iGene Award

Alas, I should have expected this!  Best Picture I have.  Best Documentary I have.  But, the other three categories… not so much.  Nonetheless, with a little creative interpretation of the categories and (in one category) a blatant case of backposting to my blog something I had previously posted elsewhere, I am pleased to announce the following winning articles from Steve’s Genealogy Blog in all five categories.

The award for Best Picture goes to Steve in Corsica from my post Ajaccio Cemetery and the Coast of Corsica.  This really was a tough category for me to choose a winner because  I posted several hundred photos on my blog in 2011.  Runners up included photos from St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Knip Beach in Curacao, the outdoor market in Nice, and on and on.  Oddly enough, with all the photos I took and posted on this blog in 2011, the winner is a picture taken by someone else!  Well, at least the subject of the winning photo is devilishly handsome!

Steve in Corsica

SOURCE:  The Author in Corsica (Ajaccio, Corsica, France); photographed by Jim Robinson for Stephen J. Danko on 09 August 2011.

The award for Best Screen Play is awarded to Evita Perón’s Final Resting Place, Buenos Aires which includes photos I took of Evita’s tomb during my visit to Argentina a year ago.  I think I will call the screen play Evita!  OK, so it’s been done.  But my version will include Argentine actress Elena Roger as Evita, Michael Cerveris as Juan Perón, and Ricky Martin as Ché.  What, you say it’s already in the works?  Indeed, it is.  The revival of the musical Evita! with Elena Roger, Michael Cerveris, and Ricky Martin opens on Broadway in March.  If, when you listen to the words Ché sings and wonder what the Casa Rosada (Argentina’s executive mansion) looks like, you can find a picture of that in my post on Casa Rosada and Edificio Libertador, Buenos Aires.

The award for Best Documentary goes to my 15-part miniseries detailing the proceedings at the Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators.  The series started with a post on 24 November 2011 and continued through 08 December 2012.  Individual episodes included:

1. Seventh International Family Tree DNA Conference for Group Administrators
2. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Spencer Wells
3. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Bruce Walsh
4. FTDNA Conference 2011 – David Pike
5. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Peter Hrechdakian
6. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Steve Morse – Part 1
7. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Q&A Panel
8. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Katherine Hope Borges and Alice Fairhurst
9. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Michael Hammer
10. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Elliott Greenspan
11. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Peter Biggins
12. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Steve Morse – Part 2
13. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Jessica Roberts
14. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Richard Hill
15. FTDNA Conference 2011 – Closing Panel

The award for Best Biography is awarded to Wojciech Gutowski, Wojciech’s wife Anna Jabłonowska, and their daughter Julianna.  I have been searching for them for years!  After Donna Pointkouski told me that she found the marriage record of her ancestors online and that they were married in Holy Cross parish in Warsaw, I jumped for joy!  My 2nd great grandmother was baptized in that same church!  Well, not only did I find the baptismal record for my 2nd great grandmother, but I found the marriage record for her parents and the death record for her father!  OK, so this biography is little more than a collection of names, dates, and places, but it’s the best I have for 2011.

Finally, the award for Best Comedy goes to Welcome to GARP.  This is the article that I shamelessly backposted to my blog to make it look like I posted it in 2011.  I had written this article and sent it to the APG (Association of Professional Genealogists) mailing list on 31 December 2011, but I didn’t post it to my blog at that time.  You see, in reviewing the 351 articles I had posted to this blog in 2011, none of them were funny.  Not in the least.  At least some of the members of APG who read my post to the mailing list thought this post was funny and so I recently decided to reproduce it here in slightly modified form.  Or, maybe you had to be there…

Written for the 114th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

Copyright © 2012 by Stephen J. Danko

Over the course of time, the church structure was demolished and rebuilt several times.  The first mention of the church dates from 1510 when a roadside chapel stood at the location of the present church.  On 01 December 1653, the church was transferred to the Congregation of the Mission, a group of friars dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul.

In 1679, the Congregation decided to build a new church.  Construction began on 01 April 1682 when Prince Jakub Sobieski laid the cornerstone and was completed in 1792, 110 years after construction was begun, when four bells were hung in the bell tower.  Just two years later, in 1794, the Kosciusko Uprising broke out, during which the church was heavily damaged.

