PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:47 pm

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:47 pm

Dave, yes the question of the correct maiden name (for my great-great-grandmother in this case) has basically been answered. I have some understanding of textual criticism, but it is limited. You make some good points along those lines, but I am/was also interested in understanding some of the nuances of records like this baptismal certificate (including handwriting analysis, use of Latin abbreviations, etc.). The experience gained will help me with my continued endeavors. However, it might be time to retire this thread (at least for now). Thanks for your assistance throughout this process.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

dnowicki — Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:21 pm

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:21 pm

Karol,

By obtaining a copy of the record from the parish baptismal register you have resolved the question of the maiden name being Murga to the point that you should have moral certitude about the name and in the process of doing so you have removed the certificate from being important to the question and have relegated it to the level of nothing more than a very secondary footnote. The reason I say this is as follows.

To determine a critical reading of baptismal, marriage or death records the same procedure should be used as is used to determine a critical reading of the text of any manuscript, be it the New Testament Gospel of John or Cicero's First Oration Against Cataline, or the Magna Charta or James of Vitry's Historia Occidentalis. The various copies of these and other manuscripts do not agree in all aspects of their text. The first step in reconciling conflicting readings is to determine the importance of a given manuscript. Then the various manuscript copies are compared and using a critical apparatus the more likely reading is determined. Obviously, not all manuscripts have the same value. For example, in determining the text of the Gospel According to John as well as other books of the N.T. the manuscript which is given precedence is the Codex Vaticanus. In the case of the records you posted the manuscripts of primary importance are the copies of the parish baptismal register. They are to be considered the primary source of information.

In order to understand the relative value of the documents you posted it is necessary to consider their origin. They all originated in the Austrian Partition of Poland but that does not make them all equal. Vital records were recorded in the Austrian Partition by the parish priests submitting to the civil authorities copies of the parish registers. Because the copy of the parish register you received was made at one of the Polish National Archives, it is most probably a copy of the parish register submitted by the parish priest soon after the year 1893 ended. In this case, although it is a copy of the original which would be housed either in the parish or in the diocesan archives, it is sufficiently close to the original register to be considered a primary source. The only primary source which could carry more value would be the register made for parish use. The moral certitude about the maiden name is derived from the agreement of two or three entries which are photostatic copies of the registers housed in the National Archives.

There are a number of reasons to relegate the baptismal certificate to the value of a minor footnote. It is not an original record but is a transcription of data found in a birth and baptism register. It was not created anytime near when the events recorded took place since it was created 19 years after the events took place. It was not created by a person who was a primary player in the event. When it was the only documentary source of information about the event it was important. However, now that you have a more primary source of information, it no longer has anything of import to contribute to the question of the maiden name.

The whole question of the letters, handwriting, etc. in the certificate are no longer important except as a matter of curiosity. As to the speculation about the letters on the certificate, that is also a non-starter since they clearly are not found in the copy from the archives and therefore must originate from the mind of the priest who filled out the certificate in 1912. Just as a final side note there are a number of ways that the marital status of a couple was noted, sometimes in full words and other times with abbreviations such as Conjug. or Conj. or C.L. or CCL or the letters appearing in various orders.

Best of success in your quest.

Dave

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:31 am

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:31 am

Dave (et al), I am not an expert on these matters, but I am gaining experience as I go along. Finding the three records for my great-aunt and uncles (all siblings) seemed to establish that my great-grandmother's maiden name was "Murga". That led to the question of what the letters following the surname were. Rather than a suffix, I wondered if they were a Latin abbreviation. We've gone back and forth on that, but with @sirdan's suggestion, I am now returning to that theory.

