The village of Płoniawy is significant in my family history because Płoniawy was the parish for the village of Chodkowo, the location in Poland in which many of my Chodkowski ancestors lived. The parish in Podoś was moved to Ploniawy in 1828.
Austrian Military Map of the Płoniawy Area – 1910
SOURCE: Third Military Mapping Survey of Austria-Hungary, Sheet 39-53, Ostrolecka. Online http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/topo/200e/39-53.jpg; downloaded 08 May 2010.
Słownik Geograficzny Entry for Płoniawy
Source: Chlebowski, Bronisław, Władysław Walewski, and Filip Sulimierski, eds., Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i Innych Krajów Słowiańskich (Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and other Slavonic Countries) – Warsaw 1887, Volume VIII, pages 309-310.
Click on the link for a PDF copy of the Słownik Geograficzny entry for Płoniawy. Translated from the Polish, the entry reads:
Płoniawy1.) a village in the Maków Powiat, Gmina and Parish of Płoniawy, 12 versts [0.66 miles per verst] from Maków. It includes a parish church of stone, an elementary school, a municipal office, a windmill, and a poultry farm. In the year 1827, it belonged to the parish of Podoś and had 19 homes and 141 residents. The church and the parish were in erected in the year 1376 by Junosza, the owner of Zaborowa and Płoniawy. In the year 1653, the pastor of Płoniawy and the owner of the nearby village of Podoś moved the parish in Płoniawy to the chapel in Podoś and it remained there until 1828. In the year 1828, the owner of Płoniawy, Józef Młodzianowski erected a new stone church in Płoniawy. In the year 1853 Walentyna Łysińska erected a stone church in the village of Podoś. In this same parish, being 80 feet in altitude at its highest point in the village of Krzyśewo Nadrzeczne, Waleryan Modzczyński raised and completely finished a little stone church with three altars in the year 1883. The parish of Płoniawy in the Maków Deanery has 3889 souls. In the year 1884, the property of Płoniawy consisted of the granges of Płoniawy, Zblicha, and Prace; the villages of Płoniawy and Zblicha. The extent of its dominion included 1922 morgs [in the Russian partition 1 morg = 1.388 acres], 16 morgs of pastures, 87 morgs of forests, 23 morgs of wastelands, altogether 684 morgs; 9 stone buildings and 17 wooden buildings; the Zblicha grange included 488 morgs of arable land and gardens, 56 morgs of meadows, 29 morgs of pastures, 267 morgs of forests, and 18 morgs of wastelands, altogether 858 morgs; 2 stone buildings, 8 wooden buildings, an unsettled forest, and a windmill. The Prace grange, not connected with this property, consists of 380 morgs. The village of Płoniawy has 49 settlers, with 182 morgs of land. The Płoniawy Gmina has 4973 residents, extending 19,144 morgs; the municipal court for the second okręg in the settlement of Krasnosielc, about 7 versts from here. In the Gmina there are 1 distillery, a brewery, a few mills and windmills, a hairdresser, a pitch burner, and a brickyard. Included in the Gmina are 7 villages of the nobility: Babino Wielkie, Budzino, Chodkowo, Kobylin, Krzyżewo, Obiecanowo, and Rogowo together with 14 villages of the peasantry: Cieciórki, Gołoniwy, Jaciążek, Łęg, Młodzianowo, Obłudzino, Płoniawy, Podoś, Retka, Somtrzaska, Szlasy Łosino, Zacisze, Zawady, and Zblicha.
2.) PłoniawyBramura, Maków Powiat, Ploniawy Gmina and Parish.
         Bronisław Chlebowski
The maps of the Third Military Mapping Survey of Austria-Hungary and the entries in the Słownik Geograficzny were prepared at about the same time and make a good pair for studying places in and around the Congress Kingdom of Poland at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, a time period when the Eastern European ancestors of present-day Americans left their homelands for the United States.
Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. Danko
