PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

brianminnie — Sun Oct 07, 2012 3:46 pm

Author: brianminnie

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2012 3:46 pm

Hi Shellie,

Thank you for remembering this! I have good news - I posted details on the other thread.

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Sat Oct 06, 2012 6:14 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 6:14 pm

Hi Brian,
I'm sorry but I have not been back to my branch for so long! I have not forgotten about your question. I am leaving a message for you on your other thread:

http://polishorigins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6636

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Sat May 26, 2012 6:37 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Sat May 26, 2012 6:37 pm

Hi Brian,
This restriction of record access must be new! Many people are talking about it lately. I will have to check and see if the film is still at my FHC.

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

brianminnie — Sat May 26, 2012 3:28 pm

Author: brianminnie

Posted: Sat May 26, 2012 3:28 pm

Hi Shellie,

I just found this forum topic because I began searching for information about Podole parish. I have been searching for my great-grandmother's birth record, and all I know is that she listed her hometown as 'Posadowa' on 2 US documents (her immigration passenger record and her marriage record at a Polish-American church). I have been focusing on Posadowa in Mogilno parish but that search has turned up nothing.

Now I see that there is another Posadowa, this one in Podole parish. I am thinking she might have been from here. Like you did, I found film # 2090647 in the LDS Family History catalog. Unfortunately when I try to order it, I receive a message that it is restricted due to Polish privacy law. (This message is all too familiar to me, I've run into it countless times when researching).

Your last post on this topic was about 1 year ago, so I assume you were able to order the film at that time. Do you still happen to have it on loan at your branch?

Regards,
Brian

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Sat Apr 23, 2011 1:45 am

Author: Shellie

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 1:45 am

babblingbrook wrote:

hi shellie,
so interesting and happy for you, how great you stopped at the church! i ran what i thought the names might be but am not sure how to put the possibilities together, maybe someone else can work with this info though or you can.

1st word i think is oeconomus http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oeconomus 3 possible meanings, check out weblink.

2nd i think it is plebanot or plebani. old italian/latin word which can make sense as when i was in krakow most of the nuns spoke italian and polish so likely true for priests as well. http://www.myetymology.com/latin/plebanus.html common people, general citizens, commons

3rd i tried to filter and could not figure it out.

Is it right that Rosalia has two nata names? Sagac and Stafira? or am I reading it wrong? The Sagac is interesting to me as a Zmuda of mine married a Sage, but the name was likely changed as he lists himself as Czech, Slovak, and Polish and clearly Sage is none of those. One writing of it looks very much like the Sagac.

Thanks so much for your comments! I wish I could go back to the church and talk to the priest who wrote out the baptism info. I've looked at hundreds of church records over the past few years and they all have been in Latin, sometimes with additional info in Polish. Although I am very far from being an expert, some of these things on this record are unusual to me.

About Rosalia's surname. Her nata name was Pagac, but many of the records have her surname as Stafira, which is her MOTHER's maiden name. I originally thought this was a simple error, but it has come up again and again in records for my family in Odrowaz, Luslawice, and now here in Podale. In Odrowaz, I thought it might be a mistake made by the priest who knew all of the families in Odrowaz and simply wrote down her mother's maiden name by mistake. But for the other 2 villages, the priest would not have known our family and my g-grandparents would have purposely given the surname to the priest at the baptism. I have also found that this was not unique to my family. I've come across other records where the baby's grandmother is not listed by her maiden name, but by the g-grandmother's maiden name. I've become so curious about this - I started a thread to discuss it: http://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?p=3925

I just found a Youtube video about Podole - beautiful, but it's in Polish! http://youtu.be/VBsLgEdwMzo

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

MDuplaga — Fri Apr 22, 2011 2:57 am

Author: MDuplaga

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 2:57 am

Shellie,

I'm so Happy to hear that you were able to verify that Podole IS the correct village!!!

One more mystery solved--what's next on the list??

MaryAnne

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

babblingbrook — Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:35 pm

Author: babblingbrook

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 7:35 pm

hi shellie,
so interesting and happy for you, how great you stopped at the church! i ran what i thought the names might be but am not sure how to put the possibilities together, maybe someone else can work with this info though or you can.

1st word i think is oeconomus http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oeconomus 3 possible meanings, check out weblink.

2nd i think it is plebanot or plebani. old italian/latin word which can make sense as when i was in krakow most of the nuns spoke italian and polish so likely true for priests as well. http://www.myetymology.com/latin/plebanus.html common people, general citizens, commons

3rd i tried to filter and could not figure it out.

Is it right that Rosalia has two nata names? Sagac and Stafira? or am I reading it wrong? The Sagac is interesting to me as a Zmuda of mine married a Sage, but the name was likely changed as he lists himself as Czech, Slovak, and Polish and clearly Sage is none of those. One writing of it looks very much like the Sagac.

