My grandfather, Teofil Niedziałkowski, had at least three siblings: Franciszek who emigrated to America and established Sky Farm in Sterling, Massachusetts, and two sisters, Karolina and Julianna . Julianna was born in 1874 – a significant time in the history of Partitioned Poland – for just a decade earlier, in January 1863, the ill-fated January Insurrection of the Poles against the occupying powers took place . In its aftermath, the Russian government took steps to “russify” the Poles, and one of those steps was the requirement to keep Polish parish records in Russian . This is the reason many of the documents I have posted here were written in Russian.
The change from record keeping in Polish to record keeping in Russian took place at different times in different parts of Russian-Poland . In the case of the Szwelice parish, the change began in the early 1870s and started with the custom of keeping the records in both Polish and Russian . Later, the records were kept only in Russian.
Julianna Niedziałkowska’s Birth and Baptismal Record was one of the documents written in both Polish and Russian:
Polish Birth and Baptismal Record for Julianna Niedziałkowska
Russian Birth and Baptismal Record for Julianna Niedziałkowska
Click on the link for a PDF copy of the Birth and Baptismal Record for Julianna Niedziałkowska – 1874 . The record, translated from the Polish, states:
29. Głódki
It happened in the church-owned village of Szwelice on the 22nd day of April / 3rd day of May 1874 at one o’clock in the afternoon that Wojciech Niedzialkowski presented himself, age 30, living in the inherited part of Pomaski, in the presence of Victor Kołokowski, age 28, and Joseph Pecuski, age 31, living in Głódki, and he showed us a female child, declaring that she was born in Głódki yesterday at six o’clock in the morning, born to his wife Julianna née Gutowska, age 36; At Holy Baptism performed this day by Father Ignatius Kołakowski, pastor of this locality, the child was given the name Julianna, and her Godparents were Victor and his wife Rosalia Kołakowski . This document was read aloud to the declarants and witnesses and signed by us, because the declarants and the witnesses cannot write.
Rev. Ignatius Kołakowski, Pastor of Szwelice
Maintaining the Public Register
SOURCE: Roman Catholic Parish of St. John the Baptist, Szwelice, Poland. Księga Urodzonych Parafii Szwelice (Book of Births of the Szwelice Parish). 1874. Page 290, Entry Number 29. FHL INTL Film 1958806, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. Text in Polish, translated by Stephen J. Danko.
Notice that the surname of the priest is the same as the surname of the godparents . I suspect they were related to each other.
Although I could have translated the Russian version of this record, I find it easier to translate Polish, and the Polish document does not suffer from the problem of poor transliteration of names and places from Polish to Russian.
Curiously, although her parents lived in the village of Pomaski, Julianna was born in Głódki . On modern maps, Pomaski is called Pomoski Wielki and Głódki is called Pomaski-Głódki.
Copyright © 2006 by Stephen J. Danko
