ossnhughiePO Top Contributor & Patron
Joined: 19 Sep 2010
Replies: 359
Location: Massachusetts, USABack to top |
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 1:41 pm
Post subject: question about languages of records
This is probably not the best place to ask said question but here she goes:
I know e have many excellent records experts from various backrounds on here with a myriad of language translation skills, my question however has to do with the language of records. In my case my ancestors came from the Wilno Governate of the old Russian Empire and all the church records i have from 1909 all the wayas far back to an 1868 marriage record were written in Cyrillic.
My question to the knowledgeable PO family is this: were records in Russian areas always in Russian? Was there ever a period where Church records were in Latin? Polish? Some of you probably have records older than 1868 so you already probably know
 .
I am guessing though that throughout Russian territory that uniformity was probably not a fast thing in all parishes, and the languages probably varried quite a bit. So if any of my dear friends have any insights into the records edicts of the Russian Czar's or any other info I would be very interested.
Till then God Bless and happy searching.
Hugh
_________________
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie;
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2954
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:53 pm
Post subject:
Hugh,
It is necessary to distinguish two types of records to accurately answer your question---Catholic Church Sacramental Registers and Civil Transcripts. The system of maintaining civil vital records began in Russian controlled areas of Poland in 1807-8. Actually from 1807 until 1815 much of what was later called the Russian Partition or the Congress Kingdom of Poland was part of the newly established Duchy of Warsaw where civil records were to be kept in the Napoleonic long paragraph style and the records were in Polish. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the Duchy of Warsaw ceased to exist. The areas of the Duchy which came under Russian control continued to use the same style of civil records kept in Polish. One change was that after that date most of the civil transcripts were to be kept by parish priests. However, the priests were not functioning as priests per se but as civil registrars which sometimes made it difficult to separate their two roles---civil and ecclesiastical. The civil transcripts continued to be kept in Polish until 1868. After that date as a partial punishment for the uprisings against Russian rule which took place in the 1860s, the czarist government insisted that from that date on the civil transcripts were to be kept in Russian. That was the situation from 1868 until Poland again became independent after WW I. After the war the language of the civil transcripts once again was Polish.
The priests also kept a set of ecclesiastical records (baptisms, marriages, burials, etc.) and although the primary purpose of these records was to record sacramental matters, quite a bit of what we would call vital stats was included in those records. The language of the Latin (Roman) Rite of the Catholic Church was Latin until after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and so most often priests kept the ecclesiastical records in Latin. Sometimes a given priest would enter the data in the vernacular which in Poland is Polish but the vast majority of the sacramental records are in Latin. Prior to the establishment of the keeping of civil transcripts, sacramental records doubled as vital statistic records so the farther back you go in time, the more likely it is that any records available will be sacramental records in Latin.
Hope this clarifies things a bit.
Dave
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ossnhughiePO Top Contributor & Patron
Joined: 19 Sep 2010
Replies: 359
Location: Massachusetts, USABack to top |
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:53 pm
Post subject: Thank you for your reply Dave.
Dave,
Here's more precise info if this changes anything on the whole. Being that from what I have found my ancestors came from a village just outside of Wilno and seemed to have lived their a while (possibly many generations). The records Sacramental records I have received so far in Russian as you have noted after 1868 are in a ledger format with columns that go across from one page to another. I am not sure about the Wilno area during the tumultous period of the Napoleonic wars as to ho their record keeping would have been affected.
Hugh
_________________
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie;
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2954
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:10 pm
Post subject:
Hugh,
If your ancestors were Latin/Roman Rite Catholics the sacramental registers would be in Latin. If they were Eastern/Greek Rite Catholics the sacramental registers would most probably have been kept in Cyrillic script. If your ancestors were Orthodox the records would also have been in Cyrillic. This would hold true for the various time periods regardless of whether they were in the short paragraph or the long paragraph or the columnar format. Wilno, of course had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth prior to the partitions but during the time of the Duchy of Warsaw it was just to the east of the border of the Duchy and basically was a part of the Russian Empire until after WW I when it was part of the Polish Republic. Since it was outside the borders of the Duchy and later of the Congress Kingdom, the long paragraph style was not used until after WW I. I'm not sure what was the format or the language of civil records in that part of the Russian Empire but I believe the key to answering the question you originally posed is to determine whether the records are civil transcripts or actual church sacramental records. A fairly reliable clue as to whether they are church or civil records is to determine what archives hold the records. If they are in a diocesan archive, you can be rather certain that they are ecclesiastical records. If they are housed in a state archive the chances are that they are civil transcripts. Sometimes you can't tell whether a record is civil or ecclesiastical just by looking at it---like in the German and the Austrian Partitions where the copies submitted to civil authorities were identical to the ecclesiastical copies.
The two keys to sorting out the type of records you are looking at are first to know if the ancestors were Latin Rite or Eastern Rite Catholic or Orthodox. The second key is where the records are housed.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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ossnhughiePO Top Contributor & Patron
Joined: 19 Sep 2010
Replies: 359
Location: Massachusetts, USABack to top |
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 8:17 pm
Post subject: dave again thanks so much
All indications i have found say they were most assuredly roman Catholics of Latin rite. Agian thanks for the wealth of info.
Hugh
_________________
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie;
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił.
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HenrykPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Replies: 314
Location: London ON, CanadaBack to top |
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ossnhughiePO Top Contributor & Patron
Joined: 19 Sep 2010
Replies: 359
Location: Massachusetts, USABack to top |
Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 5:37 pm
Post subject:
Thanks Henryk for the imfo that villago was pretty close to Suderwa so Iwould say they probably followed the same language time frame.
Hugh
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