Genealogy / Fijalka - born in Izdebki (around 1880) Poland; general history with family names possible? [5]

Waw... I learn a lot. You are doing a great job, thanks!
All this is very interesting and increases my curiosity! I see how much I have to learn about the Polish history and culture...


I see... That's positive! :-) But where can I find this data then? Was it lost during the turbulent history of Poland or is it just not available on the Internet?

Because, as far as I understand, the 1880 records (1878 more precisely) are not available anymore. Is this really lost or is there any chance to find some infomation in one parish somewhere (another town for instance)?


That's what I think/guess too.

As to the "linguistic" part, :-) yes, I confirm that it's a dark L that is normally used (I was just too lazy to copy/paste it as I don't have it on my keyboard)...

Untill now, I thought that the "w" pronounciation was the right one. Now I know that's not exactly true. I definitely need to know how it sounds in the real traditional language. :)

But I am intrigated by a mysterious fact in this name and its variants (Fijalka/Fijalek). The ancestors I was talking about were the parents of my grand-father. He was also recorded with the correct spelling (Fijalka), here, although people were not Polish speakers. However, I found the marriage record of his sister and there she was named "Fijalek" (maiden name). Well, that is certainly not an evidence of the supposed rule with the gender, because all her brothers and parents were named "Fijalka", when her name on this document is "Fijalek" and she is a woman. I tried to explain that assuming that the name reported from the mother's Polish documents was used for all the family ("Fijalka" then), whereas for the sister, maybe the father said the name, and then this other version would have been used (only for her and in the wedding document). But now this assumption proves to be incorrect, so it's really strange...

The easiest way would be to ask them directly, but these people already died and they even went back to Poland a long time ago (and we don't know the descendants)... but that's another topic. :)

Well, I hope I am not taking your time with all my posted messages and my presence is not hiding or hindering other members.
Anyway, thanks a lot again for all the answers to my questions and your help. I really appreciate!

Genealogy / Fijalka - born in Izdebki (around 1880) Poland; general history with family names possible? [5]

Hello Boletus,

Thank you very much for the reply and investigation!

Indeed, this is very interesting. I already saw these Wiki pages about Izdebki and Michal Fijalka, but I appreciate the fact that you shared the information. And it was the 1st time I heard about the Cichociemni elite, thanks, I learned something new!

Michal Fijalka born in Izdebki seems to indicate that people with this surname live in this area, which is confirmed by the data from moikrewni that you pointed out.

Also very nice to see that the information about the Sopel family coincides with this information I got about the birth of my ancestors.

I guess that they lived there during several generations if there is such a concentration of this surname in the area. Their story is probably linked to the region, and it's nice to have such evidences.

I'm grateful for the information you gathered in the databases.
I will keep an eye then on the geneteka.genealodzy site to see if there are new entries.

As to the mixed population, this is also quite interesting. Is there any possible way to know to which religious path they belonged?
How can I deduct if they were Greek Catholics or Roman Catholics, for instance? I mean, I would think they were Roman Catholics, but since you never know, you can also make astonishing discoveries...

From 1840 to 1936, there seems to be only Greek Catholic people. Is that possible? Or does it mean that we don't have anymore the records of the Roman Catholic and Jewish persons? What would be the reason?

I also have one kind of "linguistic" question. I heard that "Fijalka" was the feminine form of "Fijalek" and that men normally bear the second version of the name. So if we stick to this information, in my case, the family name remained "Fijalka" because they were recorded by people who did not speak Polish, so they would have kept the Feminine form of the name.

But on the other side, we have the same version of the name "Fijalka" beared by Michal Fijalka, member of the Cichociemni elite. And also after a quick search on the Internet, you realise that there are several men having the Fijalka surname, so it seems not to be only a variant depending on the gender. Are Fijalek and Fijalka two different surnames? Is there any rule in Polish for that?

I have no clue here, so I would be really grateful if you could help me with this. :)

Sopel is a name on the Ukrainian border. And Slovakia is not that far. I wonder if the name was only Polish or more widespread in the neighboring countries? But this is just a doubt, I have no evidence that would lead me to such conclusion...

Thanks very much again for the help!
Baqbaqiq

Genealogy / Farther born in Poland and i.m looking for his birth place; Szczoczarz name information [7]

Hello,

I am new in this forum and I don't live in UK, so I don't know if my tips will be of any help but here are the tips I can give you from a "local" point of view...

Here, where I live, you normally have the birth place of your parents mentioned in your own birth certificate: son/daughter of ... born on ... in...

If for any reason you are unable to find this kind of information, if you are lucky, you can go the town council (but I don't know if this applies to the UK as well) where some adminstrative documents are sometimes stored about immigrants (actually, the documents they had to fill-in when they arrived to register themselves). This has to be the town council of the first place where they settled down after they arrival...

This is how I personnaly found out the birth place of my own grand parents. It was written in an old document preserved in an old folder.

If he immigrated with some family members, maybe you can try to find their documents too (brothers or sisters for instance).

Good luck!