Russian Poland-what general area would this be?

Hi - New here. I am researching my paternal grandparents and have a question. I found my paternal grandfather, who was born in Poland, in a US census from 1920 and he wrote that he is from "Russia Poland". Does anyone know what general area this would be? He came to New York sometime between 1911 and 1920.

Also, even better, I guess my dad went to Utah and looked up our ancestry as best he could and found that my paternal grandfather came from a town called either Kransnelwitz or Krasnosiek. It was hard to make out the handwriting. Does anyone know where that is because I can't find it so I"m thinking the name has changed.

Sorry for being so longwinded here but there's also a mystery I'm trying to solve. Apparently my great grandfather is the one that sent my grandfather and grand uncles to the USA but for some reason my father seems to think the German's would not allow my great grandfather to go with them. Does that even make sense for between 1911 and 1920, especially if they were in Russian controlled territory? I ask because I found someone with his name on wikipedia and it shows that he had different children born after 1918 and a totally different wife. o_0

Thanks for any and all help you can give me!!!

It is possible that your great grandfather couldn't go to America because Germans didn't allow him to do that. Although he was from territories occupied by Russians, in order to go to America he had to go to German seaports. They were in polish territories occupied by Germany or in Germany (e.g. Hamburg).

Find map of Poland from 1939 and then map of Poland from 1764. Compare eastern border of these two.
Area you looking for should be between eastern border of Poland from 1939 and eastern border of Poland from 1764. Good luck!

As for the territory: it's huge. Russia took about 60% of I Rzeczpospolita Polska (Republic of Poland). These land consist of present: Ucraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and eastern district (powiat) of podlaskie province (województwo). So you would have to look for Krasnosiek? not only in present Poland.

So he wasn't born in Poland, but rather Russia.

As for area - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Poland

@ Delph

did she not say this already?

Its like Tourettes for those two :(

BTW OP
between 1914 and 1918 there was this little thing called World War One, little spats like that can make travel a tad akward between beligerant nations ;)

I found a US draft document for my grandfather dated 1918 so I think he was here by then. I'm going to assume he was sent here before the war, the war maybe being the reason why he was sent away to the US. Kind of ironic that he was drafted into the very war he was sent to avoid but whatever.

Thanks to everyone for all of your help! I can't wait to research the area this weekend! I wish I could speak Polish since most of the websites I've found are in Polish.

I have another question if you don't mind. I haven't seen this document yet but my father said that my grandfather's immigration form, from when he first arrived in the US, has a "K" on it. That's a mystery to us because from what people have told me, that means that he was Jewish. That's all well and fine but my father grew up Catholic, thinking his father was Catholic as well. They had a very distant relationship - he hardly ever saw him and only remembers taking to him two to three times in his life since his dad died at an early age.

So does anyone know what that "K" stands for?

I don't know what K stands for. Maybe you could find some information about your grandfather here: ellisisland.org

Yes, if it was during the First World War and he lived in one of the areas controlled by the German army.

Many Polish people fled because they did not want to fight in the Russian army.
My grandfather did.


Not sure what the K stands for can you give us any more information. Like where it was on the immigration form? Alot of practicing Jews changed over to the Catholic faith as well looking to avoid problems at port.

What people ? What are you talking about ? Can you be precise if you want to learn something you need to provide data not what some mysterious peeps are saying !

K is the most important flat clustering algorithm.

Sorry. The people are friends that I have met that are into ancestry research. i shouldn't have even brought it up because it involves what today is a very derogatory word. Never mind. I haven't seen the document that it's on yet so I don't know what section it is in. Basically what was told to me is that illiterate immigrants who were Christian would place an "X" in the space in question but when jewish immigrants came through they would place an "O" which later would be changed to a "K" by the authorities.

Doesn't make sense if they were hiding their religion to come out with it as soon as they landed at Ellis Island. Anyways I won't ask anything else before having all of my ducks in a row. I was just curious since I grew up Roman Catholic all my life and none of this was ever mentioned to me before.

For what it's worth, there are a numeber of localities in today's Ukraine called Krasnoselka and places in Russian known as Krasnoselsk. Duno if this will help?

Hello,

Names & Places: PolishGen-PIAST, bagnowka, Bialystok.pl,
Podlachia, Central/State Archive/USC Registry

Hello, Again: polish-surnames-origins-meanings - William F. Hoffman

If at the time of this birth his birthplace was in the Polish hands, he was born in Poland. It is possible that the place is in Russia now: a joint decision by Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. has shifted Poland westwards by hundreds of miles right after the end of the WWII.

Krasnosielsk is a county in today`s Belarussia.

The OP said "in a US census from 1920 and he wrote that he is from "Russia Poland"." Given that in December 1920 nobody who had been born in Poland could have been more than two years and one month old and that babies who are two years and one month old can not write, the gentleman in question cannot have been born in Poland.


