Antoni Jozef Kurkiewicz Died March 20 1852

The record of the death of Antoni Jozef Kurkiewicz (my 3x great grandfather) is interesting to me for several reasons. He is only the 2nd person with a middle name that I had found by that point. Also, his son Jozef (my 2x great grandfather) signed the record and there are very few records signed by anyone other than the priest. Also, when I originally received this record, I found out his parents' names so it helped me work one more generation back in that line. There are 16 people in this generation and I have found parents for eight of them. Antoni Jozef Kurkiewicz died March 20 1852 at 7:00 in the morning in Tomaszów Lubelski. The cause of death is not given. A cholera outbreak was going on in Poland at the time. He was 67 years old and his wife Marianna (nee Kiszczynska) had died six years earlier. He worked as a shoemaker. Antoni and Marianna had 12 children, at least seven of which died in childhood. When Antoni died, three of his children were still alive – Jozef, Katarzyna Roczniak, and possibly Marianna Kamienska. He was the son of Marcin Kurkiewicz and Franciszka nee Rzeczycki. His parents were from Mosciska but they died in Tomaszów Lubelski and were “ławników" (jurors) of the town of Tomaszow. Antoni Jozef’s son Jozef, age 37 and his son-in-law Jan Kaminski, age 23, both farmers from Tomaszów Lubelskie. went two days later to report the death.

Walenty Grabek Died March 19 1812

Walenty Grabek (my 4th great grandfather) died on 19 March 1812 at 6:00 in the evening. He was only 44 years old. He died in Górno in house number 11. He was married but his wife's name is not listed in the death record. But one of the witnesses -- Marcin Walewender -- was her brother. The other witness was Jan Prsybysz. They were both his neighbors. I have only found two children for him and his wife Teresa nee Walawender -- Lukasz (my 3rd great grandfather) and Zofia. Łukasz married Katarzyna Krawczyk and moved to Majdan Górny. Zofia married Michał Kozyra and also moved to Majdan Górny. ***** Eleven months after his death, his widowed wife Teresa re-married (to Grzegorz Lebiedowski.) Her husband’s death is listed in this marriage record except he is called Jozef -- not Walenty -- and the death is reported as January 1811 --not March 1812. Someone made an error in this record because later records when his children get married are clear that his name was Walenty. Teresa (my 3rd great-grandmother) and her second husband Gregorz Lebediowski had one child Agnieszka. Agniezka married Jan Steciuk in Grodek.

Kazimierz Krawczyk died March 16, 1823

Kazimierz Krawczyk (my 5th great grandfather) was a 75 year old widower when he died. He died March 16, 1823 at 1:00 in the morning. He was born around the year 1748. His two sons, Wojciech and Bartłomiej, 30, went to report the death in Tomaszow Lubelski. They were both peasants. Kazimierz lived with his son Wojciech and Wojciech’s wife Rozalia when he died in their house #10 in Łaszczówka. Kazmierz probably moved in with them some time after 1814 when his wife Rozalia (my 5x great grandmother) died in house #5, in the same village. Both his wife and his daughter-in-law were named Rozalia. Łaszczówka is a village about one mile east of Tomaszów Lubelski. It has about 1,000 residents. Family members lived there for several generations of Krawczyks. Kazimierz and his wife Rozalia had at least four children: Bartlomiej, Antoni, Lukasz and Wojciech. Antoni is my 4x great grandfather. Image credit: http://niezalezna.pl/94988-samuel-laszcz-i-modna-fryzura-szlachty

