Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic

Author

Message

Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
Replies: 7
Location: virginia usa
Back to top

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2024 7:15 pm Post subject: translation request

Hello everyone, if you are reading this thank you in advance for all your hard work and help! I am asking for help translating a polish record from what i believe almost 100% is my 6x grandfather. I have found a lot of constant clues and facts but i don't have the ability to read the transcripts. If anyone could please help me understand what is said on these pages you would be helping me more than i can explain. I have spent years trying to track down my grandmothers family tree. Recently i've made a break through and found a related distant cousin to me who has a lot of great info on his tree. Sadly this tree only stems up 1 below the common ancestor i need to find. This record should be a birth record on Stanislaw Chrzanowski, and i believe his parents are also mentioned. If this is the case I will be able to finally solve the puzzle i've spent years on. This is my grandmothers dying wish, to truly find where she came from (she was adopted at a young age). If anyone here can help me with this i'll be eternally grateful. Thank you everyone![img][/img]

record-image_.jpg

Description:

This is a file straight from polish records scanned into geneteka.com . Thank you again!

Filesize:

792.05 KB

Viewed:

0 Time(s)

_________________
marissa sears

TedMack

Joined: 12 Jun 2020
Replies: 503
Location: Sydney, Australia
Back to top

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2024 1:32 am Post subject: Re: translation request

Marissalolxoxo wrote:

G'day Marissa

The record is in Latin, and I'll attempt to translate, usually you can ask for these to be translated in the Latin Translation topic, hopefully Dave Nowicki has taught me well enough.

Bagienice No (not sure what the abbreviation of No stands for)
Record 75
In the year of our Lord 1794 on the 14th November, I as mentioned above, baptised an infant Stanisław, son of legitimately married couple Jan and Katarzyna Chrzanowski, Nobles (*), those lifting him up from the Sacred Font (Godparents) were Maciej Budny and Magdalena Optape(?) both Nobles (*).

Note: (*) = noble: owner or leaseholder of a parcel of land. An entry level member of the gentry/szlachta. The term was used for someone born of noble blood but not necessarily well to do.

That should be pretty close - maybe Dave will see this post and correct any errors.

Cheers
Ted

Marissalolxoxo

Joined: 06 Oct 2024
Replies: 7
Location: virginia usa
Back to top

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2024 11:01 am Post subject:

Thank you so much for looking for me! I had no idea this was in latin, that's amazing! Thank you for translating what you could for me, it means so much. I'll check back later to see if your friend David gives this a shot! You all are amazing!!!
_________________
marissa sears

dnowicki
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2841
Location: Michigan City, Indiana
Back to top

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2024 4:09 pm Post subject:

Marissalolxoxo wrote:

Hi Ted,

Good job...no corrections to the Latin. The abbreviation No stands for Numero and gives the house number. Since nothing follows the house number where he was born cannot be determined. The next two entries are No. 10ma (=decima) and thus is house #10 which is followed by No. 7ma (=septima) which is house #7.

It appears that once again you’ll have a lock on the prize for the best Latin student of both 2023 and 2024. Unfortunately the prize has no cash value.

Until next time,

Dave

Hi Marissa,

There’s nothing hidden in the record which Ted translated for you. However there are a few things which you should know about Latin Sacramental records which may help you to understand the lay of the land, as it were. The keeping of Sacramental records was first mandated in the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent in 1575. The Council came into being as a response to the Protestant Reformation. Originally the records which were mandated to be kept were baptisms and marriages. Later records of Christian burial were also kept. It took a while for the mandates of the of the Council to be put into effect but by the early 1600s priests in Poland we’re keeping records of baptisms and marriages. The language was Latin because that was the language of the Roman Catholic Church. Individuals who grew up prior to the Second Vatican Council which began in 1962 and ended in 1965 certainly can recall that Mass and the Sacraments were celebrated in Latin rather than in the vernacular.

It is also important to put the baptismal record of Stanisław into historical context. He was born and baptized immediately prior to the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was formally known as The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Polish: Królestwo Polskie i Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie; Latin: Regnum Poloniae Magnusque Ducatus Lithuaniae). The Commonwealth once was the largest country in Europe but in 1795 it ceased to exist as a political entity as a result of the Three Partitions (Rozbiory) of Poland. The region where Stanislaw lived was seized by Prussia in 1795. Anyway, The Commonwealth had no system for recording what we call vital statistics. Sacramental records substituted for civil vital records. These Latin records were composed in what is known as the short paragraph format. The record as it exists in the image you posted could possibly be simply a sacramental record or what is more likely a transcript submitted to the Prussian authorities. His 1794 record is out of order in that it is surrounded by records from the year 1798.

