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jangle1

Joined: 17 Jul 2023
Replies: 36
Location: Maryland
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Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2023 4:25 pm Post subject: Traditional Clothing

Hello!
As part of my genealogical research I have also been looking into the traditional clothing that my ancestors might have worn. While they appear to be from the areas around Kobylany and Wola Mielecka (both Subcarpathian/Podkarpackie Voivodeship), images attached, I know that they were most likely peasants in Galicia and thus did not wear colorful folk costumes with regularity. I was wondering if anyone else might know what their traditional clothing was like, both peasant and folk/cultural, or had families in those areas?

I found a book "From serfdom to self-government : memoirs of a Polish village mayor, 1842-1927" that talks about some peasant dress. It is in English and can be read for free here if anyone is interested: https://archive.org/details/fromserfdomtosel0000slom I also found this website https://polishcostumes.tumblr.com/ that does a really good job breaking the different costumes into the regions they come from; but I don't see many near the regions I am investigating.

Any information, ideas, or tips would be most appreciated! Hopefully some of the links here will be helpful/interesting to others too!
Thanks for reading! Smile

~jerry

Kobylany.png

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Wola Mielecka.png

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dnowicki
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2950
Location: Michigan City, Indiana
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Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2023 9:09 pm Post subject: Re: Traditional Clothing

jangle1 wrote:

~jerry

Hi Jerry

As you noted, the colorful folk clothing was formal attire and not worn on a daily basis. Most sites which describe folk clothing concentrate on the formal attire and not on the more generic everyday clothing. The formal attire obviously is interesting and the daily clothing one was generally not at all colorful and therefore less interesting. Here are links to three sites you may find interesting and useful: https://www.polskatradycja.pl/folklor/stroje-ludowe/galicja.html; https://podkarpackie.eu/turystyka_kategorie/odkryj-podkarpackie/muzea/ https://karpackatroja.pl/galeria-zdjec/170-cywilizacja-od-kuchni-2022.html
Although the main focus is not on clothing, the gallery in the third link does show both men and women wearing their everyday clothing. Poland has quite a few outdoor museums (skanseny) dedicated to regional culture. Although their focus is not solely on clothing they do provide valuable insight through examples of the architecture and culture, customs, etc. in a given region. An outdoor museum which best matches the region where your ancestors lived would be the skansen in Sanok: https://podkarpackie.eu/turystyka/skansen-sanok/ Since my ancestry is from the Kujawsko—Pomorskie and Wielkopolskie regions my personal research does not include the region which was known as Galicia during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Many of the members of the Polish Origins team (including Zenon) are from Southern Poland and are therefore much more familiar with the culture of the region in which you are interested. Piotr Zelny, who is a professional historian by education, is extremely knowledgeable about Polish history in general and about Podkarpeckie in particular. If you are able to trace your ancestry back to the 18th century I would recommend that you read his article regarding land inventories which can provide valuable information beyond the usual birth marriage and death records—https://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?p=55978#55978

Attached is a map of the ethnographic regions of Poland.

Wishing you continued success,

Dave

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