Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 8:59 pm
Post subject: Help with names of villages in Austrian Poland- Galacia
I have recently begun helping a friend try to discover more about her Polish genealogy. It is very early days yet, but I thought someone on the Forum could give me a push or two in the right direction. All my previous work has been near Poznan and in the former Russian part of Poland. One side of my friend's family looks to have originated in the Austrian part and/or Galacia - where I have no experience at all. Here is the little I have to go on:
From Ancestry - The birth of Jessie Durlak 15 Nov 1915 in Chicago. Father is Max Durlak birthplace: Gryline, Austria
Mother is Mary Gałuszka birthplace: Krasus, Austria
In another record Mary Magdelene Galuszka is listed as being born in Larnowiec, Galacia. The closest I could fine was Tarnowiec.
I have searched and none of these place names could be found. I am hoping the true names may have been warped/misspelled and that someone might recognize what they really are.
Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide,
Gary Deborski
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Cheri Vanden BergPO Top Contributor & Patron
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PolishLibrarianPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 11:02 pm
Post subject: Re: Help with names of villages in Austrian Poland- Galacia
| gdeborski wrote: | I have recently begun helping a friend try to discover more about her Polish genealogy. It is very early days yet, but I thought someone on the Forum could give me a push or two in the right direction. All my previous work has been near Poznan and in the former Russian part of Poland. One side of my friend's family looks to have originated in the Austrian part and/or Galacia - where I have no experience at all. Here is the little I have to go on:
From Ancestry - The birth of Jessie Durlak 15 Nov 1915 in Chicago. Father is Max Durlak birthplace: Gryline, Austria
Mother is Mary Gałuszka birthplace: Krasus, Austria
In another record Mary Magdelene Galuszka is listed as being born in Larnowiec, Galacia. The closest I could fine was Tarnowiec.
Gary Deborski |
Gary~ I looked at other records of Jessie's siblings & her parents hoping for another spelling of the village (since the record you see on Ancestry is only an index - so someone had to decipher a handwritten record). I found a Mary Durlak who died in 1932 at age 19 - her parents are Frank Durlak & Agnes Gruca (could Frank be a relative of Max?). On her death record her parents are both listed as being from Grybów which is a village a little east of Nowy Sącz in Galicia which is directly south of Tarnowiec (abt 36 mi.) which is just outside Tarnów (less than 1 mi). So this might be the right village/area.
On the 1920 Census Mary Durlak was a widow (Max died 16 Sep 1918, buried St. Adalbert's), all 7 children, ages 15 to 1yr 11mo, were born in IL. No date of arrival was listed for Mary (unknown). They were living at 5949 Navarre Ave.. Three family units above them on the Census sheet is a family with surname indexed 2 ways – Durlok and Durlo – husband & wife Charles (44) and Mary (40) and 3 sons born in Poland and 4 more children born in IL, first is 10 so born about 1910, living at 6080 Navarre. Could be a brother of Max. It appears they are Carl & Mary Durlak in 1940 census. A Mary Durlak was naturalized in 1936 but could be either of these Marys.
You really need to see the church baptism records of the children including Jessie to get a good idea of where her parents were from (or a copy of the civil birth record so you can see how the name was actually written). But the church record was probably written by a Polish speaker so more likely spelled correctly. Do you know what church they attended? I don't know Chicago enough to tell from the address of 5949 Navarre what the nearest church would be. The point being the church records for many of the Chicago parishes are available online (not indexed) at familysearch, so you need to find the parish, then the right book for the year & then look through the images for the correct date to find the birth/baptism record. Hopefully someone else can give you an idea on the church in this neighborhood. Good luck. ~PL
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PolishLibrarianPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 11:42 pm
Post subject:
Gary~ I found Jessie's Baptism record - no help there, as parents' birthplace wasn't recorded in this church's records. It appears that Jessie's mother had been married before she married Max as there is a 2nd surname given for her. She had 2 sisters born 13 Dec 1911 and 9 June 1913 but they are not in the records from this church, so they may have been living elsewhere at that time. I also found on Ancestry a marriage record for Maksymilian Durlak (25) and Maryanna Galaszka (24) on 4 June 1904 in Chicago. I haven't found them in the 1910 census to see where they were living. ~PL
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PolishLibrarianPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:00 am
Post subject:
Gary~ One more piece - I found on Ancestry a passenger record for Karol Durlak arriving in Baltimore (from Bremen on the S.S. Breslau on 4 May 1905), age 29, married, from Biala Nizna, going to brother Maks Durlak at 62 Cornell St in Chicago. Looks like we've found a connection between Karol (Karl, Charles, Carl) and Maks Durlak. ~PL
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Cheri Vanden BergPO Top Contributor & Patron
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Cheri Vanden BergPO Top Contributor & Patron
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:55 am
Post subject:
Andrew Galuszka was the informant on Max Durlak's death certificate. There is an Andrew Galuszka in the WWI draft registrations that wrote his birth place was Krosno. Maybe this is Mary's brother. Żarnowiec is in the powiat (county) of Krosno. Andrew gave the information that Max's father's name was Albert on Max's death record. You probably know that this was sometimes used for the Polish name Wojciech, whose name is on the marriage record.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:14 pm
Post subject: Villages
Gary, Cheri, & PL,
The info Cheri found nails down the birth villages of Max and Maryanna. Karol's citizenship petition is one more nail to secure things and the 1930 Census provides info about Maryanna's second marriage.