Concerning the suggestion that the abbreviation was "conj." for "conjugum", I would like to make a few observations. The first letter could be easily established as a 'c'. It's quite similar to how that letter was formed in other words where the use of that letter can be confirmed. The second letter could also be established as an 'o'. This priest (as is often the case with any writer) was not entirely consistent in the formation of his letters. For example, he did not always close the letter 'o' as can be seen in the name "Josephi" a few lines above. Let's skip the next letter for a moment. The last letter could certainly be a 'j' as @sirdan proposed because in fact this priest dotted his letters in an offset manner. Obviously, the period (full stop) following the word adds to the probability that this is an abbreviation. If these other letters can be established as "co-j.", what would the logical choice be for the unidentified letter? The letter 'n' would be a logical choice, and I disagree that it is styled much differently than other examples in the document. First, as already mentioned, his styling is not totally consistent. In particular, the letters standing on each side will influence his style. Further, the pen strokes are not uniform. Some are longer than others, and in this case, it could be seen as a longer stroke. In terms of general style, however, look at the abbreviation just below: "obst. n ex". The disconnected letter there appears to be an 'n' and has a very similar style to the proposed abbreviation. In fact, it almost has the same pen stroke length. However, the same style for this letter can be seen in other words (e.g., "natae") but with a shorter pen stroke.

Concerning the the placement of this abbreviation, in the examples I've seen, the word "conjugum" seems to follow the name of a married couple whose marriage was recognized by the Catholic Church. I admit that my sample space has been quite small, but I have not seen it used when the mother was named in a separate column as is the case with this particular baptismal certificate. I cannot account for why the word seems to have followed the paternal grandparents and not the maternal grandparents apart from the possibility that they were not Catholic and that this was somehow known by the priest (e.g., marriage records that existed at the time).

All of this considered together seems to point to the strong possibility that this is what accounts for the letters following the names of the paternal grandparents on this record. Our previous analysis was based on our best reading/transcription of the record. With these new records, including the original recording of the birth and baptism of the same person, new light was shed, and so other explanations were required. This does not diminish either your and Elzbieta's previous analysis; it just points out how dependent we are on having a clear idea of what exactly was written.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:32 pm

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:32 pm

Dave, I have a few observations to make on your latest response, but first, here is a copy (attached) of the original birth record from which the baptismal certificate was derived. It only seems to verify that the maiden name of the paternal grandmother was Murga.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

dnowicki — Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:39 pm

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:39 pm

It would only make sense to interpret the letters as an abbreviation for conjugum if two things were true in this record. First: if it were so, there should be the same abbreviation in the entry for the mother of the child and no such letters appear there. Second: when comparing what would be the letter n in those last letters with the letter n in the name Andreas (Andrzej/Andrew) in the same record there is no similarity between the two letters. Once again, keep in mind that this is a certificate which is a transcription of the original entry in the baptismal register and so the most effective way to resolve the doubts would be to obtain a copy of the actual entry in the baptismal register.

Dave

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:29 pm

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:29 pm

Hi sirdan,
Yes, I have been in contact with the owner of the genealogical tree that you referenced, and there are a few of my relatives included on that site. No need to apologize for bringing this to my attention, however. I appreciate your consideration.

I noticed the same thing that you did concerning how this particular priest dotted his letters. Looking over the way he formed the same letters in other words, it certainly seems possible that this was the abbreviation conj. What's more, it would make perfect sense at that point in the record (i.e., following the couples name). He might have included the abbreviation here and not on the other set of grandparents because he knew (by some means) for certain that the paternal grandparents were indeed a married couple. This seems like the best suggestion so far.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

sirdan — Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:36 pm

Author: sirdan

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:36 pm

@karolmarcinik

Hello, just in case You are not aware of genealogical trees on myheritagesite.pl site, i would like to inform You about researcher that has surnames of your ancestors in his genealogical tree http://www.myheritage.pl/site-81372703/jankoj%C4%87-wilusz-family there is english version of the site in the middle, including contact information. Relevant surnames are not listed on the site but searching for Tarnawa Górna gives Furdak, Sadlik and Kabala surnames including Józef Kabala born 1893 in his tree. He would might resolve surname mystery, i believe it is always better to ask a habitant of Tarnawa Górna, who might be familiar with Murga.. . If You already know this genealogist then sorry.

