Fracniszek Golebiewski died Febrary 13, 1813

A pigeon? ***** When looking at records, the same last name may appear in lots of variations. Some of it is a spelling or handwriting alteration such as c and s in Raczkiewicz and Raszkiewicz. Many times it is because of Polish grammar. Polish grammar is very challenging for me! The nuns at St. Adalberts had my class diagramming sentences so we grew up knowing English pretty well. Polish children must do something similar. Nouns may change for gender (masculine, feminine and neuter) for number (singular and plural) and for case (direct object, indirect object, possession, interrogatives, prepositional, and vocative--addressing people in special situations.) ***** The death record for Fracniszek Golebiewski makes me think about all the different ways a last name may be spelled. . When looking for records, there were ones with spelling differences: Gołeb versus Gołąb, but the most fascinating variations have to do with the declination of the word Gołąb: Gołębiów, Gołębiówski, Gołębiów, Gołębia, Gołębiewski,etc. ***** By the way, it also turns out that the word “Gołąb” means pigeon. I wonder what occupation or reason there originally was for “Pigeon” being used as a last name. -------------------------------------------- Franciszek Golebioski (my 5x great grandfather) died on February 13, 1813 at 10:00 in the morning. He was sixty years old when he died so he was born about 1753. Birth years of relatives in the 1750s are as far back as I have been able to find -- and I haven’t found their birth records. The birth year is assumed from the age in the wedding and death records. ***** One declarant was his son Michal Golembioski, a 40 year old peasant farmer residing in Gurnia. On January 29, Michal had married for the first (or second?) time and his father passed away two weeks later. MIchal’s sister Apolonia is my 4x great grandmother. ***** The other declarant was Jan Raszkiewicz, age 38 and a neighbor. Figuring out which “Jan Raszkiewicz” it likely was, is a process of determining what makes sense. First consideration is that the spelling has an “s” rather than a “z” which seems to have been how it was written during a certain time period. He was 38 and it was the year 1813 so I know he was a Jan that was likely born around 1775. I have a 4x great grandfather that was born about 1775 so he is a possibility. This death record says that Franciszek died at home, in Gurnia at house number 20 so I needed to check if I know where each Jan Raszkiewicz lived. The house number is rarely seen in the records I am looking at but it turns out that Jan lived at #71 in the same village at this time. Also, Franciszek is his father-in-law so it is likely that it is him. Hopefully I didn’t lose you with this explanation but I wanted to give you a glimpse into how all the pieces of information are like a puzzle that can sometimes be put together. I do not need to “prove” the witnesses like I do with determining who the relatives are, but it is kind of nice to figure this out.