Holy Cross Church before 1828

SOURCE:  Holy Cross Church before 1828 (Warsaw, Warsaw Obwód, Mazowsze Voivodeship, Congress Kingdom of Poland); image in the public domain.

In 1849, the heart of composer Frédéric Chopin was interred in Holy Cross Church and, in 1929, the heart of writer and Nobel Laureate Władysław Reymont was interred there as well.

During the Siege of Warsaw in 1939, a field hospital was formed in the lower church.  During this time, the church was seriously damaged by bombing and the images of the Great Altar and the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament were destroyed.  On 03 October 1939, the Gestapo arrested the church’s missionaries.  The missionaries were released two weeks later.

On 07 February 1944, the police plundered the church and arrested the missionaries.  Most were sent to the Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp where eight of them died.  The church continued to be under constant attack.  On 06 September 1944, the Nazis detonated two Goliath tracked mines in the church and, in January 1945, a few days before abandoning Warsaw, the Nazis blew up the church tower in which the bells were hung.  Some of the bells were destroyed and the rest were removed by the Nazis.

On 17 October 1945, the urn with Chopin’s heart, which had been removed for safekeeping, was returned to the church.  Reconstruction of the church began in 1945 and the facade was completed in 1953.  The main altar was consecrated in 1969.

On 21 January 2002, Pope John Paul II elevated the status of the church to Minor Basilica.

Holy Cross Church in 2010

SOURCE:  Holy Cross Church in 2010 (Warsaw, Warsaw Powiat, Mazowsze Voivodeship, Congress Kingdom of Poland); photographed by Marcin Białek on 06 June 2010; reproduced under the GNU Free Documentation License.

So, what is the significance of Holy Cross Church to me and my genealogical research?

My third great grandparents, Wojciech Gutowski and Marianna Jedlińska, were married in the Holy Cross Church on 07 October 1832.  As it turns out, genealogy blogger Donna Pointkouski’s second great grandparents, Stanisław Piątkowski and Apolonia Konopka, were married in this same church on 10 May 1863.  Since they were married in the same church, did our ancestors know each other?  Holy Cross Parish was enormous, so I suspect it is unlikely our ancestors knew each other, but who knows?

Written for the 109th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

By far, the most easily accessible and useful records for Eastern European genealogy are the records of Birth/Baptism, Marriage, and Death. After the Council of Trent, Roman Catholic parishes were expected to maintain records of the sacraments, and it is these records that are the earliest extant records for most Eastern Europeans.

The earliest records (from the 17th and early 18th centuries) were maintained in Latin, the language of the Church. Different parishes began to keep these records at different times, and the earliest records contain only a minimum of information.  Sometimes, the records were written in Polish.

With the Partitions of Poland and subsequent political events came changes in the records.

Austrian Partition:  The format and content of the records in the Austrian partition were mandated by the Austrian government. Fairly detailed records, including names of parents and sometimes grandparents were written in Latin in a columnar format. These records were maintained in essentially the same format into the early 20th century. Until 1869, the Roman Catholic parishes were also required to maintain records of the births, marriages, and deaths of non-Catholics, although this requirement was not frequently practiced. The records from the Austrian partition were almost never indexed.

Russian Partition:  After the arrival of Napoleon and the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw, in 1808 a Napoleonic style of record keeping was mandated by the state, which used the parish records as civil registration. Long, detailed paragraphs were written for each birth/baptism, marriage, or death. These records include much information of genealogical value, including names, dates, ages, occupations, names of parents, and names of witnesses. After the defeat of Napoleon and the creation of the Congress Kingdom of Poland, records in the Congress Kingdom continued to be maintained in Polish, using the Napoleonic style. The failed January Uprising of 1863 was to have repercussions, however. By the 1870s, the Russian government required that all official records be kept in Russian, although the Napoleonic format remained intact. Frequently, these records were indexed annually, and a cumulative index was usually prepared every decade.

