Basia's Polish Family: From Wilno to Worcester

Exploring human evolution and migration through DNA is genealogy writ large

2011-01-09T17:06:00.002-05:00

I read a lot of nonfiction related in one way or another to genealogy and my personal family research. And I watch just about anything on television that connects to genealogy or my ancestral roots. Over the years, though, one book and one TV documentary have impacted me more than all the rest combined: The Seven Daughters of Eve by geneticist Bryan Sykes (2001) and Journey of Man, featuring geneticist Spencer Wells (PBS/National Geographic, 2003). Sykes and Wells are leading world authorities on DNA research.

The Seven Daughters of Eve focuses on mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, which is passed down matrilineally—from a woman to her daughter, to her daughter, to her daughter, generation after generation. Journey of Man traces Y-DNA, which is similarly passed down, patrilineally, from a man to his son, to his son, to his son, and so on. Both of these ground-breaking works look at the big picture: the evolution of the human species over thousands of years, through migration out of Africa and across the planet. Genealogy writ large.

I am not going to go into detail here about the substance of either Seven Daughters or Journey. Much has been written about both of them. When I Googled the titles earlier today, I noticed, for instance, that Journey of Man is available for viewing (in 13 segments) on YouTube.

There is a plethora of material available now about DNA research and its significance for genealogy. I've read a number of the popular books, and I've attended numerous workshops on this topic. I am not by nature scientifically inclined, so much of the material seems dry and does little to increase my understanding. The Seven Daughters of Eve and Journey of Man, though, captivated me.

There is a mythic quality about The Seven Daughters of Eve that engages me. Sykes's research (later expanded upon) led him to conclude that people of native European descent trace their ancestry back to one or another of seven women whose mtDNA mutated from their mother's. These seven mutations occurred thousands of years apart, between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago. Each was a turning point that created a new haplogroup of mitochondrial DNA.

Sykes envisions these seven women as "clan mothers." He christens them each with names—Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine, and Jasmine—and describes their probable lives and times in their respective regions of Europe and the Middle East. This is science as Susan Seddon Boulet might have painted it. I can imagine the Seven Daughters' stories being told during ceremonies deep in the caves of Lascaux with flute music echoing from yet-deeper caverns. But that's just me and, as I have to emphasize, I'm no scientist.

If The Seven Daughters of Eve takes you into the dreamtime, Journey of Man lurches you onto the frozen tundra with a backpack of test kits. Spencer Wells is a high-energy genius who seems like he'd be equally comfortable analyzing lab results or summiting K2. A book was developed from this documentary, but this story is such an amazing adventure, and certainly so visual, that this just might be one of those rare times when the film trumps the book.

"Blood was the time machine, and we were the time travelers," Wells says as he explains the research that took him visiting isolated tribes and populations all over the planet to trace the Y chromosome and explore how everyone—everyone—is related. One of my favorite scenes is in Kazakhstan, which you can see in Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Part 9 of 13) on YouTube. This documentary rocks.

Bryan Sykes and Spencer Wells, more than anyone else, brought DNA and genetics to life for me. Their work made traditional paper-trail genealogy seem like a very tiny, limited view of the real story—the really great story of human evolution and migration. They linked my passion for genealogy with my lifelong interest in anthropology. They opened doors that beckoned me inside, ready to swab my mouth for saliva (thankfully, no blood samples required!) and learn how my ancestors and I fit into this amazing journey of man and woman across Planet Earth. And what I've learned from my family's DNA tests intrigues me even more. It's our own journey, evolution and migration writ small.

The incredible good karma of genealogy Listservs

2011-01-06T20:56:00.002-05:00

It's easy to take Listservs for granted in genealogy. There are countless numbers of them online, devoted to every conceivable aspect of family history research. They are free (and conventional wisdom says people value services more when they have to pay for them). They are effortless, for members content to do no more than open e-mail, read, and lurk. (In contrast, they can be very labor-intensive for the dedicated souls, unsung heroes one and all, who organize and moderate them.)

I don't take lists for granted. When I reflect on some of the major successes I've enjoyed in genealogy over the past 15 years, it is clear that they have been due largely to the invaluable help I received from the early genealogy forums and user groups (once sponsored by AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc.) and from Listservs.

Very best example: My father's family lost contact with some cousins in Belarus after my paternal grandmother, Anna, died in 1976. In 1998, a young woman named Ilona (either from the Belarus Discussion list connected to A Belarus Miscellany online, or from the soc.culture.belarus group, I can't recall; all our correspondence was via AOL) found those cousins for me within five months. I e-mailed her JPGs of some photos dating back to the 1950s-60s. She e-mailed them to her father, who was a physician in Radun, Belarus. He showed them to everyone he came in contact with. Within a couple weeks, someone recognized my cousin Maria from a 1965 photo. Ilona's father drove to Maria's village to meet her and relate this story. He e-mailed Ilona Maria's address; Ilona e-mailed it to me. When I traveled to Belarus in 2001, I finally met Maria and her family. Extraordinary! Could I have done this on my own? Maybe ... but it seems unlikely.

Just recently, a member of one of my favorite lists e-mailed me some JPGs of church records that had caught his eye while he was doing his own family research. He thought they might interest me, since they involved two Prokopowicz families from our mutual ancestral area.  Among them was the 1845 baptismal record of my maternal great-grandfather, Kazimierz Prokopowicz! How many years had I been looking for that? Oh, only about 15. I simply hadn't hit on the correct year in my search. Kazimierz had been my missing link. Seeing his father's name on the baptismal record allowed me to take that family line back three more generations.

The incredible good karma of Listservs

In between Ilona in 1998 and Marek in 2010, dozens of fellow list members have helped me in more ways than I can detail here. They have been from all over North America, Europe, and Australia. We have communicated in English, Polish, and Russian (just a few feeble attempts on my part). They have explained and translated arcane 18th-19th-century Polish and Russian terminology, offered insight into history and culture, and shared PDFs of documents and URLs of Web sites. Always generously, always graciously. Honestly, I have always tried to be equally helpful on my lists, whenever I've felt I had something worthwhile to offer. Good karma is a two-way street.

Since 1996, I've subscribed to many genealogical Listservs—some Polish (my ethnic heritage), some Belarusian (my ancestral region has been within the boundaries of western Belarus since 1945), some Lithuanian (my paternal family villages and parishes straddle today's border of Belarus and Lithuania), some Russian (my ancestral region was within the boundaries of the Russian Empire for 125 years). Because my immigrant grandparents settled in Massachusetts, I've joined lists focused on that U.S. state and the New England region. About three years ago, I started a Yahoo! group called PolishMass, specifically focused on Polish Roman Catholic immigration to Massachusetts. I've also joined lists sponsored by various genealogical societies and organizations and lists dedicated to specific topics, like Russian military history. (Seriously. It took me many years to get a satisfying explanation of the military status indicated by zabiletny soldat.)

Every one of those Listservs has been worthwhile. I subscribe to them in digest form. This means that for each Listserv, I receive only one e-mail a day, and it contains all the messages posted in the past 24 hours or so.  Each day, a dozen or so lists appear in my inbox, and I read them with my morning coffee. Some I skim and delete quickly, some I spend considerable time with, depending on the topics.

Below are my four favorite Listservs.  I have not identified any members by name, simply in respect for their privacy, as much as I'd like to give shout-outs to some of the most knowledgeable and helpful.  The founders and moderators, whether named here or not, are all my heroes for providing such wonderful forums for thousands of family researchers. And among the thousands of list members, I'm happy to have made some genuinely great friends.

LidaRoots
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LidaRoots/

If I could give a giant gold star, or some impressive trophy, or better yet, a great big hug, to my all-time favorite Listserv, it would be to LidaRoots. The icons and flags on the home page for this Yahoo! group represent the ethnic and religious diversity that make this area of western Belarus so culturally rich. Unlike lists geared to specific narrow groups (my own PolishMass among them), LidaRoots opens its heart and mind to everyone with ancestry in this area or an interest in its history.

Founded by Tony Gabis in May 2002, this list currently has 223 members. At least a dozen of the more active participants are top-notch researchers, and the quality of discussion is the deepest, most substantial I've ever experienced on a list. Listservs don't get any better than this. And newbies are always welcome :)

Kresy-Siberia
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kresy-Siberia/

This list has garnered more than a thousand members since it was founded by Stefan Wisniowski in 2001. I can't improve upon the compelling description on its home page:   "The 'Kresy-Siberia Group' brings into contact people from countries around the world with a special interest in the fate of over one million Polish citizens of various faiths and ethnicities (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, etc.) arrested or deported from eastern Poland (Kresy) to special labour camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Soviet Asia. The circumstances of their odyssey and the tragic history of the Polish citizens under Soviet occupation during WW2 was hushed up by the Allies during the war to protect the reputation of the Soviet Union, an important ally fighting the Nazis.

"Sixty years later the survivors have aged and many have died. With this list we hope to bring together surviving deportees and their descendants to remember, learn, discover and spread the word of their ordeal to the world and to future generations."

What is truly outstanding about this list is that it has taken its energy and resources a step further to become an increasingly significant cultural force by means of the Kresy Siberia Virtual Museum:
http://www.kresy-siberia.org/

This list has helped me to understand the experiences of my family in Poland's eastern borderlands, the kresy, during and after World War II. And it has helped me to find detailed information about some of them and their own odysseys. I receive much more than I can possibly give here, and I am grateful beyond measure.

Lithuanian Genealogy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LithuanianGenealogy/

Founded in 1999 and sponsored by the Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society, this list has 2,277 members. Like LidaRoots and Kresy-Siberia, this is a dynamic, helpful group of people with some highly skilled members here and abroad. It has taught me much about the Lithuanian aspect of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and all its geographic and political morphing over the centuries. As I trace my paternal roots increasingly northward from Belarus into Lithuania, I expect my interest here to grow even stronger.

DNA-Newbie
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNA-NEWBIE/

More than 2,200 members have joined this group since it was created in 2005. I think that speaks to the ever-increasing interest in DNA research for genealogy. The list is sponsored by the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG). The moderators are extremely knowledgeable and unceasingly helpful to people like me, who are, frankly, just trying to understand the results of the DNA tests we order to complement our paper-trail genealogical research.

I am not a sciencey person. My high school Algebra II teacher, Sister Mary Celine, made me promise not to major in math in college. No matter how many books I read or workshops I attend, very, very little of all those strings of numbers and ACGT letters on the test results mean anything to me. I am a DNA newbie. I am lucky someone started this list.

Getting acquainted with twenty new ancestral lines

2011-01-06T11:02:00.002-05:00

My blog could probably use a new subtitle. "Reseaching the genealogy of the Prokopowicz, Ruśćik, and Blaszko Families" doesn't tell the whole story anymore. Those three surnames identify all four of my grandparents: paternally, Julian Prokopowicz and Anna Blaszko, and maternally, Aleksandr Prokopowicz and Stefania Ruśćik. When I started this blog, that seemed sufficient. Including my great-grandparents' surnames would have been unwieldy. But now I'd like to introduce the earlier generations.

I'll never be one of those genealogists who, like birders with their life lists, proudly announce they have 37,482 names in their database. Nor do I care about having 945 friends on Facebook or 682 followers of this blog. Frankly, I'm surprised (and honored) that Basia's Polish Family has, at last count, 13 followers. That's a cozy group, small enough to get together for coffee and conversation about Polish genealogy!

In general, I enjoy getting to know people one at a time, more than in groups. One-on-one, there is the opportunity for focus, revelation, truth telling, being real, without interruption or distraction. I feel the same way about meeting my ancestors. When I discover someone new in my research, I want time alone with that person, time to savor our shared name, say it aloud, and claim it. I like to imagine what that person looked like, what their personality was like.

Most often I find new names in the course of reading microfilmed records; sometimes, of course, they appear in documents I receive in the mail or find in databases online. These days, I am doing several hours of research each week at a small Family History Center close to my workplace. It is housed at Godfrey Memorial Library, a gem of a genealogical library in Middletown, Connecticut. When an early-18th-century church record offers up a new name, be it a direct ancestor or someone otherwise related, I can't help but share the good news with the one or two other people in the room. "Oh, wow! I just found ____ !!!" Then I print the record. (There is no scanning equipment at this FHC, and I'd just as soon print as capture the image with my digital camera.)

Celebration and reflection

When I leave, that new name is mine to mull during the 20-minute drive home. If it's a really important person—a brand new great-great-great-grandparent, say—I stop at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and a bagel, which I enjoy in my car in the parking lot. Always in my car, so I can pull the newly printed record out of my tote bag and set it on the front passenger seat alongside a worn, taped working copy of my family tree. This is my little ceremony for getting acquainted with my new ancestor, our own private one-on-one bonding time.

I think about when and where they lived, both locally and in the historic big picture ... their place within that branch of that particular family line ... what I might know already (from other records) of their life experiences, joys and sorrows. I wonder what they looked like, and what traces of them might have made it through the generations to find new life in me. DNA testing makes me even more acutely aware of all the different family lines I embody.

My Lida ancestors

From at least the 1700s, and most likely earlier, all these families lived in the Lida area between Grodno and Wilno. Some were clearly associated with specific villages over the course of several generations; others moved from one village to another, for reasons I don't yet understand. After thinking of myself as a Prokopowicz for all my life, it intrigues me to consider that I am also the following:

Through the ancestry of Julian Prokopowicz, a Bogdan, Janonis, Wieligor, and Kadysz / Chadysz. (Roman Catholic parishes of Ejszyszki, Bieniakonie, Werenów, and Ossów)

Through the ancestry of Anna Blaszko, a Bowszys, Doda, Tumielewicz, Balcewicz, and Rudz. (Roman Catholic parishes of Radun, Ossów, Lida, and possibly Żyrmuny)

Through the ancestry of Aleksandr Prokopowicz, a Zubrzycki, Haydukiewicz, Piwowarczyk, Dubiejko, Chwiedziuk, and Kaczanowna. (Roman Catholic parishes of Iszczolna, Wasiliszki, Szczuczyn, and possibly Różanka)

Through the ancestry of Stefania Ruśćik aka Ruść, a Nowogrodzka, Hayduk, Sobol, Staniejko, and Mickiewicz. (Roman Catholic parishes of Szczuczyn, Wasiliszki, and Lack)

These surnames generally represent ancestors in my great- and great-great-grandparents' generations. My immediate goal is to identify all 16 great-great-grandparents. In a couple lines, I've not yet found the women's family surnames. In the case of my paternal great-grandmother Anna Bogdan, this surname and its variations are rather common; until I find some record identifying her family's village and parish, I cannot reliably trace her line further.

The simple, happy rituals of reorganizing and reassessing 15 years of research

2010-12-25T13:19:00.003-05:00

Generations of ancestors surround me while I work on my family history this winter. Some are on the floor, or inside two new storage ottomans, or next to me on the couch in the living room. Others are on the dining room table. Many more are upstairs in my office. They are on index cards, in pages of notes, in file folders, and in three-ring binders. A select few have made safe passage to a new database on my laptop.

I am devoting as much time as possible these days to genealogy—specifically, my own Polish ancestors. The French Canadians, Swedes, Scots, and Revolutionary War era Americans who occupy the paternal side of my children's family tree are on hold for the foreseeable future.

In 2010, I expanded my family research to include DNA testing, a variety of heretofore-untapped databases, and some much-needed background reading on Polish history. This new input has led me to re-examine what I knew, or thought I knew, from my past 15 years of research. A couple of DNA tests, a handful of new records, and suddenly the earlier generations of my family are shifting into new configurations, introducing new surnames, and living in parishes outside the pale of my past explorations.

All this reorganization and reassessment takes a lot of time, and a lot of thought. I fall asleep at night wondering about my ancestors. Where did Anna Mosiejko's family live? (Not in Szczuczyn parish where her own children were later baptized, and not in any of the surrounding parishes I usually search, so maybe Kamionka or Ostryna?) Is that szlachta Prokopowicz clan in Lack parish related to my maternal peasant Prokopowicz family nearby in Iszczolna? Why were my paternal Prokopowiczes baptized, married, and buried from at least five different parishes when they lived in the same village, Poleckiszki, for a couple hundred years? The marriages are understandable (couples were usually married in the brides' parishes, not the grooms'), but the other events puzzle me.

Celebrating individuals through index cards

Each one of my ancestors is an individual unique in their particular combination of physical appearance, personality traits, talents, and life experiences. All I know of them, however, is when they were born, baptized, married, had children, and died (from "fever," more often than not). The most direct observation I have of any one of them is when I view and print out the documents of such life passages.

Curiously, these long-ago family members come to life for me on the index cards I use for extracting the important details from their vital records. There is something compelling about creating a card for each event and paper-clipping all those cards together. Is it the act of writing that ancestor's name, or of physically handling the index cards? Holding the pen, touching the paper—this is a tactile process, my own little celebration of an ancestor's individuality. Typing the same information into a computer simply does not give me this same feeling of closeness and connection. The electronic database is handy and useful, of course. Just not emotionally satisfying.

Even more gratifying is my ceremony of laying out all the index cards potentially connected to a particular ancestral line. As I study them, patterns emerge. I shift the cards around to form family groups. Even the minor cast members here play a part in the drama; persons repeatedly serving as godparents or marriage witnesses tantalize with clues to other relationships waiting to be revealed.

Baptismal records from the 1700s and early 1800s typically omit the mother's maiden name. The parents may be identified, for example, as "Michal Rusc and Rozalia." But over the years, one Hayduk or another serves as a godparent for this couple's children. Perhaps Rozalia is a Hayduk? More research will tell, either through the eventual discovery of the couple's marriage record, or through baptisms of children born a decade or so later, when mothers' maiden names became part of the church record.

Genealogy software might generate the same kinds of clues about possible relationships. But would seeing these connections in Arial 10 point on a computer screen make me as happy as moving index cards around, identifying a new family group, and setting them together on their own corner of the dining room table as if I were building them their own little house? For me, the answer is obviously no. This is one aspect of genealogical research in which I am unabashedly old-school and loving it.

In 2010, my genealogical research trumped my genealogical blogging

2010-12-24T19:00:00.001-05:00

After a very long absence from Basia's Polish Family, I'm back, with no apologies for my absence, but with an explanation: instead of blogging, I've been researching. Genealogy has reclaimed its rightful position as the major passion in my life. As a result, I have a lot of new information about my ancestry, which I am excited about sharing here in 2011.

It seems that most bloggers post entries every day. My approach is very different. Professionally, I am a journalist. I have always believed that good journalism is based in providing new information—new facts and new insights that are hopefully helpful in understanding and navigating through life. My career as a newspaper reporter and editor disciplined me to make every word count. As a blogger, I don't write if I don't have something new to say. Last January I realized that I needed to do a lot more research before I could continue to share my family story in a way that was satisfyingly meaningful to me.

Here are some highlights of my adventures in genealogy in 2010, with a promise of blog posts to come. It's been a great year!

Y-DNA testing

In one of my early blog posts, I noted that I am descended from two Prokopowicz families. All my life, I had wondered whether my father's Prokopowicz family was related to my mother's Prokopowicz family some generations back. Now I have a definitive answer, thanks to Y-DNA testing made possible by graciously contributed saliva samples from some direct-lineage male Prokopowicz descendants. Related or not? The answer, the process, the details, the implications for future research, I will reveal all in coming weeks. All except the men's identities, of course, for privacy's sake.

mtDNA testing

After much research into different companies for the Y-DNA tests, I also did a new test of my own maternal mitochondrial DNA. Do I know more as a result than what I had learned through my original test by Oxford Ancestors nearly a decade ago? Yes and no.

Subscription databases

Did I ever mention I was weaned on shopping at Filene's Basement and Spag's, or that my parents never bought anything they hadn't researched first in Consumer Reports, or that I feel like the Great Polish Huntress brandishing coupons and bargain-hunting at stores like Marden's and Ocean State Job Lot? (If you're not a New Englander, you may have to Google these retail references.) Bottom line, I'm thrifty.

I have always made heavy use of free resources for genealogy, whether online, at libraries and archives, or at workshops and conferences. Those resources are vast, but as we know, not everything is online, and not all records are available for free. In 2010, I subscribed to a few paid database sites. Were they worth the money? Will I renew them in 2011? I'll let you know before they run out this spring.

I ♥ Listservs

I've been active on various genealogy Listservs since 1996 and the era of excruciatingly slow e-mail over 9.6 kb modems. The lists have been invaluable to my research. Though I'm still subscribed to over a dozen, a couple in particular have emerged as my clear favorites. Every year the relationships and the quality of help shared have grown deeper and richer. If you're doing Polish/Lithuanian research in today's Belarus and/or Lithuania, you may benefit from them too.

Accessible archives

Prospects for obtaining some family records from the Grodno archives—officially, the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno—seem good. If all goes well, I will have some previously unattainable documents in hand this spring. Woo-hoo!!!

Meanwhile, back at the microfilm ...

After a lapse of several years, I am again immersed in scrolling through church records microfilmed by LDS (aka the Mormons). There are new films for the Roman Catholic parishes of the Lida area—pretty exciting! But I also have reason to re-examine films I used years ago.

I have a very organized system for working with the baptismal, marriage, and death records I find in the 18th-19th-century European church registers. However, my research got interrupted a few years ago due to home and family matters and various writing projects. My notes, index cards, and file folders lay abandoned. My software got outdated. Several computers and operating systems later, I'm using a new brand of software to create a new GEDCOM from scratch. (Thankfully, out in the garage, I still have an old PC with an A drive that reads 3.25-inch disks. I just may need that sometime.)

Finally, Facebook

This has been my major foray into the social media. I don't expect to be Tweeting my great-great-great-grandmother's baptismal date anytime soon ... but who knows? What prompted me to join Facebook, what I initially expected, what I've actually gotten from it, and how I hope to use it for genealogy in coming months—as it turns out, these are all very distinct categories in my experience.

Goals for 2011

The final week of 2010 is the obviously perfect time to look ahead. There is much I hope to accomplish in 2011. The more I discover about my family's past, the more fascinated I am by the generations that came before me. More research, more travel, more contact with kindred spirits worldwide lie ahead. I hope you'll join me in my journey through the past.

Michal Prokopowicz marriage record 1886

2010-11-21T18:52:00.000-05:00

Michal Prokopowicz of Poleckiszki (Ejszyszki parish) and Maryanna Kurowska of Pohorodno were married
16 February 1886 in the Ossow parish church, north of Lida.
Iwan Szwed is listed among the witnesses. His name appears in column three, line 15.

The family surname of Michal's mother, Rozalia, puzzles me. Any interpretations?
In other records for this family, it is listed as Janonis (with varied endings).

Soleczniki Wielkie (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-18T18:24:00.002-05:00

In the chronicles of the Teutonic Knights, Salseniken or Saletzniken, town and estates on the Solcza River (tributary of the Mereczanka), Wilno district, in the 5th police precinct and the 7th district court, Soleczniki gmina, along the highway from Wilno to Lida, at 42½ wiorsts from Wilno and 46¼ wiorsts from Lida, has 520 inhabitants.

In the year 1866, there were 31 houses here, 459 inhabitants (9 Orthodox, 316 Catholic, and 134 Jews). The folwark in that year had 35 inhabitants (30 Catholics and 5 Evangelical Protestants); a glass-works, a mill on the Solcza, and a distillery. It possesses a wooden Catholic parish church, a Jewish house of prayer, a Protestant chapel in the churchyard burial ground, and a postal station.