Klementyna Gołębiowska (Grandpa’s first wife) Was Born 13 March 1896

Guess who was born on the same day as her husband -- only two years later? Klementyna Gołębiowska (my grandpa Anthony Raczkiewicz’ first wife) was born 13 March 1894 at 8:00 in the morning. .She and her future husband had the same birthdate one years= apart. Her death record has the wrong date but her husband was likely reporting it and immigrants sometimes didn’t know exactly when their birthday was. They were both from the same area of Poland--she was born in the city of Tomaszów Lubelski and he was born in the nearby village of Sabaudia. Her father Wojceich, 35, was a blacksmith in the city. Her mother was 37 year old Katarzyna nee Roczniak. The witnesses were Ludwik Skibiński Skibiński, 45 and Konstanty Kudlicki, 34, both from Tomaszow. Her Godparents were Ludwik and Antonina Roczniak. Her name is written various ways: Klementyna, Clementina

Anthony Raczkiewicz born March 13 1893

When Anthony John RACZKIEWICZ (my grandfather) was born on March 13, 1893, in the village of Sabaudia, his father, Jan, was 28 and his mother, Katarzna (nee Kaszucka), was 24 years old. Jan was a peasant farmer and his wife had come from a family of furriers from the city. Their family already consisted of five-year-old Jan and four-year-old Jozef. Mikołaj Roczniak, 30 years old, and Andrzej Lisikiewicz, 23 years old accompanied Jan to report the birth of his son in the city of Tomaszów Lubelski. His Godfather was Mikolaj and the Godmother’s name hasn’t been deciphered in the record, which is written in Russian. The document was read out loud, and signed by the priest, because they could not read or write. Maybe someone can decipher the Godmother’s name?

Katarzyna (Kaszucka) Raczkiewicz died March 11, 1944

Katarzyna (Kaszucka) Raczkiewicz (my great-grandmother) died March 11, 1944, in Sabaudia as a 73-year-old widow. Her husband Jan died 29 years earlier of pneumonia. She lived with her son Boleslaw. Reporting the death was her son Bolesław, a 37-year old farmer, and Bronislaw Skurcz, a neighbor. Her son Franciszek was killed the year before in the Rotunda in Zamosc and Jan died 16 years earlier in Gniezno of pneumonia. Jozef, Antoni, and Mary had lived in the U.S. for several decades. Stanislawa, Piotr, and Paulina lived in the area and were raising families of their own.

Jan Raczkiewicz died March 9, 1915

What was happening in the world around him When Jan Raczkiewicz (my great grandfather) died? The death record does not give the cause of his death so there is no way to know for sure why he died at the early age of 50. World War 1 was happening and “in the summer of 1914 fierce battles raged around Tomaszow Lubelski and a fire broke out there, destroying many houses. In the summer of 1915 the area was conquered by the Austrians and the Germans.” Austria was in the middle of a cholera epidemic. There was an outbreak of typhus that had just started in Russia.. So was it related to the war or the illnesses that Jan died March 9, 1915 at 5:00 in the morning in the village of Sabaudia? Jan worked as a peasant farmer. He was the son of Antoni and Katarzyna (née Grabek) Raczkiewicz, who were both deceased. Jan left behind widow Katarzyna, née Kaszucka who was 44 years old at the time. “Marian Skurcz, 50 years old, Christian from Sabaudia, and Walenty Liskiewicz, 59 years old, townsman from Tomaszów, came and declared” the event to the officials. The oldest child of Jan and Katarzyna was also named Jan. He had left for the United States five years earlier and the next two children Anthony (my grandfather) and Joseph had left three years earlier. Jan, the son, had just been shot in front of his house in Grand Rapids, Michigan a month before he died. I wonder if the relatives in Poland heard about the shooting? I also wonder how and when the three brothers in the U.S. heard that their father had died in Poland When Jan died, the six remaining children in Poland were between nine and 20 years old. The youngest child, Boleslaw, would have been nine years old (he is the grandfather of Tomasz and Jacek Rączkiewicz.) Their second youngest child Paulina would have been 14 years old (she is the grandmother of Andrzej Dubiel.) Katarzyna lived another 29 years after her husband Jan died but did not ever remarry. Neither Jan nor Katarzyna had living siblings but they had a lot of cousins. This record was found and translated by Andrzej Dubiel 1/24/2021