Genealogy News
Pete Gwozdz
Fifteen More Ancestors
30-Nov-02
pete2g@attbi.com
Pisiewski Update
I found 15 more ancestor names this year
in the microfilms. Two are in the Pisiewski /
Parzych branch, follow up items from last year’s
research. This year, I returned to the Wadowice
Gorne microfilms and found 13 more distant
ancestors for the Gwozdz branch.
Six for Column Six
Six of the new names this year go into what
I call “column 6” of my book. These are the 6great grandparents of my children. It is easy to
calculate that a genealogy chart has 28 = 256 name
positions for 6-great grandparents. There is no
way I’ll find all 256 of those names! I now have a
total of 18 names in this column.
Half of the 256 spaces in column 6 are for
the 5-great grandparents of my wife Barbara. I
have 7 names that were found and reported by
other researchers. (Barbara’s side has names all
the way back to column 15.)
The other half are the 128 of my 5-great
grandparents. I had 6 last year. I now have 12 of
these in column 6, whom I found over the past
decade in the Polish microfilms. (I have no Polish
names in column 7, but I’m still hoping.)
Of the 12 Polish names in column 6, 4 are
new this year from my Gwozdz grandfather’s side,
none from Banas, Iwanowicz, nor Pisiewski, and 8
are from my Pisiewski / Parzych branch. Thanks a
lot to the good priests who took the trouble to
write down all these names back in the 1700’s.
In column 5, I have 31 Polish names - close
to half of the 64 that are needed! Of these, 9 are
new on the Gwozdz side this year.
Ancestors on the Web
Back in June of 1999 I submitted my
genealogy data to the Mormon web data base. It’s
finally on line this year. If you want to check,
www.familysearch.org is the site. My latest data is
not on the site, however. I need to submit an
update. Meanwhile, I am hoping a very distant
relative will spot my data and contact me.
Martin and Mary
In Polish: Marcin and Maryanna, parents
of Franciszka, maiden name not known.
The
death
record
for
Frances
Kolodziejczak is not in the microfilms. They
skipped 179 pages because the book would not
open completely. I had to write to the diocese
archive at Plock to get a copy of the death record.
It took me 15 months, 2 letters with generous
donations, 1 phone call, and a change of librarian
to get photocopies of the 3 records that I wanted
from this book. Genealogy takes patience. The
records finally arrived in October this year.
The death record of Frances names her
parents, Martin and Mary, but says their family
name is unknown. That’s suspicious: her husband
Lawrence Kolodziejczak was the witness at the
recording. Surely he knew his wife’s maiden
name?
I studied the microfilmed part of this book
and found other instances of this “niewiadomego
nazwiska” = “unknown family name” where there
were family witnesses. In one case, the woman
with an “unknown” maiden name is a sister of our
Cikacz ancestotor, a family well known from other
records; her husband and son were both recorded
as witnesses.
This book is a copy. Maybe the original
was scribbled, and the copier wrote “unknown
family name” when he could not read the name?
On the other hand, maybe the old folks really did
not have a family name, and the daughter took a
new family name for her marriage? I emailed
genealogy experts; they do not know about this.
They gave me names of experts in Poland who
might have an explanation.
Anyway, Mary is an important new name
in column 6 of my book. She is my direct
maternal ancestor, sort of the equivalent of
Gwozdz on the female side. Mary is the mother of
Frances - the mother of Elizabeth Kolodziejczak the mother of Julianna Banasiak - the mother of
Marcyanna Parzych - the mother of my maternal
grandmother Rosalie Pisiewski.
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Gwozdz Update
I made a new Gwozdz Pedigree Chart with
all the new names that I found this year. If you are
a Gwozdz relative, I included a copy with this
update.
Maryanna Gwozdz is not really a new
name. I found her death record last year. A
widow with the married name Gwozdz, she died in
house number 62 in 1787, at age 72. That is on
page 2 of the oldest death record book. On page 3
is Adam Gwozdz, who died 4 months later in
house number 63 at age 50.
My ancestor Michal Gwozdz lived in house
63, where he had several children starting in 1795.
One of his sons was born in house 63 and died in
house 62. These 2 houses perhaps were a Gwozdz
pair next door to each other?
This is not proof that Maryanna is the
mother of Adam. She may be an aunt, for
example. Same with Adam, he may not be the
father of Michael. This year, I carefully studied all
the Gwozdz families in the parish. I verified that
there is no recorded connection of Maryanna and
Adam to any of the other Gwozdz families. So
there will not be a proof either way. This year I
put them into the pedigree chart with a note that
they are not certain ancestors, but likely.
The other new names this year are all
documented with good records.
I spelled the name Niziol as Miziol in
previous versions of the Pedigree chart. Both
spellings are used in the records. This year I
verified that they are the same family, and settled
on the more common spelling, with an N.
The family name Bator is new on our chart
this year. Previous versions had that name as
Balon or Balan. This one took a lot of work to
prove, because Bator scribbled can easily look like
Balon. All these record books are copies, so it
would also be easy for the copier to transcribe a
scribbled Bator as Balan. I found enough family
records to prove that Bator is the correct name for
our ancestors.
Bator was not a common name in
Wadowice Gorne, but I spot it often in adjacent
parishes, and it is a famous Polish name. The
name Balon (the l is not crossed) is very common
in Wadowice Gorne; I am pretty sure the rare
Balan is a misspelled variation of Balon.
I have the wife of Franciszek Bator down
as Agata Strycharz, the name used at the birth
records for her 3 daughters. Unfortunately, her
marriage record has her as Agata Ogorzalek. My
interpretation: both witnesses at the wedding were
Ogorzalek; perhaps the copier of the book read the
name from the wrong column. My interpretation
may be wrong, of course; she may be an
Ogorzalek girl, which would be an interesting
duplicate name in our family tree. Ogorzalek is a
very common name in these records.
Morytko, Dziura, Kobos, Strycharz, and
Bator are new family names this year, names of
female ancestors.
Iwanowicz Update
My sister Helen Miller found the
immigration data for our grandfather Stanley
Iwanowicz. She found it on the web in June, and
emailed a copy to me. He arrived in New York in
January 1905. No surprise.
He had a traveling companion, Stanley
“Kasmorzik”, a badly scribbled name. The Ellis
Island manifest says that both were traveling to
join Stanley Pisiewski of Greenfield. Stanley
Pisiewski is well known to our family. The record
says that “Kasmorzik” is a cousin of Pisiewski. I
found a Stanley Kazmierczak in the microfilms for
Szelkow, which is the home parish of the
Pisiewski family. I traced out the family tree for
this Kazmierczak, but he is not a cousin. Maybe
he meant that his wife is a cousin? Maybe I have
the wrong Stanley? Too many Stanley’s in
Poland.
I wrote a 4 page detailed analysis. Let me
know if you want a paper copy or email of the
Word document. The analysis includes a complete
explanation of the Iwanowicz immigration data.
Banas Update
Sorry, no news this year on my Banas 1/4.
West & Crawford
Sorry, no news this year on Barb’s side.
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