POLISH ANCESTRY NAMING PATTERN OR SAINT?

Recently I spent an afternoon at the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY library. As it often goes, I came in looking to break through a brick wall on one line, but while going through books I found one that mentioned that Poles often named their children for the day they were born or baptized. There was a good list and so I decided to compare the names of some Polish ancestors with the Polish (or Eastern-Central European) saints lists.

To my surprise there was a true connection (birthdate and saints day) of 7 out of 10 of the people I chose. Now, does that mean they were simply named for the saint of the day when they were baptised rather than born?

Now, to this day in Poland people often celebrate their saints day as their birthday.

HERE IS WHERE IT GETS TRICKY: YOUR IMMIGRANT POLISH ANCESTORS MAY HAVE USED THEIR SAINTS DAY AS THEIR OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY on U.S. paperwork/records. It is possible that this will correlate with their baptismal in Poland but maybe not.

According to the book I read, POLISH ROOTS by Rosemary Chorzempa, parents sometimes picked a name within up to a three week period surrounding the actual birth.

Because 3 out of the 10 names I checked did not correlate with a saint day, I think this is possibly the name of a family member OR THEIR BAPTISM sponsor.

I'm linking to the Rootsweb list of Polish Saints Names; REMEMBER THAT THESE CATHOLIC CALENDER DATES MAY HAVE CHANGED OVER TIME and that you may be able to determine ethnicity within Poland or other countries by linking the name and the saint!

What this reinforced to me also is the Catholicism of this family.

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.

POLISH LEGACY RESEARCH GROUP OF CHICAGO

Recently, when doing some research for Poles in the Chicago area, I came across this site and I admire what they are trying to do... PERHAPS YOU CAN ADD TO THEIR DATABASE!

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