katharine 1 | 1 5 Feb 2011 / #1I am looking for information about my ancestor. My ancestor was a nobleman who's wife had died, leaving him with a very young daughter named Agnieska. The man went with his servant to fight in the Napoleonic war and was killed. His servant returned to the estate and raised the young girl as his own. She grew up thinking he was her father, but when a wealthy businessman from Hungary came looking for a wife for his son, he recognized that the servant was not the nobleman. Agnieska married the Hungarian boy, Anton Szabo, and sued the servant for the return of her estate. All of her underclothes and handkerchiefs were embroidered with a three-pronged crown. Is this story enough to find out her father's name?
Avalon 4 | 1063 5 Feb 2011 / #2You might try the book by the "Brothers Grimm"or "Hans Christian Anderson".
OP katharine 1 | 1 5 Feb 2011 / #3Please don't make fun. I am very serious and I don't know where to look for answers. Apparently there were thousands of Polish nobles killed during the Napoleonic wars, and I don't know how to look for marriage or lawsuit records.
Polonius3 980 | 12276 5 Feb 2011 / #4You haven't got enough to go on. The three-pronged crown was widely used throughout Europe in different coats of arms, so that in itself is no help. You need more clues -- names, places, events, etc. even to get started.
isthatu2 4 | 2692 5 Feb 2011 / #5Sorry,but in all the years this little girl is growing up not one of the neighbours said,"hang on,thats Jacek the servant,not his lordship,Oi,Jacek,WTF you doing living in the dead gentlemans house and why are you raising his daughter as your own,are you some sort of nonce ?"
jonni 16 | 2475 5 Feb 2011 / #6A lovely story. Like a lot of family legends, it may have grown a little over the years, and the reality may be a little less romantic. But still interesting.Agnieszka is an extremely common woman's name in Poland - maybe your best bet is to try a Hungarian forum, looking for Anton Szabo. Details about the region of Poland might help.As for records, a lot of Poles served under (and against) Napoleon, so it would be hard to do anything without a surname. Court records too, not least because WW2 was so destructive in some parts of Poland that many paper records were lost.
isthatu2 4 | 2692 6 Feb 2011 / #7To be honest it sounds a bit like a Victor Hugo story.Im not disputing this has come down as a family story but as jonni says it reeks of having been embelished over the years.The devil in me says this sounds like a fishy story,Rich hungarian returns from trip with bit of fluff for his son.....of course "Daughter of a warrior Nobleman" sounds better than"some floozy I picked up in a tavern near Krakow".....