The population of the town, except for the rural peasants of Soleczniki Wielkie, [are] the pastor of the church service, the caretaker and keepers of the mail, the police guard, several classes of Jewish families, [those] working at the tavern-keepers’ trade, poor handcrafters and small shopkeepers, and residents of inns and of ten cottages built on landlords' property.

Catholic church dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle, established in the 14th century, endowed by Jan Hlebowicz in the 16th century (according to the rubrics established in the year 1523 by Jan Chodkiewicz), enlarged by Alfons Lack, chamberlain of Wilno, in 1622; today well maintained, the endeavor of the local pastor by contributions from parishioners. Catholic parish, Raduń deanery, has 4,104 faithful. Branch in Soleczniki Mały, chapel in Montwiłowszczyzna.

The estates have 291 desiatyns of cultivated land and 2,730 desiatyns forest. Formerly the property of Hlebowicz, in the 16th century [they] passed to Chodkiewicz, in whose possession they remained to the year 1824; today they are the property of Wagner.

(Słownik, v. XI, p. 49)

Beniakony / Bieniakonie & Butrymańce (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-16T18:42:00.002-05:00

Bieniakony, a gmina in Lida district, numbers 237 houses, 3,305 peasants of both sexes. Gmina administration in the town of Bieniakonie. The gmina encompasses 4 rural precincts: Gajcieniszki, Wronowo, Bolcieniki, and Sokoleńszczyzna, and numbers 49 villages.

(Słownik, v. I, p. 133)

See Beniakony. Town, Lida district, in the 2nd administrative precinct, property of Pań Rymsza, at a distance of 47 wiorsts from Wilno, 43 from Lida. Inhabitants, of both sexes, total 63. The wooden Catholic parish church of St. John the Baptist was founded in 1634 by Jan Czapliński. Catholic parish, Raduń deanery, has 4,370 faithful. Branch in Butrymańce.

The Bieniakonie rural precinct, Lida district, has a population of 2,840, that is, 1,436 male and 1,404 female. The land in the district is flat, with woods and marshes, a great deal of fallow [land]; rivers Solcza and Żyżma.

(Słownik, v. I, p. 218)

(See v. I, p. 133, Beniakony, and v. I, p. 218, Bieniakonie). A small town on the River Solcza, Lida district, 2nd police precinct, Bieniakonie gmina, 43 wiorsts from Lida, 47 wiorsts from Wilno, 63 inhabitants (in the year 1865). Belongs to the Gajcieniszki estate of Rymsza. Catholic parish church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, built of wood in the year 1634 by Jan Czapliński, rebuilt in 1810. Parish, Raduń deanery, 4,808 faithful; branch church in Butrymańce; gmina administration, water mill. Lies near the border of Oszmiana district.

(Słownik, v. XV, p. 144)

Butrymańce

2.) Village, Lida district, has a Catholic church, St. Michael’s, built of wood by Baron Schrotter, branch of Bieniakonie [parish].

(Słownik, v. I, p. 484)

Hermaniszki (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-16T16:54:00.002-05:00

3.) Town [in the] Oszmiana district, on the Żyżma River, in the 3rd administrative precinct, at 49 wiorsts in a northwest direction from Oszmiana and 4 wiorsts from Woronów; possesses a wooden Catholic parish church named Holy Trinity, endowed in 1686 by Brzostowski, the bishop of Wilno; numbers 155 inhabitants. The class-5 parish of Hermaniszki, Lida deanery, has 2,540 faithful.

Hermaniszki belongs to Baron Lefort. In the year 1866, Hermaniszki had 182 inhabitants.

The Hermaniszki rural precinct in Siedliszcze gmina counts within its limits the villages Porubiszki, Markowszczyzna, Romaszkańce, Nowosiady, Dziejnowo, Tusumańce, Darkszany, Łoszaki, and Miluńce, and the zaścianki Wołodkiszki, Markowszczyzna, Nowosiady, and Petrymany.

(Słownik, v. III, p. 61)

Woronów / Werenów (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-16T16:11:00.000-05:00

Also spelled Werenów, town and folwark on the Błoczanka (Bołotianka) River, a tributary of the Żyżma, Lida district, in the 2nd police precinct, Bieniakonie gmina (11 wiorsts distance), Woronów rural precinct, at 32 wiorsts north of Lida, on the highway to Wilno (59 wiorsts distant) and 20 wiorsts from Ejszyszki.

The town has 42 houses, 18 Orthodox inhabitants, 117 Catholics, 333 Jews, a Catholic parish church, a synagogue, a Jewish house of prayer, 2 tanneries, 12 shops, a postal station, a water mill, markets every Sunday, and fairs four times a year. The obwarzanki [i.e., seeded bread twists, like bagels] baked here are renowned. The folwark has 100 Catholic inhabitants, 18 Evangelical Protestants, 8 Jews, and a brewery. The wooden Catholic parish church, dedicated to the Redeemer [Saviour], has stood here since it was built by Aleksandrowicz in the year 1705. Catholic parish, Raduń deanery, 1,738 faithful.

Within the composition of the rural district come the villages Bojary, Bolcienikiele, Byryły, Kletkienniki, Kodzie, Łazarzyszki, Muchladziszki, Ramuty, Ściłguny, Sztaniszki, Towzginiany, and the szlachta neighborhood Towzginiany; all in all, in the year 1865, 240 revision souls [who were] enfranchised peasants and 9 jednodworce.

Formerly the property of the Gasztołd family, who died out, subsequently of the Scypios, among whom, Jan, castellan of Smolensk, starosta of Lida, endowed a Piarist college and school here before the year 1738. By order of the board of education, these schools were subsequently moved to Lida. At present Woronów belongs to Zarzecki.

(Słownik, v. XIII, p. 955)

Osowo (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-16T09:28:00.001-05:00

2.) Otherwise Ossowo, church village, called a small town, on a river of the same name, Lida district, in the 2nd police precinct, Aleksandrowa gmina, Horodna [Horodnia] rural district, at 14 wiorsts from the gmina, 19 wiorsts from Lida, and 71 wiorsts from Wilno, has 4 houses, 60 inhabitants, namely, 27 male and 33 female (in the year 1864, 22 revision souls); belongs to the state treasury rectory of Osowo.

There is here a Catholic parish church dedicated to St. Jerzy (George), wooden, endowed in 1666 by Kazimierz Frąckiewicz and Ogiński, rebuilt in 1732. Catholic parish, Raduń deanery, has 2,902 faithful; chapel in Horodna. The surrounding area is somewhat hilly, few forests, many meadows; flowing are the Rivers Dzitwa, Żyżma, Osówka, and Pohorodenka.

3.) Village, Lida district, in the 1st police precinct, Bielica gmina, Tobola rural precinct, at 5 wiorsts from the gmina and 31 wiorsts from Lida, has 21 houses, 231 inhabitants, (in the year 1864, 98 revision souls); belongs to the estate of Stoki, Prince Wittgenstein.

(Słownik, v. VII, p. 653)

Trokiele (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-16T08:15:00.001-05:00

1.) Treasury folwark, Lida district, in the 1st police precinct, Żyrmuny gmina, Dworzyszcze rural precinct, at 17 wiorsts from Lida, near the road from Lida to Dziewieniszki, has 77 inhabitants, a Catholic parish church, distillery, brick-kiln, and tavern. The property was formerly Jesuit. Catholic parish, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, built of wood in the year 1500 by Marcin Gasztołd. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, 3,093 souls. Branch in Dworzyszcze. Formerly there was a chapel in Gimbuty.

2.) Peasant zaścianek, Lida district, in the 2nd police precinct, at 39 wiorsts from Lida and 22 wiorsts from Ejszyszki, 1 house, 6 Catholic inhabitants.

(Słownik, v. XII, p. 493)

Żyrmuny (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-12T22:39:00.002-05:00

1.) In documents, Żermony, town on an unnamed tributary of the Dzitwa (River), Lida district, in the 1st police precinct, Żyrmuny gmina and rural precinct, at 54 degrees 1 minute north latitude and 42 degrees 53 minutes east longitude, at a distance of 14 wiorsts on the north-north-west from Lida, 75 wiorsts from Wilno by the post road from Lida to Wilno.

In the year 1860, had 29 houses, 271 inhabitants (according to later data, 14 houses, 196 residents), gmina and police precinct administration, Catholic parish church, Jewish house of prayer, public school, asylum for the poor, postal station. Catholic parish church, by the name Holy Cross, was built of wood in 1788 through Princess Karolina Radziwiłł. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, 2,491 faithful.

In the parish, the area is elevated; sandy soil, stony and gravelly, small forests, many bushes and marshes. Irrigating are the Rivers Żyżma, Dzitwa, and Nieszkrup. Within the composition of the rural precinct come the town of Żyrmuny; the villages Bojary, Gierwieniki, Kawieryki, Maguny, Mnichy, Orzeliszki, Piatkowszczyzna, Pliki, Podworzance, Pożyżma, Skowrody, Stuki, Szalcinie, Szawerdaki, Tatary, Tołkinie, and Wielkie Sioło; zaścianek Jaświły; and szlachta neighborhood Soroki. All in all, in the year 1865, 423 “revision souls” [who were] enfranchised peasants, 1,616 treasury peasants, and 3 jednodworce.

The gmina belongs to the 4th rural precinct (starostwo) (Żyrmuny, Apolin, Dworzyszcze, and Grodzienka), taking in 69 localities, having 445 houses, 5,910 peasant inhabitants enfranchised on 8,619 desyatins (6,311 fields). Furthermore, within the limits of the gmina there are 19,615 desyatins (6,651 fields) in larger estates/properties and 63 (39 fields) church/ecclesiastical lands. In the year 1865, there were in the gmina 1,412 “revision souls” who were enfranchised peasants, 356 who were treasury peasants, and 104 jednodworce.

Formerly the property of Zawisza, among whom Jan, the wojewód of Witebsk, built a wooden parish church here, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in the year 1624 endowed it generously. In place of this church, which apparently burned during a war with Czar Aleksy Michajłowicz [Romanow], a new one was built in 1673, the endeavor of the local curate Reverend Maciej Szarkiewicz.

In the first years of the 18th century, Żyrmuny went to the possession of ks. Radziwiłł through the marriage of Mikołaj Faustyn Radziwiłł with Barbara Zawiszanka (born 1690), the daughter of Krzysztof Zawisza, governor of Minsk. The son of this Faustyn, Stanisław Radziwiłł, carver of the king’s meat for the Grand Duke of Lithuania (Wielkie Księztwo Litewskie), together with his wife, Karolina nee Pocieja, built, in place of the deteriorating one, a magnificent new wooden church.

In the Acts of the Diocese of Wilno (Book IV, 1643) is preserved a curious act, in which “Aleksa Tyszkiewiczówna, wife of the Witebsk castellan Zawisza,” together with close friends, confirmed that for the church in Żyrmuny she was offering drops of Christ’s blood, obtained in Rome from Urban VIII through ks. Tyszkiewicz, formerly the bishop of Wilno, brother of the donor. The act was written 20 March 1667 “in Żermony.” According to a visit in the year 1700, this relic is placed in the pacyfikał [a reliquary], preserved in the church ciborium.

August II in the year 1724 gave Żyrmuny municipal rights. In more recent times, Żyrmuny belonged to Count Tyszkiewicz, later to Anna Szwanbach.

2.) Private folwark on the Nieszkrup stream, Lida district, in the 1st police precinct, Żyrmuny gmina (at 4 wiorsts from Żyrmuny), at 14 wiorsts from Lida, 54 inhabitants, water mill, distillery, and soap factory. — J. Krz.

(Słownik, v. XIV, p. 895-6)

Nacza (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-12T19:29:00.002-05:00

1.) A parish church village, called a town, on the Naczka River, Lida district, in the 2nd police precinct, Koniawa gmina, at a distance of 8 wiorsts from the gmina, 74 wiorsts from Wilno and 38 wiorsts from Lida, has 176 inhabitants (86 male and 90 female). It formerly belonged to Kościewicz (Kostewicz), among whom Jan, wojewód of Polesie, around the year 1529 endowed a church here and moved a parish from Dubicze. Later it was property of Kiszka and next Radziwiłł. A wooden church exists today, constructed on site of the former church by the Reverend Józef Kuczewski, local pastor, in 1756. In the church, a statue of Jesus of Nazareth is renowned for miracles.

An extensive folwark, to nowopolską [new Polish] measure, all in all is 1,000 morgs [1,200 acres], of these 540 [morgs] forest, 360 tillable land, 80 meadow, and 10 morgs garden. Near them on the River Nacza are a mill and a fulling [i.e., cloth-making] mill.

To the Nacza parish, Raduń deanery, belong 60 villages and peasant settlements, 21 neighborhoods inhabited by petty nobility, and 26 folwarks, all in all, 8,086 faithful. Formerly, a branch [of the parish] was present in Dubicze. In days of yore, as is evident from the rewizja [review] of Tatar estates accomplished in the year 1631 through Jan Kierdej, writer/clerk of Oszmiany territory, Nacza was settled by Tatars, remains of whom are preserved in the Tatar cemetery (see Muchliński, Zdanie sprawy o Tatarach Litowskich, and Tygod. Ilustr. of 1885, number 113).

Within the composition of the rural precinct come the villages Nacza, Ginele, Kudojańce, Królewszczyzna, Bieżaniszki, Puzele, Kowalki, Mieżance, Jurańce, [and] Mickańce, the zascianek [farm settlement of poor country szlachta] Buda, and the Talmonty neighborhood, altogether 131 souls who are enfranchised peasants, and 135 treasury peasants, and 49 jednodworce. The area is sunken, [with] pine forests, marshes and small meadows, a large lake, gravelly and loamey/clayey soil, irrigated by the Rivers Raduńka, Przedel, Kotra, Czepiełunka, Koniawka, and Naczka.

2.) Nacza, peasant village in that same place, 34 “revision souls,” property of the treasury, formerly constituted an endowment of the Nacza pastor.

(Słownik, v. VI, p. 853-4)

Jelna (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-10T21:32:00.000-05:00

1.) Private folwark, Lida district, 1st administrative precinct, at 25 wiorsts [approx 25 km] from Lida, and 3 wiorsts from Bielica, 9 inhabitants (1866). Jelna formerly belonged to Sapieha, Szemiota, Odachowski. There was a Dominican monastery here; it was founded in 1667 by Zofia Marya née Olszewska Odachowska and Anna née Mańkowska Przesławska. Today it is the Catholic parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built of wood in 1667. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, 1,692 souls. Branch in Waszkiewicze, chapel in Bielica.

The area is an elevated plain, small forests, meadows, marshes, many fields; light cultivated soil, sandy. In the vicinity are the Rivers Niemen, Mołczadka, Niemenek, Dzitwa, Izwa, Hołdówka, Lebioda, Smołocz, Nieciecza, Rosoka, Olechówka, and Jeleńka, and Lake Weliczay.

2.) Jelna, three folwarks and a tavern on the River Jeleńka; Lida district, 2nd administrative precinct, at 26-26 wiorsts from Lida, 5 houses, 46 inhabitants (1866).

(Słownik, vol. III, p. 559)

Nieciecz (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-10T19:39:00.001-05:00

Note: Entry # 3 refers to the Nieciecz that is the seat of a Catholic parish. The first two entries refer to other Lida district locations with this name.

1.) Government-owned village on the Nieciecz stream, Lida district, in the 1st police precinct, Lida gmina, Dabrowa rural precinct, at 8 wiorsts [approx. 8 km] from Lida, along the road to Lipniszki, 17 houses, 181 inhabitants (87 "revision souls," or male serfs).

2.) Nieciecz, szlachta neighborhood on the Nieciecz stream, in that very place, 2 houses, 33 inhabitants.

3.) Also called "Zadworczany," folwark and village, in that very place, Bielica gmina, Tobola rural precinct, at 9 wiorsts from the gmina and 27 from Lida, along the road to Slonim, 21 houses, 275 inhabitants. In Nieciecz there is a Catholic parish church, dedicated to Jesus Christ, built from wood in 1715 by the hunter Kołuszewski, and renovated in 1837. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, has 1,701 faithful. Formerly there was a chapel in the churchyard burial ground. The estate of Nieciecz belongs to Świeżyński.

(Słownik, vol. VII, p. 50)

Białohrud / Białogród (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-10T18:27:00.002-05:00

Note: Occasionally, Słownik includes two entries for a location; typically one augments the original information. In this case, the intention seems to be to acknowledge the two spellings of the town's name.

Białohrud

Town, Lida district, at 3 meters [??] from Lida, in hilly environs, intersected by the Dzitwa and Nieciecz rivers. Has a Catholic parish church, Matka Boska [Mother of God], built of wood in 1609 by wojewód Jan Zawisza. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, numbers 1,922 souls.

(Słownik, vol. I, p. 190)

Białogród

(see vol. I, 190 s.v. Białohrud)

Village, Lida district, Tarnowszczyzna gmina, has a Catholic parish church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, built of wood in the year 1609 by wojewód Jan Zawisza. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, 1,990 faithful; chapel in town.

(Słownik, vol. XV, p. 126)

Wawiorka (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-10T17:37:00.000-05:00

Note: Slownik uses the spelling “Wawerka” and calls “Wawiorka” erroneous, but “Wawiorka” seems to be the generally preferred spelling elsewhere.

Erroneously “Wawiorka.”

1.) Church-owned village, called a small town, Lida district, in the 4th police precinct, Myto gmina (formerly Wawerka), Wawerka rural district, at 21 wiorsts [approx. 21 km] from Lida and 14 wiorsts from Wasiliszki, has 4 houses, 67 Catholic inhabitants. According to information from 1881, it has 73 inhabitants; belonged to Pietuchowa (formerly, to the treasury).

It possesses a Catholic parish church, dedicated to St. Francis, built with brick walls in 1840 by Samuel Kostrowieki, in place of a former wooden one originating in the year 1413. The Catholic parish, Raduń deanery, has 5,692 faithful. Chapel in Dylewie; formerly, there were also chapels in Misiewicze [Mosiewicze], Lebiodce, Radziwoniszki, Stankiewicze, and Papiernia.

Within the composition of the rural precinct come the villages Abramiszki, Brzozówka (Berezówka), Dragucie, Gordziejowce, Lesanka, Markucie, Michnowce, Mikuty, Mosiewicze, Olchówka, Piaskowce, Radziwiłowce, Radziwinowce, Sielachy, Siewruka, Smoloki, Szorkina, Wawerka, and Zaniewicze, as well as the szlachta neighborhoods of Czaple and Kołomyckie; all in all, in the year 1865, 332 “revision souls” [were] enfranchised peasants and 85 were treasury peasants.

2.) Wawerka, folwark, in that very place, at one wiorst from the small town of Wawerka, has 10 Orthodox inhabitants, 76 Catholics, and 13 Jews; property of Butkiewicz.

3.) Wawerka, folwark, in that very place, at 28 wiorsts from Lida and 12 wiorsts from Wasiliszki, has 13 Orthodox inhabitants, 28 Catholic; property of Znamierowski (according to the list of 1865, Sumorokow).

(Słownik, vol. XIII, p. 148)

Zabłoć (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-10T14:59:00.001-05:00

Note: Within the old Lida powiat (district), there were also two small peasant villages named Zabłoć, one near Beniakonie and the other near Żołudek. In my translations, I am focusing on Lida district towns that were the seats of Roman Catholic parishes. The term folwark is often mentioned in connection with these towns; Wikipedia offers some background history and explanation of this type of farm settlement.

Town and folwark on the Dworczanka River, Lida district, in the 4th police precinct, Zabłoć gmina and rural precinct, at 49 wiorsts [approx. 49 km] from Lida. The town has 7 houses, 111 inhabitants (1 Orthodox, 106 Catholics, 4 Jews; in the year 1865, 26 “revision souls), gmina administration, a Catholic parish church, a school, a house of shelter for the poor. The folwark, alongside the town, has 11 Orthodox residents, 67 Catholics, and 4 Jews. The Catholic parish church, called Holy Trinity, the original one built of wood in 1622, remained but was rebuilt in 1778 due to its ruin; the present church, of brick, remained endowed in the year 1812 through Count Ludwik Tyszkiewicz. The Catholic parish, in the Radun deanery, has 4,368 faithful. Chapels in Zabłoć and in Woronicze.

In the parish, the area has hills, forests, pastures; gravelly soil. The Kotra and Przewoza flow [here]. In the composition of the rural district come the town Zabłoć, the villages Dziatki, Dzyboły, Gudziniszki, Jodzielewce, Koziany, Kupieje, Lelańce, Maluki, Mosiewce, Opanowce, Osipowce, Pirowszczyzna, Podziejki, Przewoza, Remzy, Sołtaniszki, Szławience, Tołoczki, and Wolejsze, as well as the szlachta neighborhoods Jodzielewce, Przełęskie and Zapaśniki. All in all, in the year 1865, 69 “revision souls” were treasury peasants, 18 were jednodworce, and 625 enfranchised peasants.

The gmina belongs to the 1st peace precinct of peasant affairs, falls within the 2nd rural precinct (Zabłoć and Lebioda), and includes 40 towns having 309 houses, 4,107 peasant inhabitants (in the year 1865, 1,359 “revision souls,” of them 103 were treasury peasants, 64 jednodworce, and 11 Jewish farmers), enfranchised for 6,691 desyatins [19,404 acres] (5,019 fields). Moreover, within the limits of the gmina are present 8,827 desyatins of land that belong to other classes (3,074 fields), 33 desyatins of church land (21 fields). The total of the gmina area consequently encompasses 15,551 desyatins (8,114 fields) and has 4,812 inhabitants.

(Słownik, v. XIV, p. 184)

Nowy Dwór (Słownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-09T22:41:00.002-05:00

Governmental town, Lida district, in the 3rd police precinct, Dubicze gmina, Nowy Dwór rural precinct, on the road from Grodno to Zabłoc, at 140 wiorsts from Wilno, 52 from Lida and 28 from Szczuczyn, has 63 houses and 708 inhabitants (371 male and 337 female). Municipal status was received from August II in the year 1720. A Catholic parish church by the name of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built of wood in the year 1480 by the landowner Cząszny, [and] was rebuilt in 1749. There is a chapel in the churchyard burial ground. The Catholic parish, Lida deanery, has 4,082 faithful.

The area is flat, irrigated by numerous rivers and streams, such as Kotra, Ostrynka, Nowodworka, Kichaczewka, Odakowka, Moraczka, Niepraszka, Dunajczyk, Downarowka, [and it] has gravelly soil and pine forests. In the time of the Republic, Nowy Dwór constituted an estate of the Crown, without jurisdiction, situated in Wilno province, Lida district. By the resolution/vote of the sejm in 1678, there was then the office of land-steward of the king’s/royal table, for which Andrzej Gembicki, the starosta of Nowy Dwór, had himself in recompense the sum of 100,000 Polish złoty in Prussian coins.

Later this royal estate was split for the following leases: Bakszty, Filipowicze, Pielowce, Puchacze, Malatycze, Drabowszczyczna, Berszty, and ploughable? forest districts, which each had a separate owner. However, in the year 1766 Ignacy Gąsecki held the starostwo alone, and paid 711 Polish złoty quarterly and a winter tax of 1,400 Polish złoty. Later it belonged to Antoni Roemer, son of Stefan Jerzy.