I would like to point out funny fact. If You look on letters like i, j ś and so on, you will notice that person that written a document on first page of this thread, the Józef Kabala Babtisma Record, has habit puting the dot or line over letters (like clearly in Premisliensis) in most cases over the following letter.. So knowing this fact (and if im not mistaken), it would mean that actually surname Murgawcy would not end with "y" but "j" - i see two dots on the end: full stop and dot that belong to j letter. So we could decipher last words as: (...) Murga conj.
Conj. would be abbreviation from latin conjugum if that make any sense. Please correct me if im wrong and sorry for any confusion.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

dnowicki — Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:28 pm

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:28 pm

Murgawcy is, as Elzbieta pointed out, the plural of the last name Murgawiec. Since Polish is an inflected language with nouns having seven cases every noun has multiple case endings. The rule for the formation of the Nominative plural of personal nouns which end in -c, -ec, -iec is that the plural is formed by dropping the -c, -ec, -iec and adding -cy. Thus chlopiec (boy) becomes chlopcy (boys) and in this case Murgawiec (singular) becomes Murgawcy in the Nominative Plural but the Nominative Singular of the surname would still be Murgawiec. This explanation of the surname is in complete harmony with all that Elzbieta has written.
Dave

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Wed Dec 18, 2013 11:49 am

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 11:49 am

Dave, in this case, it certainly was two different priests who recorded the information (because the records were transferred to a new parish in 1909 and the record I originally included in my post was from the new parish). However, I cannot agree that the name on the original record has an -wiec suffix. That last letter appears to be a 'y' though it perhaps could be a 'j'. This is where knowing the potential Polish endings would be helpful (and one reason I reached out for help in the first place). Nevertheless, I accept your explanation that the letters do not form a Latin abbreviation and that all we can do is speculate. However, the best explanation so far seems to be derived from Elzbieta's observations which she reiterated in a recent post concerning the meaning of the plural form using the -wcy suffix.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

dnowicki — Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:43 am

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:43 am

Karol,

In the record for Antoni her maiden name is written as Murga and in the original record it appears as Murgawiec. (The letters in the second line are not a Latin abbreviation.) There are a number of possible explanations for the difference. A simple explanation is that it was a different priest who entered the record. If a priest had been in a parish for a long time he would have known the parishioners well and would have been consistent with the way he spelled the surnames. Remember that he was writing information as he heard it---in this case most likely from the father. Given the rather high rate of illiteracy at the time it is very possible that none of the main parties would recognize any difference in the surname. Also, surnames were a bit more fluid than we would expect. Ancestors of my paternal grandmother lived in the same parish from the early 1700s through the late 1800s. In various records their surname is recorded as Lichmaniak, Lichmana, and Lichman. Another line varies between Piasecki and Piasek. Since they were all illiterate, the way the name appeared depended on the priest who wrote it. A possible way to resolve your question would be to obtain a copy of the entry of the first record as it was recorded in the parish register. The certificate you posted indicates that the record as it was transcribed on the certificate was taken from the baptismal register of the parish as found in Volume 4, page 18, number 9.

Everything else is speculation based on educated guesses.

Dave

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:19 am

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:19 am

Elzbieta,
I greatly appreciate your assistance with this thread. With the records obtained from Sanok, it appears that my great-great grandmother's maiden name was Murga. However, returning to you previous observations, even if her surname was Murga, wouldn't it be declined similar to the other examples you provided? Would Murgawiec be another surname entirely or just a declined form? I am afraid that I have not made any progress on learning Polish since my first post .

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:01 am

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:01 am

Dave,
I am familiar with what you described, and initially I transcribed the record understanding the letters (which I tentatively made out as "-wcy") were a suffix on the surname "Murga." However, as the attached document shows for my other great-uncle (the brother of the person on the record I initially posted), the maiden name of my great-great grandmother was apparently "Murga". The other two records seem to show the same surname for her. So, my question remains, if this is the case, what were the additional letters added for?

