Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - numbering of houses in a village

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sheep17
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Joined: 30 Jan 2009
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:20 pm Post subject: numbering of houses in a village

Hi,

Does anyone know how the houses where our ancestors lived
in the villages were given numbers?

Recently, I heard that the most important people in a village lived
in houses numbered 1,2,3, etc. The less important the person was,
the higher the house number. So if an ancestor lived in house #1,
he might have been the mayor.

I would have thought they were numbered according to their
location in the village.

I'm just happy that my ancestors had a house to live in - otherwise
I might not exist. But I'm curious.

Sheep17

Bill Rushin
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Location: Virginia Beach, Va.
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:09 pm Post subject: Re: numbering of houses in a village

sheep17 wrote:

Hi, Does anyone know how the houses where our ancestors lived
in the villages were given numbers?...

I highly doubt that numbering system. If there was 10 houses in the area they counted them 1-10, the next year there might be 16 houses, they just added numbers.

Magroski49
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Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:37 am Post subject: Re: numbering of houses in a village

sheep17 wrote:

Hi,

Does anyone know how the houses where our ancestors lived
in the villages were given numbers?

Sheep17

Hi,

I have two polish records from my ancestors. In one of them they lived at house number 2; in the other they lived at house number 3. To the best of my knowledge they were just poor farmers.

Gilberto

Bill Rushin
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Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:08 am Post subject: Re: numbering of houses in a village

Magroski49 wrote:

sheep17 wrote:

Hi, Does anyone know how the houses where our ancestors lived in the villages were given numbers? Sheep17

Hi, I have two polish records from my ancestors. In one of them they lived at house number 2; in the other they lived at house number 3. To the best of my knowledge they were just poor farmers. Gilberto

Right Gilberto, I have a soltysów z Gronia (village administrator) and he lived in house#18. Bill

sheep17
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Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:11 pm Post subject: house numbering

Thank you Bill, and Gilberto,

Having the houses numbered according to prominence in the village, didn't
seem possible to me - but then, the lady was so positive she was right,
I just had to ask.

Leonore

Henryk
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:24 pm Post subject:

My aunt told me that the houses in her village were renumbered after WWI, based on location. I presume this was part of the land reform at that time. So present day numbers may not match those in the old records.

Bill Rushin
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:36 pm Post subject:

Henryk wrote:

There is no more dirt roads with unnamed streets so they all have regular house numbers now days with zip codes Henryk. Poland is as modern as the USA is.

My cousins address in a small village:
Gron, 728 Kobylarzowka (st.) 34-4006
Lesnica Woj Malopolska , Poland

She is over 75 yrs young and doesn't know what house #18 even means. I think only genealogist are familiar with these old numbers.

Henryk
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:56 pm Post subject:

My family village has about 5 streets, all unnamed, and two are not paved. Most village addresses that I see have only house numbers, and no street names. My cousin lives in Bibice, just outside of Kraków, and his address is Bibice 387, no street name.

Bill Rushin
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:10 pm Post subject:

Henryk wrote:

Wow I am surprised and apologize. I am really surprised at this because it is so near a Krakow too. My family is from very rural se Poland and is more modern, how is that possible? Thanks for your insight Henryk.

Shellie
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:34 am Post subject:

Henryk wrote:

I agree with you Henry - on my last visit to southeast Poland in Sept 2011, I rode on several unpaved roads. My cousins live in a village of about 12 houses. Their address has only the house number and village name, no street name.

Henryk
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 10:49 am Post subject:

I took a deeper look at my address book, and found addressing in small villages is not consistent. I have six small villages located in the area of former Kingdom of Poland. All use house numbers only. I have three small villages located in the area which was in pre-1939 Germany. Two have addresses with street names and one has only a house number. I have only one in the former Galicia area: Bibice near Kraków. It has a population of 1439. Some streets have names and others do not. There are addresses with street names and others with only house numbers, like my cousin's.

pogonowski

Joined: 15 May 2013
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 8:02 pm Post subject:

House numbers seem to date from the late 1700s. Before houses had numbers, they had names. A house could have the name of a family who built it or once lived in it. People in Poland (and Luxembourg too) were often known by both their paternal line surname and their house name. In Poland, I have Stawarz alias Cwik and Madej alias Knych.

Richard Raymond

Terese
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 11:59 pm Post subject:

A bit off topic, but ..... Please, can you explain the use of "alias". I had assumed, when researching Poznan area of Prussia in an area where Poles seemed to have been in the majority, that an alias may have been used by men who indulged in "sorties" near the Prussian/German border. I have seen instances of men with a surname, adopting the surname of the woman they cohabitated with. Hmmmmm....

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