Researching Stanislaw Szacik and family

To date, I've spent all of my time at the FHC in Worcester researching the Kizior family line and I've been pretty successful. This research started about a month ago when I ordered 4 rolls of microfilms from the Family History Library which contained the parish records from Zassow Poland. All of the Kizior facts recorded to date, whom lived in the village of Zassow itself, I found on three of the films. That 4th film, one that hold parish records for Wiewiorka where the Szaciks are from, was late in arriving.

Well I finally got the call that it had arrived, and none to soon either. The center is closed for the month of August which means if I were to find anything at all on the Szacik family, Tuesday night the 28th would be my chance to do so. The information that I had recorded so far was pretty good, coming from documents like the will from Stanislaw's father Adam (thanks Lorraine), a Military Passbook that my grandmother had when he served in the Polish Army prior to WWI, a marriage certificate from New Jersey when he married Agatha Kizior, and several records of his death here in Webster, Ma.

The will required some laborious translation and was very interesting to read. It gives you a glimpse into the lifestyle of the Szacik's in the first quarter of the 1900's. It was written in 'old world' Polish and on top of that, it contained the usual language of lawyers. You can't even understand legalese when it's in English never mind Polish! I could write an entire blog on the details of the will which is dated March 1926, and maybe I will, but the important items to note are the names of his children, the prescribed birth-order in which they appear on the document, and the witnesses present at the reading.

His wife is not listed so it is presumed that she passed before him, another clue that can be used while looking for records. His children were Jozef (Joseph), Stanislaw (Stanley - my great grandfather), Katarzyna (Catherine), Joannes (Jan), Thomaz (Thomas), Marji (Maria), and Antoni (Anthony).

I knew that Stanislaw was born in 1884 in either April or May and his father's name is Adam. He was born and lived in Wiewiorka at the time he enlisted in the Military. Catherine and Maria were both married and held the last names of Czajka and Gawle respectively. The will also provides clues as to the where abouts of 3 of the sons. Stanislaw and Jan were both in the states and Joseph was in France under restricted address (not sure what that means).

Anxious to get right to work on this new film, I arrive at the Family History Center with a game plan. I get there as the doors open, sign in, retrieve the film, load it up, and fast forward to 1884 and starting looking for Stanislaw. Within 3 minutes, I find his birth record (born: 18 Apr 1884)and get a print of the page. But before I starting looking for more, I remembered and took my own advice; before I did any more searching I documented the individual sections of the film so that I could easily get to the proper type of record (birth, marriage, death) and the year in which the event took place. It turns out that this film has 10 sections containing birth records from 1784 - 1931, death records from 1784 - 1883, and marriage records from 1790 - 1942. A really nice history and the digital images are pretty good.

One thing I noticed while looking through these films is the overwhelming appreciation I have for time as I quickly fast forward through hundreds of years of a villages' history in a matter of seconds. I often wonder who else is among the names that were painstakingly written by hand into a parish register that are now streaking by my eyes. I bet someone, somewhere, is looking for one of those persons.....

After cataloging the film, I start looking for the brothers and sisters of Stanislaw. Knowing Joseph to be the eldest son, I go backwards from 1884 looking for any Joseph that appears. There he is, born 8 Mar 1883. This approach continues until I find all of the siblings.

Joseph: born 8 Mar 1883
Stanislaw: born 18 Apr 1884
Catherine: born 20 May 1885
Jan: born 27 Nov 1886
Thomas: born 3 Feb 1889
Maria: born 5 Jan 1894
Antoni: not found...

From these records I finally learn the names of my 2nd and 3rd Great Grandparents. They are: Adam Szacik and Sophia Krystyniak (Stanislaw's parents)
Antoni Szacik and Agatha Stawarz (Adam's parents)
Stanislaw Krystyniak and Maria Kata (Sophia's parents)

There's still a lot to uncover, and I should be able to find marriage records for those that were married. For example, doing some quick math and some estimating I was able to find a marriage record for Antoni Szacik (Stanislaw's Great Grandfather and Adam's father). He was married (for the second time)on 23 Feb 1875 at the age of 49. Now I should be able to find his birth record in the year 1826. If he was married at 18 and started a family immediately, then the earliest that Adam was born would be 1844-1845 if he were the first born.

Too bad the center is closed until September. Until then, I'll pull together a list of research tasks aimed at filling in some of the vital records for the Szaciks. Here's the record for Stanislaw, and the marriage record for his Grandfather. The marriage record indicates that he was a widow, that his previous wife was Agatha Stawarz and that he is 49 years old. The search continues...


Antoni Szacik Marriage Record

Stanislaw Birth Record

The Polish Connection.. the search continues

I've spent more time at the Family History Center browsing the microfilms from the Zassow parish in Poland looking for distant relatives from my father's side of the family. During the last visit, I was able to quickly find Agatha Kizior and her two brothers listed in the Baptismal records for the parish. Within the details of those records their parents and grandparents can be identified. In a matter of 15 minutes, I had been able to add two more generations of family history to the tree. Not bad... Now I'm thinking, this is going to be a piece of cake. NOT





My second visit I spent a lot of time looking for Julia Kizior. I wasn't sure if she was younger or older than Agatha so I asked my grandmother who told me she was an older sister. I looked backwards from 1892 to 1882 and did not find her. With time to spare, I began looking for Szacik's of Wiewiorka, another small village next to Zassow. After nearly 2.5 hours of random searching, and nothing to show for it, I decided to catalog what each section of microfilm recorded because as I went through the film, it didn't appear to be in any specific order.





I had ordered 4 films, 3 showed up and 1 is on backorder. I loaded the film that I found the Kiziors and quickly went from beginning to end writing down each particular section and the dates associated with it. For example, film 1959127 contains the following records.