At present the town belongs to the treasury estate of Ostryna. Within the composition of the rural precinct come the town of Nowy Dwór, the villages Skiełdycze, Piaski, Wampierszczyzna, Czerniawka, Kobrowce, Nowosady, Plociele, Bakszty, Maciuki, Kuce, Brzozowiec, Gaudziszki, Rodziewicze, Pozniakowszczyzna, Kuryłowce, Borowe, Zaniewisza, Malikowce, Rynkowce, Puhacze, Kulowce, Humenniki, Prudziany, Gromki, Kozaki, Przybytkowszczyzna, and the neighborhoods/environs of Sobakowszczyzna, Rodziewicze, Kobrowce, and Szyszjowszczyzna, all in all 2,014 dusz reviz. [“revision souls,” or male serfs].

(Słownik, v. VII, p. 294)

Orla & Łopaty (Slownik Geograficzny translations)

2010-01-09T16:23:00.004-05:00

Note: The family of Maria Baniukiewicz, the wife of Jozef Prokopowicz, brother of my maternal grandfather Aleksandr Prokopowicz, was from the Orla-Łopaty area. Łopaty is due south of the Prokopowicz village of Kozarezy. Dirt roads connect them; the distance between the villages is about 6 km, a little over 3 miles. All of these locations may be seen on the colored map that accompanies my Żołudek translation.

Orla

A private town on the Niemen River, Lida district, in the 3rd police precinct, Orla gmina and rural precinct, at 50 wiorsts [approx. 50 km] from Lida, on the road to Zelwa, and at 138 wiorsts from Wilno, has 83 houses, 598 inhabitants (280 male and 318 female); wooden Pokrowska [Eastern] Orthodox church, erected in 1783; a Jewish house of prayer; harbor and ferry across the Niemen. Property of Countess Hermance Uruska. Orthodox parish, Szczuczyn deanery (błahoczynia), has 2,497 faithful (1,244 male and 1,253 female).

The gmina consists of, from the 4th rural precinct: Orla, Lipczanka, Stukaly and Korutnica, 43 villages, 518 huts/cabins, and has 5,474 inhabitants (2,604 male and 2,870 female). According to the roll of 1864, it counted 2,187 male dusz reviz. ["revision souls"], namely 1,744 enfranchised peasants, 394 treasury peasants, and 49 jednodwórce [minor szlachta; jedno = one, dwór = manor, thus, nobility whose property was only one manor]. It belongs to the 2nd peace district of peasant affairs in Szczuczyn, as well as to the 2nd circuit of summons to military service from Lida district in the town of Żołudek.

Within the composition of the rural precinct come the town of Orla, the villages Przecim (Pretym), Hołynka, Długa, Kupieli, Łopaty, Korsaki, Papiszcze, Romanowicze, Turzejsk, Rymki, Soroki, Białogórce, Borć-Turzejsk, Pietraszki and Dworczany; the zascianek Dworczany and the szlachta settlements Paszyce and Romanowicze, all in all 889 dusz reviz., within this number, 575 enfranchised peasants, 277 treasury peasants, and 37 jednodworce.

(Słownik, vol. VII, p. 582)

Łopaty

Peasant village, Lida district, 2nd administrative precinct, Żołudek parish, along the road to Różanka, at 50 wiorsts from Lida, 13 houses, 121 inhabitants.

(Słownik, vol. V, p. 720)

Różanka (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-09T11:44:00.002-05:00

1.) A government-owned town on the Turejka River, Lida district, in the 3rd police precinct, Różanka gmina and rural precinct, at 56 wiorsts [approx. 56 km] from Lida and 144 w. from Wilno, has 883 inhabitants (445 male and 438 female). Catholic parish church called by the name of Ss. Peter and Paul, with high brick walls, founded in 1764 through wojewód [Polish senator] Pac. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, has 2,097 faithful; chapel in the burial ground.

The environs have an elevated section and a level section, gravelly cultivated land, small forests. Once upon a time the inheritance of Pac, today [Różanka is] a governmental estate whose lands were turned over to the peasants to buy back. Różanka gmina belongs to the 2nd peace district of peasant affairs, 2nd circuit of summons to military service from Lida district, and 2nd court district. Encompassing 64 villages, having 351 settlements, 4,264 peasants (both sexes) reside there. It takes in two rural districts: Różanka and Rakowicze. A gmina school is found in Różanka (75 students). According to the rolls of 1864, there were in the gmina 619 dusz reviz. [“revision souls,” or male serfs] who were enfranchised peasants and 1,011 who were treasury peasants.

In the composition of the rural district come the town of Różanka and the villages of Podzameze, Dowklewszczyzna, Wierzbiłki, Bobra, Podbobra, Zaborze, Potoka, Nowo-Różanka, Kryszyłki, Dziakowce, Malewicze Dolne and Górne, Podróżanka, Ciejkowszczyzna, Makiowce, Dolina Zarzeczna, Dolina, Turówka, and the zaścianki [nobility neighborhoods] Kryłyszki and Klimowszczyzna, as well as the Jewish agricultural colony Malewicze; in sum, in the year 1864, 838 male serfs who were treasury peasants.

2.) Różanka-Nowa, a peasant village, Lida district, in the 3rd police precinct, Różanka rural precinct, 2 male serfs. — J. Krz.

(Slownik, vol. IX, p. 854)

Dziembrów (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-05T19:57:00.000-05:00

Dziembrów, Dziembrowo, in Russian Diembrow, a town in the western part of Lida district, on the Spusza River, near the border of Grodno gubernia (province), in the 3rd police office, in the vicinity of Ostryna gmina, at 66 wiorsts [approx. 66 km] from Lida, at 18 from Szczuczyn, possessing an Orthodox parish church. The Dziembrow Orthodox parish, in the Szczuczyn deanery, counts 1,556 male parishioners, 1,797 female. From the year 1864, there was here a class-5 Catholic parish of the Lida deanery. Dziembrów folwark [farmstead] had in 1866 one house, 62 inhabitants, and the town had 19 houses, 151 residents.

Lack (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-04T20:37:00.002-05:00

Note: Much more detail on the Catholic parish of St. Stanislaw Bishop and Martyr is available at http://www.radzima.org/be/pub/1780_p/sendmsg/?id_comm=940. The founders are identified as Stanisław and Andrzej Prostywiłłowicz-Skinder.

1.) Lack, governmental village on the Spusza River, Lida district, 3rd administrative precinct, 8 wiorsts [approx. 8 km] from Szczuczyn, 5 houses, 46 residents (1866). Catholic parish church, St. Stanislaw, wooden, founded in 1424 by landowner Skinder. Chapel in the cemetery. Catholic parish, Lida deanery, 4,092 souls. In the environs, limey, flat lands on the Kotra and Spusza rivers. Lack gmina [commune of villages], Lida district, has a population of 3,081, comprising 1,447 men and 1,634 women. Gmina administration is in the town of Dabrowa.

2.) Lack, chartered folwark [farmstead] on the Spusza, Lida district, 3rd administrative precinct, 10 wiorsts from Szczuczyn, 49 residents.

3.) Lack, chartered folwark on the river Spusza, Lida district, 3rd administrative precinct, 9 wiorsts from Szczuczyn, 37 residents (1866).

Żołudek (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2010-01-03T18:32:00.015-05:00

Note: As always, I welcome any corrections to my humble translation. The Zawisza-Kaczanowski incident in particular challenged my limited familiarity with 19th-century Polish vocabulary and history. Several weeks have passed since my last post here because I wanted to do some background reading about the Swedish-Polish alliance against Russia and some Lithuanian noble families in the Great Northern War of the early 1700s. How was the peasant class in the Żołudek area impacted by the social turmoil and military activity of these years? That was the question that intrigued me the most, but I have not yet found any source that offers answers.

Formerly Zeludok, town on the river Zoludczanka, near the bank of the Niemen, Lida district, in the 3rd police precinct, gmina and rural district of Żołudek, at 53 degrees 36 minutes north latitude and 42 degrees 38 minutes Ferro east longitude [per Greenwich, approx. 24 degrees 58 minutes east longitude], near the greater road from Grodno to Nowogrodek, 10 wiorsts (approx. 10 km) from the Iszczolna post office, 13 w. from the village Pieskowce (Niemen), 42 w. southwest of Lida, and 130 w. from Wilno.

It has 130 houses, 674 inhabitants, gmina administration, a Catholic parish church, a synagogue, a Jewish prayer house, 2 water mills, distilleries, a brewer of beer, 23 shops, a market every Sunday, a fair on the feast day of the Holy Ghost (Pentecost Sunday, 7 weeks after Easter). The rural district comprises the town of Żołudek and the villages of Bojary, Farny Koniec, Kupry, Skiersie, and Zatoki, and the zascianek Wołczki; among the people in the year 1865 were 515 dusz rewiv. ["revision souls," or male serfs].

The gmina belongs to the 2nd peace district of peasant affairs, encompassing from the 3rd district (Żołudek, Krasula, and Dabrowo) comprising 26 localities, having 328 houses, 3,762 peasant residents (1,427 male serfs) enfranchised/granted land of 7,755 dziesiatun [1 = 1.09 hectares = 2.9 acres] (4,737 fields?) [approx. 22,589 acres]. Also within the gmina boundaries are 4,090 dz. [11,861 acres] of greater quality. The whole gmina area has 11,878 dzies. [34,446 acres] (6,329 fields) and 4,698 inhabitants.

The Catholic parish church, called by the name Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is built of brick walls and stands on a high hill. Construction was begun in 1828. Tyzenhausowa completed it in the year 1835 when her daughter married Count Uruski. There is a chapel in the cemetery. The Catholic parish, Lida deanery, has 6,282 faithful. Formerly it had a chapel in Krasuli. The Niemen [river] divides the parish in two parts, the larger of which lies to the right of the river.

In this parish on the Niemen, there are enormous forests replete with big game like roe-deer, wild boar, and elk. Occasionally beavers (by the Niemen) and bear are encountered. According to data from the year 1817, the terrain of the parish is a little hilly, with vast forests near the Niemen, much pasture land, and soil of sand, gravel, and clay/loam. Rivers: Niemen, Szczara, Lebiodka, and Zoludczanka.

At one time there were here a royal estate and unenclosed county offices. The Lithuanian Metryka offer these starostas [sheriffs] of Żołudek: Marcin Chreptowicz (1501-08), Michal Pacewicz (1510), and Prince Wasil Polubinski (1516-33).

[Grand Duke of Lithuania] Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk founded this place, and between the years 1480 and 1490 endowed a parish church. In one of the Tartar invasions, very likely in the year 1506, this church burned down and the right to endowment disappeared. In the year 1529 on the Saturday before St. George's Day, Zygmunt I, wanting to restore the former church bequest in the royal town of Żołudek, revealed through a commissioned messenger, that he confirmed and generated new ones. [Acts of the Diocese of Wilno, book 2, page 157]

In the year 1535, at the clemency of the king, [two] deserters from Moscow, Prince Siemion Bielski and senior counselor Iwan Lacki, came to Lithuania. On the first of them, Zygmunt the Elder conferred Zyzmory, Stokliszki, and Kormialy; on the second, Wysoki Dwor and Żołudek.

In a later time, Żołudek went into the possession of the Sapiehas, very likely in compensation for numerous sacrifices of property given up for the Republic. From the Sapiehas, Żołudek was passed as dowry for Anna Sapiehowa to the home of Radziminski-Frackiewicz h. Brodzic, from whom more or less in the year 1680 Kazimierz, [Lithuanian] court treasurer, with the authorization of the Republic, acquired the collatorship of the local church. [Acts of the Diocese of Wilno, book 4, page 1652]

This Kazimierz Frackiewicz together with his wife Aleksandra née Komar (according to another source, Anna Naruszewicz) in the year 1682 founded in Żołudek " from new roots" a church and an old-rule Carmelite class cloister, which remains here still in the current century. A resolution of the Warsaw sejm in 1685 approved its endowment.

In 1702, Krzystof Kiezgajllo Zawisza, governor of Minsk, was exasperated with Jan Kazimierz Kaczanowski h. Ostoja, [who was] indeed of good nobility and at that time starosta/sheriff of Dowgielliszki, but from the secondary/subordinate class, for this [reason], that he married Maryanna Tekla Naruszewicz, widow of Peter Michal Pac, a half-sister of Teresa Tyszkiewicz (wife of Governor Zawisze); on Three Kings Day [January 6] attacked Kaczanowski at his small estate of Mozejkowi, putting him to flight and chasing him as far as Żołudek.

"There Pan Kaczanowski in the company of two other persons took refuge/or was sheltered in the church vault, from which not by force but rather stooped over in fear, he was led out from that very place, on the following day at last better prepared for death, and was executed. Such an ending was married from high rank." (Pamietniki Zawisze, p. 104)

Because of this outrage, the burial of Kaczanowski in the Orthodox church in Wiazowce was closed to the Żołudek church. (Zlota Ksiega III, 156-7)

Skirmishing in Litwa in 1706 with Russian forces and Polish detachments, siding with August II, Charles XII had here over a long time (from 10 February) chiefly winter quarters, and stood in the Carmelite monastery. From there he went to inspect the bridge built on the Niemen below the village of Orla, and one time (8 March) almost perished in consequence of the ice breaking up. The next morning he advised the deputy of the city of Wilno of these experiences.

In the 18th century, Żołudek became the property of Tyzenhaus, who decorated his manor with beautiful gardens. In the church here in 1785 rested the corpse of Antoni Tyzenhaus, Lithuanian court treasurer, one of the most remarkable ministers of the country. Here later in 1786 the famous ornithologist Count Konstanty Tyzenhaus was born. From Tyzenhaus, Żołudek went by dowry to Uruski. — J. Krz. – M. Witan

(Słownik, v. XIV, pp. 827-828)

(Map source: Bain, R. Nisbet. Charles XII and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire, 1682-1719. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1895.)

Ejszyszki (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2009-11-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

Note: My translation, edited by Fred Hoffman, was first published in the Fall/Winter 1999 issue (Vol. 1, No. 2) of Proteviai, the journal of the Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society. The town of Ejszyszki is now known as Eisiskes, Lithuania.

A government-owned town in Lida powiat [county], 1 km. from the river Wersoka, a tributary of the Mereczanka. It lies at 54 degrees 11 minutes north latitude, 25 degrees 00 minutes east longitude, 35 km. northwest of Lida and 80 km. fromWilno [now Vilnius, Lithuania], with 2,616 inhabitants, mostly Jews, and 300 houses.

Within the town are the office of the 2nd (state) police district, with one police precinct; the 3rd court of peace of the 2nd district (Lida);the administration offices of the gmina [rural administrative district]; a rural school; a post office, which handles correspondence of all sorts; and a Catholic parish church built of brick, a half km. from town. In the year 1866, the town had 135 houses and 715 inhabitants, of whom 610 were Jews, 89 were Catholics, and 16 were Orthodox; it also had 4 breweries, 2 tanneries, and a water mill.

Ejszyszki is famous for its Thursday country markets and its 4-day fairs, held twice a year. One is held on the feast of the Ascension; the people call it szosniak ["6th one"] because it comes during the 6th week after Easter. The other is held on the feast of Corpus Christi, and is called dziewietnikiem ["9th one"] because it takes place during the 9th week. The main objects traded in the country markets and fairs are pigs and horses.

If one can rely on official accounts, in 1877, at both fairs, 13,947 rubles’ worth of merchandise was sold, and the total brought in was 22,395 rubles. Besides the Jews, who control the town’s commerce and pubs, the numerous gentry who live in the vicinity, in settlements restricted to the nobility, also enjoy prosperity, due to the above-mentioned trade in hogs and, to some extent, horses.

The gmina of Ejszyszki is divided in to 6 rural precincts, consisting of 87 villages totaling 453 hearths [houses] and 5,533 peasants. The class-two Catholic church, which is in Radun deanery, has a chapel in Podzitwa (formerly also one in Kolesniki [now Kalesninkia, Lithuania] and 10,460 faithful.

Regarding the founding of Ejszyszki, there are legends in the Lithuanian chronicles. In the year 1065, the Lithuanian prince Erdziwil, with three subordinate commanders, invaded Lithuanian territories that had been conquered by Kievan Rus. Once he had liberated them from subjugation by their neighbors and from the tribute they paid to Jaroslaw, he divided them between his comrades in the expedition.

Of them, Ejsa, or Eiksis or also Ejszius, a Samogitian by birth, founded the grodek of Ejszyszki on the land he received. Ejszyszki was the dwelling-place of the first Jews (Karaites) to come from Russia to Lithuania in the year 1171. Attesting to this is a gravestone that still could be seen in this town as of 1798.

In the second half of the 14th century, the bojar [nobleman] Sudymund owned Ejszyszki. In Krolewiec [aka Konigsberg, Kaliningrad], he, along with other Lithuanian lords, confirmed a bequest of Prince Witold [Vytautus] dated January 30, 1384, ceding all his inheritance to the Teutonic Knights in exchange for reinforcements of people and arms against Jagiello [Jogaila]. This was the cause for which the latter dispossessed Sudymund of Ejszyszki, which became a starostwo after the creation of Wilno province in 1413, and was the chief grod [fortified settlement] of the county and ciwunstwo [bailiff's jurisdiction] of that name.

Ejszyszki lies on what was once the most frequented highway from Wilno to Krakow, which today bears the name “the Radun highway.” A half km. from the town, on land of the manorial farmstead of Hornostaiszki, is a tract of land, covering about 2 desyatinas [hectares], surrounded by a large rampart and ditch called Horodyszcze in ancient local documents. There was an optical telegraph station located within these trenches some 20 years ago; today the office of the justice of the peace is there.

The Catholic parish church in Ejszyszki was founded by the Grand Prince Witold, and was named Cialo Boze [Corpus Christi, Body of Christ]. In 1506 King Aleksandr gave it an endowment, and in 1522 Zygmunt I increased its funding. In 1852 it was finally lined with brick and named Ascension of Our Lord through the endeavors of Prince Kalinowski.

In 1781 the starostwo of Ejszyszki district was in the possession of the Sollohubs; in 1738 there were 56 taxable hearths, paying a kwarta of 2,470 Polish zloty; in 1797 the kwarta came to 2,000 zloty.

The Ejszyszki Connection

2009-11-21T21:07:00.007-05:00

In 1994, I was employed as the associate director of the Maine Principals' Association, doing communications and conference planning for a statewide nonprofit organization for educators. My job took me to the National Principals Public Relations Annual Conference that July. It was held in Washington, DC, a city I love, and I built some extra time into the trip for sightseeing. What I wanted most to do was visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which had opened in 1993.

I cannot easily articulate my feelings about the Holocaust. They have been part of me since childhood. They have nothing to do with my immediate family background (my father served in the Navy at Iwo Jima in World War II) or anything I learned at school or through the media.  Whatever the public consciousness of the Holocaust was in postwar America, I was oblivious to these horrors.

And then I saw The Diary of Anne Frank when the movie was released in 1959. I did not want to leave the theater. I sat through the movie twice and would have watched it again, but my mother and sister had indulged me patiently enough that afternoon, and we left.

The film jolted me into reading all manner of books about World War II in Europe, and about the Holocaust. Naturally, I knew that Poland loomed large in these events and that my family was from Poland, but I still knew nothing of the geography of the war. I read about Warsaw and Treblinka and Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, but I could not have located any of them on a map.

The Tower of Faces

Decades later, that July in Washington, I arrived at the Holocaust Museum well before opening. I wanted to be the first person in line, and I wanted to see everything. I read the signs at every exhibit, watched all the films, stared at the Zyklon-B cannisters, felt terrified to board the train car that would signify passage into the world of the concentration camps, felt sick at seeing the mountains of shoes representing so many lives lost to the Final Solution. I stayed at the museum until closing.

The exhibit that held me the longest was the Tower of Faces, a three-story-high, corridor-long gallery of nearly a thousand pre-war photographs. I searched every face, craned my neck to see as high as possible, studied every image. I kept expecting to recognize people. At the same time, I kept telling myself that that expectation made no sense.

I did not know where the photos were taken.  They could have been from Germany, or Poland, or Czechoslovakia, or anywhere in eastern Europe. If I read a sign identifying the location, it meant nothing to me, and I didn't retain the information. But the experience was so riveting that I bought a postcard of the Tower and kept it on my refrigerator for years. I felt haunted every time I looked at it.

There Once Was a World

Fast forward to November 1998. I was then working in the reference department of the Auburn (Maine) Public Library. (Yes, I've had a lot of different jobs.) On a pleasantly slow afternoon, I was browsing at the latest issue of The New York Times Book Review, and there was a photo from the Tower of Faces, featured in a new book: There Once Was a World, by Yaffa Eliach, the woman who, as it turned out, had created the exhibit at the Holocaust Museum.

Of course, I immediately ordered a copy of the book (even though the library was purchasing it too). Finally, I knew where the photos had originated—in a town known to its long-ago Jewish residents as "Eishyshok," Lithuania. It was known in Polish as "Ejszyszki" and in Lithuanian as "Eisiskes." But that had no meaning to me.

At that point, I had been involved in genealogy for a couple of years. I was directing most of my effort to tracking down birth, marriage, and death information for the living generations of my very large family.  Between the nine siblings in my father's family and the five in my mother's, my two Prokopowicz families had indeed gone forth and multiplied. I had nearly three dozen first cousins, and their offspring were probably double that number.

Five miles from Ejszyszki

Only after I had the current generations logged into a database did I begin to research my Polish grandparents. Beyond "Wilno," wherever that was exactly, I knew nothing of their origins. Slowly the details emerged. My cousin A. John Prokopowicz, a genealogist since the early 1980s, identified the Szczuczyn area as the home of my maternal grandparents, Aleksandr and Stefania.

A passenger list placed my paternal grandmother near Radun. A handwritten transcript (written by whom, and when, is uncertain) recorded my grandfather Julian's parish as Radun and his birthplace as the village of Odwierniki a few miles north.

Where his Prokopowicz family lived prior to Julian's birth, I do not know. Not in Radun parish, it seems, but likely in one nearby. Perhaps in the parish of Ossow, or Zyrmuny, or Bieniakonie, or Nacza. Perhaps in the parish of Ejszyszki.

Before the war, this whole area was part of Poland. Before the war, people moved freely between Radun and Ejszyszki for business and pleasure. Though they now lie on opposite sides of the Lithuania-Belarus border, these towns are only 9 miles apart, and Odwierniki is midway between them.

I do believe there is some psychic component to genealogy, some energy that guides us in our search for our ancestors. This I know for sure: My grandfather Julian was born in 1895 just 5 miles south of Ejszyszki, the town commemorated in the Holocaust Museum's Tower of Faces.

Decades later, thousands of miles from Ejszyszki, lacking any knowledge of where my grandfather spent his early years, I fully expected to recognize people among those hundreds of photos—people who were complete strangers to me, but almost certainly known to him.

About My Slownik Geograficzny Translations

2009-11-21T10:56:00.008-05:00

My initial plan here was to post my translations of Słownik Geograficzny descriptions of the towns and villages directly relevant to my family origins: Radun, Szczuczyn, and Iszczołna. Over the past two weeks, I've changed my plan and decided to translate additional entries and include them here.

