Marginal Notations

Marginal notations on Polish Church Records were made for a number of reasons including:

• Correction of errors
• Legitimization of out-of-wedlock births
• Adoptions
• Records of marriage
• Records of death

The parish records were maintained according to a fairly strict set of rules which included the content of the record, the language in which the record was to be maintained, and prohibitions against erasing entries.  If the registrar noticed an error in the entry, he made a notation in the margin and marked both the error in the text and the marginal entry with either a forwards or backwards “F”.  An example of this type of marginal entry was noted in the Birth and Baptismal Record for Jan Markiewicz.

The Birth and Baptismal Record of Józef Niedziałkowski included two marginal notations.

Marginal Notations in the Birth and Baptismal Record for Józef Niedziałkowski

Click on the link for a PDF copy of the marginal entries for Józef Niedziałkowski.  The marginal entries, translated from the Polish (although the original document is written in Russian) state:

Józef Niedziałkowski was joined in marriage with the widow Józefa Kotakowska from Pomaski in Trelkowo on the 28th of January 1928
Pastor of Szwelice, Father Godlewski

Józef Niedziałkowski, a widower, was joined in marriage with Anastazja Chełkowska in Trelkowo on the 12th of July 1934
Pastor of Szwelice, Father Chełmiński

My grandfather’s brother, Józef, was married twice, once to a widow, and then after this wife’s death, Józef married again.  Both times, the marriage took place in Trelkowo, not in Szwelice where Józef was born.