The Dańkos of Nienadowa and Wesoła

Back in May, I wrote that I found three passenger manifests that might include the name of my Great Aunt Mary (Dańko) Goliński:

• Marianna Dańko, age 25, from Nienadowa, Austria
• Marya Dańko, age 27, from Nienadowa, Austria
• Marya Dańko, age 22, from Wesoła, Austria

The 27 year old is my grandmother, Marya (Dziurzyńska) Dańko .  The 25 year old is from the right village, but according to my cousins, her age did not match Mary (Dańko) Goliński’s birthdate .  The 22 year old was the correct age, but from the wrong village.

Based on a thorough analysis of all the information I was able to obtain about Mary (Dańko) Goliński, I concluded that my Great Aunt Mary was the 25 year old from Nienadowa.

Recently, Lidia left a comment that sheds some light on the Marya Danko from Wesoła:

Hallo, My name is Lidia, I’m 29 years old. I don’t speak English very well so first forgive me my mistakes.
If I could make your search easier, I must say that is really low probability that Marya Dańko from Wesoła could be your Great Aunt Mary.
My mother’s family lives in Wesoła near Dynów. Maybe both families (from Wesoła and from Nienadowa) are connected but this connection might have very long history. I suppose that we must separate them and continue searching on right direction. Marya could be my mother’s Great Aunt. My mother’s Great Father’s name was Wawrzyniec Dańko. He married Katarzyna Wielgus (?) and they had seven children: Maria (was born about 1914), Ignacy, Tomasz, Józef, Magdalena, Wiktoria (my Great Mother, born in 1919) and Salomea (she’s the only one who lives now). My family lives in Wesoła, Barycz and Ryta Górka. They are family connected with such families like: Majda, Sowa, Kustra.

This helps to clear things up a bit .  Apparently, there was one Dańko family in Nienadowa, and another in Wesoła .  I am related to the Dańkos of Nienadowa and Lidia is related to the Dańkos of Wesoła . Â Based on the information Lidia and I have on our respective ancestors, there is no evidence for a direct connection between the two families, although both Dańko families are related to people with the surname Sowa.

The villages of Nienadowa and Wesoła are, nevertheless, not far from each other .  The Wesoła parish belongs to the deaconate of Dynów, and the village of Nienadowa belongs to the deaconate of Dubiecko .  The two deaconates are adjacent to each other.

Lidia’s message helps to clear up some questions about my Great Aunt Mary, but leads to the question of whether the two Dańko families are related to each other .  With additional research on the two families, perhaps a connection could be found .  Given that the parish records in Poland generally don’t extend back farther in time than the late 18th century, any connection between the two families must have occurred within the last 200 years for parish records to provide an answer to this question.

Yet, it’s still exciting to think that Lidia may be a distant cousin .  Unfortunately, the Family History Library has not yet microfilmed the records from either Dubiecko (where the records for Nienadowa were maintained) or Wesoła and any research on these church records must be conducted at the parishes themselves.

Copyright © 2006 by Stephen J. Danko