As I'm examining the road connecting the two Polish towns where my great-grandparents, Thomas Puchała and Anastasia Zegarska once lived, I'm also pushing back the branches on their family tree. Since I am having trouble identifying the previous generation on the Puchała side, I've turned to track his wife in hopes of discovering any collateral clues.
It didn't take long, in tracing the Zegarski side of the family, to realize there was a third town I could add to this proximity equation. Anastasia's parents, Jan and Marianna, had a large family, which included a number of Anastasia's siblings who eventually also migrated to the United States as Anastasia did, herself. Though those Zegarski children were all born in Czarnylas, as was Anastasia, their parents apparently were not.
The elder Zegarskis were married in 1833 in a town called Ponschau. Not knowing where that location was, I wanted to repeat the mapping exercise I had done yesterday. But first, I thought I'd look up some information about the place called Ponschau.
Surprise! The Prussian name for the place where Jan Zegarski married Marianna Wojtaś was no longer called by that German-language designation. The search engine assured me that the current name for that location is now Pączewo.
It was encouraging to discover that Pączewo lies in the same county and province as Czarnylas and Lubichowo, the two towns we've already mapped. Just in case, though, I decided to pull up Pączewo on a map to compare distances. After all, besides concern over the risk of selecting the wrong one of two towns by the same name, just as we'd expect for the courtship of Thomas and Anastasia, we need to assume the same transportation limitations would impact whether their parents would meet.
The map certainly relieved my concerns about selecting the right location, both for this newer discovery of Pączewo, as well as for the two towns I had checked yesterday.
Feeling a little bolder, I also tried my hand at locating the three towns—by their Prussian names, mind you—in the Meyers Gazetteer. Better yet, I requested the online version of the gazetteer to pin all the Catholic parishes in the area during that era. As you can see by clicking the "map" tab for this readout, the three towns formed a rather neat route, all within reasonable walking distances, and each being home to the three Catholic parishes in the area.
Whether Thomas had decided, after his marriage, to move westward to settle in Lubichowo, I can't yet tell. I'll likely take some time to explore records in Lubichowo to see if I can find any further signs of Thomas' parents—or even siblings—there. Wherever Thomas originated from, though, we'll still need to check the local geography to see whether the distances make sense.
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