Prussian Partition:  The earliest church records were maintained in Latin, Polish, or German. There was no state mandated civil registration until 1874, and so the records in the Prussian partition are not as detailed as in other partitions. Records in Roman Catholic parishes were usually written in Latin or Polish. Records in Lutheran churches were usually written in German. These records were rarely indexed.

This article is Part 3 of a three part series that includes:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 1
• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 2
• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 3

A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy is also available as a downloadable PDF document.

Written for the 93rd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy

Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. Danko

Some of the most significant events in the history of Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on the countries of Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Belarus, and Ukraine, include the following events:

• In 966, Mieszko I, duke of the Slavic tribe of Polans, converted from paganism to Christianity. This event would have great implications for future record keeping in Eastern Europe, resulting in church records used by genealogists to trace their ancestry.
• In 1385, the Union of Krewo was signed between Jadwiga, daughter of the King of Poland, and Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Union of Krewo brought the two rival nations of Poland and Lithuania together in a close partnership.
• In 1545, the Council of Trent was convened as a response to the Protestant Reformation. At the Council of Trent, Roman Catholic priests were ordered to maintain records of baptisms and marriages in order to know who had received the sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church.
• In 1569, the Union of Lublin established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the formation of the largest country in Europe. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth encompassed much of what are now Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Belarus. Also included in the Commonwealth were the western half of Ukraine and part of Russia.
• In 1648 the Khmelnytskyi Uprising was a revolt of the Cossacks in Ukraine against the Polish nobility. The uprising significantly weakened the power of the Polish nobility and, as a result, the Commonwealth itself.
• In 1655, Sweden and Russia invaded and occupied the Commonwealth. This period of war and occupation was known as the Deluge, and the Commonwealth was further weakened.
• In 1772, Russia, Prussia, and Austria conspired to take advantage of Poland’s feuding nobles and the weakened position of the Commonwealth itself. The three empires together claimed about a third of the Commonwealth and split the new acquisitions among themselves. This event is known as the First Partition of Poland.
• In 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland, Russia and Prussia again invaded and claimed another third of Poland. At this time, Austria was embroiled with problems within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and declined to participate in the partition.
• In 1795, the Third Partition of Poland was conducted. This time, Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided all remaining lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth among themselves. Austria established a system of civil registration in the territories it controlled, whereby vital records were maintained in Latin by the Catholic priests. Neither Russia nor Prussia established civil registration at this time, but records of births, marriages, and deaths were generally kept by local parish priests anyway.
• In 1807, after Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Prussia, The Duchy of Warsaw was created from territories previously annexed to Prussia from the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Napoleon established a system of maintaining civil registrations maintained by Roman Catholic parish priests who were designated as Civil Registrars.
• In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress Kingdom of Poland was established by the Congress of Vienna. The borders of the Congress Kingdom of Poland were essentially the same as those of the Duchy of Warsaw. Through this action, Poland regained some autonomy. The territory, however, was administered by Russia.
• In 1832, Polish and Lithuanian soldiers and citizens rebelled against the control of the Russian authorities in a revolt known as the November Uprising. The Uprising was crushed by Russia and, as a result, the Congress Kingdom of Poland was officially incorporated into Russia with the Organic Statute of the Kingdom of Poland.
• In 1863, Polish citizens again rebelled against the Russian authorities in the January Uprising and, like the November Uprising, the revolt was crushed by Russia. After the failed January Uprising, Congress Kingdom of Poland ceased to exist, and became the Vistula Land of the Russian Empire.  Russian became the official language for civil registrations and other official purposes.
• In 1918, as a result of World War I and the retreat of Russia from Poland, the Central Powers reestablished Polish independence and the Second Polish Republic was created. The territory of the Second Polish Republic included lands recovered from Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
• In 1939, after secretly agreeing to split Poland between them, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Poland. Slovakia also invaded Poland from the South.
• In 1945, Poland’s borders were redrawn at the Yalta Conference. Poland gained previously German land to the North and the West, but lost considerable land to the East. In the end, Poland had won the war, but lost 20% of its territory and became a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

This article is Part 2 of a three part series that includes:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 1
• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 2
• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 3

A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy is also available as a downloadable PDF document.

