galicia seeker
Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Replies: 83
Location: Mississauga, OntarioBack to top |
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 4:49 pm
Post subject: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
One of my great great grandfathers is shown in a Galician church record (1838) with an occupation as a pellionarious - looked it up - says it means he was a military furrier/tanner. His last name was Cichowski, and the family apparently originated most recently in Lysiec. Does anyone out there have any familiarity with this type of work and who would have employed him? The name is recorded as nobility - Snake II
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1533
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 5:11 am
Post subject: Re: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
| galicia seeker wrote: | | One of my great great grandfathers is shown in a Galician church record (1838) with an occupation as a pellionarious - looked it up - says it means he was a military furrier/tanner. His last name was Cichowski, and the family apparently originated most recently in Lysiec. Does anyone out there have any familiarity with this type of work and who would have employed him? |
Hi Galicia Seeker,
When it comes to occupations written in Latin, I always turn to a resource that Dave Nowicki has provided from time to time, a pdf that he created from his many years of doing Latin translations. I am attaching it for your reference. In Dave's list, there are a few Latin words beginning with the letters "pelli...." which he has translated as "furrier." I do not know what made the resource you found attach the meaning of "military" to the occupation of furrier, as I am not sure that "pellionarius" denotes that. Perhaps Dave may join this thread and add his wisdom to the conversation.
Looking at occupations that were involved in turning the skins of animals into useful objects, it can be surprising just how many there were. Although your question had to do with Latin rather than German, you may still be interested in this link:
https://www.european-roots.com/german_prof.htm
The sheer number of narrowly-defined occupations just to make leather is impressive, from skinners and flayers to tanners of various types. There was even an occupational name for someone who peeled the tree bark that was needed by the tanners. As for furrier, it gives the word "Kürschner," and then lists several German words for that occupation. The ability to preserve a fur was rather different than working with leather. Anyway, I thought you might find the list interesting.
Best regards,
Sophia
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2022 January 2 Latin-English Occupations-1.pdf |
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Last edited by Sophia on Mon Jul 28, 2025 8:13 am; edited 1 time in total
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galicia seeker
Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Replies: 83
Location: Mississauga, OntarioBack to top |
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 6:04 am
Post subject: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
Hello Sophia and thank you for your speedy reply and for forwarding the list of Latin translations! I am forwarding another source - where I got the idea that there might be a military connection.
Kind regards,
Gail
Preface to data (see also photos)
http://www.zeno.org/Georges-1913/M/Vorrede+zur+achten+Auflage+(Heinrich+Georges)
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1533
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 7:12 am
Post subject: Re: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
| galicia seeker wrote: | Hello Sophia and thank you for your speedy reply and for forwarding the list of Latin translations! I am forwarding another source - where I got the idea that there might be a military connection.
Kind regards,
Gail
Preface to data (see also photos)
http://www.zeno.org/Georges-1913/M/Vorrede+zur+achten+Auflage+(Heinrich+Georges) |
Hi Gail,
Very interesting. Your source is clearly using the German Militärkürschner rather than simply Kürschner in its definition of pellionarius, so now I understand your idea of the military connection. In the definition above that, for pellio, it says der Kürschner, furrier without the military connection.
It convinces me. Still, it would be interesting to hear from Dave. Most likely watering his garden this morning!
Stay cool in this weather,
Sophia
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galicia seeker
Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Replies: 83
Location: Mississauga, OntarioBack to top |
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 8:25 am
Post subject: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
Hi Sophia, yes, I, too would be interested in Dave's take!
After reading thousands of church records, it was just refreshing to find one of my ancestors who was not a farmer! I suspect that Georgi Cichowski was perhaps supplying some of the uniform components - I've always wondered who actually manufactured them and have never found anything. There is a more modern clue. Georgi's granddaughter, Maria Cichowski, married my gr grandfather, Timotheus Byblow, who was a tailor in Ukraine - making sheep skin coats! I'm sending along a photo of Timotheus - a wedding in Saskatchewan in 1911 - he is center in the front row - his son to the left is wearing a sheep skin coat no doubt made by his father.
Trying to stay cool, but yikes is it ever hot! (I am a true Canadian - always griping about the weather!)
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galicia seeker
Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Replies: 83
Location: Mississauga, OntarioBack to top |
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 11:44 am
Post subject: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
Sofia - just had a closer look at the European job types link that you sent - absolutely fascinating - so many specialties - probably outnumbers the ones we have today! Thank you for sharing.
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1533
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Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2025 6:28 am
Post subject: Re: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
| galicia seeker wrote: | | Sofia - just had a closer look at the European job types link that you sent - absolutely fascinating - so many specialties - probably outnumbers the ones we have today! Thank you for sharing. |
Hi Gail,
Yes, I agree, the number of specialties is fascinating. This may imply that your furrier ancestor was doing one focused job, receiving a pelt from a trapper, processing it, and handing it on to other tradesmen. I would think that making coats from fur would be done by a different tradesman than making boots from fur and different still from the ones making fur gloves and fur hats. Are there also some items of tack for horses that are made of fur, maybe bridles? The military could have used all of these things, in great quantity.
Thank you so much for posting the wedding photo from Saskatchewan. What a treasure! Am I correct in thinking that the groom of this marriage sits to (our) right of your great-grandfather Timotheus (Latin) / Tymoteusz (Polish)? Both he and the woman next to him seem to be connected by a white scarf, which is part of wedding ceremonies. Also, both of them show rings on their right hands which means they are wedding rings. Later generations here will probably have switched to wearing wedding rings on their left hands, just another interesting cultural change that immigrant families experienced.
