Wypominki

Wypominki w Polsce.

Kiedy byłam małą dziewczynką pamiętam jak pod koniec października pojawiały się w babcinej kuchni kartki na wypominki. Zawsze byłam ciekawska i jak tylko widziałam kartki to od razu chciałam sama pisać. „Babciu ty dyktuj, a ja będę pisać” to był mój stały tekst. Babcia wznosiła oczy do nieba wzywając pomocy/cierpliwości i zaczynała dyktować:

Walerii, Marina, Agnieszki, Tomasza Kominków

Andrzeja, Katarzyny Krasulów

Jana, Anastazji, Piotra, Anny Siudaków

Franciszka, Anny Stępniów

Stanisława, Marianny Bilów

Zapisanie tych kilku osób zajmowało nam strasznie dużo czasu. Nie tylko, dlatego, że umiejętności pisania 8-9 latki pozostawiały sporo do życzenia, ale przede wszystkim, dlatego, że przy każdym imieniu miałam tysiąc pytań. A kto to był, a kiedy żył, a dlaczego tą osobę wpisujemy, a czy Babcia ją znała i czy pamięta, a jak ta osoba wyglądała itp., itd. Myślę, że czasami babcia starała się karteczki schować i uniknąć mojej pomocy jak morowej zarazy, ale zawsze znalazłam sposób, żeby złapać za długopis.

Teraz wiele, wiele lat później mogę powiedzieć, że to były chwile, które roznieciły moją i tak nieujarzmioną ciekawość. Tak zaczęło się moje hobby, które moja rodzina traktuje jak obsesję. Jak nie wiadomo gdzie jestem to pewnie schowałam się gdzieś i czytam metryki:)

Po latach mogę uzupełnić listę dyktowaną kiedyś przez moja babcię i pociągnąć łańcuszek przodków dużo, dużo dalej wstecz:

Walerii, Mariana, Agnieszki, Tomasza, Wiktorii, Jakuba, Marianny, Stanisława, Jana, Anny Kominków

Andrzeja, Katarzyny Jamrozów

Marcina, Katarzyny, Mateusza, Katarzyny, Reginy Marców

Anzelma, Katarzyny, Bartłomieja, Katarzyny Kołaczów

Wojciecha, Marianny Kamelów

Andrzeja, Katarzyny, Pawła, Marianny, Jana, Agnieszki, Teodora, Katarzyny, Krasulów

Piotra, Marianny Nowaków

Michała, Marianny, Franciszka, Marianny, Macieja, Jadwigi Stępniów

Stanisława, Salomei, Mateusza, Franciszki Radosów

Mikołaja, Katarzyny, Wawrzyńca, Teresy Kielosów

Stanisława, Franciszki, Walentego, Wiktorii, Walentego, Apolonii Cieślów

Tomasza, Teresy, Pawła, Elżbiety Mazurów

Andrzeja, Marianny Pietruszków

Jana, Anastazji, Piotra, Anny, Benedykta, Anny, Mikołaja, Agnieszki, Jędrzeja, Apolonii, Jędrzeja, Agnieszki Siudaków

Marcina, Heleny Szymańskich

Tomasza, Agaty, Grzegorza, Jadwigi Czajków

Szymona, Magdaleny Gicał

Mateusza, Agaty, Józefa, Ewy, Wincentego, Anny Wosiów

Mikołaja, Rozalii, Jakuba, Franciszki, Marcina, Ewy Wróblów

Jana, Cecylii, Benedykta, Małgorzaty Walczaków

Kazimierza, Barbary Mańków

Jana, Marianny, Antoniego, Katarzyny, Mateusza, Agnieszki Marców

Antoniego, Katarzyny, Tomasza, Małgorzaty Pawlegów

Stanisława, Elżbiety Krawczyków

Franciszka, Anny, Michała, Magdaleny, Wawrzyńca, Marianny, Kazimierza, Doroty Stępniów

Kacpra, Jadwigi Pietruszków

Macieja, Elżbiety, Franciszka, Marianny Szostaków

Jakuba, Teresy, Karola, Jadwigi Kwietniów

Stanisława, Marianny, Szymona, Elżbiety Bilów

Wojciecha, Heleny, Wawrzyńca, Marianny Łukawskich

Michała, Katarzyny, Mateusza, Agnieszki Wosiów

Gdyby Babcia znała te wszystkie imiona to musiałybyśmy zaczynać we wrześniu, żeby zdążyć na pierwszego listopada.

