PolishOrigins Forum

 FAQFAQ    SearchSearch    MemberlistMemberlist    ProfileProfile    Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages    Log inLog in    RegisterRegister 
Author
Message
starshadow
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 09 May 2013
Replies: 305

Back to top
Post Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 2:19 pm      Post subject: a curious research puzzle
Reply with quote

Here are two records. The first is the death record for Agnieszka "Lemanowicz", the wife of Wojciech, of Kowalewo in Leg Probostwo parish. The record is dated the 24th of March 1832, and she died on the 22nd.

The 2nd is the marriage record of Wojciech Nowakowski and Barbara Jozwiak, dated the 29th of August 1833, in Budy Zleborki, Gradzanowo parish. If I understand the marriage record correctly, it says Wojciech was just recently widowed, his wife Agnieszka (Bursztynow?) dying March 24th (but I can't tell if that means 1833 or 1832).

The first dilemma, is that the 1832 death record is flawed. Agnieszka's married name was Nowakowski, and her maiden name was Lemanowicz. Why they got that very important fact wrong, I'm unsure. I've seen similar errors in other records before, but none that big.

I've thrown in the 3rd record to show how I found the 2nd record. It's the marriage record of Tekla Nowakowska, daughter of Wojciech and Barbara, dated 1858, from Mogielnica in Leg Probostwo parish. Tekla was born about 1836, in Laszewo, Gradzanowo parish. Her parents Wojciech and Barbara are living in Dziedzice (?), right nearby. One of the witnesses is Franciszek Lemanowicz of Mogielnica, Agnieszka's younger brother.

I suspect these are all the same family. There are so many undeniable similarities, but just as many differences. And the abundance of errors is hard to overcome. Does anyone have any opinions? Am I mistaken about anything?



marriage-1858-p2b.jpg
 Description:
record 3 page 2
 Filesize:  222.62 KB
 Viewed:  0 Time(s)

marriage-1858-p2b.jpg



marriage-1858-p1b.jpg
 Description:
record 3 page 1
 Filesize:  273.02 KB
 Viewed:  0 Time(s)

marriage-1858-p1b.jpg



nowakowski_jozwiak_gradzanowo_parish_1833act10_105.jpg
 Description:
record 2
 Filesize:  164.33 KB
 Viewed:  0 Time(s)

nowakowski_jozwiak_gradzanowo_parish_1833act10_105.jpg



1832-leg-probostwo.jpg
 Description:
record 1
 Filesize:  222.94 KB
 Viewed:  0 Time(s)

1832-leg-probostwo.jpg


View user's profile
Send private message
dnowicki
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2781
Location: Michigan City, Indiana

Back to top
Post Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 8:13 pm      Post subject: Re: a curious research puzzle
Reply with quote

starshadow wrote:
Here are two records. The first is the death record for Agnieszka "Lemanowicz", the wife of Wojciech, of Kowalewo in Leg Probostwo parish. The record is dated the 24th of March 1832, and she died on the 22nd.

The 2nd is the marriage record of Wojciech Nowakowski and Barbara Jozwiak, dated the 29th of August 1833, in Budy Zleborki, Gradzanowo parish. If I understand the marriage record correctly, it says Wojciech was just recently widowed, his wife Agnieszka (Bursztynow?) dying March 24th (but I can't tell if that means 1833 or 1832).

The first dilemma, is that the 1832 death record is flawed. Agnieszka's married name was Nowakowski, and her maiden name was Lemanowicz. Why they got that very important fact wrong, I'm unsure. I've seen similar errors in other records before, but none that big.

I've thrown in the 3rd record to show how I found the 2nd record. It's the marriage record of Tekla Nowakowska, daughter of Wojciech and Barbara, dated 1858, from Mogielnica in Leg Probostwo parish. Tekla was born about 1836, in Laszewo, Gradzanowo parish. Her parents Wojciech and Barbara are living in Dziedzice (?), right nearby. One of the witnesses is Franciszek Lemanowicz of Mogielnica, Agnieszka's younger brother.

I suspect these are all the same family. There are so many undeniable similarities, but just as many differences. And the abundance of errors is hard to overcome. Does anyone have any opinions? Am I mistaken about anything?


Hi Starshadow,

It seems to me that if you were to write the facts you listed in the form of a proof for your conclusions you would fulfill everything required by the accepted standards of genealogical proof. Another tidbit for your argument is that the marriage record does state that wife #1 died in 1832. The text reads “zeszłego roku”/of last year (i.e. 1832).

In my opinion, the errors can be attributed to the process by which such civil transcripts were formed. The parties came to the parish office to arrange for a baptism or marriage. The parish priest spoke with them and wrote the raw data in the form of “notes”. From those notes several sets of records were created. The first was the ecclesiastical record in Latin, the official language of the RC Church. Since the parish priest was required to act as civil registrar, civil transcripts were produced—in Polish until 1868 and then in Russian until the end of WWI. Many priests hired scribes to create the multiple civil transcript copies required by the civil authorities. The civil transcripts used the notes as their basic source of information. Often it is clear that the priest did not write the civil copy/copies—especially when the priest’s signature did not resemble the handwriting in the body of the entry. After 1868 priests almost always hired a scribe to take the data in Polish from the notes and to put it into the required Cyrillic form. I know this to be true based on records from the parish of Chodecz from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The “notes” were filmed by Family Search and they show the type of Latin Registers in use along with the raw data of the notes in Polish. One can then lay out the notes and the Cyrillic civil registration and see how the civil registration was derived from the notes. Making multiple handwritten copies of the records was very much a formula which almost encouraged errors. I was especially interested in the process of how the civil records came into existence since Chodecz was the parish where my paternal great-grandfather lived with his second wife. My grandmother and my father and aunt lived with him while they waited for my grandfather to earn sufficient funds to bring them to South Chicago. In fact, my grandmother was sponsor/godmother for her half-sister before leaving Europe.

The parish priest’s primary role was to be a religious functionary—that was what the Catholic Church ordained him to do and celebrating the sacraments was central to that role. Being a civil registrar was very much a side gig and I would imagine many priests resented doing it, especially after the Czarist government imposed the use of the Russian language as a part of the punishment inflicted upon Poles for the insurrections of the 1860s. It seems to me that even when the records were still kept in Polish the parish priest would rarely “proof read” the civil transcript. He most likely simply affixed his signature and called it a day—thus errors would continue without detection.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Wishing you success,

Dave
View user's profile
Send private message
starshadow
PO Top Contributor


Joined: 09 May 2013
Replies: 305

Back to top
Post Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 5:23 pm      Post subject:
Reply with quote

Thank you very much Dave. That's kind of what I suspected. This helps a lot. I was becoming worried maybe I was overly eager and hopeful in seeing connections between records. This specific family has been such a puzzling one to research, generation by generation.
View user's profile
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    PolishOrigins Forum Index -> Research in Poland All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum


Powered by phpBB ©

© 2009-2024 COPYRIGHTS BY THE OWNER OF POLISHORIGINS.COM