1. Wiewiorka Deaths (1883 - 1921)


2. Zasow Baptisms (1784 - 1837)


3. Zasow Baptisms (1837 - 1868)


4. Zasow Baptisms (1869 - 1890)


5. Zasow Baptisms (1890 - 1944)


6. Mokre, Przeryty Bar, Dabie Baptisms (1784 - 1805)

Now it's 10 minutes to closing so I put in film 1959216 and start recording the various sections. I get up to the 4th section and what do I find? An index of Zasow Parish Baptisms. I couldn't believe it. It's not a typical index though. It's broken in multiple sections, each section is a village. Within the village section the names are grouped by the first letter of last name. But within the letter group, list it is not alphabetized. Heck, it's better than nothing.

Because I had Szacik on my mind I found the village of Wiewiorka, got to the S's, and started looking through the list. I managed to locate several members of the Szacik family. I knew the names of this family because I have a copy of Adam Szacik's will. He's my Great Great Grandfather. In it, there are specific references to his children Antoni, Jan, Tomasz, Stanislaw, Jozef, Katarzyna, Marji. Here are the names that I was able to find in the short amount of time that I had left:

• Jan Szacik (b. 11/27/1886)


• Thomas Szacik (b. 2/3/1889)


• Joseph Szacik (b. 3/8/1883)


• Stanislaw Szacik (b. 4/18/1884) my Great Grandfather


• Catherine Szacik (b. 5/20/1885)

Included in the index is the name of the mother and father (Adam Szacik and Sophia Krystyniak), the church volume number and the page on which the entry is recorded. I ran out of time and had to pack everything up, bummer.

At this point I was both excited and a bit bothered to have found this index. Excited because now I have some new dates, names, and volumes to research and I also have an easier way to find individuals. Bothered because it took me nearly two full visits to discover it....

I left the center happy to find more names and anticipating my next visit (which was on Tuesday of this week)

Sorry, no scans this week.

The Kizior's of Zasow Poland

The Kizior's of Zasow Poland

I first came across the handwritten name of Zasow while looking through the various papers, pictures, and documents that I received from my grandmother. I didn't know what it meant nor the significance of it at the time, but when I finally got around to researching the Kizior family line I quickly discovered that Zasow is a small village in Poland. It's located south and east of Kracow and north of the Carpathian Mountains. The closest "big" cities are Tarnow and Debica. At this point I assumed Zasow to be the birth place of Agnes Kizior, my great grandmother.

At the time Agatha was born, the village of Zasow, Poland was part of the Austrian Empire, an area known as Galicia. You see references to Austria and/or Galicia in immigration records, in census records, or other documents of the time. When I first found Agatha (or Agnes) in a census record her native country was recorded as Austria which had me a bit confused. But rest assured, she was from Poland. There were 3 partitions of Poland over the course of recent history. For most of the time frame in which I am dealing with, Poland was divided between Germany, Austria, and Russia. The Kozlowski's for example came from the German partition of Poland.

Also at this time, the area was still very much ruled by nobles that owned the land on which the farmers had to work as a form of payment to live there. In fact, in 1846 just 42 years prior to Agatha's birth, local peasant farmers attacked nobles planning a revolt to free Galicia from Austrian rule. Manors were burned and nobles murdered in Zasow and Straszecin Parishes in the Debica-Pilzno area. For more information about Zasow follow this link, lots of good information and it's a favorite in my explorer links: http://spuscizna.org/spuscizna/zasow.html

The Family History Center

Enter the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Their genealogical library in Utah is the largest in the world and they are constantly working to expand a database that includes all vital and/or genealogically related materials from around the world. It turns out that they have a near complete collection of Church Vital records from the numerous parishes in Poland. There is a Family History Center in Worcester located on Chester St. From this center you can order microfilm and microfiche from the massive library in Utah to be delivered to your local center. That's exactly what I did. A few weeks later I received a call that some of the film I ordered was in.

I was totally unprepared when I got to the center on Tuesday evening. I did not know what was recorded on the films, if I would be able to read the data, or if I would find anything useful at all. When I got there, 3 rolls were in the drawer with my name on them. Since I didn't take the description of the rolls that I ordered with me, I had no idea what I had received. Note to self: bring film descriptions with me next time. So the computer scientist voice in my head told me to grab the roll with the lowest indexed number on it and have at it. (It turns out that college education was good for something after all..)

Film # 1959127 - Ksiegi Metrykalne 1784 - 1942

This film contains Roman Catholic parish registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths for Zassów, Galizien, Austria; now Zassów (Dębica), Rzeszów, Poland. Text in Latin. Partially indexed.

The portion that I looked through contained baptismal records. Since I had Agatha's birth date (from her marriage certificate and death certificate), I wound the film to the year 1892 and started looking at each name. The name of the baptised appear in a prominent column in the register and contains the first name only. So I started looking for Agatha or variations of that name. Within 15 minutes I found our Agatha Kizior.

Agatha was born on February 13, 1892 and was baptised the following day on the 14th. Her father was Stanislaus Kizior her mother, Thecla Szymanski. Her paternal grandparents were Tomasz Kizior and Helen Madura. Her maternal grandparents were Maciej Syzmanski and Katarzyna Marek. I also found Agatha's brothers Peter and Frank but I did not find her sister Julia. I'll go back on Tuesday evening to do some more searching.

On a related note, the Szacik's came from Wiewiorka, a small village located next door to Zasow. Sort of like Dudley and Webster but smaller. It turns out that the parish in Zasow was the parish of record for Wiewiorka as well so I will be able to search for our Szacik relatives as well.
Here's a scan of the baptismal record for Agatha Kizior (2nd from bottom), enjoy....

The Proof is in the Pudding