This may seem like I'm veering off-topic, but I don't think so. When I tackled Radun and Szczuczyn over a decade ago, I was working with the Polish language for the first time since I was a teenager. I struggled with the vocabulary and the syntax, and am still grateful for the graceful editing and polishing Fred Hoffman brought to those translations.

Since the late 1990s when I got involved in genealogy, I have done a variety of things to recover the Polish language skills I was fortunate to acquire in childhood. I read out loud in Polish (because it was, for me, always much more a spoken language than a written one) so that I can see the connection between how words sound and how they are spelled. I took a year of college-level Polish taught by Professor Jonathan Shea, whom I admire greatly as the most knowledgeable Polish genealogist in the United States. I spoke Polish during my travels to Poland and Belarus (Lithuania, not so much!). I speak Polish as the opportunities arise here in the Polonias of New England. I sing kolędy, beautiful Polish Christmas carols, year-round (though terribly off-key, and not where anyone can hear me).

The point is, I can translate Polish text to English a bit faster now. I still rely very heavily on Polish-English dictionaries, especially the worn old Stanisławski dictionary I inherited from my uncle John Prokopowicz. And I am still very grateful for any suggestions to improve the sense or fluidity of my translations, which are sometimes awkward and stilted. Language detailing 19th-century (and earlier) culture is especially challenging, since some practices, titles, occupations, and customs have not survived into the 21st century, and they defy easy explanation.

Delving into micro-history

Another reason I have decided to include additional Słownik translations here is to provide a bigger picture of my ancestors' lives and times. Not their individual lives—they were all peasants, and not the kind of people one finds immortalized in history books—but the region they lived in for generations and its changes over the centuries. Reading about one single town is inadequate to understand the region's history. The more, the better.

For example, this week I translated the Słownik entry on Wasiliszki. This is a parish a few miles north of Szczuczyn, and the home of my maternal great-grandmother, whom I have not yet introduced here. Most of the text was similar to what I'd encountered with the other towns: population statistics, brief description of the land and resources, names of founders and officials. And at the end, a one-sentence reference to the Second Swedish War (also known as the Great Northern War), mentioning that Swedish King Charles XII and his army were camped nearby in Zołudek in February 1706 while Polish King Stanisław Leszczyński was in Wasiliszki accepting a declaration of surrender from some Lithuanian nobles.

Wow. Small towns like these seldom get mentioned in big histories. This started my mind racing. I frankly know nothing about the Swedish-Polish wars, so first I Googled the topic and then yesterday I checked an armload of books on Charles XII out of the Central Connecticut State University library. In all that I have now read about the battles, skirmishes, and stand-offs that occurred in this region in the early 1700s, I have found numerous references to Grodno but none identifying specific smaller locales to the east. All of the events on this front are described in connection to Warsaw, Grodno, Wilno, and other sizable well-known cities.

Yet a Swedish king, his Polish ally, their Russian and Lithuanian opponents, and all their respective armies of thousands of men were fighting, negotiating, marching, and camping all over Lida area over the course of many months. How did the war impact this quiet countryside—its roads, fields, rivers, forests, farms, towns, villages, and most importantly, its people? How were my ancestors affected? Is this perhaps why the records available for the Catholic parish in Szczuczyn begin in 1718, and not earlier? Were earlier records somehow removed or destroyed due to the war? I have no idea. I have always felt an inexplicable attunement to Scandinavia. Is there perhaps some Swedish blood in my veins? (Well, I suppose that could go back many more hundreds of years, if it is the case.)

"She was a seamstress for the czarina"

I'm now working on a Zołudek translation, and my curiosity has been whetted enough to make me want to translate Słownik entries for several other Lida area towns. Who knows what tiny but fascinating bits of information they will reveal?

One type of data Słownik offers at length concerns property ownership: the names of nobility who owned estates and sometimes whole villages or towns, and the ranges of time they owned them. Magnate records (at least, the few I've seen) tend to provide a full accounting of all the lands, buildings, livestock, resources, and miscellaneous items owned within an estate. And sometimes they identify by name the peasants and other laborers who worked in those fields and homes.

It may be that research into magnate records for Szczuczyn, for example, might yield some information about my family. My ciocia (aunt) Pauline, who was born there, used to talk about a cousin of my babcia Stefania's being "a seamstress for the czarina." Stefania came from a long line of women who were very skilled in all types of needlework and who passed those talents along to us, so someone working as a seamstress seemed quite plausible. But I always questioned the czarina connection as fiction or exaggeration, since I knew my family lived nowhere near the czar's palace in Russia. Now I understand that ciocia Pauline was probably referring to some szlachta estate in the Szczuczyn area. Find the magnate, find the peasant—or so I hope.

A Prokopowicz here, a Prokopowicz there

Yet another reason to acquaint myself with the micro-history of the Lida area is that I still do not know the origins of my paternal grandfather's paternal line. Although my grandfather Julian Prokopowicz was baptized and raised in the Radun area, it appears likely that his father's family was earlier in some other parish. I have found Prokopowicz records in virtually all of the Lida area parishes that I have explored. I have not yet figured out if and how they all connect. So until proven otherwise, I claim the entire Lida area as my family's home. I love Lida.

In that regard, I am just about ready to post my 1998 translation for Ejszyszki. I feel a strange connection to Ejszyszki (as I do with Sweden!), even though I have no evidence (yet) that I have any family roots there. But that is another story altogether, and one I hardly understand myself.

Wasiliszki (Slownik Geograficzny translation)

2009-11-21T08:36:00.005-05:00

Note: I have retained the Polish diacritics here, but do not know if they display properly in all browsers. If they do not, please let me know in a comment here, and I will remove the diacritics. Thanks!

Governmental town on the river Tęcza (or Duma?), Lida powiat, in the 4th police district, gmina and rural district of Wasiliszki, at 35 km. northwest of Lida and 157 km. from Wilno, has 2,728 residents. In the year 1866 there were 244 houses, 1,841 residents (5 Orthodox, 453 Catholics, 1,383 Jews).

It possesses an Orthodox church [of the] Szczuczyn deanery (633 faithful), Catholic parish church, synagogue, police district and gmina administration offices, public school (86 pupils in the year 1885), and post office. Markets are held weekly on Sunday.

The parish church, called by the name of St. Peter the Apostle, was built of wood in 1489 by King Kazimierz, and restored in 1747. A Catholic parish in Radun deanery, it has 8,086 faithful. It had a chapel in Wolczynki.

The rural district encompasses the town Wasiliszki and the villages Aleksandrówka, Bakszty, Chodziele, Dylewo, Dziegciary (Dziechciary), Kaszyce, Kleszniaki, Konstantynowo, Kronki, Krupowszczyzna, Kurpie, Lachówka, Miękiszki (Miakiszki), Psiarce, Roźniatycze, Starodworce, Szkordzie, and Zybały; zascianek [settlement of poor yeomen] Sosna; and szlachta [nobility] areas Dziegciary, Grabniki, Kaszczyce, Krupowszczyzna, Starodworce, Szlachtowszczyzna, Werejkiszki, and Zybały. In general, in the 1865 census of subjects, 784 souls were treasury peasants, 44 jednodwory [very minor szlachta/nobility], and 214 enfranchised peasants.

The gmina belongs to the 1st peace district of peasant affairs and 1st conscription district, as well as the 1st circuit court of peace of Lida district, consisting of 3 rural districts (Wasiliszki, Glinicze, and Szejbakpol), comprising 87 municipalities, having 543 houses and 7,514 peasant inhabitants. According to the list of 1861, there were counted in the gmina 1,181 treasury peasants, 55 jednodwory, 3 Jewish farmers, and 1,163 enfranchised peasants.

The terrain is flat, the soil sandy and gravely; there are forests, meadows, and marshes. Irrigating the area are the rivers Szkordziówka, Lebiodka, Kościeniewka, Wierch Lebiodka, and Niewiczka. There is here an unenclosed/unfenced settlement, along with extensive appurtenances, that was established long ago and that at that time belonged to the ekonomii stołu królewskiego [land-steward of the king's table?].

The earliest starostas of Wasiliszki were Jan Steckowicz (in the year 1499), Jan Radziwiłł (1500-01), Wasil Lwowicz Hlińiski (1501-04), Stanisław Piotrowicz Kiszka (1505-06), Jan Szczytowicz (1507-15), Jakub Kuncewicz (1518-23), Jan Radziwiłł (1523-41), Kacper Kuncewicz (1546), ks. Mikołaj Radziwiłł (1546-54), Jan Wołczkowicz (1569).

In 1658, Marcin Dominik Limon, judge of the Lida area, subsequently castellan of Witebsk (d. 1670), founded a church with a Dominican monastery, which was granted the estate of Szkordzie by Katarzyna née Abrahamowicz Frackiewicz, an author of Polish literature, who endowed it in 1662 with a bequest of 10,000 Polish złoty.

In 1706, during the Second Swedish War, Stanislaw Leszczynski stayed here with his military forces for some time in February (while King Charles XII [of Sweden] was encamped at Zoludek), and here he accepted the Lithuanian szlachta’s declaration of surrender to him.

In 1766 the starostwo of Wasiliszki was possessed by Michał Ogiński, governor of Wilno, and subsequently by Aleksandrowicz, chamberlain, paying 4,566 Polish złoty, 15 grosz kwarta [tax for upkeep of the army], and 3,500 Polish złoty hyberna [tax for maintaining the army in winter].

Iszczolna & Kozarezy (Slownik Geograficzny translations)

2009-11-15T11:39:00.005-05:00

Note: I translated this text today, and changed the longitude from the Ferro system used in Slownik to Greenwich-based. The other translations in my blog reflect Greenwich longitude as well. The latitude here corrects a typographical error in Slownik. In general, I welcome corrections and suggestions from anyone more familiar with 17th-19th-century Polish vocabulary than I am!

Iszczolna

Town and landed estate in Lida powiat, along the post road/mail route from Grodno to Wilno, on the Iszczolnianka River, 37 km. from Lida, 12 km. from Szczuczyn, at 53 degrees 40 minutes north latitude and 25 degrees 28 minutes east longitude; post office. Marl beds [calcium carbonate, valued as fertilizer].

Long ago the Dowoyno estate, after them [owned by] the Limonts. The parish church was founded by the Limonts in 1515; built by Jozef and Marianna nee Wieczkowicz Wall [Wahl?], standard-bearer of the town in 1758. In 1616 the estates of Iszczolna and Szczuczyn, of 220 wlok 13 morgs [6,600 acres total], were divided by the Limonts.

In 1644 Ks. Wiszniowiecka, wife of the crown equerry, acquired Iszczolna; in 1669 Pollupiety, the governor of Mscislaw; in 1676 Radzymski-Fronckiewicz, treasurer of the court of the W. X. L. [Wielkie Ksiaze Litewskie, or Grand Duke of Lithuania]; in 1694 the heirs of Skarbek-Wazynski, starosta [mayor] of Tyrkszlewski.

In 1701 it was transferred by dowry to Wall [Wahl], the starosta of Fraumberski; subsequently by the very same means to Laskowicz, the judge of Lida; after that, to Skarbek-Wazynski, the marshal of Lida; at present, the heirs of Skarbek-Wazynski.

The town of Iszczolna lies in the 3rd police/administrative district, has 137 residents. In 1866 the town and village had 319 inhabitants. The Catholic parish of Iszczolna, in the Radun deanery, has 2,783 souls [parishioners], and a chapel in Mozejkow [Mozejkow Wielki].

The terrain of the parish is flat, forests and pastures numerous, the soil sandy, pebbly, and somewhat clayey/limey. It is irrigated by the rivers Spusza, Prysa, and Turya.

The Iszczolna rural district in Szczuczyn gmina comprises these villages: Iszczolna, Kiemiany, Bojary, Korzysc, Mociewce, Nowosady, Kozarezy, Wolnilowce, Pilczaki, Naumowce, Korobki, Iwaszewce, Jucewce, Woloka.

Kozarezy

Peasant village, Lida powiat, 3rd administrative district, 7 km. from Szczuczyn, 8 houses, 90 residents.

Outlined in orange above are some key locales in this section of the 1928 WIG Nowogrodek map. The city/parish seat of Szczuczyn is at lower left (west); to its right (east) are the village of Kozarezy (home to the family of my maternal grandfather, Aleksandr Prokopowicz) and a few miles further east, the city of Zoludek. North of Szczuczyn is the village of Staro Gierniki (home to the family of my maternal grandmother, Stefania Ruscik). East of Staro Gierniki is the town/parish seat of Iszczolna. Due north of Iszczolna is the city/parish seat of Wasiliszki. The distance from Szczuczyn to Wasiliszki is about 20 km., or 13 miles. Many of the small adjoining villages in this area are within easy walking distance of each other (or at least, they would have been routine walks for peasants who traveled largely on foot or by horse-drawn wagon).

Radun & Family Villages (Slownik Geograficzny translations)

2009-11-14T13:50:00.001-05:00

Note: I translated the following entries from Slownik Geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego in the 1990s. My translations for Radun, Polunce, Posady, and Skladance, edited by Fred Hoffman, were published in the Polish Genealogical Society of America Summer 1998 Bulletin. They currently appear on the PGSA Web site.

Radun

Radun is a small government-owned town on the Radunka River, Lida powiat [district, county], in the 4th political district, center of a gmina [township, commune] and a rural district; it is an estate belonging to the treasury, 30 km. northwest of Lida, 37 km. from Wasiliszki, and 82 km. from Wilno, on a side road that in the 16th century was the shortest highway between Wilno and Krakow.

In the year 1881 there were 1,526 inhabitants (757 male and 769 female); in the year 1866 there were 91 houses and 869 inhabitants (361 Catholics and 508 Jews); it has a wooden Catholic church and chapel, a synagogue, gmina administrative office, and a public school, which in the year 1885-86 was attended by 56 boys and 2 girls. It is the property of the treasury, which gave the lands back to the peasants for purchase.

About 2 km. from the town, on a vast plain near the village of Horodyszcze, is a large trench, and even though the inhabitants call it the "Swedish" trench, its shape and the name of the adjoining the village shows that it was a fortified citadel of long ago. According to Balinski (Star. Polska, III:259), Radun was called Radomi by 16th-century travelers and writers.

This small town was once a royal estate, from which the income went to pay for the king's court and table. According to a 1538 inspection, it had 7 streets, in addition to the market square, and 210 houses of Christians—Jews were forbidden to settle there. It had 35 saloons for selling beer, 7 for mead, and one only for liquor. Later Radun became the site of a starostwo not affiliated with a grod, and in 1770 that office included the town with appurtenances.

In the year 1766 Jozef Tyszkiewicz, the castellan of Mscislaw [now Mstsislav, Belarus] bought it, and on it he paid a kwarta of 2,616 zloty, 5 groszy, and a hyberna of 2,690 Polish zloty. At the Sejm of 1773-75, the [Polish-Lithuanian] Commonwealth government addressed recurring disputes over the borders of this starostwo by passing a separate law designating six officials as ad hoc commissioners to settle the matter once and for all.

In the Metryka Litewska, the series of Radun starostas begins toward the end of the 15th century with Janusz Kostewicz (1498-1527), followed by Jan Hlebowicz (1527), Szymko Mackiewicz (1532-1541), Stanislaw Kiezgajlo (1546-1549), Augustyn Fursowicz (1551), Jurij Wolczkowicz (1556), Jan Hercyk (1569), and Mikolaj Talwosz (1581).

The Catholic parish church of Our Lady of the Rosary dates from 1838, transferred from the village of Kolesniki [now Kalesninkai, Lithuania], due to the closing of the Carmelite monastery there. Previously there had existed a church from the year 1752, which burned down; rebuilt in 1801, it suffered the same fate again. There is a small chapel in the cemetery. The Catholic parish, of the Radun deanery, has 7,522 souls. At one time there was a branch of the church in the village of Dubicze.

The Radun deanery consists of 11 parishes: Radun, Ejszyszki [Eisiskes, Lithuania], Wasiliszki, Nacza, Bieniakonie, Zablocie, Wawiorka, Iszczolna, Woronow, Ossow, and Soleczniki [Salcininkai, Lithuania], for a total of 58,768 souls.

In this parish the terrain is level and treeless, overgrown in some places with bushes and covered with marshes. The soil is sandy, with a lot of gravel. It is irrigated by the following rivers: Dzitwa, Pielasa, Radunka, Naczka, Sopunka, Jodub. The rural district includes the town of Radun and the villages of Juciuny, Straczuny, Horodyszcze, Jatowty, Popiszki, Skladance, Wojkunce, and the nobles' farm settlement of Poradun, for a total as of the year 1864, according to the treasury rewizja [census] of peasants of 565 serfs, 3 men of jednodworzec [minor nobility] status, and 32 free men.

The gmina of Radun belongs to the 3rd district chamber of peasant affairs in the town of Ejszyszki, as well as to the 3rd conscription center for the same place in Lida district, and consists of four rural districts: Radun, Mozejki, Kiwance, and Pielasa, including 67 villages with 536 houses, inhabited by 6,969 peasants. According to the 1864 census, there were in the gmina 1,740 serfs, according to the treasury rewizja of peasants, 346 enfranchised farmers, 85 of jednodworzec status, 56 Jewish farmers, and 32 free men, for a total of 2,259 souls.

Jatowty

Jatowty, a government-owned village, Lida powiat, in the 4th administrative district, 21 km. from Lida, 42 km. from Wasiliszki, 5 houses, 46 Roman Catholic inhabitants (1866).

Kiwance

Kiwance, 1) a village on the Radunka River, Lida powiat, in the 4th administrative district, Radun gmina, 30 km. from Lida, 37 km. from Wasiliszki, 19 houses, 181 Roman Catholic inhabitants. 2) a peasant village, 6 houses, 42 Catholic inhabitants.

Odwierniki

Odwierniki, a peasant village, Lida powiat, in the 4th political district, belonging to the Radun gmina and rural district and treasury-owned estate of Kiwance, 4 km. from the gmina, 34 km. from Lida, and 41 km. from Wasiliszki, has 8 houses and 66 Catholic inhabitants. (25 souls in the rewizja)

Polunce

Polunce, a peasant village, Lida powiat, in the 4th political district, belonging to the Radun gmina and rural district and treasury-owned estate of Kiwance, 1 km. from the gmina, 39 inhabitants.

Posady

Posady, a peasant village on the Radunka River, Lida powiat, in the 4th political district, belonging to the gmina and treasury-owned estate of Kiwance, 2 km. from the gmina, 32 km. from Lida and 40 km. from Wasiliszki, has 9 houses, 92 Catholic inhabitants (42 souls in the year 1864, per the rewizja).

Skladance

Skladance, a peasant-owned village, Lida powiat, in the 4th political district, gmina, rural district and treasury-owned estate of Radun, 5 km. from the gmina, 23.5 km. from Lida, and 44 km. from Wasiliszki; it has 25 houses, 204 Catholic inhabitants (in 1864 there were 81 souls per the rewizja).

Radun area ca. 1928

Szczuczyn & Gierniki (Slownik Geograficzny translations)

2009-11-14T09:15:00.022-05:00

Note: I translated these entries from Slownik Geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego in the late 1990s. Edited by Fred Hoffman, they were first published in the Polish Genealogical Society of America Summer 1998 Bulletin, and now appear on the PGSA Web site as well.

Szczuczyn

Szczuczyn [now Scucyn, Belarus] called Szczuczyn Litewski, "Lithuanian Szczuczyn," a town on the Szczuczynka river, in Lida powiat, in the 3rd political district, center of a gmina and rural district, at 53 degrees 36' north and 22 degrees 18' east, on the mail route from Wilno to Grodno, a distance of 52 km. southwest of Lida [now in Belarus] and 146 km. from Wilno [Vilnius, Lithuania].

It has 123 houses, 1,088 inhabitants (as of the year 1866), an Orthodox parish church of brick, a Catholic church, a Jewish house of prayer, a parish school (78 boys and 6 girls in 1885). It is the site of the headquarters of its political administrative district and of its gmina, and has a pharmacy, a post office, a market every Sunday, and fairs on August 15 and October 16.

The Catholic parish church of Jesus Christ was built of brick in 1829 by Prince Drucki-Lubecki. Before that there was a Catholic church in Szczuczyn made of wood, St. George's, which eventually fell into ruin. The Catholic parish, in the deanery of Lida, has 2,057 faithful. It had a chapel in Jatwisk.

The Orthodox parish, Szczuczyn deanery, has 901 faithful. The Orthodox deanery of Szczuczyn [the exact term is blagoczynia, in the Orthodox church a provostry], comprises 10 parishes: Szczuczyn, Dziembrowo, Dzikuszki, Glebokie, Orla, Ostryna, Rakowiec, Sobakince, Turejki, and Wasiliszki, and it includes 10 Orthodox churches, 9 chapels, and 25,795 souls.

The gmina belongs to the 2nd district for peasant affairs, 2nd conscription district, and the 2nd judicial district, consisting of three rural districts (Szczuczyn, Krasne and Iszczolno), with 56 inhabited localities, 412 homesteads, and 6,596 peasant residents. The rural district includes the town of Szczuczyn and the following villages: Bale 1 and 2, Bartosze, Bujwicze, Dogi, Dubrowlany, Gierniki, Kulaki, Lack, Micary, Murawiowka, Nowosiolki, Ogrodniki, Planty, Podgajniki, Rogacze, Rzeszotniki, Topoliszki, Turowka, Worony, Wyzgi, Zaguny, Zarzecze, Zylicze, and the colony of Turya, for a total of 836 souls as of the year 1865, according to the rewizja [census].

Szczuczyn formerly belonged to the Scypio family, who, according to Balinski (Star. Polska, III), supposedly endowed a Piarist college and founded schools there. A 1726 resolution confirmed the Piarist college in Szczuczyn, and gives the name of its founder as Hlebicki-Jozefowicz, Polock wojski. The Piarists settled near the parish church, and, with the permission of the episcopal consistory, took possession of the secular priests' parsonage with all incomes and buildings.

The Piarist college in Szczuczyn was quite prominent, and supported a Piarist seminary and academies, in which even Oriental languages were taught. In the year 1755 the college president was Lukasz Rosocki, professor of oriental languages. The other professors were: Kanty Wykowski, history; Jozef Szaniawski, theology; Eustachy Kurowski, moral studies; Wincenty Kloss, natural history; Jozef Ketrzynski, logic and metaphysics; and Wojciech Komorowski, elocution and poetry.

In the year 1742 Teresa Scypio, née Hlebicki-Jozefowicz, the wife of the castellan of Smolensk, established a congregation of the Sisters of Charity there and founded a hospital. The educational committee for organizing national schools elevated the Szczuczyn school to the rank of subfaculty [podwydzialowy] with three classes. After the Scypios, Szczuczyn was transferred to the princes Drucki-Lubecki, in whose possession it remains to this day. — J[ozef] Krz[ywicki].

Gierniki

Gierniki, a peasant village and private manor, Lida powiat, 3rd administrative district, about 7 km. from Szczuczyn. In the year 1866, the village had 16 houses, 142 inhabitants; the manor had 11 inhabitants.