Teraz po latach musze jeszcze dopisać Zofii i Jana Kominków

Wiecznyodpoczynek racz im dać Panie, a światłość wiekuista niechaj im świeci…

wypominki, grób Jana, Anastazji Siudaków, Pawła Bulira

My boring ancestors.

naming a child - ancestors to modern

during baptism

Why do I consider my ancestors boring? Because I am frustrated. And I am frustrated because my ancestors took a family tradition to a whole new level! It goes like this:

An unusual name in a family tree. Once we have seen it, we hit gold. I think everybody know this feeling! Sheer joy – everybody but me that is!

I am dealing with very stubborn ancestors on pretty much any branch of my family tree. I was prepared to have a lot of the same surnames, but nothing prepared me for the first names bonanza!

Just as a taste: my mum’s name is Maria. She had three brothers; the oldest named Marian (can you guess this is a male form of the same name?). He was the son of Jan who was a son of Marian. This older Marian’s father was called Paweł Tomasz or Tomasz Paweł or Tomasz or Paweł depending on a source I am looking at, but he had a brother and a son called Jan. His father name was Jakub, but Jakub’s father was called Stanisław and so is another of my mum’s brothers. The third brother is called Henryk and so is my grandfather’s brother. Are you confused yet? So am I; and so was the post office at times delivering letters to my uncle and great uncle who used to live in the same village. This is just one branch of my family. It should be mentioned here that my great-grandfather Marian had five brothers. They had quite a lot of sons between them and acted like there were only about ten possible names to use… The name giving business became a family joke when every time one of my great uncles was asked about a name chosen for his new grandson (and he has a few) he used to answer: “there already is one like that”.

I am not even going to try and explain the “fun” I had with another branch of my tree called Stępień and Stępień-Drzazga. Lots of kids in every generation and very little name variety. To the point where Józef Stępień was marrying Józefa Stępień, both from the same village and not related!

In a moment of frustration when my FTM software would ask: “This is the 7th Jan Kominek. Are you sure this is not the same person?” I did a little bit of statistics. There are just over 1300 individuals on my tree. Roughly half men half women. Have a look at the names and percentages in the table below and try to understand my frustration.

NAME NUMBER OF PEOPLE WITH THE NAME PERCENTAGE
MALE
Adam 13 1.93
Andrzej/Jędrzej 26 3.85
Antoni 10 1.48
Franciszek 33 4.89
Grzegorz 10 1.48
Henryk 7 1.04
Jakub 15 2.22
Jan 54 8.00
Józef 48 7.11
Kacper 5 0.74
Kamil 6 0.89
Karol 7 1.04
Kazimierz 14 2.07
Krzysztof 10 1.48
Maciej 9 1.33
Marcin 18 2.67
Marian 7 1.04
Mateusz 14 2.07
Michał 21 3.11
Mikołaj 11 1.63
Paweł 22 3.26
Piotr 20 2.96
Stanisław 44 6.52
Sylwester 5 0.74
Szymon 9 1.33
Tadeusz 6 0.89
Tomasz 26 3.85
Walenty 12 1.78
Wawrzyniec 10 1.48
Wincenty 17 2.52
Wojciech 20 2.96
Zygmunt 5 0.74
overall 79.11%
FEMALE
Agata 5 0.80
Agnieszka 39 6.24
Aleksandra 8 1.28
Anna 36 5.76
Antonina 6 0.96
Apolonia 7 1.12
Barbara 14 2.24
Elżbieta 9 1.44
Ewa 11 1.76
Franciszka 19 3.04
Helena 14 2.24
Jadwiga 13 2.08
Józefa 22 3.52
Katarzyna 48 7.68
Magdalena 15 2.4
Małgorzta 15 2.4
Maria 19 3.04
Marianna 111 17.76
Róza/Rozalia 9 1.44
Salomea 8 1.28
Teresa 9 1.44
Wiktoria 9 1.44
Zofia 20 3.2
overall 74.56%