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:00 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:00 pm

Well, I can’t believe it, but this WAS the village I was looking for! Of all the churches for me to stop and visit on the way from Luslawice, what were the chances that I would be at the very church where my great-uncle Frank and great-aunt Stella were baptized! This is such a wonderful, magical coincidence! I am so glad that I asked Zenon to turn off and explore this beautiful church.

The LDS family history center has records for this village. I examined film 2090647: Roman Catholic parish registers of births, marriages and deaths for Podole-Górowa (Nowy Sącz), Kraków, Poland, formerly Podole (Neusandez), Galizien, Austria.

No one expected me to find these records because my great-aunt Stella had always said that her mother didn’t have a birth certificate for her because the church burned down! The weird thing is that I just didn’t believe that story. I just had a hunch that the records were still out there. But the problem was that there was so little information to help me guess the church. First I was going to look for stories about burned churches – but that seemed like such an enormous undertaking. Then I tried to look for records in Wadowice (birthplace of Pope John Paul II) because some relatives said that my family was baptized in the same church as the Pope – but Wadowice church records are not available from the LDS family history center (and that church certainly did not burn). I also tried to explore Podszkle and Podvlk (see earlier messages), but those records are not filmed either.

The final clue to the mystery was my great-grandfather’s naturalization application that I ordered from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly the INS – Immigration & Naturalization Service). On one of the forms, he listed the birthplaces of his children. That’s when everything fell into place.
I wrote about the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in another thread at: http://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?p=2820

I’m now sure that the church fire was a fabricated story to explain a lost birth certificate. The interesting thing about this is that there are notations on both records that in 1912 the priest issued a testimonium ortus et baptismi – which is a record of baptism issued by the parish (I posted an image of my grandfather’s for an example). So I can only guess that sometime after these documents were issued for Frank and Stella, they were lost and my great-grandmother fabricated a plausible story about a church fire to be used when proof of birth was requested.

So now the mystery is why my family left Odrowaz and lived in Podole. I noticed that for Frank's record the godparents have a D. in front of their names and some notation directly below. I think we had a discussion on another thread about whether that stood for Dom or Domina. But my family were certainly peasant farmers. There is also a notation at the far right of the record that I can’t make out (the page was repaired with adhesive tape). The house number is also interesting. I’ve found several births in this village at house number 1. I wonder if house 1 was some kind of boarding house, or maybe the midwife’s home?

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Zenon — Mon Apr 11, 2011 7:50 am

Author: Zenon

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 7:50 am

Shellie,

It will be really amazing if it occurs to be your grandfather's siblings birth place And after short analysis of the map of area - route from Odrowaz to Luslawice, lack of similar places names and closeness to Luslawice - I think it is very probable.

I still remember while traveling back from Lusławice to Odrowąż we took different route. Only a few miles after Luslawice we noticed on the left side beautiful wooden church. You immediately asked for pulling up there and I pushed the brake shoe violently .

I also remember that we were so positively surprised by kindness of the priest there who opened the church for us the and told about its interesting history (on the picture in the page you found: http://tinyurl.com/Podole ) . As we can read on the page the priest is the dean of the Zakliczyn deanery.

I will be eagerly waiting for your search results in Podole parish

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

MDuplaga — Fri Apr 08, 2011 9:44 pm

Author: MDuplaga

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 9:44 pm

Shellie,

I'm glad you pointed out the murals-I noticed the walls were sort of strange looking-but did't realize why!

MaryAnne

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Fri Apr 08, 2011 9:36 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 9:36 pm

I'm going to my local LDS family history center to order films for the parish tomorrow and I hope to confirm within the next 2 weeks.

Cross your fingers that I've found the right place. If this turns out to be the right place, it will be the most incredible stroke of luck since I've started researching my family. I called my cousin last night to tell her about my hunch. Her mother was my grandfather's oldest sister Stella. Stella's mother told Stella that she didn't have a birth certificate for Stella or her brother Frank because the church burned down. I became suspicious about burned church stories after I saw how many wooden churches survive in Poland and how many records are on file with the LDS family history centers. Burned church stories are an easy excuse for immigrants who could not get back to the village for a birth certificate before they left for America - and though my g-grandparents were not too far away in Luslawice before they left, it may still have been difficult to get there. Who knows.

It's not my camera that make the photos look good - it's my photo editing software (Picasa - free from Google). It allows me to straighten, sharpen, adjust color and create collages, just to name a few things.

By the way, did you notice the "ghosts" of murals on the walls? There were once beautiful murals painted right on the walls, but sadly they were white washed. The white wash was removed a few years ago to try and recover the images beneath!

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

MDuplaga — Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:26 pm

Author: MDuplaga

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 8:26 pm

Shellie,

Those are wonderful photos of the Podole Church--Have you figured out a way to verify if this is the correct location yet? (you have a Great camera!)