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

dnowicki — Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:39 am

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:39 am

Karol,

Elzbieta's original reading of the surname as Murgawiec is the correct reading and what you see in the additional documents you've found is almost certainly the same. In Latin records the first names of individuals are given in their correct Latin form following the rules of Latin grammar. Surnames do not have a Latin form and are written as they should be according to the rules of grammar of the vernacular language which in this case is Polish. Perhaps an explanation in terms of English grammar may help to clarify what is going on the record. Before the advent of computers when documents were either typewritten or handwritten there were rules do deal with words at the end of a line where the word could not fit into the space. In other words, a word which was too long for the space was divided with a hyphen which indicated that the word continued on the following line. The general rule was that words were divided between syllables. In records I've seen from Poland, both Latin records and Polish language civil registrations, words which are too long for the allotted space were divided and continued on the following line. The difference between the practice in Poland and the practice in America is that in America the hyphen indicated the point of division of the word whereas in Poland the word was simply divided and continued on the following line. In the record you posted there are vertical lines dividing the certificate into sections. In the section listing the parents when the mother's maiden name is entered there is not sufficient room to write the complete name on one line so the surname gets divided. If this record had been written in America the name would have been written Murga-wcy. In Poland it was simply divided as "Murga" "wcy". If you look at the section listing the sponsors the same thing is going on. The surname Furdak is written "Fur" on the first line and continued "dak".

To test the validity of this explanation you could post the other documents so that they may be viewed.

Dave

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:20 am

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:20 am

I more or less had come to the same conclusion. But my question now is what those letters under the surname "Murga" could have meant.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

Elzbieta Porteneuve — Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:57 am

Author: Elzbieta Porteneuve

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:57 am

Karol,

It you have recorgs with "Murga", then it's Murga.
I wrote:
"The form Murgawcy is a plural for husband and wife ... like Kowalscy", but actualy it could be also used as the name of all Murga family, flexibility of Polish language.

Best,
Elzbieta

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Tue Dec 17, 2013 11:06 pm

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 11:06 pm

After retrieving three additional baptismal/birth records (for three siblings) from the archive in Sanok, I am revisiting the transcription/translation of the record that I initially attached to this post. One of the records obtained from the archive was apparently the entry from which the attached baptismal "certificate" was made. Initially, I had transcribed the column titled "Pater nati" from that certificate as "Andreas Kabala agricola filius Josepho et Franciscae natae Murgawcy". Elzbieta responded that the form of the surname was incorrect (it was plural) and that my great-great grandmother's maiden name would most likely have been Murgawiec. However, after examining the records I obtained from the archive for three siblings, they all seem to record the surname as "Murga". I had originally taken the letters on the line following the surname as a suffix. However, it now appears that the name "Murga" should stand alone and that the letters on the next line were added by the priest as some kind of Latin abbreviation(?). If this is the case, the abbreviation stands just above the listing of the midwife's name. Does anyone have a clue as to what that abbreviation (if that is what it is) meant?

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

Elzbieta Porteneuve — Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:56 pm

Author: Elzbieta Porteneuve

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:56 pm

EANWhitson wrote:

This is VERY interesting to me. My grandfather's name is Stanislaw Reczka. I often wondered why on earth HIS last name was Reczka. Knowing he could have been born in another country or born of a single mother makes more sense. He is even buried in Poland as Stansislaw Reczka. I know nothing of his parents but will now keep this in mind.

Hi,

Reczka is invariant, it's a noun (rzeczownik in Polish).
I think the Polish orthography is Ręczka.

Ręka means a hand. Small hand is rączka.

Why ręczka became rączka or the opposite? Mutation or adjustments of rules in Polish orthography?

