[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Results from a visit to Warsaw
Paul Rakow
rakow at ifh.de
Thu Oct 14 12:41:38 PDT 2010
Bronwyn,
Yes, I'm planning to put all these details into an article
for the SGGEE Journal. I think that's a more suitable place to
put that sort of information.
I know how frustrating it can be to have an article in English
saying what marvelous records an archive has, but without enough
German or Polish titles, or reference numbers, for anyone else
to track them down. So I have been careful to note down all the
Fond/collection names and numbers that looked useful, and the
sygnatura for everything I looked at.
Paul Rakow
rakow at ifh.de
On Thu, 14 Oct 2010, Bronwyn Klimach wrote:
> Paul,
> For now are you able to post more details on the records: a collection name
> (maybe in Polish) and a collection no. and a file no. (sygnatura in Polish).
> This would probably be of great help for anyone going to the AGAD archives.
> Kind regards,
> Bronwyn.
>
> On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Paul Rakow <rakow at ifh.de> wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
>
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