Such a pity for this theory that the first leader to propose the current western border of Poland was actually the Polish prime minister in 1942.

Note to mods: as the post I quote from has been left in the thread, I have assumed that the topics which it addresses are sufficiently on-topic to be quoted from and replied to.

He was not born in an independet, sovereign Poland, granted, but was born on the Polish soil. No true Pole has ever considered the partitions as legitimate. There is (so far) no independent Scotland, for example, but the Scots come from Scotland, do they not?


He wrote "Russia Poland" to indicate he was from the part of Poland that had been annexed by Russia.

Funny how the partitions also partitioned Poles. Where I used to live it was Austria, my fathers hometown was still Austria but 2km fro the border with Russia. They always saw the Poles on the other side as backward and worse than themselves. I hope nowadays it's changed.

For Bostonlass65:
Most Polish ancestors are considered to be J*wish because of the religion they followed not due to locale. The Catholic religion wasnt really followed over there back then most were either practicing judiaisim, or were some form of Byzantine. Remember you must keep in mind the Roman Empire forced Catholicism on other nations it was not easily accepted nor was it practiced behind closed doors for many.

PS: my polish ancestors were labeled as RussianPolish as well, still a big ol' mystery after 4 yrs of stalking the Kopecki surname lol.

I had the same thing happen. One of my distant cousins lived only miles from the old Galicja border, but even in the 1980s they were referred to by the locals as 'Galony'. Probably that weas meant to have a connotation simialr to redneck or hillbilly in the US.

In big US ciites (think late 1800s/early 1900s) each emigre group set up its own parish on the basis of the paritition they hailed from and people there shared the same customs and regional accent.

Hi Boston Lass-

I just started to do the same with my family and Googled "what was Russian-Poland" and found this site. If you care to catch up, as I find this to be a fascinating search thus far, e-mail me at msccsm123 at gmail.

Cheers!

So bostonlass65-
An update on the whole Russian-Polish question:
Russian- Polish were Polish in decent but ruled by Russian power. Polish territories changed hands so frequently during all of the wars, when our ancestors came to America. These types of Polish ancetors were called the "White Russian", most of these types of ancestors were from Belrussia, which translates to "white russian", and the surrounding areas. Hope this helps.

Wikipedia: Vistula Land

I had similar Russia Poland for my great grandfather. Arrived in 1912 from Poland.

Sorry this is a rather late post but this may be what you're looking for
en.wikipedia.org / wiki /Krasnosielc

Many years ago my maternal grandmother told me the area she was from was always changing hands btwn Poland and Russia. She considered herself to be Russian. Her first entry into the USA show her from Russia. For family reasons she went back to the home country but her final return to the USA country of origin was now Poland. When asked about this was her comment about "always changing". Never found out just what "always" was nor just where this area might have been. Unfortunately any documents that ask where born/from the answer is "Russia". Like that really narrows it down. Darn!

It's a huge area - this map shows how big:

• 
  congress
  
• 
  rozbiory
  

The maps jon posted are great, however they don't put the partitions in context. Second map shows only the situation in 1795, after the 3rd partition.

For some reason I couldn't find any good maps showing the partitions on the outlines of present-day borders (by "good" I also mean the resolution).

A bit of google search and I only have those:

1. Phases of partitions and the situation in 1795. As you can see, none of the present-day Poland was under the Russian rule:



Here's a good map (in Polish) with names of the most important locations:



2. Then the Duchy of Warsaw was established (1807-1815), created by Napoleon Bonaparte:



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Warsaw

Duchy of Warsaw (Księstwo Warszawskie) again:



3. After 1815 it lost a significant territiorial area to Prussia as shown in the German map below (it became the Grand Duchy of Posen)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Posen
and turned into a Russian protectorate. In this phase it was also a duchy but to differ it from the previous phase it was called Congress Poland

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Poland
and was meant to be an autonomy state, but de facto was functioning as a puppet state and later was oficially annexed by the Russian Empire (after the 1863 uprising):



After 1867 it was usually called 'Vistula Land'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula_Land
and (from the link) "in the 1880s, the official language was changed to Russian, and Polish was banned both from official use and education".

Here are maps that show the situation in relation to the present-day borders and a map of Polish borders after the 1st World War:



There's much more to that and yes - the borders were kind of always changing in the 19th century. That period of time was well described by Norman Davies in the volume II of his 'God's Playground' book (a huge publication but strongly recommended to anyone who wants to learn about Polish history!)

I don't know if you ever located the town of origin but from what you wrote, I think it's likely to be Krasnosielc, Poland. More information on JewishGen: jewishgen.org/Communities/Community.php?usbgn=-510753