Re: Kmiecianka

dnowicki — Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:06 am

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 8:06 am

<span>I have a marriage record that show the ladies surname as "Kmiecianka". Does not seem like a widely used surname. Can anyone give me some kind of explanation. I came up with a meaning of "a young girl", "a form of female from the land", or "a feminine form of serf". Does this mean she didn't have any known parents or family? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Also found this 1866 definition - Google Translate shows Królowa duchem, choć kmiecianka stanem" means "Queen of ghosts, although a small town state".

and one other definition.</span>

Hi,

The actual definition part of the entry from the dictionary is found in the first few words of the entry: “forma żeńska od kmieć” which means “the feminine form of kmieć”. The remainder of the dictionary entry is not giving additional definitions for the word, but is simply providing examples of the word used in context. The suffix -anka was used in the 19th Century to indicate an unmarried female and it describes her in terms of her relationship to her father. In the case of the bride in your marriage record she is described as “the daughter of Kmieć”. We would call her “Miss Kmieć” (unless, of course, one felt that a woman should be titled Ms. rather than Miss or Mrs. However, that whole idea of the generic “Ms.” would have been completely foreign to someone living in the 19th Century in Poland and elsewhere at that time.) Kmieć is a noun which does mean “peasant” but it is also used as a surname. In the 17th & 18th Centuries and the early 19th Century kmieć had a technical meaning describing a person’s position in the hierarchy of peasants. The hierarchy distinguished individual peasants in terms of property ownership/control (or lack thereof). A kmieć (in Latin cmeto [also spelled cmetho]) was at the top of the hierarchy and owned/controled enough real property to be self-sustaining. Peasants on that level sometimes employed other peasants to help them work their holdings and sometimes were better off than impoverished members of the gentry (szlachta).

There are a number of possible reasons why the family adopted the surname Kmieć but the reasons cannot be determined from her name as recorded in a marriage entry. To add another dimension to the feminine surname endings in the 19th Century---the bride’s mother would have been known as Kmieciaka, meaning “the wife of Kmieć” indicating that she was a married woman. In terms of spelling, the diacritic mark over the letter c (ć) drops down as the letter “i” when followed by a vowel.

The bottom line in all this is that Kmiecianka is not a separate surname from Kmieć. There are various ways one can deal with feminine suffixes found in 19th Century Polish surnames. It seems to me that there is no one “correct” way to enter feminine surnames into a genealogy program as long as one has clear and logical reasons which explain the choice.

With the hope that this explanation clarifies rather than confuses,

Dave

Re: Kmiecianka

jhzs — Tue Jul 04, 2017 7:47 am

Author: jhzs

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 7:47 am

Hi, if Kmiecianka is written in a space where surname should be and starts with a capital letter that perhaps is her surname so her father's surname was, most propably. Kmieć. Of course it would help if you post a piture of that record. A word kmieć means a peasant, farmer, usually owning (or renting rather in most cases) quite big piece of land. When villages were settled the land was divided into so called łan(s) and given to a number of kmieć(es) and each of them received a full share (at least full "łan". Then, they were further divided between their descendants so there were półkmiecie (half kmieć) for example and then owners of smaller shares.
Zbigniew

Kmiecianka

Rwyber — Tue Jul 04, 2017 12:46 am

Author: Rwyber

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 12:46 am

I have a marriage record that show the ladies surname as "Kmiecianka". Does not seem like a widely used surname. Can anyone give me some kind of explanation. I came up with a meaning of "a young girl", "a form of female from the land", or "a feminine form of serf". Does this mean she didn't have any known parents or family? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Kmiecianka

Re: Kmiecianka

Kmiecianka