Written for the 93rd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy

Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. Danko

Genealogical research in Eastern European countries is frequently approached with uncertainty, if not outright dread. The prospects of trying to find and understand records written in a foreign language coupled with the relative inaccessibility of many of the records in Eastern Europe is certainly reason to give many people misapprehensions of starting to research ancestors from Eastern Europe.

Nonetheless, research on ancestors in Eastern Europe can be conducted by genealogists who know little of the native language as long as three essential pieces of information are known: the name of an ancestor, the approximate year of an event in that ancestor’s life, and the location in which that event took place.

For those who have these three pieces of information, the path to research ancestors in Eastern Europe may be relatively straightforward. The most commonly used records to research Eastern European ancestry are church records and civil registration records. Unfortunately, in most places, the more recent church records and civil registration records may not be open to the public. On the bright side, however, the greatest influx of Eastern European immigrants to the United States occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and their records in their Eastern European homelands may, indeed, be available.

The Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah boasts a collection of over 2,400,000 rolls of microfilm, many of which are microfilmed copies of church records and civil registration records. Several countries in Eastern Europe are well represented in the microfilm collections of the FHL, providing genealogists with ready access to these valuable records through local Family History Centers all over the world. The catalog of available microfilms is online at http://www.familysearch.org/.

Once equipped with the microfilms, one can search the records. Even if a researcher can’t read the language in which the records are written, many are written using the Latin alphabet, and so the researcher can at least recognize the names in the records.

Location, Location, Location

The strategy for finding records in Eastern Europe, whether by searching for them in person, by mail, or by using the FHL microfilms involves, first and foremost, knowledge of the location where the records were recorded. Most commonly, the records were recorded in the church or synagogue to which the ancestors belonged. The location of the vital events in an ancestor’s life, therefore, is one of the most important pieces of information to have.

Americans researching their immigrant ancestors should first research American records to learn names, dates, and locations relevant to their searches for records in Eastern Europe. Such records as census records, draft registrations, birth records, baptismal records, marriage records, death records, obituaries, immigration records, naturalization records, and personal family papers may all provide clues to finding information in Eastern European records.

Even after finding relevant records that list the location for a birth or marriage in Eastern Europe, one must still learn where the ancestor’s church or synagogue was located. Most villages in Eastern Europe do not have a church or synagogue in the village itself, but rather the residents all traveled to a nearby village to attend services. It is in the churches and synagogues that the records were kept, and it is the village in which the church or synagogue was located that the genealogist must find.

The easiest way to find the name of the village in which the church or synagogue was located is to use a gazetteer (geographical dictionary) for the appropriate region and time period. Some examples of gazetteers include the Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Połskiego (Poland and surrounding territories such as Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine), Spis Miejscowosci Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej (Poland), Administratives Gemeindelexikon der Cechoslovakischen Republik (Czechoslovakia), and Magyarorszag Helysegnevtara Ket Kotreten(Hungary). All these gazetteers are available through the FHL and the local FHCs.

Most of these gazetteers are written in the local languages, but many of the microfilmed copies include instructions for use in English. In most cases, the gazetteers provide the location of the parish church or synagogue to which each village belonged. In many Eastern European villages, most residents were members of a single religion: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Evangelical Lutheran, for example. In those locations where the population was divided among two or more faiths, the researcher must know the religion of the ancestor in order to find the correct records.

But the Borders Changed!

Alas, the problem with historic locations is that, throughout history, borders changed as invading armies took possession of new lands and as nations reorganized their administrative structures after establishing strategic alliances with other countries. These border changes and reorganizations affected the types of records maintained, the languages in which they were maintained, and the locations at which they were archived.

By far, the most significant border changes in Eastern Europe occurred in the territories now occupied by Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, although border changes affected every country in Eastern Europe.

This article is Part 1 of a three part series that includes:

• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 1
• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 2
• A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy – Part 3

A Beginner’s Guide to Eastern European Genealogy is also available as a downloadable PDF document.

Written for the 93rd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy

Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. Danko

Still, I didn’t achieve my other three goals, and those three remain on the top of my list for 2010:

1.  Complete the requirements to become a Certified Genealogist. I’ve already completed most of the requirements; I just need to put my package together. Will I be able to complete this goal in 2010?