These vintage postcards show the Szczuczyn rynek, or marketplace. In that era, the weekly market would have provided a major opportunity for villagers and city residents alike to socialize as well as do business. When I look at the crowd on market day, I wonder if anyone from my family is in that photo.

Beyond Maps: Two Invaluable Polish Gazetteers

2009-11-13T12:10:00.144-05:00

Being able to pinpoint an ancestral village on a map is a truly wonderful, gratifying experience—but it’s really the first step to further research. To locate church records, you have to know what parish your family belonged to; for civil records, what governmental/administrative districts had authority over their area. To get a sense of your ancestor’s day-to-day life experiences, you will want to know about the area’s history, geography, culture, weather, crops, resources, customs, and so on.

The questions never end in genealogy. Fortunately, the array of resources to answer those questions is nearly endless as well—depending on how hard you’re willing to dig for them and, in Polish genealogy, how many languages you’re willing to deal with.

I have two favorite resources for historic background information about specific towns and villages in the Lida area. Both of these very comprehensive gazetteers were published well before Poland’s borders shifted as a result of World War II, so they include lands now in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Even just a decade or so ago, these gazetteers could be found only on the shelves of major libraries, or accessed through LDS microfilm. Now, libraries in Poland have made them freely available online. I’ve posted the Web links below, along with some basic info about using these gazetteers.

Bystrzycki, Tadeusz. Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z oznaczeniem terytorjalnie im właściwych władz i urzędów oraz urządzeń komunikacyjnych = Registry of towns, places, cities in the Polish Republic, with territorial identification of officials, offices, communication possibilities and others from before World War II, 1931. Ostra, Italy: Muggenthaler Library Publishing House, 2000.
Sulimierski, Filip, Bronisław Chlebowski, and Władysław Walewski. Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich : Warszawa 1880-1902. T. 1-15 = Geographic Dictionary of the Former Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic Lands. Zbiory XX Wieku Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Warszawie, 35. Warszawa: BUW. Sekcja Dokumentów Wtórnych, 2006.

Skorowidz miejscowości

http://www.wbc.poznan.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=12786

(Wielkopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa / Digital Library of Wielkopolska)

Skorowidz identifies even the smallest hamlets and villages. In columnar format, it provides the following information for each place-name:

miejscowosc i jej charakter (locality and its type)
gmina (district)
powiat polityczny (political county)
wojewodztwo (province)
poczta i telegraf (telefon) (post office and telegraph [telephone])
stacja kolej. z odlegloscia km. (railway station and distance in kilometers)
najblizsza linja komunik. autobus z odlegloscia km. (nearest bus transportation line and distance in km.)
SAD grodzki (city court)
SAD okregowy (district court)
urzedy parafialne — rz-kat, gr-kat, wsch-slow, orm-kat, prawosl, ewang, ew-ref. (parish offices — Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Eastern Slavic rite, Armenian Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical/Lutheran, Evangelical Reformed)

The three columns most immediately useful for genealogical research are the powiat (county, district) and wojewodztwo (province), and urzedy parafialne (location of the parish church that serves this village/town/city).

You might be surprised how many small villages share the same name in the historic territories of Poland. Skorowidz lists about 80 villages named Zarzecze, which is not even close to being one of the more common place-names in an area that was, at its most extensive, about the size of the American Southwest. Choosing the correct Zarzecze, for example, requires the genealogist to know at least which province (wojewodztwo, gubernia) their ancestor came from and, better yet, what district (powiat) within that province.

The final column in a Skorowidz entry, the parish, is where you hit pay dirt for further research. To access church baptismal, marriage, and death records, you have to know what parish your family belonged to. If you use LDS microfilms for your research, knowing the parish is crucial, because LDS indexes church films by parish seat.

For example, my maternal Prokopowicz family resided in the small village of Kozarezy, which was served by the Roman Catholic parish church in Iszczolna. To locate baptismal, marriage, and death records, I must search the LDS library holdings for Iszczolna parish, not for Kozarezy village.

The “Edition” menu on the left side of the Skorowidz screen provides several options, notably to view content (this requires using a DjVu plug-in), or to download and save the entire gazetteer to your own computer. I use Skorowidz a lot, so I have downloaded it to a flash drive. The download comprises almost 2,100 individual LizardTech DjVu files, images more or less akin to PDFs. The files are named only by number, so finding the file for a specific place-name can take some time. As I use these files, I rename them with the first place-name on the page. Someday (and I’m not holding my breath here!) I may have all of these files alphabetically named.

Slownik geograficzny

http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/polszczyzna/SGKPi/
(University of Warsaw Library)
http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/
(University of Warsaw Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modeling)

Slownik is a massive gazetteer that identifies even the smallest human settlement and geographic feature of “the Former Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic Lands.” The print edition comprises 17 separate volumes (numbered 1-15 with a 2-part addendum), each the size of a city phone book. It took three men over a decade to research and compile all this information, which encompasses historic development, prominent individuals, population, religious affiliation, natural resources, occupations and businesses, major events, and more.

Given the size of Poland, even with significant chunks of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine included, the coverage here is simply exhaustive. That said, a village that contained eight houses in 1886 may merit only a three-line description in Slownik. But that in itself seems remarkable to me: the street I grew up on in Worcester had about 15 houses, and no one has ever written even a line about it!

Before exploring Slownik, a visit to the Polish Genealogical Society of America Web link http://www.pgsa.org/Towns/slownik_eng.php is very worthwhile. This provides a detailed explanation of Slownik’s scope of coverage, a breakdown of the range of place-names that each volume covers, and an explanation of the abbreviations commonly used in the text. The latter is particularly helpful in translating a Slownik entry.

Of the two sources for Slownik online, the University of Warsaw Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modeling site http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/ is particularly useful for printing out pages. The Idz do (Go to) search box on the left of the screen allows you to select a tom (volume) number and strona (page) number to display. Above the selected page will be three links: poprzednia strona (previous page), pobierz skan (file download), and nastepna strona (next page). Click on pobierz skan, choose whether to open or to save the file, and then print it.

Obviously, a printed Slownik page is a nice complement to your maps and related research materials. It’s also nice to have hard copy on hand if you want to translate an entry, especially if it’s lengthy.

Armed with an old Polish dictionary (the older, the better, for translating vocabulary used in the 1890s), I translated the Slownik entries for Radun, Szczuczyn, Ejszyszki, and some of their small satellite villages in the late 1990s. My Radun and Szczuczyn translations (gracefully edited by William F. Hoffman) were published in the Summer 1998 Bulletin of the Polish Genealogical Society of America. My Ejszyszki translation (also edited by Fred Hoffman) was published in the Fall/Winter 1999 issue (volume 1, number 2) of the Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society journal Proteviai. All three of my translations now appear on the PGSA Web site (though the Ejszyszki text ends abruptly and without any acknowledgment to me—szkoda!).

Because these translations are lengthy, and because they relate directly to my family research, I will post them in their entirety in my next blog entries.

Finding 19th-Century Houses on 21st-Century Maps

2009-11-12T19:53:00.125-05:00

Genealogy, like many fields, has its share of myths and misconceptions. A common misconception in eastern European genealogy is this: There is no hope of locating ancestral villages, much less ancestral homes, because so much was bombed, burned, and otherwise destroyed by the wars of the twentieth century. So why even try?

Why try? Because maybe your village was one of the many that survived. And maybe you will find it identified in a map that is so detailed, every building in the village—including your ancestral home—will be represented by a small black square (or similar symbol).

Finding such exquisitely detailed maps of eastern Europe takes some research. They are not likely to be filling the shelves of Barnes & Noble.

In North America, they are more likely to be available through online retailers and societies that cater to the specific geographic areas in question. In Europe, bookstores and travel and tourism agencies offer more material than you can fit in your backpack.

Maps of the Lida area

Belarus may not quite match its neighboring Poland or Lithuania in quantity of maps, but it holds its own in quality. The very best maps I’ve seen for the Lida area of western Belarus are contained in a 23-map booklet of Hrodna (Grodno) oblast, or province, published in Minsk in 2002. The scale is 1:200,000 (1 cm: 2 km).

In that booklet, maps numbered 4, 10, and 11 cover the western Lida area that is my ancestral homeland. I am including those maps here.

Map 10 displays the Szczuczyn (Scucin) area between Grodno and Lida. Map 11 shows the area to the east, including the city of Lida.

Map 4 pictures the Radun area to the north, its lower edge straddling both Maps 10 and 11, and its upper half occupied by Lithuania and the border town of Eisiskes (Ejszyszki).

The maps are printed in Cyrillic Belarusian. They may frustrate viewers who don’t know the language. The reality, though, is that anyone researching this area needs to familiarize themselves with at least enough Cyrillic to know their village name—and even more important, their surname—when they see it.

(If you think finding an obscure village on a map is exciting, imagine how cool it is to see that village name written in Belarusian or Russian and recognize it! It is well worth the effort to get acquainted with the Cyrillic alphabet.)

What I love most about these maps, not surprisingly, is their detail. I’ve enlarged one section of the Scucin map (about 6 miles north-south and 6 miles east-west), and drawn in a black rectangle to highlight the village of Staro Gierniki. The road leading north out of the small city of Scucin is the single road that passes through Staro Gierniki. Straddling the road are about six old houses on the left and eight on the right. Each is marked by a tiny black square. (My apologies if they blur together a bit in this JPG.)

Babcia's house

My babcia Stefania Ruscik grew up on the second farm on the left. When I visited the village in 2001, her older brother’s son was living in the fourth house on the left (where the black latitude and longitude lines cross on the map).

It amazes me that I can point to a tiny black square on a current map of Belarus and say, “That’s my babcia’s house! That’s where she was born in 1882, and where her family lived for generations before that.”

It’s still there.

As you look at these maps, look at how very many little black squares they display. If your babcia or dziadek came from the Lida area, your ancestral home may be here too.

Polish maps from the interwar period

If maps printed in Cyrillic are a challenge to you, a vintage map in Polish can help orient you to the locations you seek. The Map Archive of Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny 1919 – 1939 offers a wealth of maps from the interwar period when Poland’s eastern borders encompassed lands that are now in Belarus and Lithuania.

Some of these maps are also available in hard copy, and may be purchased from Poland by Mail for about $10. The Nowogrodek map (#47) covers the Szczuczyn to Lida area; the Wilno map (#37) extends from Radun northward.

Serendipity and Staro Gierniki

2009-10-25T18:34:00.002-04:00

This is a story about serendipity and a pink Post-it. Serendipity basically means making a fortunate discovery by accident—kind of like good luck sprinkled with magic dust. Every genealogist I know has a favorite anecdote or two about the role serendipity has played in their research. We love to share these stories because they represent some inexplicable source of help in our quests to learn about our ancestors. To me, serendipity is like some guardian angel dropping a gift in my path, or pointing me in some surprising new direction and whispering in my ear, “Here, look right here!”

Serendipity brought me the pink Post-it affixed to the Scucin/Szczuczyn area of the Belarusian “Grodno and Environs” map shown here. About 12 years ago, when I was looking for contemporary maps of Belarus, I found this one (along with the Welcome to Belarus map detailed on October 21) online at a now-defunct Canadian Web site that I think was called 411maps.com. I wanted to make a credit card purchase, and since there was no way to do a secure transaction online back then, I had to phone Ontario to provide my card number.

The young woman who answered the phone was quite personable, and I got the sense that this map store, whatever its size, was a warm and friendly operation. I took the opportunity to explain why I was buying these maps, and that I did not read Russian or Belarusian, so I didn’t know how well I would be able to understand this Grodno area map when it arrived.

“Do you know what villages you are looking for?” she asked.

“My grandmother’s village of Gierniki,” I said. “It’s near a small city called Szczuczyn.”

“Ah!” she replied. “No, no, not Gierniki. Your grandmother would have lived in Staro Gierniki. I will put a small label on the map for you, showing the name in the Cyrillic letters and in Polish. Now, are there other locations you would like identified?”

Stunned, I named a couple others, then asked, “But how do you know the village I’m looking for is called Staro Gierniki?” To distinguish when two neighboring and similarly named settlements were founded, Polish village names may be modified by staro (old) or nowo (new).

“That is where I am from, that area. I know the village,” she said simply, as if it were an everyday occurrence for a young Belarusian expatriate in Canada to be handling a credit card transaction on the phone with a Polish American trying to locate a one-street village of 15 houses where her grandmother had been born in 1882.

Really, what are the odds of this happening?

I never learned that young woman’s name, but I think of her every time I see her carefully printed pink Post-its on my map. Over the years, I have become familiar enough with the Cyrillic alphabet not to need these notes anymore, but I keep and treasure them as a testament to serendipity.

Map of Western Belarus: Hrodna (Grodno) Province, 1993

2009-10-21T19:01:00.003-04:00

Shown here is most of Hrodna (Grodno) province in Belarus, bordered on the west by Poland and on the north by Lithuania. (For an enlarged view, click inside the map.) Hrodna is a beautiful, historic old city with a population of about 325,000. About 65 miles (112 km) east of Hrodna (and about 60 miles south of Vilnius, Lithuania) is Lida, with a population of about 100,000. Midway between them is Scucyn (Szczuczyn), population 24,000. Both Lida and Scucyn have functioned as county or district seats at various points in time.

My maternal grandparents came from villages near Scucyn. The family of Aleksandr Prokopowicz lived in Kozarezy, about 7 miles east, and the family of Stefania Ruscik in Staro Gierniki, about 3 miles north of the city. I have traced their roots there back to the 1700s.

My paternal grandparents came from villages near Radun, a town of about 4,500 people, located about 18 miles northwest of Lida. Radun is only about 8 miles from the Lithuanian border and the small city of Eisiskes (Ejszyszki). The family of Julian Prokopowicz most recently resided in a series of small villages to the north and west of Radun; where they lived before the 1890s I do not yet know. The family of Anna Blaszko, however, has roots in Skladance back to at least 1810. That village is very close to Bastuny, east of Radun.

This map, Welcome to / Bienvenu en / Willkommen in Belarus (scale 1:800,000), was published by the Committee of Geodesy of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus in 1993. It is the first contemporary map of Belarus that I acquired, and I have stared at it so much, it’s amazing that I haven’t burned holes in the paper. Although it is not detailed enough to show my ancestral villages, this is my favorite map of today’s Belarus because, first and foremost, the city and town names are transliterated from Cyrillic Belarusian to Latin script, and the map legend is in English, French, and German, so I can read it. Dzieki boze! (Thank God!)

It shows important features like major and minor roads, railway lines, rivers, streams, lakes, forests (in green shading), and the “zone of radioactive contamination” from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine (horizontal orange stripes, very sobering to consider). The customs inspection points near Hrodna, Druskininkai, Salcininkai (Soleczniki), and Pahranieny are indicated by red circles crossed by red bars.

This map came folded in sections, and its creases are now so tattered I expect it to fall apart every time I pick it up. In retrospect, I wish I had made a full-size color copy while it was still in pristine condition. I acquired it 12 years ago through an online map store in Ontario, Canada. The store seems to have gone out of business, and I have never found another source for this map. Detailed English language maps of Belarus are rare. I also have a Ravenstein Verlag road map, Weiss-Russland / Belorussia / Bielorussie (1:750,000), which has locations labeled in both Latin and Cyrillic script and provides an extensive index.

Maps

2009-10-20T21:07:00.000-04:00

I love maps. Love them, love them, love them. For me, genealogy is the perfect blend of many things I love: playing detective to solve mysteries and find the truth of a situation, organizing information so that the big picture is as understandable as the small detail, making cold calls to third cousins who have never heard of me, translating text from foreign languages into English, and spending hours poring over maps. I enjoy genealogy the most when it’s a good balance of show-and-tell, rich with old photos, vintage postcards, maps, and other illustrations that make names and dates come alive.

A photograph captures a moment in time. A postcard preserves a landscape, a building, a passenger ship that may no longer exist. A map identifies exactly where on Planet Earth a family lived hundreds of years ago, thousands of miles away across an ocean. All these images carry enormous power. To me, they’re just plain magical. When I find a family village on a map and touch that place-name on that piece of paper (or stare at it on my computer screen), I feel like I am touching all the generations of my family who lived there. (In the interest of full personal disclosure here, I should note that if I could have one wish—excluding, of course, world peace—it would be time travel.)

Over the past 13 years, I’ve collected a variety of maps that illustrate the geographic area my Prokopowicz families have called home for hundreds of years. It is the Lida region in today’s western Belarus, populated predominantly by ethnic Poles. This territory at various times in history has been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, part of the Russian Empire, part of the Second Polish Republic, part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Depending on the era, maps may label this region Bialorus, Wilno gubernia, wojewodztwo wilenskie, wojewodztwo nowogrodskie, Byelorussia, Belarus. Many Poles still refer to it as part of the kresy, Poland’s eastern borderlands. The most detailed maps of the Lida area—the ones that identify even the smallest villages and hamlets—were created in Polish, German, and Russian. Since this area today shares borders with Poland and Lithuania, villages along the “frontier” are sometimes included in Lithuanian maps as well.

Coming next: Some maps of the Lida area. (A current map of Belarus and a map of Partitioned Poland are among my August 17 posts.)

Where They Came From

2009-10-18T17:48:00.002-04:00

Wilno, Poland. For most of my life, that was as closely as I could pinpoint my grandparents’ birthplaces. I didn’t know that Poland did not exist on the map of Europe when they were born in the 1880s-90s, or that the Partitions of 1793-95 had carved up Polish territory to be claimed and governed by the Prussian (German), Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires. I didn’t know that Wilno was the name of a large province (gubernia) in the Russian Partition, as well as the province’s largest city. I didn’t know that my grandparents actually lived about 65 miles south/southwest of the city in rural villages within Wilno gubernia.

Looking back, I can’t decide whether I’m surprised or not that I knew so little about my grandparents’ birthplaces specifically and about their homeland generally. Growing up in a Polish American household that included my babcia (grandmother) Stefania, I had endless opportunities to ask for details about her early life. But for whatever reason, my babcia’s later years offered no obvious prompts to such conversations—no photos or mementos, no letters from family who had not emigrated, no documents, no stories related without prodding. She died when I was 15 and just on the cusp of a more meaningful curiosity about her past.

My Polish American education

As to Poland in general, it seems that I should have learned a lot academically about this complicated country since I attended a Polish American parochial school for 12 years (St. Mary’s in Worcester). For decades after its founding in 1915, St. Mary’s offered a bilingual curriculum with a strong concentration on all aspects of Polish heritage: language skills, history, the arts, and of course, religion. That emphasis had weakened by the 1950s, when I began elementary school. St. Mary’s offered us baby boomers three years of Polish in reading (I still own a copy of Moja Pierwsza Ksiazeczka) and religion (a bilingual Baltimore Catechism). From fourth grade to high school graduation, Polish was more typically limited to classroom prayers, choir practice, and cultural and religious events. We learned the Polish national anthem, Jeszcze Polska Nie Zginela ("Poland Is Not Yet Lost," first sung in 1795 when the country was partitioned), but we didn’t learn much about Poland’s very recent loss of lands, people, and freedom in World War II and its aftermath.

Where were Polish history and geography? I’m certain they were on the high school curriculum through the 1940s, when St. Mary’s was overseen by Monsignor Boleslaw Bojanowski, a pastor passionate about preserving Polish heritage through education. Certainly Poland’s critical wartime experiences kept the country in high profile in the classroom in that era. Why did Polish history and geography drop from the course of study so soon after? A couple possible reasons, not mutually exclusive, come to mind.

Monsignor Bojanowski, who was born in 1877, retired in 1956 and died eight years later. His waning influence and replacement by Reverend Charles Chwalek mirrored the larger experience of Worcester’s Polonia—the decline of the immigrant generation and the rise of the first generation of Polish Americans, whose lives teetered between ethnic continuity and mainstream assimilation. That generation may have felt more oriented to an American future than a Polish past.

It may be that our first-generation Polish American parents, nuns, and clergy envisioned us learning all about Poland through simple osmosis. After all, many of us grew up in Worcester’s three-deckers with our grandparents and extended family all living under the same roof. It seems that we could have learned a great deal informally from our immigrant elders in the course of daily life. Yet I never asked my babcia the name of her village in Wilno. At St. Mary’s, I learned the Polish national anthem when I was five years old (before the American anthem, if I remember correctly). I never learned the boundaries of the Polish Partitions, or where the Vistula and Niemen rivers flowed, or who was king in 1674. I knew precious little before I got involved in genealogy in 1996, so I was happily surprised to discover that my Polish American home and school life—growing up bilingual and bicultural—had given me a solid base for exploration.

More than map coordinates

Initially, I was thrilled to identify where my grandparents were born, to be able to point to the names of their villages on maps. Before long, though, I wanted to know more than latitude and longitude and administrative divisions. What was life like for them? What did the land look like? the houses? the clothing? What were the area’s resources? its lacks? How did the larger world impact these villages? Why did my grandparents leave?

Learning more about where my grandparents came from is an ongoing challenge. In general, small villages don’t tend to be the subject of detailed historical chronicles. Lengthy works on obscure villages in the Polish kresy (eastern borderlands) are rare, and those translated into English, rarer still. But resources exist in both languages (and in Russian, Belarusian, and Lithuanian as well, though regrettably I don’t read those languages). They range from 19th-century books to 21st-century Web sites, and often include maps, photos, and other illustrations that help bring the past to life. In my next entries here, I will share some information and images to paint a picture of where my grandparents came from: villages affiliated with the Roman Catholic parishes of Szczuczyn, Iszczolna, and Radun in Lida powiat (district) in Wilno gubernia (province) in the Russian Empire. This area fell within the borders of Poland when the nation regained its independence in 1918, but has been within western Belarus since 1945. Such are the vicissitudes of Polish history and geography, subjects that add depth to genealogy.

Ports of Arrival: New York's Ellis Island & Boston

2009-09-05T09:14:00.024-04:00

My maternal grandfather, Aleksandr Prokopowicz, was the first of my direct ancestors to emigrate from Russian Poland to America, arriving at New York’s Ellis Island in March 1910. Nearly three years passed before he was joined by my grandmother, Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz, and their children Paulina and Josef in February 1913. They entered the United States through the Port of Boston’s Hoosac Tunnel Docks in Charlestown. Aleksandr and Stefania’s oldest son, Adolf, completed the family’s immigration when he arrived in September 1913, accompanied by his aunt, Stanislawa Ruscik. They disembarked at the B.&A.R.R. Wharves in East Boston, shown here in a postcard from that era.

My paternal grandparents had not yet married when they emigrated, though it is likely that they were well acquainted, coming from the same parish (Radun, Lida powiat) and having mutual friends there. Anna Blaszko arrived in New York in October 1913, and Julian Prokopowicz in Boston at the B.&A.R.R. Wharves in East Boston in April 1914.

Emigrants arriving in Boston could continue on to their destinations via either the Boston & Albany or Boston & Maine Railroad. In 1913, the fares for train travel within two days of disembarking were 99 cents to Worcester and $2.25 to Springfield. The trip to Worcester ended at Union Station, a mile or so north of the city’s Polish neighborhood. The interior and exterior are shown here in vintage postcards.

In 2005, I had an opportunity to visit Ellis Island with my daughter—a profoundly moving experience. One highlight was seeing our Prokopowicz surname listed on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor. At that point, the wall held more than 600,000 names. About 175 immigrants named Prokopowicz entered this country through Ellis Island. Another 50 or so arrived at the ports of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, while still others came to the United States through Canada.