So as you can see, although there are over 400 different male names and over 300 female names known in Poland my family mostly used a fraction of that. It does becomes a problem as I have about 20 females called Marianna Stępień, 7 males named Józef Stępień, 7 Jan Kominek, 7 Jan Siudak, 6 Jan Stępień and so on.

Oh, how I longed for a really whacky name! Have to say I did came across one -Anelm- I was overjoyed! But soon after, I discovered that in a day to day life he was using the name Józef. Rather common among my family as the table above proves. So then he was Anzelm one time but Józef another what only made my life harder instead of easier! How frustrating.

On the other hand, there is only one other Jolanta on my tree (same generation than me and related by marriage). So in a way very unusual name. And it saddens me that I don’t belong to a long line of name sharing women… Guess no pleasing me, is it?

Parish records – a gold mine of knowledge hidden in plain sight.

Parish records – a register of births, marriages and deaths. Very useful, but providing a bare minimum of information. I used to wonder how I learn more about my ancestors’ lives. How do I go beyond the date and name? I thought that I don’t have enough sources to fill up gaps between born-married-had children-died scenario. And then I discovered a source that I was already using had this depth of easily overlooked knowledge. This post is about my guilty pleasure:)

Kleczanów parish records - akt zgonu - F Stępień 1936

an example of death record – Franciszek Stępień 1936

Back in the early years of my genealogical research, I was slightly obsessed with going back in time as fast as possible.   You can just imagine that it was causing problems. Now when I am older and wiser, I like reading parish registers for fun! I can just see you cringing or looking blankly thinking “Crazy”. Well, not as crazy as it might seem at first. I don’t read random books from a random parish (although I can see benefits of that). What I mean is reading not just entries relating to my ancestors. It all started from a stubborn need of finding my 2nd great grandmother entry of death.

I found:

  • her and my 2nd great grandfather marriage entry;
  • entries of their children birth;
  • my 2nd great grandfather’s death entry – quite young.

But I could not find her death although her son’s marriage entry gave information that his parents were dead. I thought “I am going to find you” no matter what! I started reading every entry in the parish register dated between her husband dying and her son’s marriage. I know that the information in the marriage record of parents being deceased could have been a lie for whatever reason, but I was leaving this option for later.

I read through 3 years worth of data, and I surely found her! She remarried under her maiden name! Knowing about the marriage, it was easy to find the death entry. I was able to finally put all the pieces together, but there was an unexpected bonus of being stubborn. I learned that my 3rd great grandfather from a different branch of my family tree was a village chief.

Most of the descriptive Polish records has witnesses of any vital event noted. Sometimes those witnesses are random neighbours, sometimes family members and sometimes village officials.  There is more to records that just dates and names. I can find a lot of useful information about my ancestors’ lives when I read entries from a few years. Sometimes I can say who was a village official at a certain time, who was close to whom, or what was the name of a blacksmith or a midwife.  I know this because if a child was born illegitimate or to an absent father (for example dead before the birth or in an army what is an interesting fact per se) the birth was recorded by a midwife. So I know the names of midwives working in villages where my ancestors lived!

All this because I like reading old parish registers like a documentary book. There is so much more in there than just names and dates. All you have to do is just pay attention and don’t rush through indexes. Take your time, immerse yourself into this long lost world.

