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JLNorskey

Joined: 16 Feb 2022
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Location: Maine USA
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Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:49 pm Post subject: Looking for my Grandfather's family

I am searching for the family of Victor Nurczyk born 1899. His parents were Konstanty and Zofia(Wiska) Nurczyk who were married in 1897 in Nowogrod Parish. I can't find records of my grandfather's birth, but did find his brother, Marian Nurczyk who was born in 1916 Grady, Nowogrod, Podlaskie, Poland. I know there are more brothers and possibly a sister. One may be Boleslaw born in 1903 in Zbójna. On my grandfather's WWI draft card he lists his pace of birth as Tomocz, Russia.
Any help would be appreciated!

Last edited by JLNorskey on Sun Mar 13, 2022 1:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

Sophia
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 6:06 am Post subject: Re: Looking for my Granfather's family

JLNorskey wrote:

Hi,
I looked on Geneteka, and I see Konstanty Nurczyk and Zofia Wiska married in Szczepankowo parish, rather than Nowogród. Geneteka shows Konstanty's birth in Nowogród, in 1869, to Paweł Nurczyk and Józefa Żebrowska. Nowogród is part of the gmina of Zbójna. Szczepankowo and Nowogrod are less than 10 miles apart, with Grądy about mid-way between them, as I'm sure you already know. Where "Tomocz" is, I don't know. I took a look on FamilySearch for your grandfather's WWI draft card and did not see it. Can you post the image here, or a link to it?
I did find his ship manifest:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9TD-TS3X-V?i=188&cc=1368704&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AJJM6-DW1
The ship is the Rhein, which set sail on June 29, 1913 and arrived at Ellis Island on July 11, 1913. Victor (Wiktor) Nurczyk is on line 15. He was 18 years old, from "Gronda" (that is probably Grądy) and his father's name was given as Konstantin (Konstanty). It is a 2 page manifest, so you have to page forward to see the second page. It shows he was going to his uncle (probably Ksawery) in Baldwinsville, Massachusetts.
Have you looked for records in the Miastkowo parish? That is also in the same neighborhood.
Best regards,
Sophia

JLNorskey

Joined: 16 Feb 2022
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Location: Maine USA
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 7:39 am Post subject:

Hi Sophia, Thank you so much for our reply. I have found most of the information I have on Geneteka, Family Search and Ancestry. I found Victor's brother Marian not those sights, but through the Franciscan monastery he was in for 58 years. I have gone through every parish in the region and can't find my grandfather. Interestingly, my grandfather came over to the US in 1913 at 14 lying abut his age. He was coming to stay with his uncles Seweryn and Stanislaus. My dad is 93 and still lives in that part of Massachusetts. I have attached the WWI card. Again, Thank you![/img]

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Sophia
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 8:23 am Post subject:

JLNorskey wrote:

Hi again,
Well, he's a fine looking fellow! Thanks for including his photo.
So now I understand why I could not find his draft registration card. The spelling of the last name morphed from Nurczyk to Norskey, which I should have noticed by the way that you put your name here on the forum, but I did not think to look at that. Also, this is not a WWI draft registration card, but a WWII draft registration card (you see the form itself has a January 1, 1942 revision date in the lower left-hand corner).
In my opinion, the handwriting on this draft registration card is not Victor's, nor was it written by anyone whose first language was Polish. If you look at the place of birth, "Tomocz," you will see that the first letter is not meant to be a T but rather it is an attempt at writing the Polish letter Ł . It is my opinion that the writer was attempting to write Łomża as the card allows the place of birth to be either a town or a county.
Let me look a bit further to see if I can find another source of records for this area of Poland.
Best regards,
Sophia

JLNorskey

Joined: 16 Feb 2022
Replies: 16
Location: Maine USA
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 10:17 am Post subject:

Hi,
You are correct! I knew that was WWII! My dad remembers helping address letters for my grandfather to Lomza. Thank you!

Sophia
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 12:08 pm Post subject:

JLNorskey wrote:

Hi,
You are correct! I knew that was WWII! My dad remembers helping address letters for my grandfather to Lomza. Thank you!

You're welcome!

I'm not able to find church records beyond those that Geneteka already indexed, which is a disappointment. You may do well to contact a professional genealogist (the fine folks of PolishOrigins spring to mind, they are the ones who provide this lovely forum for free for all of us) to see whether more records are available at archives or from the churches themselves.

In your earlier post from February, you mentioned the possibility of a brother named Franciszek. This may be a long shot, but the online archives of Poland has a photo that includes a Franciszek Nurczyk, here:

https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/jednostka/-/jednostka/5944199/obiekty/339873#opis_obiektu

Click on "przejdz do skanu" to enlarge the photo. He is the gentleman seated at the far left. In 1929, he was the secretary of the "Zarząd Związku Oświaty i Obrony Kresów Polskich w Ameryce." Any chance that he is related to you?