By Train to Port of Departure

2009-09-04T18:47:00.020-04:00

Pictured below is the train station in Bastuny, Belarus. It was built in 1905 for one stop along the railroad line that ran from Romny (in today's Ukraine) to the Baltic seaport of Libau (now Liepaja, Latvia). My grandmother Anna Blaszko, whose village of Skladance was just a few miles from Bastuny, probably began her emigration to the United States at this train station. Discovering this train station when I visited Belarus in 2001 was bittersweet. It was very emotional to imagine how Anna must have felt saying goodbye to her family here. She never saw any of them again.

Shipping lines provided their passengers with woven wallets to hold their tickets, passports, and other important documents. On the outside, the wallets were imprinted with shipping line contact information, as pictured below. Most important were the addresses of their ticket agents in major cities. In Polish, the Red Star Line here advertises its offices in Antwerp, New York, Warsaw, Wilno, Brest-Litowski, Grodno, Rowno, Libau, Kowno, Lwow, and Gdansk.

Two vintage postcards offer glimpses at Libau's railroad station and harbor in the era when my grandfather Aleksandr Prokopowicz sailed on the Russian American Line's SS Lituania to New York.

Ports of Departure: Hamburg, Liverpool, Libau

2009-09-04T18:29:00.004-04:00

My four Polish grandparents left Europe for North America from three different ports—Libau, Bremen, and Liverpool—and sailed on four different shipping lines—Russian American, North German Lloyd, and White Star and Cunard, respectively. My maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother arrived in New York, at Ellis Island; my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother arrived in Boston.

In previous posts, I attempted to put my grandparents’ experiences in context by linking them to their extended families and their close friends in “migration chains” from 1901 through 1914. Who left for America when? Who welcomed them when they arrived in Worcester, or Maynard, or Lowell? In examining the ships’ manifests for these 46 people, I have developed the following data.

Favored lines and ports

Emigrants by gender: 36 male, 10 female
Shipping line used: Hamburg-American, 20; Russian American, 6; White Star, 6; Holland America, 5; Cunard, 4; North German Lloyd, 2; Red Star, 2; Montreal Ocean, 1
Port of departure: Hamburg, 20; Liverpool, 11; Libau, 6; Rotterdam, 5; Bremen, 2; Antwerp, 1; Glasgow, 1
Port of arrival: New York, 30; Boston, 16

Some correlations are inherent. Shipping lines based their operation in specific ports, with other specific ports constituting their itineraries. They changed their transatlantic routes somewhat over the years, adding or dropping ports as intermediate or final destinations to accommodate business volume and other circumstances. For example, the Russian American Line sailed out of Libau (now Liepaja, Latvia) for Rotterdam and New York, and occasionally Copenhagen and/or Halifax. The Hamburg-American Line was (not surprisingly) based in Hamburg; its North Atlantic routes variously included stops in England and France before reaching New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Quebec, or Montreal.

Women and children to Boston

One particular fact in my family/friends statistics intrigues me: eight of the ten women arrived in Boston, and only two in New York. Of the latter, one (Petronella Bowszys) was married and in the company of her husband and child. The other was my grandmother, Anna Blaszko, single, 20, and traveling independently. Seven of the eight Boston arrivals (single/married women and young girls) traveled on the White Star and Cunard lines, with embarkations at Liverpool, and one on the Montreal Ocean line, boarding at Glasgow.

What does this signify, if anything? I’m still mulling this. Boston, of course, was much closer to their final destinations in eastern and central Massachusetts than was New York. Perhaps it was simply more convenient (closer, faster, cheaper) for their husbands, brothers, uncles, and/or cousins to meet them at the dock in Charlestown or East Boston than at Ellis Island. Perhaps, having experienced steerage conditions themselves, the men wanted to provide their wives, children, and other female relatives as much comfort and security as they could afford. (Cunard’s third-class passengers shared small, simple 4-6-person cabins, rather than cramped, barracks-style quarters; White Star had fairly new ships.)

In any event, arrival in Boston seems preferable to the women and children negotiating their final 200 miles by train from New York to Massachusetts alone. I imagine that being met in Boston and escorted directly to their new home in America would have been a joyous relief, especially for my grandmother Stefania and her sister-in-law Maria, who at that point would have traveled with very young children for thousands of miles for more than two weeks.

From village to voyage

Wherever any of these 46 emigrants began the transatlantic voyage, they needed first to travel from their inland villages to their port of choice. How did they get from Russian Poland’s Lida area—roughly east of Grodno and south of Wilno (today, Vilnius, Lithuania)—to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, or the British Isles?

I’ve heard and read many people’s accounts of their Polish ancestors traveling on foot or by wagon from village to port. To me, that seems most feasible if they lived in the Prussian (German) partition of Poland, or possibly even the Austrian partition (i.e., Galicia). However, it was 625 miles from Lida to Hamburg, and 1,150 miles—part of it across the North Sea—to Liverpool. Even Libau, the closest port, was 265 miles distant.

While I certainly believe my ancestors were as intrepid and adventurous as anyone’s, I’m inclined to think they probably relied on trains for a good part of the overland journey. By 1900, a network of railroad lines extended throughout the western Russian provinces and Europe. Trains linked Wilno and Grodno, and the smaller Lida area towns between them, to the Baltic coast to the north, as well as to Bialystok, Warsaw, and other points westward.

It was possible to arrange rail transport in tandem with ship. As emigration became increasingly big business in the early 20th century, shipping lines became increasingly competitive and sophisticated in marketing themselves to potential customers, even customers with the very limited means of peasant farmers. The companies set up ticket agencies in major eastern European cities. They packaged itineraries to provide tickets for train and ship, plus portside accommodations. An all-inclusive package could be very appealing: all segments were paid and all critical decisions were made in advance. (Similar in concept, really, to driving or flying to a port to board a cruise ship today.)

Shipping line services

The Cunard and White Star lines were notable among companies that offered such packages. Emigrants would take a small “feeder” ship, operated by the Wilson Line, from a Baltic or other northern port to Hull (or some smaller city) on the northeast coast of England. From Hull, a train would carry the emigrants west to Liverpool, where they would finally board a large passenger ship to cross the Atlantic.

The Hamburg-American Line offered similar services, with the transatlantic passage originating right in Hamburg. More than half of my grandparents’ relatives and friends used the Hamburg-American Line. In fact, in that era, Hamburg was Europe’s busiest port of emigration, surpassing formerly dominant Bremen.

Rather different from its competition was the Russian American Line, based in Libau. For people leaving the western provinces of imperial Russia, Libau—210 miles northwest of the city of Wilno, or 265 miles from Lida—was the nearest port, and it was directly accessible via the Libau-Romny rail line. Accommodations, however, were rough, and perhaps considered more suitable to males than to unaccompanied female travelers.

No documents survive in my family to establish with certainty how my grandparents traveled from their Lida area villages to their ports of departure. As with so many aspects of their lives, my conjectures far outnumber my facts.

Immigration Time Line: Julian Prokopowicz & the Linga Family

2009-08-31T11:03:00.002-04:00

When Julian Prokopowicz, my paternal grandfather, immigrated to the United States in 1914, his closest ties appear to have been with the Linga family. Julian (later, Julius) left Russian Poland in the spring of 1914, a few months before the onset of World War I. Just 19 years old, he traveled alone from the Radun area, about 60 miles south of the city of Wilno, to Worcester, Massachusetts. Julian’s parents, Kazimierz and Anna Bogdan Prokopowicz, remained behind, as did his brother Josef and another brother about whom little is known. Would they have followed him to America if the war had not impeded emigration? No letters or other documents survive to help answer that question.

Several other Prokopowiczes did immigrate to Massachusetts. They came from villages within a few miles of Radun, and they settled in Boston. Immigration and naturalization documents have not revealed any connections to Julian. Nor have conversations in recent years with my aunts and uncles, who have no memories of their father’s having had ties to Boston.

Being without family thousands of miles from home could have been a very lonely experience for Julian. Fortunately, members of the Linga family, longtime neighbors and close friends in the Radun area, seem to have filled that void in his life. Julian’s first home in the United States was with Iwan Linga on Kansas Street in Worcester. After their marriage in 1916, Julian and Anna Blaszko Prokopowicz boarded with Maciej Linga and his family on Esther Street. In 1919, Emilia Linga was godmother to Julian and Anna’s daughter Stanislawa. In 1929, Maciej Linga was godfather to their son Joseph. According to a Linga family member who was in Poland from the 1920s through the 1940s, Julian’s mother died in the Linga home in Kiwance, circa 1942.

It seems to make sense, then, to consider Julian’s move to the United States and settlement in Worcester within the context of the Linga family’s chain migration. Details extracted from their passenger lists follow.

May 1901 — Jan Linga
Name on manifest: Jan Linge
Relationship: friend
Ship & shipping line: SS Amsterdam, Holland America
Departure port & date: Rotterdam, May 9, 1901
Arrival port & date: New York, May 21, 1901
Status: age 22, born ca. 1883 in Kiwance, single, laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to N.Y., has $11
Destination: friend, Wincenty Markiewicz, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Kazimir Marcinkiewicz, born in Olkiniki, destination brother Peter Marcinkiewicz, 715 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts

July 1906 — Iwan Linga
Name on manifest: Iwan Linga
Relationship: friend
Ship & shipping line: SS Amerika, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 20, 1906
Arrival port & date: New York, July 1, 1906
Status: age 19, born ca. 1887, single, farm laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a, last permanent residence Jarmastajski?
Finances: brother-in-law paid for passage, has ticket to final destination, has $7
Destination: brother-in-law, Jan Galikowski, 324 Water Street, Mahonoy City, Pennsylvania
Traveling companions: none

February 1909 — Kasimir Linga
Name on manifest: Hamburg, Kasimir Linga; Ancestry, Karinne Linga
Relationship: friend
Ship & shipping line: SS Pennsylvania, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, February 20, 1909
Arrival port & date: New York, March 7, 1909
Status: age 20, born ca. 1889 in Iwance [Kiwance], single, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’4”, fair hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: mother, Maria Linga, Kiwance
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $0/7?
Destination: brother, Jan Linga, Box 50, Wheelwright, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Stanislaw Adamolis [Adamonis], 18, single, farm laborer, contact father Wicenty Adamolis in Kiwance, destination uncle Jan Adamolis, 19 Burton Street, Worcester, Massachusetts; Barnas Romaszko, from Zoharan?, destination Michael Filipowicz, 75 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Record of Detained Aliens: Group 25, Number 4 on manifest, detained “to tel $,” disposition Ry E to Adamonis, 18 Burton Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, discharged March 11, had 4 breakfasts, 5 lunches, 4 dinners

April 1909 — Josef Linga
Name on manifest: Hamburg, Josef Linga; Ancestry, Josef Linza
Relationship: friend
Ship & shipping line: SS President Grant, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, April 3, 1909
Arrival port & date: New York, April 16, 1909
Status: age 30, born ca. 1879 in Wadwernika [Adwiernik, Wilno], married, farm laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’4”, brown hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: wife, Marianna Linga, Wadwernika
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $7
Destination: friend, Adam Sadowski, Box 293, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: undetermined, but two others on page destined for Maynard

May 1913 — Kasimir Linga
Name on manifest: Ancestry, Kazimer Linga
Relationship: friend
Ship & shipping line: SS Potsdam, Holland America
Departure port & date: Rotterdam, May 17, 1913
Arrival port & date: New York, May 29, 1913
Status: age 25, born ca. 1888 in Kivanze [Kiwance], married, farm laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’9”, brown hair, gray eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: mother, Marianna Linga, Kivanze [Kiwance], Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: brother, M. Linga, Esther Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Previously in U.S.: 1909-12, Worcester
Traveling companions: none

September 1913 — Emilia Linga
Name on manifest: Emilia Lingowa
Relationship: wife of Kasimir Linga
Ship & shipping line: SS Arabic, White Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, September 9, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston, September 17, 1913
Status: age 22, born ca. 1891 in Kiwance, married, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’6”, black hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: brother, Kaspar Jodis, Kiwancow [Kiwance, Wilno]
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $12
Destination: husband, Kasimir Linga, 26 Esther Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling with child: Josef, age 1 (born in Worcester)
Previously in U.S.: 1909-12, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Teresa Adamonis, 18, single, farmhand, father Stanislaw Adamonis in Kiwancy, destination, brother-in-law William Kwederowicz, 66 Lamartine Street, Worcester, Massachusetts

January 1914 — Maciej Linga
Name on manifest: Hamburg, Maciej Linga; Ancestry, Macie Lingo
Relationship: friend
Ship & shipping line: SS Furst Bismarck, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, January 3/4, 1914
Arrival port & date: Boston, January 17, 1914
Status: age 29, born ca. 1885 in Radun, married, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’8”, brown hair, blue eyes, “passed med[ical exam]”
Contact in last permanent residence: brother, Stanislaw Linga, Kiwance, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $7
Destination: brother, Jan Linga, 657 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Anton Adamonis, 17, single, 5’6”, brown hair, blue eyes, farm laborer, father Wicenty Adamonis in Kiwance, destination brother Wicenty Adamonis, 654 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Note: in U.S. 1913-22, returned to Poland, returned to U.S. July 6, 1923 on SS Mauretania

April 1914 — Julian Prokopowicz
Name on manifest: Julian Prokopowicz
Relationship: founded family when he married Anna Blaszko in August 1916
Ship & shipping line: SS Koln, North German Lloyd (Norddeutscher)
Departure port & date: Bremen, March 25, 1914
Arrival port & date: Boston, April 9, 1914
Status: age 19, born ca. 1895 in Posada, single, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’3”, blond hair, blond [note: classic manifest error!] eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Kazimierz Prokopowicz, Posada, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $21
Destination: friend, Iwan Linga, 9 Kansas Street, Worcester, Massachusetts [note: this is also Adamonis address]
Traveling companions: none; ship has only about 140 passengers, and Julian is very last one on list
Notation: C/A 1-344915 11/26/41 R.B.

Immigration Time Line: Anna Blaszko & Cousins

2009-08-30T16:24:00.006-04:00

My paternal grandmother, Anna Blaszko, was 20 years old when she left her parents, sister, and brother in Bastuny (or possibly a longtime Blaszko family farm in Skladance) for a new life in America in 1913. In a journey that took more than two weeks by rail and ship, she apparently traveled alone. Her third-class steamship ticket, which cost about $25, was provided by Wicenty Kulikowski, an older married cousin who had emigrated eight years earlier.

Upon her arrival that October, Anna boarded with Wicenty and his wife, Petronella, in Lowell, Massachusetts, and found work in the Boott Cotton Mill. It appears that Anna’s closest family relationships in the United States were with Wicenty (aka William) and his siblings, particularly his brother Karol (Karl) and sister Aniela (Nellie). Anna’s mother, Teresa Bowszys, and the Kulikowskis’ mother, Ewa Bowszys, were sisters; perhaps these two women fostered strong ties among their children.

It is notable that several other maternal cousins—Martin and Petronella Bowszys and Iwan Bowszys, all from Kiwance—settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, as Anna herself did after her 1916 marriage to Julian Prokopowicz. The extent of her contact with them, if any, is unknown. Similarly, I have no documentation of how close she may or may not have been to her paternal male cousins, Jan, Kasimir, and Andrzej Blaszko of Jatowty, who settled in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. The Bowszys and Blaszko links in this migration chain may be weak, their impact on Anna perhaps limited to the general sense of familiar faces disappearing one by one from the towns and farm villages in the Radun area of Lida powiat (county) in Wilno gubernia (province), Russian Poland.

The earliest ship manifests that I have located for the Blaskzo and Kulikowski families date to 1903 and 1904, respectively. Earlier departures may be traced to friends and relatives with different surnames, as in the case of Kulikowski in-law Josef Bedugnis, who joined a Kuczinski stepbrother in Maynard, Massachusetts, in June 1900. Passenger list data extracted for nearly 20 Blaszko, Kulikowski, and Bowszys family members follow.

June 1900 — Josef Bedugnis
Name on manifest: Josef Bedugnis
Relationship: brother-in-law of Kulikowskis
Ship & shipping line: SS Statendam, Holland America
Departure port & date: Rotterdam, May 24, 1900
Arrival port & date: New York, June 4, 1900
Status: age 25, born ca. 1875, single, laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a, last residence Birona? Kowno?, Russia
Finances: stepbrother paid for passage, has ticket to final destination, has $2
Destination: stepbrother, J. Kuczinsky, Watson? Street, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none

April 1903 — Stanislaw Blaszko
Name on manifest: Stanislaw Blassko
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Bulgaria, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, March 24, 1903
Arrival port & date: New York, April 10, 1903
Status: age 25, born ca. 1878 in Wilno, single, laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a, last residence Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $10
Destination: cousin [“brother” also written in], Jan Jarobski?, Wilmington, Delaware
Traveling companions: none

June 1904 — Karol Kulikowski (aka Karl Kulick)
Name on manifest: Karol Kulikowsky; Ancestry, Karal Kulikewsky
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Pennsylvania, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 3, 1904
Arrival port & date: New York, June 16, 1904
Status: age 18, born ca. 1886 [in Jatowty], single, laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a, last residence Marankowy?
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $4
Destination: brother-in-law, Josef Biadugnis [Bedugnis], Box 523, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none
Record of detained aliens: Group 41, Number 17, “tel $,” disposition to brother-in-law Josef Biadingus (Bedugnis), Box 523, Maynard, Massachusetts, discharged June 18, 4:30 p.m., 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners

April 1905 — Adolf Kulikowski
Name on manifest: Adolf Kulikowsky
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Statendam, Holland America
Departure port & date: Rotterdam, April 15, 1905
Arrival port & date: New York, April 25, 1905
Status: age 22, born ca. 1883 in Jatowsky [Jatowty], married, laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a
Finances: brother-in-law paid for passage, has ticket to Boston, has $11.50
Destination: brother-in-law, J. Baduginus [Bedugnis], Box 523, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: wife, Marianna Kulikowsky, 17

April 1905 — Wicenty Kulikowski
Name on manifest: Wicenti Kulika
Relationship: cousin? (possibly unrelated)
Ship & shipping line: SS Pennsylvania, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, April 7, 1905
Arrival port & date: New York, April 21, 1905
Status: age 18, born ca. 1887 in Wilno, single, laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $10
Destination: grandfather, Josef Kulik, Box 523, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Osip Safka and Andre Klischowitz, both destination Maynard, Massachusetts

June 1905 — Kasimir Blaszko
Name on manifest: Kasimir Blaschko
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Patricia, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 3, 1905
Arrival port & date: New York, June 16, 1905
Status: age 25, born ca. 1880 in Yatowtey [Jatowty], single, laborer, able to read/ not able to write, Lithuanian
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a; last residence Jatowty, Wilno gub.
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $7
Destination: brother, Stanislaw Blaschko, 200 Park? Street, Carbondale, Pennsylvania
Traveling companions: brother, Jan Blaszko

June 1905 — Jan Blaszko
Name on manifest: Jan Blaschko
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Patricia, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 3, 1905
Arrival port & date: New York, June 16, 1905
Status: age 20, born ca. 1885 in Yatowtey [Jatowty], single, laborer, able to read/write, Lithuanian
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a, last residence Jatowty, Wilno gub.
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $10
Destination: brother, Stanislaw Blaschko, 200 Park? Street, Carbondale, Pennsylvania
Traveling companions: brother, Kasimir Blaszko

June 1905 — Wicenty Bowszys
Name on manifest: Wicenty Bankschis
Relationship: uncle
Ship & shipping line: SS Patricia, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 3, 1905
Arrival port & date: New York, June 16, 1905
Status: age 32, born ca. 1873, married, laborer, able to read/ not able to write, Lithuanian
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a; last residence Skladanzi [Skladance], Wilno gub.
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $6.25
Destination: nephew, Karol Kulikowski, Box 323, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Stanislaw Waschko [Blaszko], last residence Skladanzi; Jan Waranowski, 20, single, last residence Skladanzi, original destination brother-in-law Aleksandr Bokczinowicz?, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, changed to “NYC, Pol Soc”

June 1905 — Stanislaw Blaszko
Name on manifest: Stanislaw Waschko
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Patricia, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 3, 1905
Arrival port & date: New York, June 16, 1905
Status: age 23, born ca. 1882, single, laborer, able to read/ not able to write, Polish
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a; last residence Skladanzi [Skladance], Wilno gub.
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $6.25
Destination: originally uncle, Adam? Jodisz, 306 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts; changed to “NYC, Pol Soc”
Traveling companions: Wicenty Bowszys, last residence Skladanzi; Jan Waranowski, 20, single, last residence Skladanzi, has $1.50, original destination brother-in-law Aleksandr Bokczinowicz?, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, changed to “NYC, Pol Soc”

May 1906 — Aniela Kulikowska (marr: Nellie Zowalki)
Name on manifest: Ancestry, Anela Kulikewski
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Laurentian, Montreal Ocean Steamship Company
Departure port & date: Glasgow, May 11, 1906
Arrival port & date: Boston, May 21, 1906
Status: age 18, born ca. 1888 in Wilenska (Wilno), single, domestic, not able to read/write
Physical description: n/a
Contact in last permanent residence: n/a
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $20
Destination: cousin, Stanislaw Borscha (Bowszys?), 20 Canon Street, Lawrence, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Adolf Mizkunes, 20, Wilna, destination brother(-in-law?) Piotr Mizkunes, 17 Spring Street, Lowell, Massachusetts; several on page from Wilno, destination Lowell/Lawrence

April 1909 — Boleslaw Kulikowski
Name on manifest: Boleslav Kulikowski
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Pennsylvania, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, April 10, 1909
Arrival port & date: New York, April 24, 1909
Status: age 17, born ca. 1892 in Jatowty, single, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’7”, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Vincenty Kulikowski, Jatowty, Wilno
Finances: father paid for passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $5
Destination: brother, Karol Kulikowski, 888 B…ton? Street, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Viktor Iwaszka, 25, Lopatyczki, father Adam Iwaszka, destination Karol Kulikowski, Maynard, Massachusetts
Record of Detained Aliens: Group 2, Number 16; cause of detention “to tel for $,” RRE, brother Karol, Box 885, Maynard, Massachusetts, discharged April 26, 4:30 p.m., 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners

June 1909 — Martin & Petronella Bowszys & infant son Josef
Name on manifest: Ancestry, Cartin, Petronella, & Josef Bowschis
Relationship: cousins
Ship & shipping line: SS Amerika, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, June 2, 1909
Arrival port & date: New York, June 12, 1909
Status: Martin, age 21, Petronella, 30, Josef, 3 months; all born in Kiwance; married; Martin, farm laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: Martin, 5’5”, light hair, blue eyes; Petronella, 5’, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father-in-law [i.e., Petronella’s father], Wincenty Jodzis, Kiwance, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, have no tickets to final destination, have $4.50
Destination: brother, Piotr Bowschis, 485 Melburre [Millbury] Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none obvious, but several others on page have Worcester destination
Record of Detained Aliens: Bowsckis, Martin, wife, and child; cause of detention “tel $,” RyE, to brother Peter, 481 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, discharged June 14, 3:30 p.m., 4 breakfasts, 4 lunches, 4 dinners
Previously in U.S.: Martin & Petronella, 1903-08, in Worcester, Massachusetts

