Steve’s Genealogy Blog

Yesterday, I posted the Birth and Baptismal Record for Agnieszka Sowa, my great grandmother.  Today, we’ll look at the Marriage Record for Agnieszka’s parents, my great great grandparents, Maciej Sowa and Katarzyna Jachowa.  Their marriage record is the middle record on this image.  If you look carefully, though, you’ll notice that someone with the surname Sowa is mentioned in all three marriage records on this image.

The Marriage Record for Maciej Sowa and Katarzyna Jachowa

Click on the link for a PDF copy of the Marriage Record for Maciej Sowa and Katarzyna Jachowa.  The record shows that:

Page: 47
Number: Not stated
Date: 28 May 1844
House Number: Bride 35 to Groom 105
Groom: Maciej Sowa, farmer, widower left behind after the death of Anna
Religion: Catholic
Age: 34
Marital Status: Widower
Name of Bride: Katarzyna Jachowa, daughter of Wojciech Jach and Jadwiga Markowa, farmer
Religion: Catholic
Age: 24
Marital Status: Unmarried
Witnesses: Wawrzyniec Klepacki and Szymon Zaleski, farmers in Nienadowa
Banns Read: 11 May 1844
Priest: Father Karol Poprawski

This record demonstrates an interesting confounding factor for translating Polish records from the Latin into English.  The given names in this record are written in Latin (Mathias, Catharina, Laurentius, Simon).  I’ve chosen to translate these names into Polish, rather than English, but I easily could have done either:

• Latin = Polish = English
• Mathias = Maciej = Matthew
• Catharina = Katarzyna = Katherine or Catherine
• Laurentius = Wawrzyniec = Lawrence
• Simon = Szymon = Simon
• Hedwig = Jadwiga = Hedwig

The surnames are actually written in Polish, since there really is no Latin or English equivalent for surnames.  Another difficulty, however, is that the surnames of women are usually feminized in Polish.  In this record, two feminized surnames are Jachowa and Markowa.  The male equivalents of these surnames, and the form most often used in English-speaking countries, are Jach and Marek.

When translating these records, I’ve decided to translate the given names and surnames from Latin into Polish, rather than into English.

Notice that this record provides the names of Katarzyna Jachowa’s parents, my great great great grandparents:  Wojciech Jach and Jadwiga Marek.  Unfortunately, the record does not provide the names of the parents of my great great grandfather, Maciej Sowa.

For more details on Polish first names, refer to the Big Book of Names.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Daily Journal, Marriage Records, Church Records, Danko, Sowa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.