2.  Recruit a larger participation in the Danko Surname Study and the Niedziałkowski Surname Study, especially the DNA projects associated with those studies. I made some progress in 2009, but I hope to expand my efforts significantly in 2010.

3.  Enter source citation information into my genealogy database. I have been faithful at attaching source citations to the information on this blog, but I’ve been lax at transferring that information to my genealogy software.

4.  Complete a survey of parish records in the area of Poland around Ciechanów and Maków for records of the Niedziałkowski family. I already have records for my Niedziałkowski ancestors back to my 8th great grandfather (born in about 1610), but I’d like to trace more of my Niedziałkowski cousins forward in time, and also document other Niedziałkowski lines that I cannot yet connect to my own.

5.  Complete a survey of parish records in the area of Poland around Lublin for records of the Dańko family. These Dańkos may or may not be related to me, but this effort is part of the Danko Surname Study.

Attempting to achieve these resolutions is a challenging goal for 2010, but I do believe that writing out my goals is the first step toward achieving them.

Written for the 87th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy – New Year’s Resolutions!

Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. Danko

I started this blog on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 at a time when genealogy blogs were few and far between. I searched and searched for genealogy blogs to include in my blogroll and found but a handful. Some of these earlier blogs had apparently not been updated in quite a while, and others touched on genealogical topics only rarely.

One rose among the thorns, however, was Creative Gene, written by Jasia. I found in her a kindred spirit, not only because she was writing a blog about genealogy, but also because she was Polish!  On June 29, 2006, less than three months after I started writing this blog, I wrote a post entitled “Top Ten Reasons to Suspect Jasia and I Were Separated at Birth” . To my delight, Jasia responded with a comment! And then Chris Dunham, author of The Genealogue, responded with a comment! Two of my genealogy blogging idols had left me comments, and all bloggers know how exciting it is to receive comments to your posts.

I remember reading about the Carnival of Genealogy on Jasia’s post dated June 2, 2006, where she described the concept of a blog carnival and, for the first few Carnivals, Jasia mostly hunted down relevant posts herself. The first actual blogger to submit an article to the Carnival of Genealogy was named Joe Kissel whose post really wasn’t related to the theme but, hey, in the days when it was hard to find genealogy blogs, you take what you can get!

The theme for the third Carnival of Genealogy was Immigration, and this theme really got my attention. Immigration is one of my favorite topics. And so, I wrote an article entitled “A New Look at Immigrant Passenger Manifests”and submitted the article to the carnival, hoping beyond hope that my article would be good enough for Jasia to consider including it in the Carnival of Genealogy.  I couldn’t have been more pleased when the Third Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, published on July 2, 2006 included my article!

I didn’t submit another article until Edition 14, where I submitted “My Genealogy Christmas Wish List”, and by then the Carnival of Genealogy was really starting to take off. Eleven bloggers submitted articles to the Carnival of Genealogy, making this edition the first one that Jasia didn’t have to scour the net for relevant posts.

I became a fairly regular contributor after that, submitting articles for 43 of the 84 Carnivals of Genealogy.

But for me, personally, I found that the Carnival of Genealogy encouraged me to think outside my own comfort zone and post articles that I would not have otherwise written. The consequences of that encouragement have been surprising.

I turned my first Carnival submission “A New Look at Immigrant Passenger Manifests” into a lecture, one that has become one of my most popular genealogy lectures, and one that was subsequently featured in Episode 29, Episode 30, and Episode 31 of Lisa Louise Cooke’s “Family History: Genealogy Made Easy” podcasts.

My Carnival submission on “Ethics in Publishing Family Histories” drew comments from a number of genealogy luminaries and was subsequently picked up by a number of different genealogical societies and reprinted in their society newsletters.

My Carnival of Genealogy articles on “An October Day in Second Grade, 1962″, “The Vincentian Institute in Albany, New York”, and “Mrs. Katzman, Children’s Librarian” have turned out to be some of the most popular posts on my blog, drawing wildly enthusiastic comments and emails from other people who grew up in my hometown.

