EANWhitsonPO Top Contributor
Joined: 18 Apr 2012
Replies: 370
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Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:51 pm
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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.
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Elzbieta PorteneuvePO Top Contributor
Joined: 09 Nov 2012
Replies: 3098
Location: Paris, FranceBack to top |
Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 5:56 pm
Post subject:
| 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
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Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 11:06 pm
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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?
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Elzbieta PorteneuvePO Top Contributor
Joined: 09 Nov 2012
Replies: 3098
Location: Paris, FranceBack to top |
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:57 am
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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
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:20 am
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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.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2954
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:39 am
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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
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:01 am
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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?
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:19 am
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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  .
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2954
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:43 am
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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
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 11:49 am
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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.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2954
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:28 pm
Post subject:
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
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sirdanPO Top Contributor
Joined: 07 Mar 2012
Replies: 304
Location: ** Southeast Pole**Back to top |
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:36 pm
Post subject:
@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.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:29 pm
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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.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2954
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:39 pm
Post subject:
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
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 10:32 pm
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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.
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JozefKabalaBirthCertificate.pdf |
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