Best regards,
Sophia
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galicia seeker
Joined: 30 Apr 2021
Replies: 83
Location: Mississauga, OntarioBack to top |
Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2025 4:51 pm
Post subject: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
You are correct about the wedding photo being a treasure - most of the folks in the photo are my immediate relatives. The woman in the second row with the striped head cap is my gr grandmother Maria Cichowski. And right you are about the wedding bride and groom. The groom is gr grandfather's nephew, John M Byblow who travelled to Canada to visit his uncle.
He actually sailed to Canada, to Yorkton, in 1910 - see photo. The 1910 date is confirmed by the 1921 census data and the ship manifest from 1910.
In 1907 a young girl arrived in Canada with her parents, Nick and Magda Shumay (nee Klutz). She was Pauline born in 1897 in the same village as John. They were married in 1911 – see wedding photo. In the same year the young couple purchased two quarters of land, namely, S.E. 9-28-5 and S.W. 10-28-5, from Jack Large. They raised a family of nine children, four sons and five daughters.
The bride was 13/14 years old.
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2950
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2025 2:24 pm
Post subject: Re: Early 19th century pellionarius - military
| Sophia wrote: | | galicia seeker wrote: | Hello Sophia and thank you for your speedy reply and for forwarding the list of Latin translations! I am forwarding another source - where I got the idea that there might be a military connection.
Kind regards,
Gail
Preface to data (see also photos)
http://www.zeno.org/Georges-1913/M/Vorrede+zur+achten+Auflage+(Heinrich+Georges) |
Hi Gail,
Very interesting. Your source is clearly using the German Militärkürschner rather than simply Kürschner in its definition of pellionarius, so now I understand your idea of the military connection. In the definition above that, for pellio, it says der Kürschner, furrier without the military connection.
It convinces me. Still, it would be interesting to hear from Dave. Most likely watering his garden this morning!
Stay cool in this weather,
Sophia |
Hi Gail & Sophia,
I must inform you, Sophia, that I was not out watering the garden since it was raining that morning. To paraphrase the unreformed Scrooge, “I don’t play in the garden in the teeth of inclement weather.” I simply don’t read posts in the Forum with great regularity. I do so when I receive an email about a post in the Latin translations section. Otherwise, I generally look at the Forum once every 10 days or so. The great amount of spam just makes scrolling through so many posts very irritating to me.
On to the meaning of the Latin word pellionarius...It is simply one of the synonyms in Latin for the word pellio, pellionis, m. meaning furrier. Two other synonyms are pellifex and pellificator. Gail, the sources you used are correct for what they are but unfortunately they define the word for the wrong time frame. The sources you used deal with Classical Latin, a time which had ended well before the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 of the Common Era. Vulgar Latin, which was used after the Classical period, had begun to morph into the romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian). However Latin has enjoyed a very very long afterlife. It received a major boost during the 12th Century with the rise of universities in Europe. The point, however, is that later Latin was not the same as Classical Latin. New words were constantly being added and meanings of older words did change at times. Post classical Latin was not the same in every country in Europe and in Poland the word pellionarius, pellionarii, m. was used with the meaning of “furrier” with no connection to supplying fur for a military purpose.
During the Classical Era the Roman Legions did not make widespread use of fur. Wolf, lion, and bear skins were worn over the helmets only of the standard bearers (signifers and aquilifers). The only common members of a legion to use fur were the velites, who formed the light infantry of a legion and acted as skirmishers. They often wore wolf skins so that they could be distinguished easily from the heavy infantry during a battle. After harassing the enemy the velites fell back and the regular heavy infantry took over.
Dictionaries of Classical Latin can be a good resource and I did recommend several a year or two ago. Dictionaries such as Lewis and Short’s Latin–English Dictionary have two major advantages—They have words not found in genealogical word lists and since they are in the public domain they may be downloaded completely gratis in PDF format. An excellent reference grammar in the public domain is Bennet’s New Latin Grammar (last copyright 1918).
The use of Classical Latin dictionaries in genealogical research comes with a major caveat—one should not assume that the meanings of words from the Classical Era remain the same when those words are used in later Latin. Also, Classical Latin dictionaries should not be read as one would read a comprehensive contemporary English dictionary. Both dictionaries list and number the several meanings of a word. However, Classical Latin dictionaries also cite and quote the authors who used a word with a particular meaning. If you look at the attached screenshot of a portion of the word pellis, pellis, f. , hide, skin you see abl sing pelle, but pelli Lucr… This tells you that the ablative singular is pelle but is pelli in the author Lucretius. The are many more citations whch follow with abbreviations such as Phaedr (Phaedrus), Cic (Cicero), Caes (Caesar), Verg (Virgil), Plin (Pliny), etc. etc. Each citation shows how the word was used with a particular meaning. The sheer number of citations is indicative of the importance of the word (which is the root from which the word pellionarius comes. The word pellionarius has only one citation which indicates that it was neither common nor important even in Classical Latin.
The bottom line is that using the proper source for pollionarius, which is later Latin as used in Poland, is that the word is not connected to a furrier who supplies first to the military.
BTW The Polish word Koźuch is used for a sheepskin jacket or short coat which is worn with the fleece side facing in and the hide side facing out. The word brings back fond memories of my maternal grandfather who wore a short sleeve sheepskin jacket for the singing and crying days of December and of spring when he would sit in the partially enclosed entrance to the basement to grate horseradish root for Christmas and for Easter. The fumes given off while grating horseradish definitely cause one to weep. To distract himself from the unpleasantness of the task he would sing Polish songs and hence the singing and crying days. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather but not when he was doing that task.
Valete,
Dave
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