My Carnival article entitled “Can DNA Confirm my Ancestry?” generated emails from two people who, subsequently, had a genealogical DNA test performed and ended up confirming my Niedziałkowski ancestry.

Besides those, some of my favorite posts have included my Carnival posts on “My Galician Grandfather”, “Memories of Grandmother Danko”, and “Born at the Right Time”.

Add to these personal successes, I’ve met so many wonderful bloggers through the Carnival of Genealogy, because the Carnival was really the first real gathering place for genealogy bloggers and, in a sense, was the first social networking tool for genealogy bloggers.

Since the advent of my blog in 2006, the genealogy blogging community has grown substantially, but the foundation of the community will always be the Carnival of Genealogy.

Written for the Carnival of Genealogy.

Copyright © 2009 by Stephen J. Danko

Hobby Horses 1

SOURCE: Hobby Horses 1 (Albany, Albany County, New York). Photographed by Jane A. Danko in 1958 or 1959.

My sister had an identical horse and our neighbor had a similar one.

Hobby Horses 2

SOURCE: Hobby Horses 2 (Albany, Albany County, New York). Photographed by Jane A. Danko in 1958 or 1959.

I remember asking my parents for a horse several times when I was young. The answer was always the same: “We don’t have room for a horse!” Despite the fact that their answer was true, I still wanted a horse. So, they gave my sister and me hobby horses.

No matter that we could pretend to ride around on our hobby horses, it just wasn’t the same, and I don’t remember really having much interest in the hobby horse. I did, however, get a chance to ride on a real horse twice in my lifetime.

Once, when I was very young, a man was offering pony rides and my parents allowed me the chance of my young life to ride. Unfortunately, the pony only walked in circles, very slowly, and my efforts to get the pony to gallop went unrewarded. Who knew that a real pony ride would be little more exciting than riding a hobby horse?

The second (and last) chance I had to ride a horse was at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimmaron, New Mexico. By this time I was in high school and somewhat more prepared for a more exciting ride. Alas! The horses were trained to simply follow the tail of the horse in front of them and our horse ride consisted mostly of a leisurely walk – a four beat gait where the horse always has three feet on the ground. A few times during our ride, I had to urge my horse into a trot – a two beat gait where the horse has two, diagonally opposite feet on the ground at all times.

My experiences with horses never left me with the desire for more. While some of my friends have owned horses and have derived a lot of pleasure from riding their horses, I’m content to watch the equestrian events at the Olympics and the occasional rodeo event.

Written for the Carnival of Genealogy

Copyright © 2009 by Stephen J. Danko

By the time I was born, my family was well integrated into American culture and language. My sisters and I were not taught to speak Polish, although we heard our relatives use Polish to speak to each other, especially when they were talking about something they didn’t want us to hear. Still, certain Polish traditions were faithfully celebrated and a few Polish words were integrated into our language as firmly as if they were English words.

Most Americans are familiar with the Polish words kiełbasa (sausage), and pierogi (dumplings). These Polish words are listed in many dictionaries of the English language, and were certainly part of my family’s vocabulary.

At family gatherings, other Polish words for food occasionally crept into conversations that were otherwise in English – ziemniaki (potatoes), kapusta (cabbage), bułki (rolls or buns), piwo (beer), and gołąbki (stuffed cabbages).

Still other Polish words and phrases entered my family’s vocabulary, and my family uses those words and phrases to the present day.

We use the Polish word dupa meaning one’s anatomical bottom, even though most four-letter English words are carefully avoided. I can still remember hearing my father or my sister call out to me when I dawdled or was slow getting ready for Mass: “Get your dupa over here!”. For my sisters and me, the word is an acceptable alternative to the English equivalent. My family uses the word with relatively wild abandon, although our Aunt Helen still blushes and giggles whenever she hears it.

My family uses the word pieniężny, the Polish word for money, especially when referring to being particular rich or poor (Oh, I wish I had more pieniężny! Boy, he’s just rolling in pieniężny!). When my family visited my Grandmother Danko, grandmother would give each of my sisters and me pieniężny – a clean, crisp dollar bill which, it turned out, she had recently washed, ironed and sequestered under her mattress just for such occasions. She just detested dirty pieniężny.

