PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:26 pm

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:26 pm

Oh I agree it's a fun challenge - it's just been a long road with a lot of odd stuff. Her husband was almost as much of a challenge but I figured it out so I have hope!

Nope, Allegheny doesn't have any record of it. I've even spoken with them and got their recommendations. No Allegheny or the seven counties around it. You can get a PA marriage license in any county and then get married anywhere in PA. I keep a chart of counties I've queried but it can be rather pricy to do random counties so I was hoping to find anything else to give me some indication of where to query.

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Shellie — Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:20 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:20 pm

Hi, I know that you are frustrated, but for some of this, this is a fun and interesting challenge. As you can already see, there are some great members here who go the extra mile to help others.

As soon as you mentioned Pittsburgh, I was intrigued. That is where my ancestors emigrated. I also have received information from the diocese in Pittsburgh. I hope that you can find the marriage license for Allegheny County, especially because Helen was so young. When I found my great-grandparents marriage license from the county, I was very surprised to find that my 20 year old great-grandmother was considered to be a minor and needed to have the permission of her parent/guardian to marry. Because her parents remained in Poland, her uncle had to go to court to become her guardian - just so he could give his permission for her to marry. This information was included in the marriage license. Perhaps you find something similar for your grandmother.

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Elzbieta Porteneuve — Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:33 pm

Author: Elzbieta Porteneuve

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:33 pm

Gilbero's pdf is priceless, I give you here typed Cyrillic for 3 names

Zurawiec and variants in 1-st and 2-nd position:

зуравиец
жыравиец
журавиец
шуравиец

Helena and variants (I looked up Gilberto's URL to search in Lublin, and noted several in 1-st, and a little less in 2-nd variant. The third is also possible.

елена
гелена
хелена

Wojciech:

войциеч

Bonne chance!

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Anonymous — Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:53 am

Author: Anonymous

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:53 am

Sorry. I meant that, in the record, her father's name, Wojciech, written in russian language, starts with the letter B.
The attached alphabet may help you identify surnames starting with S or Z.
Gilberto

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:14 am

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:14 am

Thanks, I work a lot with LDS microfilms in Italian and that's basically what I have to do too with them!

Wait, it starts with a B???

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Anonymous — Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:05 am

Author: Anonymous

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:05 am

mdhillison wrote:

Elzbieta, thanks so much for that. Good stuff to look at.

Gilberto, thanks. I had looked before but since I don't speak Polish, I sort of put it by the wayside. I'll dig into it today, thanks for the location of the index.

What a helpful group, thanks everyone!

Bad news: the index is in russian.
Good news: since you are not sure of the spelling, look for any Elena, note down the number of the record and go check it.
Most of them have the names written in polish, right after russian. If not, it helps to know that Wojciech starts with a B.

Good hunt!
Gilberto

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:58 am

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:58 am

Elzbieta, thanks so much for that. Good stuff to look at.

Gilberto, thanks. I had looked before but since I don't speak Polish, I sort of put it by the wayside. I'll dig into it today, thanks for the location of the index.

What a helpful group, thanks everyone!

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:53 am

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:53 am

Cheri, I don't mind at all. That's why I wrote it all down and shared it, it always helps to have other people's thoughts. Sometimes you've looked at the same stuff so often you don't see other options. So thanks!

My great-granddad came over at 13 with cousins so you are completely right that it's a possibility. I assumed since she was female and so young she must have been with parents. But I should entertain all scenarios.

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Cheri Vanden Berg — Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:44 am

Author: Cheri Vanden Berg

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:44 am

I hope you don't mind a comment or two on what you wrote on your website:
"Update on the AR2 Alien Registration forms. Not a ton of info – no photo. But the last name listed is Shorovitz which is super rare. I think that’s a misspelling again – there is no V in Polish anyway. SIGH. 5-4, Brown hair, green eyes. DOB the same but a new arrival date in the US of April 1909 but no ship. She lists NO parents as living in the US. Did they go back to Poland? Did they die? This was 1941 so she was 43ish. Either is possible."
One other possibility is that her parents never immigrated. I realize that Helena must have been young, but she could have immigrated with someone else. From what I have seen, it is quite common to have multiple birth years in records. My mom's family was never sure what year my grandmother was born. I see that in the 1920 census, Helen was 25, and on the Alien Registration form it says that Helen was born in 1895. That seems likely, given the age at her marriage.

