Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - Help figuring out birth city

Author

Message

dnowicki
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2950
Location: Michigan City, Indiana
Back to top

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 12:26 am Post subject:

Hi,

Marcely who came to the USA in 1904 is probably not the father of Jakub. His destination was in Mass. and he was going to his brother. The other reason I say this is that it is not at all clear that Jakub's father was Marcely/Marcel/Marceli. On Jakub's record at Ellis Island his father is listed as Marcin/Martin. I would not put too much faith in the marriage record. Although the priest was Polish or of Polish descent, he entered all the first names in the record in their English form---except for Jakub's father. That name he entered as Marcllus which is not a legit Latin form of Marcely. The correct Latin would be Marcellus. For some reason he was having a difficult time with that name. He didn't enter it in English like all the rest, and certainly not in Polish and not really in correct Latin. A lot of what is written down in various records---both civil and ecclesiastical---depended on what the person writing the record heard, which naturally depended upon how clearly the person speaking enunciated the names. Examples of how names can vary from record to record can be found in the birth certificates for three of the children of your grandparents. Elizabeth (born 1/20/1918 has the parents listed as Jakub Malanovsky & Frances Davik; Casimir (born 11/17/1919) is listed as Kasmes Malanovsky with parents listed as Jacob Malanovsky from Pulscka, Poland and Frantiska Danik from Gosen, Poland; Lottie (born 4/22/1921) is listed as Wloccotyslocrva (also Wladystawa) Gienowefor Malanowski and her parents are listed as Jackob Malanowski & Franciskor Danik.

Elzbieta is most probably correct in interpreting Przerac as Przeradz. There are three villages close to one another with similar names---Przeradz Wielki, Przeradz Maly and Przeradz Nowy. In the late 19th Century they all were part of the R.C. parish of Lutocin. That is all good news. However, it is not certain that Jakub was born in one of those villages but it is possible. He was probably not actually born in Zuromin which is a rather substantial town and since his occupation in Poland was a farm laborer who most likely worked on the family farm he would probably have been born in a village rather than in the town. Sometimes immigrants named the largest town near where they were born as the place of their birth just like someone who lived in Burnham, Illinois might say they were from Chicago.

Some more good news is that if he was born in one of those villages the records for the parish of Lutocin cover the period from his birth until after he left for America. The bad news is that it is not possible to look for those records on the internet and the even worse news is that the LDS films do not cover those years. But the silver lining in that dark cloud is that the records you would need are found in one of the branch archives in Poland which means that you could send an email request for your grandfather's birth record. The downside is that he may have been born in another village which belonged to another parish.

Another way to approach the matter would be to do some more searching here before requesting a search in the archives in Poland. In the 1930 & 1940 censuses your grandparents lived on the 4800 block of Loomis in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. If they lived in that same neighborhood from 1920 to 1930, perhaps looking for baptismal records of their children in one of the Polish parishes in the Back of the Yards like say St. John of God (which is closed but the records still exist either in another nearby parish or in the archives of the Archdiocese). It is possible that a baptismal record or perhaps your grandfather's obituary may confirm the direction your search should take.

Wishing you success in your quest,

Dave

Stamperanon

Joined: 18 Feb 2014
Replies: 9

Back to top

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 2:17 am Post subject:

Thank you Dave.

The "Casimir" you mentioned is not Kasmes. I have found a death for this child, died in 1918 after catching his clothes on fire. He was only 3 years old buried at St Aldaberts. I have not found his birth certificate yet, born some time in 1915. The oldest son Matthew, was born 25 Jan 1915 to Francis Danik. Jakub and Francis were married 15 Feb 1915. I was thinking that Baby Danik - according to Family Search - and Casimir were twins. The records from FS, only had one birth record, but on that record where it shows whether it was a single birth to multiple, it has what looks like a "t" on it.

Kasmes is actually Edward, 17 Nov 1919.

Have not checked for baptismal records yet.

Thank you again Dave.

Debi

Elzbieta Porteneuve
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 09 Nov 2012
Replies: 3098
Location: Paris, France
Back to top

Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 7:00 pm Post subject:

Stamperanon wrote:

My question is, should I go to the name forum and see if anyone can help with trying to figure out Anastacia's last name. I know how people would misspell names. They would write phonetically . You should see the different misspelled last names on the siblings birth certificate. The only way I knew they were mine, my grandmothers name was always spelled correct. How can you mess up Danik?

I zoomed your scan http://polishorigins.com/forum/files/photo_147.jpg with Anastasia (in Polish it's Anastazja)

I decipher: Ziemal[???]ska
The first letter is Z, a handwritten form, identical to Cyrillic Z, used in France (I did not know that shape of Z is used in the US)

maybe: Ziemalciska - the problem is that it does not sound well to my Polish ear

maybe: Ziemalewska - that sounds better, but where is "w"? why dot? and it does not exist
-- but without "a" in the middle it does exist
http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/ziemlewska.html

Anyway, the end is -ska, and that is feminine Polish end. Which allows me to make the following hypothesis:
(1) either Anastasia was married in Poland, then her marriage record is with declension, name ending with -ska, while her husband name is ending with -ski
(2) or she is single [if she were married in the US, her name would remain invariant with -ski]

Her name is the only one I have doubts with. Anything else is easy to decipher, the scribe was writing well, as well as he could with unfamiliar language

step-siter: Anastasia Ziemal[???]ska, Chicago, Il
brother in law: Jakob Feldmann, Hoboken, NJ, ..; Newark
brother: Max Teitelbaum, New York City, East 110 Street
brother: Edward Lang, Jersey City

Best,
Elzbieta

Stamperanon

Joined: 18 Feb 2014
Replies: 9

Back to top

Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2014 11:04 pm Post subject:

Elzbieta Porteneuve wrote:

Stamperanon wrote:

Thank you Elzbieta. I keep trying the different was that name could be spelled on Ellis Island or Ancestry. One day I'll get it. The "Z" shape is actually our cursive capital Z. Now that they won't be teaching cursive in some of the schools any more, wonder how they'll ever be able to read anything. sigh........

Thank you sooooo much for taking the time to try to figure it out.

Debi

PolishOrigins Forum