Help with FamilySearch

If you need some tutorials for the changing pages on FamilySearch, here is a link to help you and guide you in the use of FamilySearch:

http://familysearchtraining.com/

This is updated quite regularly and keeps you aware of the changes and updates.

Meet Tomek Kassian

It is always exciting to make new friends and contacts through blogging.  I have recently received several emails from Tomek Kassian.  He is the son of the late Wojciech Kassian, who in the 1980's helped the Gralla Family research their information in Rozan, Poland.  He shares a website link http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/rozan/16,relacje-wspomnienia/14134,gita-rachel-starostinecki-about-her-family-before-and-during-world-war-ii/ which is an article in English on war and pre-war history of the family of Rachel Gita, who is associated with the city of Rozan. 

He has also written me about a book from author Tomasz Wisniewski, a Polish historian of Jewish life in Poland.  He has written three books about this topic and is considered an expert in this field.  He has written over 100 articles about the Jews living in the Bialystok region.  He has expanded his research to include research in Israel.  His desire is to preserve the richness and the memory of the Jewish culture and to bring an understanding to the Polish people.
One of his books is titles Jewish life in Eastern Europe before 1939.  Published 1992 in Bialystok.

He has translated some of his father's works for me and has allowed me to share this with you.

Since a past civilization is lacking visible tracks of monuments, I decided to search for other tracks. Unfortunately - nobody of the current residents has photographs from before 1939. In memory of old people live only the names of the Jews, which at that time ruled in the city. On many documents a signature of last Rabin Ruzhan I.

Platkiewitz. Just before an outbreak of war A. Enach was a deputy of the mayor of the city, while lay judge and the host of E. Buchner.

Fates of them are unknown. They most probably died. Searching for the missing past I found my way to register books, from which she is oldest from 1898. Looking them through, I encountered a lot of curiosity. Well, the most curious seem to be registers of birth children. In 1901 parents reported children's birthday from 10 last years and wholesale they wrote - Gral Joset, Gral Yankel, Gral Hana and Gral Lejba.

But the surprise was greater when in the register book from 1919 I found the record stating the Chaim Gral birthday. Mother - Ester Gral from the house Pinwald gave the child of the male sex birth to in 1895. But father Israel Aaron Gral, a shoemaker by profession reported the birthday only when respectable young - Chaim - prepared himself for the marriage and had been 24 years (?)

It is hard in this mess to establish family connections, because that kind of record isn't an isolated case. Mess in the official books complementing the fact, that until gaining independence by Poland, registers were kept in Russian language by the Pole. He used in his spelling, depending on the fantasy letters of the alphabet Latin or Russian.

 

(...) Act of the birthday number two is making a note: "This happened in the city Ruzhan twenty-fourth day of January, one thousand nine hundred and twenty seven, at nine o'clock in the morning. Icek Leib Gral appeared - blacksmith, having thirty years, lived in Ruzhan. He arrived in the attendance of witnesses Orthodox Jews Shmuel Yankel Mastek “schoolman”* (explanation of the term under the article) years thirty eight and Abram Yankel Frydman shochet, counting years fifty eight, in the city Ruzhan residing and showed us a male child, declaring, that such, birth in the city Ruzhan, of day of the seventeenth January of the current year at one o'clock in the afternoon with his wife Cywia from the house of Berembaum, having thirty years, which it the child at the circumcision was given the name Zelek. This act to the trying witness read by them and us was signed. Mayor of the city Ruzhan".

Entering of Germans caused taking Jews away from Ruzhan, of Ciechanow, Mlawa, Dzialdowo to the ghetto in Makow. Assembled performed public works in the day at the clearing of snow or repair of roads, being supposed in the future to run Wehrmacht armies to the East. The ones which didn't want to take inappropriate works beyond to their powers, were forced for her to perform by Jewish police. Germans didn't go the area of the ghetto. All your commands passed the chairman of Judenrat.

One day, hanged for an example were 20 incapable of working. Everyone behaved very quietly, because torturers threatened otherwise to hang next twenty - continues his speech my interlocutor - Mr. Zygmunt Szalkowski. They behaved very civic (sic). During the execution was complete silence.

One of doctors removed the bullet for the shot Jew. Tracks of blood led Germans to the ghetto, they found wounded and it seemed. The doctor was hanged. There was also the other doctor, but left him because didn't know about this matter, but the one second doctor with the wife and two children committed it suicide, when a liquidation of the ghetto was ordered. Then the carts ran it over through the centre of street and everyone had to jump in to them – he finished.

After the war, arrived a few who have managed to keep somewhere. But they took only at the office certificates of lost wealths and left.