Best of luck in your search,
Sophia

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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 11:31 pm Post subject:

Don't know if you found this yet, but I think I located the unindexed records for Nowogrod here -
https://metryki.genealodzy.pl/ar15-zs0170d
Województwo: podlaskie, Powiat: łomżyński (196)
Zespół: 0170/D- Akta stanu cywilnego Okręgu Bożniczego w Nowogrodzie

I think the 55 birth records for 1899 are here
https://metryki.genealodzy.pl/metryki.php?op=kt&ar=15&zs=0170d&sy=1899&kt=1

Maybe somebody else can chime in to confirm I found the right group of records.

If you can have somebody write the Nurczyk name out in Russian, you can look through the births to see if something matches for your grandfather. SkU is the index page. And of course, there can be human error in the indexes. I can't read Polish or Russian, but when I was looking for my grandfather's birth, I was sucessful in finding a sibling this way, one that I had no idea existed.

You can get Russian translations here on this forum. https://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?t=3525 That might be another way to have somebody help you check to see if Wiktor Nurczyk's birth is listed in the parish in 1899.

By the way, I have also found some records along the way where the first names did not match at all, but the record was the correct one. I guess later the went by a nickname or a middle name instead. I also found birthdates were different than what family information said they should be.

Good luck!
Diane

looking for clues
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 3:49 am Post subject:

Sophia picked up that Konstanty Nurczyk and Zofia Wiska married in Szczepankowo parish, a neighboring village to Nowogrod. Looking at Szczepankowo on Geneteka, it appears there are a number of Wiski and Wiska names there. If this was Zofia's parish, it is possible that she went to be with family to give birth. Based on that possibility, I looked for unindexed records for Szczepankowo parish.

I found unindexed records for Szczepankowo parish here -
https://metryki.genealodzy.pl/ar15-zs0526d
Województwo: podlaskie, Powiat: łomżyński (196)
Zespół: 0526/D- Akta stanu cywilnego Parafii Rzymskokatolickiej w Szczepankowie

The 186 birth records for 1899 are here -
https://metryki.genealodzy.pl/metryki.php?op=kt&ar=15&zs=0526d&sy=2505&kt=5

Szczepankowo records for 1899 added Polish names to the the Russian records, but not to the index.

JLNorskey

Joined: 16 Feb 2022
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Location: Maine USA
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 8:32 pm Post subject:

Thank you for your help! My daughter in law is Russian, so she can helpmeet with the translations. Lots to look through!

looking for clues
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 2:02 am Post subject:

JL, Per the 1930 and 1040 census it appear that your grandfather was naturalized. Any luck finding your his naturalization record? It would be interesting to see how the place of birth was recorded.

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Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2022 3:54 pm Post subject:

A couple more records that I came across - not sure if you have these already

1926 class list for Grądy
http://www.polska1926.pl/karty/14495
Has a signature by your great uncle Marian Nurczyk.
It also has signature by Janina Wiska (with Polish ending) and Piotr Wiski - possible your grandfather's cousins
click to see signatures
On English version and expand signature you can see the list

Military service record for Victor Norski
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WM5Z-C8ZM
Residence Place Berkshire, N Y
Death Date 30 Jan 1960
Birth Date 17 Sep 1897
Event Date 31 Mar 1920

The date of birth in the military record adds confusion. I noted that the Find A Grave for Victor Norskey showed a birth date of Nov 12, 1899 which would have made him only 13 when he came to America in July of 1913. If you used the date on his military record of September 1897, he would have been 15. I would tend to look for his birth in the 1897 to 1899 range.

This sounds very similiar to the confusion about both of my grandfather's birth dates. One of them also made himself older when he came to America as a teen.

Diane

JLNorskey

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Location: Maine USA
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Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2022 4:19 pm Post subject:

Thank you! My 93 year old dad was over the moon with the 1926 class list containing the signature of his uncle Marian. Looking back at census records and my dad's and aunt's birth certificates, it looks like my grandfather was born in 1898.

JLNorskey

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Posted: Wed May 04, 2022 9:39 am Post subject: Translation

Thank you, Sophia!

Last edited by JLNorskey on Fri May 06, 2022 3:12 pm; edited 1 time in total

Sophia
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Posted: Fri May 06, 2022 7:16 am Post subject: Re: Translation

Happy to help!
Best regards,
Sophia

Last edited by Sophia on Fri May 06, 2022 3:19 pm; edited 2 times in total

JLNorskey

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Posted: Fri May 06, 2022 7:34 am Post subject: Translation

Thank you so much, Sophia. Apparently my sparse knowledge of Polish was pretty good because I did get the gist of the letter correct!
Joanne

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