There is another word coming to mind, rzeczka, a small water, a brook. This is also a noun, invariant (no feminine, no masculine, no -ski or -cki, no adjective form).

Best,
Elzbieta

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

EANWhitson — Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:51 pm

Author: EANWhitson

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:51 pm

This is VERY interesting to me. My grandfather's name is Stanislaw Reczka. I often wondered why on earth HIS last name was Reczka. Knowing he could have been born in another country or born of a single mother makes more sense. He is even buried in Poland as Stansislaw Reczka. I know nothing of his parents but will now keep this in mind.

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

Elzbieta Porteneuve — Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:42 am

Author: Elzbieta Porteneuve

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:42 am

karolmarcinik wrote:

1.
Also, just to follow up on Elzbieta's observations, I want to make sure I understand this: though some Polish surnames do not have a separate feminine form, all names will follow a certain declension and therefore will inflect depending on their use in a sentence. Is this a correct understanding?

2.
In America we knew her as "Catherine Podgadski" (though there were variations in spelling of the last name; no one really knew how to spell it, so I tend to think it was an attempt at a phonetic spelling). On the records I've obtained so far with her maiden name on them she appears as Katarzyna Podgacka.

Karol

Karol,

Re:1 Yes

Re:2 Let's apply Polish rules to the name Podgacki (which has feminine and masculine form) and to Sadlik (which has not).

But before, let's make some consideration on that name depending on the country of birth.

The Father of Katarzyna Podgacka was X. Podgacki. That is Polish grammar rule, valid in Poland.

Assume X. Podgacki is an immigrant in France. The French rule is that the name MUST remain invariant (In France you need a court judgment, very hard to obtain, to change anything on a Civil Vital Record, even in a case of typo made by an acting officer). The daughter of X. Podgacki born in France will be Katarzyna Podgacki (An immigrant may ask to apply Polish grammar rule, but it must be done using very formal procedure, and has side effects on next generation).

Assume X. Podgacki and his daughter born in France, recorded Katarzyna Podgacki, and they move back to Poland, she will be Podgacki in Poland, masculine name.

Assume X. Podgacki asked to apply Polish grammar rule in France, his daughter is recorded Katarzyna Podgacka. First, she will have to demonstrate all her life (my own case), that her father is her father, and that her father and her mother have been married - the names differ. Second, in case Katarzyna had a baby as a single mother, if it's a boy, that boy will have a feminine name Podgacka. In other words, it will be written up front on his face, known to anyone with Polish (or Slavic) background that his mother was a single mother.

Let's consider declensions. 7 cases (we always have hints with questions):

1. mianownik (kto? co?)
2. dopełniacz (kogo? czego?)
3. celownik (komu? czemu?)
4. biernik (kogo? co?)
5. narzędnik ((z) kim? (z) czym?)
6. miejscownik (o kim? o czym?)
7. wołacz (–) [to call a person, often equal to 1. mianownik]

1. Podgacki | Podgacka | Sadlik
2. Podgackiego | Podgackiej | Sadlika
3. Podgackiemu | Podgackiej | Sadlikowi
4. Podgackiego | Podgacką [a ogonek] | Sadlika
5. Podgackim | Podgacką [a ogonek] | Sadlikiem
6. Podgackim | Podgackiej | Sadliku
7. Podgacki | Podgacka | Sadlik

Best,
Elzbieta

Re: Help with handwriting analysis of name on RC baptism record

karolmarcinik — Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:49 am

Author: karolmarcinik

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:49 am

Dave,
My interest in Latin is solely related to my records research. My interest in Greek is something completely different which I wish I did have more time for(!). My interest in Polish is also related to my records research, but goes beyond just that. I have Polish heritage, Polish relatives, and a desire to know the language better. Right now, knowing more about Polish names would help (which is why I mentioned potential resources). Our discussion in this forum has been helpful and enriching, and I hope to run into you again on these pages! I am very grateful for your and Elzbieta's help!

Kind Regards,
Karol