Speaking of Grandmother Danko: she always called me Staś, the Polish diminutive of the name Stanisław (Stanley). I don’t know if she thought my name really was Stanisław or if she just decided that my name should have been Stanisław, regardless of what my parents named me. My father and sisters still call me Staś, especially when they’re nostalgic or affectionate.

And when our visits with Grandmother Danko were over and we were leaving for the night, my sisters and I would wish grandmother “Dobranoc!” – “Good night!”.

Written for the 54th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy – The Family Language.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen J. Danko

The Family History Library catalog includes seven films with records from Szwelice, Poland. On Wednesday, I examined two of these films: FHL INTL Film 1958806 and FHL INTL Film 1958807.

I acquainted myself with the records included in these microfilms. Each film was divided into several Items, each Item being a single book of birth/baptism, marriage, or death records.

FHL INTL Film 1958806

• Item 1: Births/Baptisms continued from FHL INTL Film 1958805 – October 1867-December 1869
• Item 2: Birth/Baptisms from 1870-1879
• Item 3: Births/Baptisms from 1880-1884
• Item 4: Births/Baptisms from 1885-1889
• Item 5: Marriages from 1826-1853
• Item 6: Marriages from 1853-1881 (film ends in the middle of the records from 1880; it includes 1880 marriages #1-26)

FHL INTL Film 1958807

• Item 1: Marriages 1853-1881 (film begins in the middle of the records from 1880; it includes 1880 marriages #25-28)
• Item 2: Marriages 1882-1889
• Item 3: Deaths 1826-1846
• Item 4: Deaths 1847-1877
• Item 5: Deaths 1878-1885
• Item 6: Deaths 1886-1889
• Item 7: Records from Święcieniec Parish
• Item 8: Records from Święcieniec Parish

When examining these films, I recorded the exact name of the book microfilmed in each item so that I could include these names in my source citations.

Each book included a label on the front cover, describing its contents. These labels appear to have been added at some relatively recent time, since the labels on all the books are written in the same hand.

The books of births/baptisms were titled:

Księga Ochrzczonych
parafii Szwelice
Od #### do #### r

The books of marriages were titled:

Księga Małżenstw
parafii Szwelice
Od #### do #### r

The books of deaths were titled:

Księga Zaślubionych
parafii Szwelice
Od #### do #### r

To cite my sources, I want to use the guidelines described in Evidence Explained (Mills, Elizabeth Shown. 2007. Evidence explained: citing history sources from artifacts to cyberspace. Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Pub. Co.). Although Mills does not provide examples for Polish church records, she does provide a format for German church records (section 7.40). Adapting Mills’ recommendations for German church records to Polish church records, the format for a source list entry should include:

Name of parish (location of parish). Polish-language label created by the filmer. Current location of original register. FHL microfilm number and item number. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The format for the first reference note should include:

Name of parish (location of parish), “Title of book in Polish [Title of book translated into English],” page on which the entry appears, name of individual to whom the entry refers, date of entry; filmed as FHL catalog title; FHL microfilm number and item number.

The format for subsequent reference notes should include:

Name of parish (location of parish), “Title of book in Polish,” page on which the entry appears, name of person to whom the entry refers.

I know the present name and location of the parish: Parafia pw. św. Jana Chrzciciela (Szwelice, gm. Karniewo, pow. makowski, woj. mazowieckie, Republic of Poland). Although the name of the parish changed over the years, I assume I should use the present name and location of the parish in the source citations.

On Wednesday evening, I had recorded the title of the books in Polish and English. By referring to the Family History Library catalog, I learned that the microfilms were made from manuscripts in Warsaw and in the Archdiocesan Archives in Płock.

I still need the Polish-language label created by the filmer, something I’ll have to record on my next visit to the Family History Center. I’ll also need to record the page number and entry number for each record I plan to cite.

With the current trend of genealogy software manufacturers to accommodate source citations that comply with the guidelines in Evidence Explained, I’m looking forward to getting my citations in order!

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen J. Danko