July 1911 — Kasimir Blaszko
Name on manifest: Kasimir Blashko
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Kursk, Russian American
Departure port & date: Libau (Liepaja), June 20, 1911
Arrival port & date: New York, July 3, 1911
Status: age 30, born ca. 1881 in Jadowty [Jatowty], married, farm laborer, not able to read/write, Lithuanian
Physical description: 5’7”, blond hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: Weronika Blashko, Jadowty, Wilno gub.
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $20
Destination: cousin Jan Blasko, Box 888, Carbondale, Pennsylvania
Traveling companions: Andzej Shuromsky, 50, married, farm laborer, Lithuanian, contact Anna Shuromska, Skladanze, destination brother Jan Zuromski, 40 Central Street, Central Falls, Rhode Island

July 1911 — Adolf Kulikowski
Name on manifest: Adolf Kulikowsky
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Kursk, Russian American
Departure port & date: Libau (Liepaja), June 20, 1911
Arrival port & date: New York, July 3, 1911
Status: age 27, born ca. 1884 in Jatowty, single, farm laborer, not able to read/write, has not been in U.S. previously
Physical description: 5’6”, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: [father] Wincenty Kulikowski, Jatowty, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $20
Destination: brother, Wincent Kulikowsky, Box 885, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Andzej Shuromsky, 50, married, farm laborer, Lithuanian, contact Anna Shuromska, Skladanze, destination brother Jan Zuromski, 40 Central Street, Central Falls, Rhode Island
Notation: 1-267526 9/29/39

July 1911 — Andrzej Blaszko
Name on manifest: Andrey Blaschko
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Lituania, Russian American
Departure port & date: Libau (Liepaja), June 20, 1911
Arrival port & date: New York, July 16/17, 1911
Status: age 17, born ca. 1894 in Yatowtey [Jatowty], single, farm laborer, not able to read/write, Lithuanian
Physical description: 5’6”, dark hair, dark eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: Andrej Blaschko, Jatowty, Wilno gub.
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $4
Destination: brother Jan Blaschko, Box 888, Carbondale, Pennsylvania
Traveling companions: none
Notation: 2-1013409 10/22/42

October 1913 — Anna Blaszko
Name on manifest: Anna Blaschko
Relationship: founded family when married Julian Prokopowicz in August 1916
Ship & shipping line: SS Caronia, Cunard
Departure port & date: Liverpool, October 7, 1913
Arrival port & date: New York, October 15, 1913
Status: age 20, born ca. 1893 in Bastuny, single, servant, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’4”, dark hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: mother, Teresa Blaschko in Bastuny, Kowno [Wilno]
Finances: cousin paid for passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: cousin W. Kulikowsky & wife, 148 Lakeview Street, Lowell, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none
Record of Detained Aliens: Group 10, Number 11, “tel $,” disposition RRE to cousin Wincent Kulikowsky, 148 Lakeview Street, Lowell, Massachusetts, discharged October 16, 4 p.m., 1 breakfast, 2 lunches, 1 dinner
Notation: 1-344918 4/5/41

April 1914 — Iwan Bowszys
Name on manifest: Iwan Bowshis
Relationship: cousin
Ship & shipping line: SS Russia, Russian American
Departure port & date: Libau (Liepaja), April 3, 1914
Arrival port & date: New York, April 19, 1914
Status: age 21, born ca. 1893 in Kiwontz [Kiwance], single, farm laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’6”, dark hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, O. Bowshis, Kiwontz, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: brother-in-law, L. Nadeirs?, 35 Stebbins Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none

Passenger Ships That Carried My Grandparents to New Lives in America

2009-08-24T18:03:00.029-04:00

These vintage postcards and photos depict the passenger ships that carried my Polish ancestors to America. Pictured against a rosy sunset is the Russian American Line's SS Lituania, on which my maternal grandfather, Aleksandr Prokopowicz, sailed from Libau (now Liepaja), Latvia, to New York in March 1910. Launched in 1889 as the Lancashire, the vessel was originally intended as a cargo ship with accommodations for only 12 passengers; it was converted in 1892 to carry 70 passengers.

My maternal grandmother, Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz made the crossing aboard the White Star Line's SS Arabic with her sister-in-law, Maria Prokopowicz, in February 1913. Stefania brought her daughter Pauline, 5, and son Joseph, 2, with her; Maria traveled with her youngest child, another 2-year-old named Joseph. They were among a thousand passengers traveling in steerage (third-class accommodations). In August 1915, the Arabic was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland.

In September 1913, Stefania's 18-year-old sister, Stanislawa Ruscik, sailed from Liverpool to Boston on the Cunard Line's SS Franconia with Aleksandr and Stefania's oldest son, Adolf, 14. He had apparently been ill and unable to make the trip with his mother and siblings earlier that year. He fared better aboard ship than his aunt, who was seasick most of the trip. Throughout her life, Stanislawa spoke of how well Adolf tended to her during the voyage. The Franconia was a relatively new ship, having made its maiden voyage in 1911. Of its 2,850 passengers, 2,200 traveled in steerage.

The Cunard Line's SS Caronia is represented here in two images: a postcard depicting a crowd at the landing stage in Liverpool, and a black-and-white photo of the ship at sea. The Caronia and the nearly identical Carmania were dubbed "the pretty sisters" of the North Atlantic route when they were launched in 1905. My paternal grandmother, Anna Blaszko, then 20 and single, sailed from Liverpool to New York aboard the Caronia in October 1913.

The North German (aka Norddeutscher) Lloyd Line operated the SS Koln, launched in 1899. My paternal grandfather, Julian Prokopowicz, 19 and single, sailed on its Bremen to Boston route, March 25-April 9, 1914. The German shipping company maintained that the Koln and its six sister ships were a significant improvement over earlier models in having portholes installed to afford better light and ventilation in steerage. The Koln could carry 1,850 third-class passengers.

Immigration Time Line: Aleksandr & Stefania Prokopowicz & Extended Family

2009-08-24T10:11:00.018-04:00

Who began the chain of migration that ultimately led my maternal grandparents, Aleksandr and Stefania Prokopowicz, and their three children, Adolf, Paulina, and Jozef, from Wilno to Worcester? Passenger lists for their siblings and some in-laws and cousins help to establish the time line. To date, I have located the manifests documenting the immigration of the following 19 relatives:

Alexandr’s brother and his family — Jozef and Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz and their children Stefania, Michal, and Jozef
Stefania’s siblings — sister Stanislawa Ruscik and brother Ignacy Ruscik
Alexandr’s cousins — Bronislaw and Bronislawa Nowicki
Jozef’s brother-in-law — Wladyslaw Tomczyk
Maria’s siblings — brothers Ksawery and Jozef Baniukiewicz
Maria’s cousins — brothers Mieczyslaw and Czeslaw Baniukiewicz

The earliest emigrant in this group is Ignacy Ruscik, who left Wilno gubernia in 1909. The latest is Czeslaw Baniukiewicz, who sailed in June 1914, two months before World War I broke out in Europe and effectively shut down emigration. The men left singly, in stages. The women and children generally traveled in groups, and all sailed in 1913. All the women and children, and the single man accompanying children, arrived in Boston, on ships of the White Star, Hamburg-American, and Cunard lines. This total of 12 significantly outnumbered the 7 Ellis Island arrivals of men who sailed on New York routes of the Hamburg-American, Russian American, Holland American, and Red Star lines.

Most members of the Prokopowicz, Baniukiewicz, Ruscik, and Nowicki families ultimately settled in or near Worcester. A notable exception was Stefania’s younger brother, Ignacy Ruscik, who set out initially for Ohio but instead made his home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Brothers Aleksandr and Jozef Prokopowicz were both established in Worcester by the time their wives and children arrived in the fall of 1913. But passenger lists reveal that these immigrants originally set their sights on Maynard, Braintree, Pepperell, and Boston, Massachusetts. Maynard in particular seems to have been a popular destination for emigrants from the Szczuczyn area of Wilno. The Assabet woolen mill had its share of labor issues in those years, and it is conceivable that Poles were being recruited in Europe to replace the workforce’s feisty Finns.

Why the eventual relocation to Worcester? More research would be illuminating here, but it’s obvious that New England’s second largest city had thousands more industrial jobs to offer an unskilled immigrant labor force. It also had a large Polish parish with plans to build an elementary school, and a strong social, retail, and professional network to meet the needs of its substantial Polish-speaking population.

Summarized below are details extracted from the Prokopowicz, Baniukiewicz, Ruscik, and Nowicki passenger lists, presented in chronological order. The given names of girls and single women are followed by the names they later used in marriage. Middle names distinguish two cousins close in age; they were known in adulthood as Joseph Stanley Prokopowicz and Joseph Michael Prokopowicz.

April 1909 — Ignacy Ruscik
Name on manifest: Hamburg Emigration List, Ignaz Rust; Ancestry, Ignaty Rust
Relationship: younger brother of Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Badenia, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, March 16, 1909
Arrival port & date: New York, April 3, 1909
Status: age 19, born ca. 1890 in S. Gernik [Staro Gierniki[, Wilno, single, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’6”, brown hair, gray eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Antoni Ruscik, S. Gernik [Staro Gierniki]
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $5
Destination: friend, Josef Melsosky?, Sandusky?, Ohio
Traveling companions: Bronislaw Leszik, 19; Geronim Kasnady, 31; Antoni Maskewicz, 29; all from Gierniki area

March 1910 — Aleksandr Prokopowicz
Name on manifest: Aleksandr Prokapowitz
Relationship: husband of Stefania Ruscik
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Lituania, Russian American
Departure port & date: Libau (now Liepaja), March 15, 1910
Arrival port & date: New York, March 30, 1910
Status: age 31, born ca. 1879 in Kozarezy, Wilno, married, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’7”, fair hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: wife, Stefania Prokapowitz, Kozarezy, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $15
Destination: cousin, W. Soroka, Box 1065, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Juljan Czernjak, 29; Jury Stupekewitz-Demid, 19; Awgustin Fisejukewitz, 23; Ossip Primak, 26; Michail Eljorchewitz, 31; all single, from Wilno, with destination Maynard, Massachusetts (27 of 30 passengers on page were from Wilno)

May 1910 — Ksawery Baniukiewicz
Name on manifest: Xavier Baniukiewicz; Ancestry, Haver Baninkiewicz
Relationship: younger brother of Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Potsdam, Holland America
Departure port & date: Rotterdam, May 21, 1910
Arrival port & date: New York, May 31, 1910
Status: age 22, born ca. 1888 in Lapate [Lopaty], Wilno, single, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’9”, blond hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Josef Baniukiewicz, Lidzkiego [Lida powiat], Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $30
Destination: friend, Josef Filipczyk?, Box 676, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none
Notation: P-1437/1045-Boston 6/4/37 1-141864 1/17/35 (or 38?)

November 1910 — Mieczyslaw Baniukiewicz
Name on manifest: Miceslaw Baunkewicz
Relationship: cousin of Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Grosser Kurfurst, North German Lloyd (Norddeutscher)
Departure port & date: Bremen, October 22, 1910
Arrival port & date: New York, October 30/November 1, 1910
Status: age 19, born ca. 1891 in Szczuczyn, Wilno, single, waiter?, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’6”, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Jan Baniukiewicz, Szczuczyn
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $16
Destination: ? Morduch Woronowski, 9 Poplar? Street, Boston, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Anton Baniukiewicz, 28, married, wife Katarzyna Baniukiewicz in Krzynowce, Grodno, destination Boston
Notation: 1-63184

April 1911 — Jozef Prokopowicz
Name on manifest: Osip Prokopowitz
Relationship: older brother of Aleksandr Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Zeeland, Red Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, April 11, 1911
Arrival port & date: Boston (Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Charlestown), April 20, 1911
Status: 37, born ca. 1874 in Kosare [Kozarezy], Wilno, married, laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’4”, fair hair, blue eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: wife, Maria Prokopowitz, Morga, Russia (Wilno)
Finances: paid for own passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: K. Basinkiewitz [Baniukiewicz], Box 96 Braintree, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none, but several passengers from nearby villages
Per UK Incoming Passenger Lists: Osip Prokopwitz , laborer, Russian, sailed 3rd class from New York on the SS Caledonia, arriving in Glasgow on December 10, 1911, holding through ticket to Prostken, Suwalki; traveling with Josef Wasiliuk

June 1911 — Bronislaw Nowicki
Name on manifest: Bronislaw Nowitzky
Relationship: cousin of Aleksandr & Jozef Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Birma, Russian American
Departure port & date: Libau (Liepaja), June 6, 1911
Arrival port & date: New York, June 21, 1911
Status: age 22, born ca. 1889 in Kemjany [Kiemiany], Wilno, single, laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’3”, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: Iwan Nowitzky, Kemjany, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: uncle, F.? J.? Mikijanetz (Mikijaniec), Box 751, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none

February 1912 — Jozef Baniukiewicz
Name on manifest: Osip Benikewitz
Relationship: younger brother of Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Amerika, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, February 18, 1912
Arrival port & date: New York, February 27, 1912
Status: age 22, born ca. 1890 in Lopaty, Wilno, single, farm laborer, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’11”, dark blond hair, blue eyes, scar on left cheek
Contact in last permanent residence: father Josef Benikevitz, Lopaty, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to Boston, has $16
Destination: brother, Ksaweri Benikewitz [Ksawery Baniukiewicz, Box 196, Paper Mill (corrected to East Pepperell), Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none, but several on list from Orla

February 1913 — Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz
Name on manifest: Stefania Prokopowitz; Ancestry, Stefenca Sedkopenitz
Relationship: wife of Aleksandr Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Arabic, White Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, January 28, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Charlestown), February 8, 1913
Status: age 30, born ca. 1883 in Kasarety [note: actually born in Staro Gierniki], Wilno, married, housewife, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’ 4”, black hair, brown eyes [note: had blue eyes]
Contact in last permanent residence: friend, M. Prokopowitz, Kasarety [Kozarezy]
Finances: husband paid for her and children’s passage, has ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: husband, Alex Prokopowitz, 93 Lamartine Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling with children: daughter Paulina, age 5; son Osip (Jozef), age 2
Traveling companions: sister-in-law, Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz, and nephew, Osip Prokopowicz

February 1913 — Paulina Prokopowicz (marr: Pauline Londergan)
Name on manifest: Pawlena Prokopowitz
Relationship: second child of Aleksandr & Stefania Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Arabic, White Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, January 28, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Charlestown), February 8, 1913
Status: age 5, born ca. 1908 [note: actually born July 1906] in Kasarety [Kozarezy], Wilno
Physical description: none (child)
Contact in last permanent residence: M. Prokopowitz, Kasarety
Finances: father paid for passage, has ticket to final destination
Destination: father, Alex Prokopowitz, 93 Lamartine Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: mother, Stefania Prokopowicz; brother, Jozef Prokopowicz; aunt, Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz; cousin, Jozef Prokopowicz

February 1913 — Jozef Prokopowicz (Joseph Stanley Prokopowicz)
Name on manifest: Osip Prokopowitz
Relationship: third child of Aleksandr & Stefania Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Arabic, White Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, January 28, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Charlestown), February 8, 1913
Status: age 2, born ca. 1911 [note: actually born July 1909] in Kasarety (Kozarezy), Wilno
Physical description: none (child)
Contact in last permanent residence: M. Prokopowitz, Kasarety
Finances: father paid for passage, has ticket to final destination
Destination: father, Alex Prokopowitz, 93 Lamartine Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: mother, Stefania Prokopowicz; sister, Paulina Prokopowicz; aunt, Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz; cousin, Jozef Prokopowicz

February 1913 — Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz (2nd marr: Mary Golubowski)
Name on manifest: Maria Prokopovitz; Ancestry, Maria Peskaponeitz
Relationship: wife of Jozef Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Arabic, White Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, January 28, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Charlestown), February 8, 1913
Status: age 36, born ca. 1877 in Kasareti [note: probably born in Lopaty], married, housewife, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’ 4”, black hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: daughter, Stefania Prokopowitz, Kasareti [Kozarezy]
Finances: paid for her and her son’s passage, has no ticket to final destination, has $6
Destination: husband, Josef Prokopowitz, 15 Lamartine Street, Box 6, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling with child: son Osip (Jozef), age 2
Traveling companions: sister-in-law, Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz; niece, Paulina Prokopowicz; and nephew, Jozef Prokopowicz

February 1913 — Jozef Prokopowicz (Joseph Michael Prokopowicz)
Name on manifest: Osip Prokopowitz
Relationship: third child of Jozef & Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Arabic, White Star
Departure port & date: Liverpool, January 28, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Charlestown), February 8, 1913
Status: age 2, born ca. 1911 [note: actually born August 1910] in Kasarety [Kozarezy], Wilno
Physical description: none (child)
Contact in last permanent residence: older sister, Stefania Prokopowitz, Kasareti
Finances: mother paid for passage, has no ticket to final destination
Destination: father, Josef Prokopowitz, 15 Lamartine Street, Box 6, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: mother, Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz; aunt, Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz; cousins Paulina & Jozef Prokopowicz

May 1913 — Bronislawa Nowicki (marr: Bessie Kozlowski)
Name on manifest: Ancestry, Bromslawa Novicky
Relationship: cousin of Aleksandr & Jozef Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Franconia, Cunard
Departure port & date: Liverpool, April 29, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (B.&A.R.R. Wharves, East Boston), May 7, 1913
Status: age 22, born ca. 1891 in Schzuzin [Szczuczyn], single, servant, not able to read/write
Physical description: 5’4”, black hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: friend Nowiski? in Schzuzin [Szczuczyn], Wilno
Finances: passage paid by brother, has ticket to final destination, has $25
Destination: brother, Bronislaw Novicky, Box 751, Maynard, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: Marie Harbin, 26, of Schzuzin, father Michal Sobol?, destination cousin Michalina Jabielskaya, Box 751, Maynard, Massachusetts

September 1913 — Stefania Prokopowicz (marr: Stella Nadolny)
Name on manifest: Stefania Prokopowicz
Relationship: first child of Jozef & Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Cleveland, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, August 26, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Commonwealth Pier, South Boston), September 5, 1913
Status: age 10, born ca. 1903 [note: actually born March 1901] in Kasarety [Kozarezy], Wilno
Physical description: dark blond hair
Contact in last permanent residence: grand-uncle, Jozef Tomczik, Kazarczyn
Finances: father paid for passage
Destination: father, Jozef Prokopowicz, 89 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companion: uncle, Wladyslaw Tomczik, age 24

September 1913 — Michal Prokopowicz
Name on manifest: Michal Prokopowicz
Relationship: second child of Jozef & Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Cleveland, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, August 26, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Commonwealth Pier, South Boston), September 5, 1913
Status: age 9, born ca. 1904 [note: actually born September 1903] in Kasarety [Kozarezy], Wilno
Physical description: dark blond hair
Contact in last permanent residence: grand-uncle, Jozef Tomczik, Kazarczyn [Kozarezy]
Finances: father paid for passage
Destination: father, Jozef Prokopowicz, 89 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companion: uncle, Wladyslaw Tomczik, age 24

September 1913 — Wladyslaw Tomczyk
Name on manifest: Wladyslaw Tomczik; Hamburg Emigration List, Wladislaw Tomchik
Relationship: brother-in-law of Jozef Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Cleveland, Hamburg-American
Departure port & date: Hamburg, August 26, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (Commonwealth Pier, South Boston), September 5, 1913
Status: age 24, born ca. 1889 in Kazarczyn [Kozarezy], single, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’6”, dark blond hair
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Jozef Tomczik, Kazarczyn [Kozarezy]
Finances: brother-in-law paid for passage
Destination: brother-in-law, Jozef Prokopowicz, 89 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: niece and nephew, Stefania & Michal Prokopowicz

September 1913 — Adolf Prokopowicz
Name on manifest: Adolf Prokopowicz
Relationship: first child of Aleksandr & Stefania Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Franconia, Cunard
Departure port & date: Liverpool, September 16, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (B.&A.R.R. Wharves, East Boston), September 24, 1913
Status: age 9, born ca. 1904 [note: actually born March 1899/1900] in Gernika [Staro Gierniki], Wilno
Physical description: none (child)
Contact in last permanent residence: grandfather, Antoni Rusz in [Staro] Gerniki, Wilno
Finances: father paid for passage, has ticket to final destination
Destination: father, Aleksandr Prokopowicz, 6 Bigelow Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: maternal aunt, Stanislawa Ruscik, age 18

September 1913 — Stanislawa Ruscik (marr: Statia Budnik)
Name on manifest: Stanislawa Rusj
Relationship: younger sister of Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Franconia, Cunard
Departure port & date: Liverpool, September 16, 1913
Arrival port & date: Boston (B.&A.R.R. Wharves, East Boston), September 24, 1913
Status: age 18, born ca. 1895 in Gerniki [Staro Gierniki], Wilno, single, servant, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’4”, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Antoni Rusz in Gerniki, Wilno
Finances: brother-in-law paid for passage, has ticket to final destination, has $4
Destination: brother-in-law Aleksandr Prokopowicz, 6 Bigelow Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: nephew, Adolf Prokopowicz

July 1914 — Czeslaw Baniukiewicz
Name on manifest: Czeslaw Baninkiewicz
Relationship: cousin of Maria Baniukiewicz Prokopowicz
Passenger ship & shipping line: SS Kroonland, Red Star
Departure port & date: Antwerp, June 20, 1914
Arrival port & date: New York, July 1, 1914
Status: age 19, born ca. 1895 in Serneczyn (Szczuczyn), Wilno, single, farm laborer, able to read/write
Physical description: 5’8”, brown hair, brown eyes
Contact in last permanent residence: father, Jan Baniukiewicz, Szczuczyn, Wilno
Finances: paid for own passage, has ticket to final destination, has $17
Destination: brother, Mieczyslaw Baniukiewicz, 65 Millbury Street, Worcester, Massachusetts
Traveling companions: none

From Wilno to Worcester

2009-08-23T10:59:00.003-04:00

Why did my grandparents leave Wilno, and why did they settle in Worcester? Despite all the research I’ve done over the past 12 years, I don’t have satisfying answers to these basic questions. I never will. The only people who could have spoken from the heart about their life experiences, beliefs, aspirations, and motivations were my grandparents themselves, and it is decades too late to ask them.

When I began tracking their emigration from Russian Poland to the United States, locating their names on passenger lists was challenge enough. Not impossible, thanks to Soundex codes and National Archives microfilms. My cousin/genealogy mentor John had already found the manifests for our shared grandparents, Aleksandr and Stefania Prokopowicz. Hours spent at the Worcester Public Library (which had the Boston passenger lists on microfilm) and more hours at an LDS Family History Center in Oxford, Maine, successfully turned up the documents for my paternal grandparents, Julian Prokopowicz and Anna Blaszko.

“Chain migration.” “A better life.” In Polish, emigracja za chlebem—literally, “emigration for bread.” These facile phrases sum up the how and why of the “second great wave” that carried millions of immigrants across the world to American shores between 1870 and 1920. About 2 million Poles, most from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, immigrated to the United States between 1890 and 1920 (or, perhaps more accurately, between 1897 and 1913). The Polish “wave” crested in 1913 with the arrival of nearly 175,000 immigrants, my two grandmothers among them.