1st of November 2015

“Where I’m From”

Where I’m From –  I said it so many times but what does it really mean?

I recently listened to a Genealogy Gems podcast episode number 185. To my delight, I discovered that Lisa shared my blog! Thank you, Lisa!  I was also introduced to George Ella Lyon poetry. The poem “Where I’m From” featured there made me really think.

Lisa proposed a challenge for readers to write their version of the poem. It sounded more like a dare to me, but I thought to myself “nahhhh there is not a drop of poetry in me”. BUT… To my surprise, I discovered that a part of my mind was constantly thinking about the poem during long hours of driving I do every day. So I let it flow and was really shocked to notice that it just appeared from nowhere! It might not be perfect or even good, but it is mine. The other surprise was to learn that I remember sounds, tastes, smells and feelings. I guess the Magdalene cake scene from Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time makes a lot more sense to me now!


My version needs a few pictures and a bit of background for non-Polish readers on customs surrounding All Saints Day (1st of November). The whole country goes to visit family graves; on a scale, I did not see in any other place on the Earth. In the evening, any graveyard can be seen from far away as it is covered up by thousands of candles. There are processions and masses said among the graves.  Every family gives their list of passed family members’ names to be read out during celebrations. You can see a small clip of what it is like here. I am going to write a separate post about this soon as this is one of the intriguing aspects of my family history. 

There is my own version of “Where I’m From”

 

I came from the gentle touch of a spring wind bringing the smell of lilac 
I came from sweaty dust of country roads scorched by a summer sun
I came from autumn leaves slowly falling from a forever old walnut tree outside my window, and from a white icy hill never conquered by a car in the winter

I came from a bowl of warm, frothed up milk freshly squeezed from a cow and shared with cats on a golden straw of stables floor
I came from wooden walls of a church that seen it all
I came from a sound of Ave Maria sang  every noon by my granny and from the smokey smell of my grandad’s  green body warmer
From flowers never growing in  tidy rows and orchards full of sour cherries and sweet apples
From the unmissable sound of tractors, laughter and shouts of never stopping farmers
From the taste of grain coffee on a hot day and sweet black lemon tea when my eyelashes were all frozen shut.

A small girl in a sea of flames on a crisp November evening lighting a candle
Just another name on a long list called by a priest gone, rediscovered, never forgotten
Floating through her veins a sense of belonging

Anybody else wants to share? I dare you:)

1st of November 2015

1st of November 2015

Cudze chwalicie swego nie znacie!

Cudze chwalicie swego nie znacie! Jak na nowo odkryłam znaczenie tego powiedzenia:

Zawsze uważałam, że jako osoba o polskich korzeniach byłam poszkodowana, bo szczególnie mieszkając za granicą, ciężko jest chodzić do urzędów i szperać w archiwach. Ostatnie tygodnie przekonały mnie, że byłam w błędzie. Owszem wybranie się do archiwum nie jest wcale łatwiejsze, chociaż coraz więcej materiałów pojawia się w internacie. Zmieniłam zdanie, dlatego, że zaczęłam przeszukiwać archiwa irlandzkie. Tak, większość potrzebnych rzeczy można znaleźć nie ruszając się z domu. Tylko, co z tego?

Długo i namiętnie szukałam aktu małżeństwa moich pradziadków Anastazji Bulira z d. Stępień i Jana Siudaka. Wiedziałam, że pobrali się gdzieś między śmiercią pierwszego męża prababci Pawła Buliry pod koniec 1918 roku, a narodzinami mojej ciotecznej babki Marianny Siudak w roku 1922, z bardzo dużym prawdopodobieństwem, w parafii Kleczanów skąd oboje pochodzili. Oczywiście żeby nie było zbyt łatwo akta parafialne po roku 1909 są dosyć wybiórcze i księgi małżeństw w przykościelnym archiwum nie ma. W końcu znalazłam potrzebny akt w Urzędzie Stanu Cywilnego. Tak jak myślałam pobrali się w październiku 1921 roku, czyli niemal dokładnie na rok przed urodzinami najstarszej córki. Zapisano, że Jan Siudak urodził się i mieszkał w parafii Kleczanów, był synem Piotra i Anny z Marców małżonków Siudaków, że jego rodzice już nie żyli, i że miał 26 lat. O Anastazji zanotowano, że miała lat 28, była wdową, mieszkała w Święcicy, córka Franciszka i Anny z Bilów. Wymieniono, kiedy odczytane były zapowiedzi, że nie zawarto umowy przedślubnej, kto udzielił sakramentu i jak nazywali się świadkowie. A na marginesie jakaś dobra dusza dopisała nawet, kiedy i gdzie prababcia zmarła!

