Researching, Map in Hand

 

The deeper I dig into my paternal grandmother's Polish roots, the more I realize that such research simply cannot be accomplished without proceeding with map in hand. It's not that I am unfamiliar with the names of Polish towns or cities. My main challenge came when I realized that the Polish had a penchant for falling in love with a town's name—and applying that same geographic designation to umpteen other spots scattered across their country.

We've already noticed that last month when searching for more information on a sister of my great-grandmother Marianna Jankowska. There were apparently eight different places which all claimed the same name for their town's identity. Trying to figure out which one was this relative's hometown called for some map work.

The same is happening now as I shift to another branch of my Polish ancestry. Working on my great-grandfather's brother Lorenz Laskowski, I had found his marriage to Anna Błaszczyk occurred in a Catholic parish called Żegocin, yet the civil record came from a different place—Czermin. Well, which place was the correct location? 

Not to make things any easier, but I discovered there were two places called Żegocin: one in Kalisz County, and the other in Pleszew County. Consulting a map, as always in these circumstances, showed two towns by that same name in the two different counties—but the distance between them and the Laskowski family home in Żerków was almost the same for each.

Next step: read up on each location to seek additional clues. Almost right away, I spotted the clincher on the entry for Żegocin in Pleszew County: a small village, its records are kept in the administrative district known as Gmina Czermin. And that was the reason for the civil record being given the location as the village of Czermin.

In a way, it's a good thing to be researching a country which uses a language I don't speak, and tends to bestow the same name on multiple locations. It prompts me to keep a map close at hand. And it reminds me to look up anything I don't already know for sure. The progress may seem slower, but it keeps me from being tempted to take the wrong turn in these geographic forks on the genealogical road.