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Anonymous — Wed Feb 12, 2014 7:49 am

Author: Anonymous

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 7:49 am

Wieniawa records online:

Sw. Jana (katedral) in Lublin (covers Wieniawa)
http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/35/1859/0/2.4/82/str/1/1/100#tabSkany
1898 birth indexes on images 87 to 98

Sw. Michala in Lublin (covers up to 1825)

Sw. Pawla in Lublin (covers Wieniawa)
http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/35/1860/0/2.4/22/str/1/2/100#tabSkany
1898 birth indexes on images 112 to 116

Gilberto

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Elzbieta Porteneuve — Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:56 am

Author: Elzbieta Porteneuve

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:56 am

To follow up with Cheri's findings: Surowiec is very popular name http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/surowiec.html

Did you consider that the first letter could be z with a dot, Żurawiec or Żurowiec, the letter which spelling is not far away from "J" in Julie. Without a dot it is Z, but then the spelling differs. When non Polish speaker records phoneticaly a name starting with Ż you may get strange variants. And once strange spelling starts, the online dictionarries may suggest to put "vitz' at the end.

Żurawiec is a plant http://www.atlas-roslin.pl/gatunki/Atrichum_undulatum.htm

20 persons with the name Żurawiec and 16 with Żurowiec show up in today's Poland.

Żurawiec, Lublin Voivodeship - village http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBurawiec,_Lublin_Voivodeship

Żurawce - village in the area called Roztocze http://www.roztoczewita.pl/zurawce

Elzbieta

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Cheri Vanden Berg — Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:11 am

Author: Cheri Vanden Berg

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 12:11 am

Sorry to hear that about the church records. It seems like you are doing well without seeing the original. I think you probably figured out the correct birth place for Helen, based on their records. I looked to see if the LDS filmed records for Wieniawa, Lublin, and it comes up in their catalog, but I couldn't get it to show me what they had. Maybe someone else could comment on that, I've never had trouble before.

For what it's worth, I Googled: Surowiec Lublin and I got some hits. Names. It seemed to also give me the surname Zurowiec, even though that spelling didn't show up in that surname map that I mentioned earlier.

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:22 pm

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:22 pm

The church will not give copies of the original logged records and they will not let me examine them (I offered to go to Pittsburgh).

That's been one of the working theories we've had as well - same S/Z start and same ending. All the Shorovitz/Shore references are later on too, possibly not even seen by her so it could be my Italian great-grandfather trying to spell it the best he thought. There are almost no Shorovitzs either in general. That or that they changed it during naturalization.

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Cheri Vanden Berg — Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:13 pm

Author: Cheri Vanden Berg

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:13 pm

You might want to go to http://www.ivona.com/us/ Pick one of the 5 Polish speakers (or give everyone a turn!) Type in Surowiec, and listen. My ears aren't the greatest, but it kind of sounds like Shorovitz to me. Of course I'm not pretending to KNOW Helena's surname, I just want you to understand why someone else might write down Shorovitz when that is what they remember HEARING. Oh, the church can't give you a copy of the original record?

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:55 pm

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:55 pm

Thanks, I agree in general too - oldest record and she would have had to have given the info. But part of the problem with those marriage records is they are transcribed from old church records - even the marriage record is really 20 years old when it was written down. It's just so bizarre to find nothing and I can't even grasp where the Shorovitz stuff came from.

I'll check into Surowiec and follow up with those guys too if it looks promising at all.

Thanks!

Re: The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

Cheri Vanden Berg — Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:36 pm

Author: Cheri Vanden Berg

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:36 pm

Wow, you have worked hard to try to find Helena's surname. My first though was kind of leaning towards the marriage record spelling just because that was one of the earlier records, and she was there for it. But of course during this period of time any phonetic (or not) spelling seemed to go on records. I probably don't have to tell you that my search for the Zurawiec surname came up empty. There are some Surawiec passengers coming through Ellis Island, but there are more Surowiec passengers. Also, I checked the Polish surname map, and nothing came up for Surawiec, but there are a bunch of people with the Surowiec surname living in Poland today: http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/surowiec.html
And if you Google Surowiec, you will find people with that surname that live in the U.S.
I think this could be a possibility, but my quick search did not find Helena on a ship manifest yet.
There are two Surowiec researchers on Rafal's surname list, but it's hard to say if their e-mail addresses are current:
Surowiec ---- ciupaks@hotmail.com -- Jul/00
Surowiec ---- eugnnanc@cmedic.net -- Aug/01

The curious case of Helen Z. (or S.)

mdhillison — Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:36 pm

Author: mdhillison

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:36 pm

Hello! I've been searching for anything about my great-grandmother before her marriage in the US to my great-grandfather.

I've documented all the stuff I've found here on my website, http://www.hillison.com/?p=2904