[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Results from a visit to Warsaw

[Paul Rakow]

   Dear All,

       As you may remember, I asked for advice a few weeks ago,
  in preparation for a short visit to the main archive (AGAD)
  in Warsaw.

      I was exploring a little, to see what I might find. Among
  other things I found some tax lists, which could be useful for
  anyone with German ancestors in Congress Poland.

     Here's a short initial report on what I found, I am thinking
  of writing a longer article for the Journal, with more details
  about where to find these records in the Archive's Inventory books.

     The most useful files I found were reports on the administration
  of the Protestant parishes in Congress Poland. This includes things
  like the calling of Pastors, the sacking of misbehaving Pastors,
  building of churches, detailed inventories of church property,
  and financial accounts.

  Protestant Church Tax

     Between the late 1820s and about 1850 the income side of the
  accounts was from a Protestant Church "Income Tax" on the members.
  The tax lists were updated every three years. They give a list
  of the families contributing to the church, giving occupation and
  tax class. It gives an idea of how much money your family was making
  - I was surprised that my Huebner ancestors in Ozorkow were in the
  second-highest tax band, so they must have been making quite a good
  living as cloth makers; many clothmakers were in the lowest
  tax band, class 5. Some congregations also list the poor families
  who paid no tax, other parishes just miss them out from the list.
  It looks like these tax lists exist for most Lutheran parishes
  in Congress Poland.

  Gross Bruzyca Parish

     Howard Krushel asked me to keep an eye open for any records
  from Gross Bruzyca parish, the first Lutheran church in the Lodz area.
  I found a thick volume (409 pages) of files concerning the Gross Bruzyca
  parish 1800-1822 (409 pp). This includes a list of all the members of
  the founding congregation, and the call of the first Pastor, with a list
  of the congregation members who made their mark on it. Possibly the
  most interesting find were the early school reports. (Howard's ancestor
  Gottlieb Krushel was an outstanding pupil, who worked very hard).

  Protestants living in Lodz

      Another interesting find were some lists prepared by the Lodz
  magistrates of the Protestants in Lodz, 1854-1863 (Full lists,
  1854, 1855, 1856 and 1860 - fragments early 60s.) As well as the
  town itself, the lists include a few of the nearby villages, in
  particular Nowasolna/Neu Sulzfeld, Lagiewniki, Chojny, Sikawa, Stoki
  Lists give the head of the family, and the number of children
  in each family.

  Town Taxes

       The government in Warsaw kept track of the finances of all
  the larger towns. The first town I looked at, Belchatow, listed
  all its taxpayers during the 1820s and 1830s; the list gave the
  occupation and tax class, very like the church taxes we've
  talked about earlier. However, the next two towns I looked
  at, Zgierz and Ozorkow, didn't give detailed tax lists, just
  total figures. So, I'm not sure what fraction of town records
  will include full lists of individual tax payers.

   Artisan's tax, Napoleonic times (1810)

      There are a lot of records of an artisan's tax levied in
  Napoleonic times, arranged by district (powiat) - the Kreis
  from German times. This was a tax on people practising a trade,
  (farmers/peasants were not included).

  Colonist lists, South Prussia (c 1800)

     The Prussians took over large parts of Poland after the second and
  third partitions in 1793 and 1795. They soon lost this again, after
  Napoleon conquered the area in 1807 and created a Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
  I looked at colonist lists from this period of Prussian rule around 1800.
  The people in these colonist lists were Germans from states outside
  Prussia (for example Wuerrtemberg, Nassau) who were settled in the new
  Prussian territories. The Colonist lists don't include Germans who were
  already living in these areas during Polish times, or Prussians who
  moved into the new lands.

  ----

     One general point that it might be good to know in advance:

     The Archive have introduced an important new rule in April this year,
  here's what it says on the web-page:
  http://www.agad.archiwa.gov.pl/eng/index.html

      "According to the after control recommendation of the Head Office of
  Polish State Archives in the Reading Room one could only read the archival
  units with valid pagination.
     Please note, that due to the fulfillment of this recommendation, from
  April 2010, the expectation time for the archival unit, which have to be
  paginated, could last even for two weeks."

     Do you know what it means?

     It took me a little while to figure it out. If you order a document,
  and the pages have already been numbered, you will normally get it the
  same day, or the next day if you order in the afternoon. But if you
  order a volume where the pages aren't yet numbered, they can't give it
  to you until the staff have numbered the pages, which could mean a wait
  of up to two weeks before the document arrives. Inconvenient if you are
  just visiting for a few days. You can't tell in advance whether a
  document has numbered pages or not.

        This has been a long posting, I hope some of you have found
  something useful or interesting in it,

               Paul Rakow
               rakow at ifh.de