Short paragraph format Latin records are not difficult to translate and don’t require an extensive knowledge of Latin vocabulary or grammar. However they require the recognition and understanding of the shorthand employed in the composition of the record. Ted has made a splendid effort to recognize and understand the shorthand in the format of the records so that he is able to translate them on his own.

In the following transcription the letters in parentheses complete the shorthand in transform it into what would be standard Latin.

Transcription: Bagienice N(umer)o
A(nn)o D(omi)ni 1794 (Di)e 14 9br(is) (= die 14 Novembris or in English “on the 14th day of November) Ego q(ui) sup(ra) baptisavi infantem n(omi)ne Stanislaum filium Joannis et Catharinae Chrzanowskich Legit(imorum) Conjugum Nobilium. Levantibus de Sacro Fonte Mathias Budny et Magdalena Optapewska Nobiles.

I would like to make two clarifications about members of the Gentry who are recorded as Nobiles. It is true that many were owners are leaseholders of small properties but it is also true that a substantial number of them we’re not leaseholders or owners of property at all but were employed by more well to do members of the Gentry to perform clerical tasks on memorial estates such as clerks, overseers, stewards, etc.

Referring to status as entry level members of the Gentry (Szlachta) is not meant to imply that a person who was not born a member of the Gentry could ascend to a position in the Gentry. It was all a question of blood. Szlachta were born so and those not born to that position in society could not become gentry. The entry level classification refers to the economic level of those classified as nobiles. Neither peasants nor burghers could ever hope to become members of the Gentry no matter how well to do they may have been.

Since in some of your other posts you are attempting to connect your ancestry to the research done by a fourth cousin this Latin record may or may not be your elusive 6th great grandfather. However, if in early 19th century records members of your family are of Noble/Gentry/Szlachta status that would be a strong clue that the Stanisław baptized on November 14, 1794 is your 6th great grandfather. However if an early 19th century records your ancestors are not listed as Nobles that is not proof positive that this Stanisław is not the ancestor you seek.

The years from 1795 through 1815 where a time of great political tumult in the region where Bagienice was located. In 1794 Tadeusz Kościuszko, a hero both in the American Revolutionary War and in the land of his birth, led an insurrection against Russia in order to free what remained of the Commonwealth from foreign meddling after the Second Partition in 1793. The Insurrection failed and Kościuszko was imprisoned by the Czarina Catherine II and was not freed until after her death in 1798. Kościuszko was certainly someone to be admired. His friend Thomas Jefferson wrote of Kościuszko: “He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known, and of that liberty which is to go to all, and not to the few or rich alone”. T.K. made T.J. the executor of his will with the instructions touse his funds and the land which he had received from Congress as back pay for his service during the Revolutionary War to buy freedom for American slaves and to provide for their education. What disappointed T.K. about his American friends like George Washington and T.J. was that they owned slaves. T.K. had freed the peasants on the estates he had inherited in Europe—a man who was upright not only in word but also in deed. In the third partition of the Commonwealth the area was seized by Prussia and remained ruled by Prussia until after the war of the 4th Coalition against Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars as a result of the treaties of Tilsit (1807) which followed Napoleon’s victories over Prussia and Russia Prussia gave up control of the region. Out of the territories relinquished by Prussia and Russia Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw as French satellite state. The duchy of Warsaw cease to exist in 1815 following Napoleon’s defeat and exile as a result of the Congress of Vienna. Bagienice and environs became incorporated into the Congress Kingdom of Poland which has been commonly called Russian Poland and remained under Russian rule until after WWI when the independent Polish Second Republic was created by the Treaty of Versailles.

If you don’t mind an unsolicited suggestion about your search for your grandmother June Marion, perhaps you could ask your grandfather for the name of the church where he and your grandmother were married (presuming they married in the Catholic Church). The marriage record should name the church where your grandmother was baptized. However, you or your gradfather would need to request not a certificate but either ask for a photostatic copy or a transcription of all the information found in the marriage register. Then you could follow up with a request for the baptismal information from the parish where she was baptized. From what you wrote in your other posts it would seem that her mother was not married and thus the marriage register would most likely not contain the name of of the father. When a couple is not married the only way that the father’s name gets entered into the baptismal register is if he personally acknowledges paternity and from what you have written that seems very unlikely. Otherwise it could end up being like the lyrics of Michael Jackson song “the kid is not my son”. The information you find may be very helpful to you.

Wishing you success in your quest,

Dave

Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_at_its_maximum_extent.svg.JPG

Description:

Filesize:

292.49 KB

Viewed:

0 Time(s)

43.Makowski.jpg

Description:

Filesize:

119.33 KB

Viewed:

0 Time(s)

PolishOrigins Forum