Deciphering the names of villages and parishes in Polish records, especially when the records are written in Cyrillic, can be difficult. While researching Marianna Czaplicka (daughter of Józef Czaplicki and Domicela Roman) I found two marriage records for her:
Using Geneteka, finding Marianna’s two marriage records was easy. Finding her birth/baptismal record, however, proved to be more difficult, because it was not indexed on Geneteka. According to her marriage records, Marianna was born in about 1852. The indexes on Geneteka show that nine of Marianna’s siblings were born in the parish of Krzynowłoga Wielka between 1838 and 1860, but no children of Józef Czaplicki and Domicela Roman born anywhere in Masovia between 1849 and 1857 appeared in the indexes.
The marriage record for Aleksander Telesfor Dziliński and Marianna Czaplicka provides the following information about Marianna’s birth:
I had a difficult time figuring out the names of the village and parish. I could see that the phrase in Marianna’s marriage record was: въ деревни [?] прихода [?], translated as “in the village of [?], parish of [?]” which explains why I couldn’t find Marianna’s birth and baptismal record in the parish of Krzynowłoga Wielka. However, I could see that the name of the parish looked like “Weczfnia” and, indeed, there is a Roman Catholic parish in Wieczfnia Kościelna. This is where I looked next.
Unfortunately, the birth/baptismal records for Wieczfnia Kościelna from 1838 to 1854 are missing. I won’t be able to find Marianna’s birth and baptismal record, but I can at least try to figure out what the name of the village was.
The name of the village definitely starts with a “P”. I searched maps of Poland at https://mapa.szukacz.pl/, but couldn’t identify a village in the vicinity of Wieczfnia Kościelna that I thought matched the village listed in Marianna’s marriage record.
Fortunately, the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr in Wieczfnia Kościelna has a website at https://www.parafiawieczfnia.pl/, and there is a page entitled “About Us” where the names of the villages served by the parish are listed:
Bąki, Bonisław, Chmielewko, Grzybowo, Jabłonowo Adamy, Jabłonowo Dyby, Jabłonowo Maćkowięta, Kapuśnik, Kuklin, Kulany, Michalinowo, Pepłowo, Pepłówek, Pogorzel, Turowo, Turówek, Uniszki Gumowskie, Uniszki Zawadzkie, Wąsosze, Wieczfnia Kościelna, Wieczfnia Kolonia, Windyki, Zakrzewo, Załęże
With this information, I can now see that the village where Marianna was born was Pepłówek.
I don’t have the exact dates of Marianna’s birth and baptism, but at least I know that Marianna was born in about 1852 in Pepłówek and was baptized in Wieczfnia Kościelna.
Copyright © 2024 by Stephen J. Danko
