[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Gnidau, Volhynia

[Jerry Frank]

At 09:32 AM 02/01/2002 -0700, Richard Stein wrote:
>My great grandparents were married on 28 Sept 1882 in Rozyszcze Parish,
>Volhynia.  The marriage record states that the bride Louise Kitzmann lived
>in Antonowka (the one near Wysoki and Kisielin), Kreis Wladimir, but does
>not state a place of residence of the groom Gottlieb Stein.  However I
>believe he lived in Antonowka also, and there children were born in
>Antonowka.  The place of marriage is given as "Gnidau"  (or possibly
>Gnidan).  I found the village "Gnidawa" on Jerry Frank's map located just
>south of Lutsk.  My question is
>
>Is this Gnidawa the same as Gnidau, and, if so,  why would this couple be
>married in a place so far from their homes?


I cannot guarantee that Gnidau = Gnidawa though that would be my guess.

One possible reason for the distance is that the couple travelled to where 
the pastor was in order to get married rather than wait for him to travel 
to where they were.  While the local Kantor could conduct baptisms and 
funerals, only the pastor could conduct marriages.  This might only happen 
in a given location once or twice a year.  If you look at the St. Pete 
original records, you will see that there are inevitably several marriages 
on the same day.  You might even want to check the birth date of the first 
child to see if this was a shotgun wedding.

While this situation may have occurred within this parish, there is ample 
concrete evidence that it definitely happened between parishes.  The 
Rozyszcze records show quite a few marriages of people who had travelled 
from villages in the Rowno region which was the western part of the 
Zhitomir Parish at the time.




Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
jkfrank at shaw.ca