Sorting out Blazej Wisniewski Revised version

This is a story of trying to differentiate between two different men named Blazej. There can be multiple people with the same name so it can get very tricky determining which is which. Birth, marriage and death records are about the person and may or may not list their parents. Witnesses are listed so there are clues about who might be their relatives or neighbors.. Their age is usually listed so you can sort out which ones fit into the right time frame. It turns out that there were two men with the same name – Błażej Wiśniewski . Błażej Wiśniewski was the parent of Ewa Wiśniewska (my 3rd great grandmother.) One Błażej Wiśniewski was born about 1761 and died in 1844. He worked as a foreman of a faience factory and later a grave digger and a farmer. He had two or three wives and a fiance and at least four children with one of the wives. The other Błażej Wiśniewski was born about 1755 and died in 1823 while he was in some sort of facility as a patient or resident. He had one child with an unmarried employee of some sort who worked in the hospital or alms house that he lived in. So which one is my 4x great grandfather? It turns out the first Błażej Wiśniewski was my 4x great grandfather. I am telling you this story today because on January 20 in 1844 at 2:00 p.m., Błażej Wiśniewski died. When he died, he was listed as a grave digger who lived in Tomaszów Lubelski. He was the son of Mataeusz & Maryanna Wisniowski, deceased gravediggers even though when he died the witnesses didn’t know who his parents were. One witness was Józef Kurkiewicz, farmer, age 29, Józef was Blazej’s son-in-law, married to Ewa (my 3rd great grandmother.). The other witness was Franciszek Szcześnicki, bricklayer, age 29, As a Szcześnicki, Franciszek may have been related to Blazej’s prior wife, Jagnieszka Szcześnicka. Blazej left behind his widowed wife Anna nee Adamczak. There are some discrepancies in how long Błażej lived: he lived to the age of 92 according to one record but maybe to age 83 according to some other records. So maybe Błażej was born in 1761 or maybe in 1752???? Now even though there are sometimes mistakes in ages in the records, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that he was 55 years old in 1823 and then 63 in 1824. It was also hard to figure out the occupation of Błażej. It was confusing to see what occupation was listed in the various records: grave digger, farmer and faience factory foreman. Did that mean some of the records were of the “other” Blazej? Blazej worked in the faience factory & so did his wife’s Agnes’ brother Bartlomiej. When his son Jozef was born in 1810, he was a 40 year old faience factory foreman. In 1817 when his daughter Anna was born, he was referred to as the “famous” Blazej Wisniewski. I eventually figured once I studied the pottery industry in the area that he worked there until the factory closed. Błażej may still have needed to work after the factory closed, so ended up a grave digger, like his parents. By 1823 when his wife died, he was listed as a gravedigger. He was a gravedigger when engaged to Cyronik in 1823 and when he married Adamczyk in 1824, he was still a gravedigger.He may also have farmed at the same time. There was a lot more to Błażej’s story though: First of all, I will give you the background about the family Błażej had with my 4th great grandmother. It is possible that he had a wife before Jagnieszka because of how old he was during this marriage. Their two sons and two daughters were born between 1809 and 1817 beginning when Błażej was about 44 years old. His wife Jagnieszka passed away on May 20, 1823, in Tomaszów, Lubelskie, Poland, at the age of 49. The children were between six and fourteen years of age. After Jagnieszka’s death, it looks like Błażej was in a bit of a hurry to find a mother for his children. Just a little over three months later, on Sept 7 1823, Blazej Wisniowski, as a 55 year old widower, became engaged to the MUCH younger Marianna Cyronskowna, age 25. “Owna” on her name meant she was unmarried. She was a laborer, and the daughter of the deceased Ignacy Cyronik, farmer & living Helena nee Kowalik. Maybe because her father was deceased, the engagement happened so her mother had one less mouth to feed in the house. In any case, the announcement of the marriage banns in this case must have caused something to turn up to stop the wedding because the marriage never happened. What did happen is that eight months later, Blazej married Anna Adamczk instead of Marianna, on May 9, 1824, when he was 63 years old. Błażej ended up married to Anna for the next 20 years until his death. Unfortunately, 16 years later, Maryanna (his former fiance) died in 1840 and she had never been married. So who was the other Błażej Wiśniewski? The 68 year old Blazej died on February 20 1823. He would have been born in about 1755. He died in some sort of hospital or alms house #71 and Szymon Wojpieki, 32, an organist and Piotr Fedorowicz, 50 a church sexton were the witnesses. His wife Anna nee Paszkowska was a church sexton. When he was 50 in 1814, he was a , "dziad szpitalny'' a hospital grandfather,and he had a child Francziszka Wiśniewska with Anna Paszkoska, age 35. This story shows how hard it can be to figure out our relatives. Amazingly, with many of them, the pieces all match up right and their family falls into place! There was a lot to this puzzle!