Dla porównania:

Oficjalny akt ślubu zawartego w County Londonderry w listopadzie roku 1927 podaje imiona i nazwiska nowożeńców, ich stan cywilny, w ramach wieku wpisano “pełnoletni” (w tym okresie w Irlandii może to oznaczać wszystko od 21 do 101 lat), miejsce zamieszkania w chwili zawarcia małżeństwa, (ale nie miejsce urodzenia) imiona i nazwiska ojców, (ale nie matek), jako bonus dodane jest jeszcze, czym zajmowali się państwo młodzi i czym zajmowali się ich ojcowie. Zdegustowana brakiem dodatkowych informacji, które pozwoliłyby mi odszukać właściwy akt urodzenia pomyślałam “trzeba poszukać rejestru kościelnego mam datę i miejsce, nie będzie większych trudności”. Acha, jasne! Owszem dowolny rejestr kościelny w formie zdjęcia bez indeksu można do woli oglądać bezpłatnie, ale informacji jest tam jeszcze mniej. Nie tylko nie wpisywano jak nazywała się matka nowożeńca, ale nawet informacji o ojcu nie uświadczy. Notowano tylko imiona i nazwiska nowożeńców, czasami miejsce zamieszkania, przeważnie imiona i nazwiska świadków.

Nie mogę powiedzieć, bardzo przyjemnie jest znaleźć akt bez konieczności odejścia od biurka. Ale jeśli chodzi o użyteczność takiego aktu to zupełnie nie ma porównania!  Nawet mając akt małżeństwa, odszukanie aktu urodzenia bez imienia i nazwiska matki, miejsca urodzenia dziecka i szacunkowego roku urodzenia graniczy niemalże z cudem. W moim przypadku szukam Brigid McKenna córki Jamesa McKenna zupełnie jakbym szukała Anny Nowak córki Jana!  Nic dziennego, że i ja, tak samo jak całe hordy genealogów poszukujących  przodków w Irlandii jestem głęboko  sfrustrowana i przychodzą mi do głowy bardzo nieładne epitety.

Dlatego od dzisiaj będę bardziej doceniać trud i mozół polskich księży zapisujących panieńskie nazwiska matek, miejsca urodzenia nowo zaślubionych i inne bezcenne dzisiaj informacje.  Od razu idę zmówić zdrowasiek za spokój ich dusz!

Cudze chwalicie swego nie znacie!

akt urodzenia Walerii Krasula/Waleria Krasula - birth record

Multilingual records of my monolingual family

Multilingual records of my monolingual family

Somebody once asked what I mean by translation of records when I said I had to translate a lot of source documents for my family. Good question. Yes, it is true that I am Polish, so is absolutely everybody in my family and I am yet to find an ancestor who moved abroad. You might then ask yourself: what need is there for Translation? Surely but life is hardly ever normal. I am as Polish as it gets: born and bred there. I come from long line of Polish farmers who quite often never even left a parish, never mind the country, BUT as Poland is situated right in the centre of Europe it was regularly turned into a battlefield.