Ruzhan has lost all the monuments of the past, the Jewish age. Nobody knows, where the synagogue could stand, nobody knows about fates of former residents, and the total black surrounds the history and tragedy of the Jewish people who so recently inhabited Ruzhan, Makow and district.

The Tourist handbook (National Publishing Agency) from 1984 reported:

"Ruzhan - the city and seat of the municipality, delightfully situated on the right, high edge of the Narew river. (…) they suppose, that already in 12th - of the 13th century here a commercial settlement existed, thriving, thanks to the navigable river. (…) in the period of the occupation Nazis in one of forts created the ghetto in which a few hundred Jews were imprisoned”. Same assumptions, uncertainties, and at the end of the ghetto, and the previously no mention of the Jews.

Therefore, I appeal to Readers from behind border so that send all existing and published materials treating about Ruzhan and his Jewish residents, and we in the room of the Town and Commune Office will organize the several weeks' exhibition, and then we will return publications.

 * “Schoolman” derives from the name of the synagogue in Yiddish

language: shul = school, dawnszul = school prayer. In the literal sense “belong to a synagogue”. Acting is guarding the order and cleanliness in the synagogue. Function honorable and close to the in Catholic Church sacristan, but with a much higher social rank. From this term comes a number of Jewish names created in the Russian zone:

Szkolnik, Schoolman, Szkolkin and other similar.

Sincerely,

Tom Kassian

 

 

 

Rozan 1992.

Gralla home in Kadzidlo, which is in the nearby vicinity.

Gravestones

I like to post cemetery pictures and here are a couple of well known stones.  Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith's gravestones.

And Joseph Smith Jr. in Nauvoo.

And the two little Hofheins children buried in the Old Pioneer cemetery in Nauvoo.

I think this was a shot from the cemetery in Nauvoo.  Wilber W. Gifford.  I don't know him and not sure why I took this.  hmmmm....

More graves in the Smith grave yard.

Adam Pilkington died 1856.  I don't know him either, but a friend of mine, was a Pilkington, and that must have been why I took this...

This is the Nauvoo Pioneer cemetery.  It was very quiet, peaceful and out of the way.

Here is a shot of the Clarence and Elease Hofheins stone in Levan.  Believe it or not, that was Tyson!  Must be an OOOOLLLLDDDD picture!

This is the Levan cemetery.  Just an overview.  And that is all for today!

Online Polish Records Inventory

For my Polish researcher friends:  A good Link can be found.  When you click on the link you can find the records that are available from all over Poland.  More is being added all the time.  So be aware of this great link.

http://www.ksiegi-parafialne.pl/

Lots of good things are going to be happening soon in the way of Polish online records.  Things are moving along!  It is really exciting!

New Family History Library Hours

Well, I have worked many years at the FHL.  When I started it closed at 5:00 pm on Saturdays.  Then someone decided it should be open till 10:00.  Later it was changed to 9:00. And now it has returned to 5:00 pm.  And it now opens at 9:00 am on Saturdays.  So all you FHL users be aware this begins April 13th. What goes around really does "come around".

 Here is a picture of the "old" crew.  Some are now gone, but many still remain. 

As an employee, I like the new hours.  Or the "retro" hours as they were many years ago. 

Exciting news!

Well, I used to be really jealous of my Czech co-worker at the Library.  The reason why this was is the fact that previously the Czech Rep.  went from having no filmed church records to suddenly putting them all online at a no cost website.  I having the need for Polish records, knew that many were available on film, but not much online.  A little for me on FamilySearch, thank goodness, but as a whole, it wasn't much.  My Czech friend was using the online images and everything was going online there and I was a little jealous.  Can you blame me. 

But!  Now I am sharing a link that is made public by the Polish archives:  http://www.archiwa.gov.pl/pl/component/content/article/63-aktualnosci/3539-uatwienia-w-korzystaniu-z-zasobu-archiwow-pastwowych-od-dzi.html .  This link is of course all in the Polish language.  And for those like me, who don't know Polish, do a little "Google translate"  and you will get the jist of the story.  It's wonderful news.  And I can't wait till this all transpires.  I will keep you posted as I hear more that can be shared!

Just Another Tombstone Tuesday!

 

This is the church at Jaryszow in the Strzelce Opolski county.  I have many ancestors from this town.  I have probably already posted some pictures of the cemetery, but here are a few more.

 

 Those lost in the War

Well, having issues uploading pictures again, so I will try another separate blog entry.  If you don't see another one soon, you will know that failed as well.

Well, I got one picture posted...I will keep trying, but blogger is putting up a big fight...

Well, it isn't the cemetery, but it is the parish.  One more try, and then I quit...