The Immaculate Conception parish where the later children were baptized was almost certainly the closest parish to their residence at the time. It was a territorial rather than an ethnic parish so spellings of Polish words would not be very dependable. In the early to mid 20th Century that area was pretty much the sticks. The only Polish institutions in the general area at that time were St. Adalbert Cemetery and St. Hedwig Orphanage which were next to each other and were about as close to the Chicago Niles border as you could get.
For anyone who may not be aware of the trick to coordinating Chicago street addresses from before 1909 with current street addresses an invaluable resource is www.alookatcook.com One feature of the site is a list of street name changes and another is a table of house number changes. In 1889 the city of Chicago annexed large sections of land which at least doubled the size of the city. Within those annexations were not only townships but also villages. The annexations resulted in two or more streets of the same name in different parts of the city. The street name changes of 1909 eliminated that mess by changing some street names so that only one street with a given name existed in the city from 1910 on. The other thing that happened was the numbering system changed. The intersection of State and Madison in the Loop became ground zero and all street numbers ascended from that point as either East or West and North or South. Those virtual lines were extended to the city limits. Prior to that time many street numbers began for example at the easternmost point where the street originated. This is important in regard to the 62 Cornell Street address. After the street name change, that Cornell became Chestnut Street and the number 62 changed to reflect the starting point of State Street. Thus 62 Cornell gets a number on Chestnut Street which puts it within walking distance of St. John Cantius.
This is all a bit of trivia but it can be important trivia when you are trying to pinpoint a location.
Dave
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PolishLibrarianPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 4:29 pm
Post subject:
Thanks Dave for the explanation of street names & numbering. I knew it happened during Max Durlak's time, but since I don't have any relatives in Chicago at that time I've never retained all the details (the brain can only hold so much LOL!). Interesting to note that Max's widow Mary married Frank Konopka, a witness on Karl's petition for naturalization, so someone in the neighborhood. I also wonder what happened to Frank's kids - he had couple young ones (9 & 6) on the 1920 census when living in Racine WI with his wife Katherine (who died in 1928 in Chicago). Good job all!
Dave~ On the census record it says Frank Konopka was born in Warsaw Poland, but for Mary it says Poland and then SMO. I've never seen this before. Do you know what the SMO signifies? ~PL
Last edited by PolishLibrarian on Thu Feb 04, 2016 4:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 4:42 pm
Post subject:
Cheri, PolishLibrarian, and Dave,
Thank you all for the super rapid replies. My friend will be totally blown away by the information and how quickly it all came about.
I love this forum. I hope I can be a help to others as you all have been to me!
I am actually on vacation and away from the usual tools and things I use to start solving these type problems, so your help is doubly helpful.
Thank you all again,
Gary D.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 9:33 pm
Post subject:
PL,
I've never seen SMO on a census before and don't know what it means. Frank was a witness for Karol in 1935 so he was already married to Maryanna at the time. Perhaps the 1940 Census from Racine can answer the question about what happened to at least one of the Konopka children. When you combine it with the 1940 Chgo. census return it raises some questions. Did Frank have supernatural powers? Could he leap tall buildings in a single bound? Did he have the ability to bi-locate? Or was he a mere mortal? I would be interesting to figure out exactly what was going on because it sure seems like it is the same Frank in two places.
Just something to ponder....
Dave
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PolishLibrarianPO Top Contributor
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 10:10 pm
Post subject:
 possibly he did Dave! The Chicago census was enumerated on 4/18/1940 & the Racine one was on 6/12/1940!! The devil is in the details. ~ PL
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 3:55 pm
Post subject:
My friend told me that the Konopka family had a cabin or some sort of vacation place in Wisconsin. Finding two 61 year old Frank Konopkas who were both die setters seems too much of a coincidence. He was probably there on summer vacation when the Racine census taker came around.
Gary D.
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 5:33 pm
Post subject:
I have looked over all that has been posted here, and there are quite a few new leads to follow. Another BIG thanks to everyonne!
In the marriage record above, posted by Cheri, I am having a bit of trouble trying to read the surnames for the mothers of Max and Maryanna.
Filium Wojciecha i Maryanny ??ryba? The first and last letters just will not resolve to my eyes.
Filiam Jozefa i Antoniny Posowicz ??? Am I reading this one correctly?
Again, any help is most appreciated.
Gary D.
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Elzbieta PorteneuvePO Top Contributor
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2016 8:03 pm
Post subject:
Gary,
Filium Wojciecha i Maryanny ??ryba? // Grybas - Wojciech and Maryanna Grybas
Filiam Jozefa i Antoniny Posowicz // correct
Best,
Elzbieta
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