are 18th and 19th century! (In LATIN)


SOPHIA
MAGDALENA
PARAVKEVIA
TATIANA
EVA
XENIA

BASILIUS
DEMETRIUS

PELAGNIA and PELAGIA
MELANIA
LUDMILLA

POLICARPEUS
HEMILIAN
AMBROSUS
CONSTANINUES
PATALEON
THECLA



And here are some that you also see in POLISH CATHOLIC RECORDS



THADDEUS and THEODORUS
CATHARINA
ANNA
ANTONINA
ROZALIA and ROSALIA
LAURENTIS

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY YIZKOR BOOKS

There are several resources for Yizkor books (Books that Record and thus Remember those Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II) but I just found this one from THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, which gives you VIEWABLE books on line... THIS IS AN EXPERIENCE!

Millions of people who were not Jewish were also killed by the Nazis, such as Rom (gypsies), Catholic clergy, and Polish Christian Intelligentsia, and it is my hope that there will be comprehensive memory books for them too someday.

GENEALOGY SYNCHRONICITY ? I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE SON OF LIPA TEPPER

I was just reading THE BOYS by MARTIN GILBERT and following the holocuast survivor testimony from LIPA TEPPER of Dukla, Poland. Wanting to know more about him I GOOGLED his name and up came a semi private blog (comments limited to members) posted by a man who I believe is his son ? AL TEPPER. There was an announcement there that LIPA had passed away surrounded by family.

I do not presently use Twitter, Facebook, or any of those social networks as I simply do not have the time to keep connections going that way. With my research and writing as extensive as it is these days, I have to make time for yoga class and swimming once in a while, just to move the physical plant my brain sits atop of.

However, I am looking for an e-mail address for AL TEPPER because I would really like to speak with him. I was really excited to see this picture of LIPA TEPPER and one of AL, especially as Al calls himself green and uses NAMASTE!

(Al if you are reading this, please contact me! My comments are set for me to approve first and you can leave an e-mail or other contact information for me on there, sure I will not publish it for the world to see!)

TRAGIC : POLISH PRESIDENT and DIGNITARIES KILLED IN PLANE CRASH ON WAY TO SITE OF UNMARKED GRAVES

For some of us who have roots in Eastern Europe, the recent plane crash that astonishingly resulted in the death of the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and leading dignitaries, to the site of unmarked graves of Poles, killed and deposited there in 1940, will bring up the stories that our ancestors told us about life in the Old Country. "Katyn" is a place in the Russian forest where there are unmarked graves - about 20,000 people are in those graves, many intelligencia, priests, doctors, writers and artists.

IT HAS BEEN A STRUGGLE TO GET THE RUSSIANS TO OPEN THEIR FILES ON THE PRISONERS... Perhaps this is where some GENEALOGY ACTIVISM is required!?

Some of these prisoners are OUR ANCESTORS!

Let me say that about a year ago I discovered that a few persons with a surname in my family had been taken to Siberia... Now, I do not know who these persons are or how or if they are related to me, but possibly this ties in with the story I was told about the Russian soldiers taking my grandfather's brother away... A snippet of family story that I was too young to ask my grandfather more questions about.

Attaching to a Seattle Times article by Associated Press Writer

"Killed with President Lech Kaczynski in the plane crash near Smolensk, western Russia, were his wife, Maria Kaczynska, his closest aides, lawmakers, army commanders, church figures, historic figures, plane crew and relatives of the victims of the 1940 massacre of Polish officers in Katyn and in other places. They had been traveling to Katyn to mark the 70th anniversary.

The Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish military leaders and intellectuals at Katyn and other places at the start of World War II. It was part of a strategy to subdue the country, whose eastern half it occupied starting in 1939, and better control it..." Minika Scislowska