MaryAnne

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:30 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:30 pm

Here are a few photos of the church in Podole:

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

MDuplaga — Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:53 am

Author: MDuplaga

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:53 am

Shellie,

That's an interesting story and I do hope that it turns out to be the correct location. Like they say: In life there are no coincidences!!!! And I'm betting that you took photos of that Church???

MaryAnne

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:57 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 6:57 pm

MaryAnne,
Thanks for the reply. The funny thing about Podole is that when I was in Poland with Zenon in 2009, we were on the highway and I saw a church in the distance. I asked if we could explore it and we found ourselves at the very old, but very interesting wooden church in Podole. I mentioned how remarkable this church was, built in the 1500's - in my Forefather's traces tour blog: http://blog.polishorigins.com/2009/07/16/16-shellies-tour-to-ancestral-places-day-6/

This church in Podole is not far from Luslawice, my grandfather's birthplace. Now wouldn't it be amazing if it turns out that my grandfather's brother and sister were born in Podole and I stood in that church without even realizing its significance to my family history?

Some translated info about the church here:
http://tinyurl.com/Podole

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

MDuplaga — Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:50 am

Author: MDuplaga

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:50 am

Shellie,

To me it looks like Podol_ Poland---So the only letter that made sense to me was a "z", so I googled "Podolz" and came up with 10 choices for "Podole".

One of the choices: Podole is a village in the admin. district of Gmina Grodek nad Dunajcem within Nowy Sacz County in Southern Poland-but you may want to google it yourself and see the other 9 possibilities to compare the regions with your known info.
MaryAnne

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:29 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 9:29 pm

I have a new clue in my search for the village where my grandfather's older siblings were born. I finally received my great-grandfather's naturalization application and it listed the names, birthdates and birthplaces of his children. But I still can't read the village name! Does anyone want to give their impressions of what this image says, compared to the village named in the previous image that I posted above?

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:46 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:46 pm

Ok - I think that the village might be Podvlk, formerly located in Arva Megye, Hungary, near Piekelnik and Bukovina-Podszkle. The area is now in Poland. This village is also near Odrowaz.

NOTE: I am wrong!!! See messages below.

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Shellie — Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:54 pm

Author: Shellie

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:54 pm

Hi Tad
Thank you so much for writing about Podszkle. I googled it and found that it was formerly Arva Megye, Hungary, but now is a part of Poland and is quite close to Bukovina.

The church records have not been filmed, but I did find someone who is researching their ancestry there and has many records that she can look thru to see if my family is listed there.

Now I have more mysteries - why did my family leave Odrowaz and go to Podszkle, and later to Luslawice? My great-grandfather was in the Army. Does anyone know if the Army garrisoned in Bukovina?

Thank you so much!
Shellie

Re: Podole? Prdotz? Podwlk? mystery village SOLVED

Anonymous — Wed Sep 16, 2009 6:15 am

Author: Anonymous

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 6:15 am

Hi dear Shellie,

Here Tad, the friend of your best Polish guide Zenon. Here is my cordial help in locating the place of the birth of your beloved Grandpa, the most important for him place on the planet:

With my Polish eyes I see the first name of the place as yes - the very old Polish Gorals mountain village Odrowaz, located in southern part of Poland, and the second name of the place "Prdotz" as Podszkle - the village located just abt 3 miles NW of the Odrowaz.

Here is the website pointing this place with Polish Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podszkle,_Lesser_Poland_Voivodeship

You can find wonderful info from your Grandpa's Podszkle with gmina Czarny Dunajec website:
http://www.czarnydunajec.iap.pl/index.html?id=2618&location=f&msg=1
= the very old Polish village, noted from 1580, beatifully located amongst small mountains, deep woods, and local rivers. The church on-site errected in the XVIII century., etc. And: the name od the place PODSZKLE directly means in Polish Pod-szkle - off-the-glass, and the local story is telling that centuries ago the glazier, quickly going thru the village, suddenly stumbled, lost his glass, and said: "Cholerka, to po szkle" - "Oh my, I lost all my glass" ( sorry my maybe bad translation, just trying to tell you the story, for your rich Family History Book as interesting addendum

Thus, your Grandpa's church, parish, and the family cemetery was this Poszkle.

But I may be wrong! Only you can confirm all with checking church/civil books from this Podszkle. They are available in Poland, and/or in the US with FHL/LDS microfilms ordered from their centre in Salt Lake City. The other place name version I see this "Prdotz" as maybe Potok (a stream).

2009 Poland, and our phone directories are not giving any Kulawiak's as survived in this Podszkle, and few Kulawiak's in near Odrowaz, but all about of them we can read with your story! Thanks for preserving all family roots from Poland.

With traditional Polish Gorals HEY!

Tad