From the establishment of Poland in the Middle Ages, there was war after war after war. The land was invaded pretty much by any neighbouring nation and some from further afield as well, until the point in the eighteenth century where Poland ceased to exist altogether – on the map of Europe that is. The country was divided between Prussia, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Different laws and prohibitions were in place depending on the region (with Galicja enjoying quite liberal attitudes) but, generally speaking, using the Polish language was discouraged and then by the late nineteenth century, it was replaced by Russian and German respectively. There are many examples of Polish people fighting to save the language and culture. What does it mean for me or any other genealogist searching for Polish roots? It means that records are written in a different language. In my case, every record starting from 1868 is written in Russian (if I am really lucky there is a Polish name in brackets pic.1). Because of politics and geography, a good part of my family records have to be translated even though all the ancestors I found to date lived in one district and spoke Polish.

If you remember that the concept of a civil register was only introduced in Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the first civil registers were completed by priests alongside parish records then it is reasonable to expect that most older church sources are written in Latin.

I was lucky enough to learn Russian at school although my choice of words here could be problematic as the Russian language and culture, visible everywhere in communist Poland, was hardly a reason for celebration. I also spend long hours learning Latin as a part of my MA in Archaeology, so I consider myself well equipped to deal with what my genealogical research throws at me, but I can just imagine the frustration of other people with Polish roots when they discover that even knowing Polish is just not enough to be able to trace their Polish ancestors.

akt urodzenia Walerii Krasula/Waleria Krasula - birth record, multilingual record

pic.1 Waleria Krasula -akt urodzenia (birth record) 1905

A wedding in rural Poland 1970

 What do genealogy and a jigsaw puzzle have in common?

A wedding in rural Poland 1970

A wedding party, 1970

                     

            It is very hard to explain why genealogy is more exciting than I first thought. I guess the answer has a lot of different layers.

Ever since school, I always liked history, but not all the dates and facts teachers want you to remember. It was always the thought that if it wasn’t for an ancestor who survived through hard times (like times without microwaves, cars, roads or the Internet) we wouldn’t be here today. This curiosity about life in the past led me to attempts at finding out more about my own ancestors; who they were and what their life looked like. Due to the lack of suitable time travel options, I had to turn to old archives and records. Searching for Polish ancestors is nowhere close to the convenience of having nice, digitalised records (a reality in the UK), but, for me, it has an important bonus. When I go to a parish somewhere in Poland and read the actual book that holds the old parish register it gives me the feeling of a physical link to my past. I am holding something that my 4th great grandad touched or looked at when he came to the church to share and record a joyful or sorrowful experience. It gives me the feeling that the years and centuries have swished by me and suddenly I am looking into the old record with his eyes. Am I crazy? Maybe just a little bit, but who isn’t?

The other reason why I am so into researching my family history is that I like jigsaw puzzles. I know it makes no sense at first glance, but let me explain. When I was a child I loved putting jigsaws together – the bigger, the better. I loved the challenge of piecing together thousands of fragments until they formed a nice, shiny surface that I could glue together with a feeling of well-deserved pride. Piecing together my family history is just like that. You need good eyesight, determination, patience, persistence and a bit of stubbornness. It is better to start with a frame and easy to assemble parts (information you know about your parents or grandparents and people with unusual names) and then start filling spaces of a lovely blue sky or the red sun setting over a deep dark water of which you have only about 1500 pieces! Sometimes, when you have to pick up every single piece and try it on every possible angle and it doesn’t fit, you feel disheartened. Sometimes you put a piece in and you think it fits, only to find out few weeks later that it does not! But sometimes you pick a piece of a blue sky out of a pile of 1000 exactly the same blue, you try it and it fits! And this feeling keeps you going and holds your interest and immediately you know why you are doing it! When I find a new person I spent weeks looking for and all the dates and names suddenly make sense, I realise this is why I love genealogy so much. I want to build this beautiful jigsaw and glue it together so I will always remember where I came from, whose blood is running through my veins and how much strength is in that blood, but that’s a topic for another story.

Have a look at my family tree.

How about you? What drives you? What makes you tick?