Seeking context

I have scanned images of passenger ships and ports to illustrate my grandparents’ immigration experiences. The manifests provide the basic details: ship names, dates and ports of departure and arrival, some personal data recorded in various columns, and even the names of apparent travel companions (my conjecture, based on their having the same birthplaces and/or destinations). But I want to give my grandparents’ experiences the context they deserve and give substance to those two well-worn phrases, “chain migration” and “a better life.”

To that end, I have also located passenger lists for my grandparents’ known relatives, as well as for friends who may have some still-to-be-revealed family connection. I mull my grandparents’ personal motivations for leaving their parents and (some) siblings behind in their quest for whatever “a better life” meant to them. This has me analyzing fragments of family stories and cobbling them together with facts gleaned from my ongoing (and admittedly inadequate) study of their era in Russian Poland and the early-20th-century United States. The fact remains that I will never uncover their inner drives, though I may better understand their circumstances.

Links in the migration chain

The experiences of my maternal grandparents, Aleksandr and Stefania Prokopowicz, are intertwined simply because they had been married for more than a decade before they emigrated. Sometimes in-laws traveled together. Sometimes aunts or uncles shepherded youngsters to parents already in America. Chain migration introduces these families to the story: the Ruscik, Baniukiewicz, and Nowicki surnames are prominent.

My paternal grandparents may be treated separately, since they were both single young adults when they set out for America. Julian Prokopowicz was 19, and Anna Blaszko, 20. One thing they had in common was that they both left their parents and all their siblings behind, and never saw them again. To me, this seems like an unspeakably heart-wrenching reality. To my knowledge, Julian had not even a cousin in the United States. His closest relationships in his newfound home in Massachusetts were with the Linga family, who had been friends and neighbors in Kiwance. Anna was a link in a migration chain initiated by the Kulikowski family of Jatowty, who were her maternal cousins. Some of her paternal Blaszko cousins also immigrated, but settled in Pennsylvania, and I have no evidence that they maintained any close connection in this country.

A migration chain is somewhat like a set of Russian nesting dolls—each character reveals the next. With nesting dolls, however, the number is finite. With chain migration, each character reveals another, who reveals another, who reveals another, who reveals another. Someday when I run out of ancestors to research, I would like to determine exactly who the first person was to leave Szczuczyn for America. But even if I accomplish that, I will still never really know why.

Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, aka St. Mary's

2009-08-19T09:57:00.051-04:00

Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, also known as St. Mary's, was founded in Worcester in 1903. My Prokopowicz families have belonged to this parish for nearly a century, since their respective arrivals in Worcester. My parents and all their U.S.-born siblings were baptized here (nearly all by Rev. Boleslaw Bojanowski, pastor for about 40 years), as were many of my cousins and I. Many of our weddings and funerals have been held here as well. These postcards and photographs depict our beautiful church over the course of its first century.

The church was built on Richland Street, a gracefully tree-lined street that ran uphill between Millbury and Vernon streets. Interstate 290 construction in 1959-60 altered this setting dramatically. Richland Street was truncated and cut off from Millbury by the highway, which runs so close to the church that priests complained to officials that heavy traffic was causing the stained-glass windows to vibrate. The rectory was moved from Richland to Ward Street, the original outdoor shrine was destroyed, and the graves of the first two pastors were transferred from the churchyard to Notre Dame Cemetery.

The parish used the timing of the expressway project to its benefit in expanding the church to increase seating to 1,200 and build new meeting rooms and other facilities in the basement. Some of the exterior's original architectural detail was lost to modernization. A large new outdoor shrine was designed by then-pastor Monsignor Charles Chwalek, a man of considerable artistic talent.

While many ethnic parishes have closed in the past few decades, Our Lady of Czestochowa has remained strong and vibrant. New generations of Polish immigrants have joined longtime member families in maintaining Polish traditions here, and English and Polish alternate as the languages in which Masses are held.

The vintage postcards depict the church in its early years. The black-and-white photo, taken from behind the chain-link fence of Ward Street School, dates to about 1950. In the other black-and-white photo, the graduates of St. Mary's High School Class of 1964 and the parish priests pose before the new shrine. I took the color photos in 2003, during the parish centennial celebration. Visible in the lower left corner of the exterior shot is green signage for Interstate 290 Kelley Square Exit 13. On the right side, trees hide the parish rectory from view. The interior, shown from the choir loft, displays some banners of parish organizations, flags, and anniversary signs.

Notre Dame Cemetery: Alexander Prokopowicz Family

2009-08-18T14:22:00.014-04:00

When Alexander Prokopowicz died in 1939, he was buried in Notre Dame Cemetery Section B, Lot 90, alongside his brother Joseph, who died in 1927. The large plot, owned by Joseph's family, marks the graves of several of his descendants. Stefania Prokopowicz was buried, in accordance with her wishes, in a single grave, St. George Section Lot 702. The cremains of son John were deposited there in 1986. In niches near the entrance of the Notre Dame Mausoleum are the cremains of son Joseph, who died in 2001, and daughter Josephine, who died in 2008. Son Adolph, who died in 1952, is interred at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Webster, and daughter Pauline, who died in 1985, in Brockton.

Notre Dame Cemetery: Julius Prokopowicz Family

2009-08-18T13:18:00.008-04:00

A family plot at Notre Dame Cemetery, Worcester, is the final resting place of Julius and Anna Prokopowicz and several of their descendants. Their youngest child, Annie, age 5, died from injuries sustained in a tragic traffic accident in July 1940. When Julius passed away suddenly in July 1951, Annie's remains were moved to join his in St. Theresa's Section, Lot 168, pictured here. Anna was buried here in 1976, and son Julius in 1998. Another marker notes the loss of son Lucien in 1982. Son Alphonse, who died in 1989, and other family members have niches in the cemetery's mausoleum. Also pictured are family, friends, and other mourners attending Julius's burial services, which were arranged by the Isador S. Mikoloski funeral home.

Millbury Street: Julius & Anna's Homes

2009-08-18T09:47:00.021-04:00

Julius and Anna Prokopowicz moved several times during their marriage. Worcester city directories, Julius's World War I draft registration form, and the 1920 and 1930 U.S. censuses document the progression. The 1918 draft document lists home as 658 Millbury Street. The 1919 city directory indicates Julius and Anna were boarding with the Linga family at 25 Esther Street. The 1920 census shows the couple and their children, Alphonse and Stacia, at 617 Millbury Street. They had taken in four boarders, identified as Anna's cousin Aniela (Nellie) Kulikowska, Anthony Ryngiewicz, Joseph Waitkuss, and Josie Chronslivicz.

By 1925, children Vitella and Julius had been born, and the family had moved to 611½ Millbury Street; by 1926, to 585 Millbury. Here, with the births of Jane, Joseph, Lucien, Daniel, and Ann, the family grew to its full complement of nine children. In 1940, the Prokopowiczes moved to 320 Millbury Street, where Anna lived until her death in 1976.

Photo identification

Pictured here are some of the Prokopowicz homes. Photographed ca. 2003 is the unornamented double three-decker at 611½ Millbury Street, on the corner of Maxwell Street. The house at 617 Millbury, between Maxwell and Esther streets, was torn down sometime after 1970.

Oldest son Al is shown standing in front of 585 Millbury Street in May 1937. Both 585 and 583 Millbury, which housed Sawicki's Market on the corner of Fifth Avenue, were also demolished decades ago. A car wash, pictured ca. 2003, then filled those lots. A photo from atop Fifth Avenue looks down on Millbury Street, the wooded bank obscuring the Middle River (which flows into the Blackstone), and the College of the Holy Cross on the hill beyond. The three-decker at 320 Millbury Street was photographed ca. 2003 from the berm of Interstate 290.

Meade Street: Alek & Stefania's Home

2009-08-18T08:07:00.008-04:00

Aleksandr and Stefania Prokopowicz began renting the third floor of the three-decker at 2 Meade Street shortly after she and their three children, Adolf, Pauline, and Joseph, arrived in the United States in 1913. The couple's two other children, John and Josephine, were born in this home. The family resided here until late fall 1941.

In the black-and-white photo taken in 1940, Stefania, now widowed, stands in front of her home with a neighbor's child. The color photos show 2 Meade Street ca. 2003. The home is a classic three-decker with a flattened bay and front and side porches; it is sided with brick on the west.

Meade Street is one of several densely built residential streets bounded by Lafayette and Lamartine streets in the heart of the Island district. The Prokopowiczes lived near the corner of Lafayette, a street once bustling with small groceries, taverns, dentist offices, barber shops, other businesses, and the Polish National Alliance hall. At the other end of Meade Street stood Lamartine Street School, Worcester Fire Department Hose Company No. 7, and Worcester Police Station No. 2.

Worcester's Polish Neighborhood, 1945

2009-08-17T09:45:00.003-04:00

This map shows most of Worcester's Polish neighborhood in 1945. Life centered on Millbury Street, which was not only the hub of Polish social, retail, business, and professional life, but also the city's second busiest shopping district for many decades. Only Main Street itself, with its large department stores, was more active. The spiritual focus of Polonia was Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, whose church and schools were on Richland Street. Over the years, Green Street (north of Kelley Square) was home to the Polish Falcons at White Eagle hall and to the Polish-American Veterans of World War II. The Polish National Alliance hall was on Lafayette Street in the Island district. Thousands of immigrant Poles made their home in three-deckers in the Island and Vernon Hill neighborhoods, which lay between Quinsigamond Avenue on the west and Providence Street on the east. American Steel & Wire South Works was located at the intersection of Millbury, Vernon, and Providence streets, just beyond the southernmost part of this map. The wire mill was the single largest employer of the immigrant Poles. Crompton & Knowles and other factories located near Quinsigamond Avenue and Cambridge Street were other major employers.

The family of Aleksandr and Stefania Prokopowicz lived at 2 Meade Street on the Island from about 1913 to 1941. After their 1916 marriage in Lowell, Julian and Anna Prokopowicz boarded with the family of Charles Linga at 25 Esther Street, a few blocks from the wire mill. As they started a family, they moved to 617 Millbury Street, inched northward to 611 1/2 Millbury, then 585 (on the corner of Fifth Avenue), and finally 320 Millbury Street (near Canton Street and Crompton Park), where Anna lived until her death in 1976.

Map of Poland Showing Former Partitions

2009-08-17T09:11:00.003-04:00

This map, which I created for use in Worcester County's Polish Community (Arcadia, 2007), shows today's boundaries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and the Slovak and Czech republics. The dark, crossed dashes indicate the boundaries of the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian partitions (ca. 1793-1918). The cities shown here highlight the areas of origin of many immigrants who settled in Worcester County, Massachusetts. (In the Prussian partition, Poles came primarily from the Poznan area and settled in Webster and Dudley.)

Map of Belarus

2009-08-17T07:52:00.003-04:00

This United Nations map of Belarus reflects national boundaries established in 1945. The area that is now western Belarus was for centuries home to an ethnic mix of Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians, Jews, and Tartars. During the partitions of Poland, this area fell within the boundaries of the Russian Empire's Wilno gubernia (province). All my grandparents identified themselves as coming "from Wilno." My paternal grandparents, Julian Prokopowicz and Anna Blaszko, came from villages northwest of Lida. My maternal grandparents, Aleksandr Prokopowicz and Stefania Ruscik, grew up in villages located midway between Lida and Grodno (today called Hrodna). Lida is about 60 miles from Vilnius, Lithuania (Wilno) to the north and Hrodna (Grodno) to the west.

Julian & Anna Prokopowicz

2009-08-16T17:59:00.004-04:00

Julian Prokopowicz and Anna Blaszko were married August 20, 1916, at Holy Trinity Church in Lowell, Massachusetts. Standing directly behind the bridal couple is Anna's cousin Aniela Kulikowska. Although the others are unidentified, it is likely that Aniela's brother Wicenty Kulikowski is among them, as Anna lived with his family when she arrived in the United States in 1913.

Aleksandr & Stefania Prokopowicz

2009-08-16T17:29:00.012-04:00

At left, Babcia Stefania Ruscik Prokopowicz holding Basia, 1947. They are seated in the kitchen at the family home in Worcester. Hanging from a hook at upper right are some potholders that Stefania crocheted.

At right, the only known photograph of Aleksandr Prokopowicz, taken at his death in 1939.

The Prokopowicz Surname

2009-08-16T10:10:00.002-04:00

Although I myself am descended from two distinct Prokopowicz families, for most of my life I was under the impression that this was an unusual or rare Polish name. I had never encountered it outside of Worcester, or outside of my own families. Combing through Soundex cards at the National Archives in Waltham, Mass., in my early days in genealogy, I was quite surprised to find some 187 records of Prokopowicz arrivals at Ellis Island. There may have been more; my hand was cramped from note-taking and my mind was reeling, so I stopped at that point. (Today I could get a speedy, effortless, more accurate count via Steve Morse's invaluable Web site, http://www.stevemorse.org.) I was thrilled to have located the arrival data for my maternal grandfather, Aleksandr Prokopowicz, especially since my mother had always maintained that "no one in our family came through Ellis Island."

The notion of 200 or so Prokopowiczes was overwhelming: Who were they all? Where did they come from? How many, if any, were related to me? What did this surname mean? I conducted as much of an investigation as the reference room at the Auburn (Maine) Public Library could provide. Later I summarized my findings in a quarterly newsletter, Prokopowicz Lives & Times, which I had begun for my paternal family. This is what I had learned:

The root of Prokopowicz is a Greek first name, Prokopios/Procopius/Procopio, which comes from the root words pro, meaning "before, in front," and kope, meaning "cut." Prokopios signifies "advance, progress," or someone who is a pioneer. The name became widely known in 303 CE when an early Christian named Prokopios suffered martyrdom in Palestine during the persecutions dictated by the Roman Emperor Diocletian. This early martyr was greatly venerated in the Orthodox Church. A first name derived from Prokopios is Prokop. As Greeks emigrated to Russia, Prokop became Prokofi.

In the 11th century, another Prokop founded the Sazaba Abbey in Prague. He became the patron saint of Bohemia. Much of the popularity of Prokop as a first name in eastern Europe may be traced back to the veneration of this saint. As various cultures there embraced the name Prokop, it took on new forms and spellings, including Brokof in German, Prokupek and Prucha in Czech, and Prokopczyk in Polish.

Thousands of Prokopowiczes, not necessarily related

Surnames evolved in more recent centuries, and one common type in eastern Europe was the patronymic—a name that signified parentage by combining a father's first name with an ending that meant "the son of." Thus, Prokopowicz developed to indicate someone who was "the son of Prokop," akin to Johnson standing for "the son of John." Just as there were many men named John and Johnson, there were many named Prokop and Prokopowicz. Without documentation of lineage through the usual genealogical sources, particularly birth and marriage records, or without DNA confirmation of blood ties, there's really no reason to assume that all people who bear the same surname are related.

According to A Dictionary of Surnames, -ovich was the standard patronymic ending in what are now Belarus (formerly Bialorus, Byelorussia, or White Ruthenia) and Ukraine (eastern Galicia, Red Ruthenia). Poles familiarly refer to this region as the kresy—the eastern borderlands of Poland during the interwar years, 1922-39, and earlier, from the 14th century until the late-18th-century partitions, part of the Kingdom of Poland and the subsequent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Authors Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges say that -owicz is an "explicitly Polish" surname ending. William F. Hoffman in Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings, 2nd ed., rev., reports that 2,737 residents of Poland in 1990 bore the name Prokopowicz. To my knowledge, no tally exists for its occurrence in Belarus, Lithuania, or Ukraine, where it is found as well.

At any rate, there are thousands of Prokopowiczes worldwide today, and records of who knows how many in church and civil records of the past. I have paid closest attention to the ones listed in my chief genealogical resource, microfilms of 18th-19th-century baptismal, marriage, and death records of the Lida and Radun dekanaty (deaneries, or groups of parishes) of the old Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilno. The Prokopowicz surname appears in a number of parishes whose churches are often within walking distance of one another; the parishioners' home villages were equally close. Among them all, who was related? Puzzling this out is an ongoing project. One of my goals for the coming weeks is to consolidate my parish findings and share them here.

My Two Prokopowicz Families

2009-08-14T23:10:00.003-04:00

Polish Worcester

I grew up in a culture that was uprooted from rural villages in partitioned Poland, packed into trunks, carried across the Atlantic in steerage, and re-created in the three-decker-lined streets of Worcester, Massachusetts. An industrial city, the second largest in New England, Worcester in 1920 was home to about 180,000 people, 72 percent of them either foreign-born or the children of foreigners. People of nearly 30 nationalities became U.S. citizens in Worcester in the early 1940s. Through the 1960s at least, the dominant ethnic groups—the Irish, Swedes, French Canadian, Italians, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, Armenians, and Greeks—all laid claim to their own fairly clearly demarcated neighborhoods, typically centered around churches and synagogues. To me, this multicultural city was a magical place, rich in exotic foods, traditions, and languages. I felt like I was growing up in Europe.

Close enough. I grew up in a bilingual household, all of us speaking Polish with my babcia (grandmother), who shared our home. My parents were the first members of their respective families to own property in America. In 1941, they bought a small home on Pakachoag Hill in Quinsigamond Village, a Swedish neighborhood (though in point of fact, 5 of the original 14 households on our street were Polish American) at the southern end of the city near Auburn and Millbury. The Polish neighborhood was a two-mile car or bus ride north. Its heart was Millbury Street and its soul, Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, aka St. Mary's. Millbury Street was the hub of social, retail, and business life for the thousands of Poles and Polish Americans who lived in its two neighborhoods, The Island and Vernon Hill. My family has belonged to Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish and its various organizations for nearly a century. Several generations of us have graduated from St. Mary's Elementary and High Schools; we're proud to have been educated by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth at New England's only co-ed Polish secondary school.

I am descended from two apparently unrelated Prokopowicz clans. Hopefully, DNA someday will establish whether any blood ties link these two families, who for hundreds of years lived within 35 miles of each other in the Lida district of the kresy (Poland's eastern borderlands), then independently crossed an ocean to settle within 5 blocks of each other in Worcester. If they are related, I may be my own cousin. (This I hope would prompt a call from Oprah.)

While my father's and mother's Prokopowicz families shared the same surname, the circumstances of their lives bore little similarity to each other.

My Maternal Prokopowicz Family

My maternal grandparents, Aleksandr Prokopowicz and Stefania Ruscik, both born ca. 1880, were from small farming villages near Szczuczyn, about 35 miles east of Grodno and southwest of Wilno. They entered an arranged marriage at ages 20 and 16 or so, respectively. By all accounts (including that of my grandmother herself, who told me she had been in love with the village schoolteacher), they had an incompatible, unhappy marriage. Their first child was born ca. 1899. A daughter and son followed. In 1910/11, Aleksandr and his older brother, Jozef, sold the family farm to their two younger sisters and used the money for ship's passage to America. After brief stints in Maynard and New Braintree, Massachusetts, the brothers took factory jobs in Worcester. Their wives and children followed in 1913. More children were born here. My mother, baptized Josefa (but known as Josephine), was the youngest of five siblings. All were educated at the Polish parish school. Alek and Stefania worked steadily in Worcester's industries and resided in the same Meade Street three-decker for about 25 years. They never became American citizens. When Alek died unexpectedly in 1939, he was buried in his brother's family plot in a tree-shaded older section of Notre Dame Cemetery in Worcester. Stefania never remarried, and never wavered from her desire to be laid to rest in a single grave of her own there; her instructions were followed when she died in 1962.

My Paternal Prokopowicz Family

My paternal grandparents, Julian Prokopowicz and Anna Blaszko, both born ca. 1895, were from small farming villages a few miles outside Radun, which in turn is 18 miles northwest of Lida and approximately 40 miles south of Wilno (today Vilnius, Lithuania). It is likely that Julian and Anna knew each other, since they grew up in the same parish. Both were single when they left their parents and siblings behind and immigrated in 1913/14. Julian's destination was Worcester, where he reconnected with the Linga family of Kiwance; Anna's was Lowell, where her Kulikowski cousins had settled. Julian and Anna were married in Lowell in 1916 and established in Worcester before their first child's birth a year later. My father, Alphonse, was the oldest of their nine children; he was 18 when his youngest sister was born in 1935. Julian, his name Americanized to Julius, was a wire drawer at American Steel & Wire South Works for his entire adult life. The family's first home was on Millbury Street, within easy walking distance of the wire mill. They moved three more times over the years, but always stayed on Millbury Street, by 1940 settling into the first floor of a three-decker near Crompton Park. The children attended Millbury Street School and Boys' and Girls' Trade and Commerce High Schools. Julius and Anna became U.S. citizens in the early 1940s. Julius died suddenly in 1951, and Anna remarried within months. She died in 1976. Julius, Anna, and some of their descendants are buried in a family plot at Notre Dame Cemetery.

Relationships, Memories, & the Lack Thereof

My babcia Stefania (also known as Stella) was the only grandparent I was close to. Aleksandr died before I was born, and Julius when I was 4 years old. Though I probably passed Anna's home nearly every day of my life, I never knew her. Perhaps it is not unusual that relationships sometimes get skewed in favor of one side of a family. Whatever the reasons, it is painfully sad. Stefania, a force of nature by any standards, played a major role in my life. I knew Alek and Julius only second-hand, from older family members' stories, and Anna only from occasional phone calls in which I never knew what to say. I have no photos of Stefania before she was in her 50s, and only one of Alek, taken in his coffin. I am grateful to have several photos of Julius and Anna, including their wedding photo, which I treasure.

As a child, I spent a great deal of time with my babcia Stefania. I begged her to tell me stories about her life, especially the farm where she grew up. In retrospect, of course, I wish I had asked more about wedding and baptismal dates and village names and siblings and ancestors, and less about gardens and animals. I did ask better questions as a teenager: Why didn't she wear a wedding ring? Why didn't she ever learn English? I deeply regret never having forged a relationship with Anna. Unlike Stefania, who was given to tearing up photographs and documents, Anna valued hers: the trunk she carried from Poland and an old suitcase held an abundance of photos, greeting cards, letters, notebooks, and other memorabilia. I could have learned so much from her. I could have been as close to Grandma as I was to Babcia.

And so my curiosity about my family's past was fed by the stories Stefania told me, and the stories I never had a chance to hear from Alek and Julius, and the stories I failed to seek from Anna. I was fortunate to have grown up in the midst of a huge extended family (my astrological birth chart has Jupiter in the fourth house—essentially, an abundance of family and blessings related to family; that really resonates with me). My dozens of aunts and uncles and cousins shared many memories and details that augmented what I learned from my parents. A maternal cousin, A. John Prokopowicz, began working on our shared roots in the early 1980s; he became my mentor in genealogy in 1997, encouraging me to research my paternal family lines. Since his death only too soon thereafter, I have often felt his spirit guiding and encouraging me in this quest.

Thanks to LDS microfilms, the resources of countless archives and libraries, helpful listserv "gen-pals," and serendipity, I have traced Alek and Stefania's families to the 1700s and Anna's to the early 1800s. I have visited my ancestral villages, which today lie within the borders of western Belarus, and met long-lost cousins who live there still. But I remain challenged by two major goals: to trace Julian's family roots (his father's family does not appear in the Radun parish records), and to find a photograph of Aleksandr actually taken during his lifetime. The search continues.