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So remote ! I'm lured by a different pleasure !
She is in the dear land that they took from me, Adam Mickiewicz Poems of Hania Kaczanowska : |
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Welcome to our
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So remote ! I'm lured by a different pleasure !
She is in the dear land that they took from me, Adam Mickiewicz Poems of Hania Kaczanowska : |
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Welcome to our
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Searching our family roots, we were fascinated by the history of Poland-Lithuania. Our families were from the Suwalki, Vilnius and Soleczniki regions originally belonging to the Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narod�w (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) with roots in medieval Poland and Lithuania. At the end of the 18th century they came under Russian rules for about 120 years. At actual times, the lands of the former Rzeczpospolita gave birth to different independent states : Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, Ukraine.
Actual Suwalki is partly Polish and partly Lithuanian, Vilnius (once Wilno) is Lithuanian and Soleczniki is cut into parts by the Lithuanian-Belorussian border. In all these regions the population is a mixture of people with Polish, Lithuanian, Russian or Belorussian background. This is a fairly complicated situation, which was not without some danger during the first years of the recently regained independence (1990).
In Kleine geschiedenis van Polen - Litouwen and Short history of Poland - Lithuania we try to give a short historical summary that may help to understand the present situation. We don't claim expertise nor completeness, and we welcome any relevant additions or comments.
Browsing through archives and libraries, reading books and the desire to check acquired knowledge on site, convinced us to go and explore a lot of places in Poland and Lithuania. We got nice pictures from all over Poland and Lithuania : the country side , Kernave , Trakai (Troki) , Vilnius (Wilno) , Gdansk (Danzig) , Gniezno , Krak�w , Warszawa , Szczecin , Malbork.
The most frequent names in our family database are : Wojciulewicz (109), Chodkiewicz (88), Sapieha (54), Noyez (30), Komnenos (28), Radziwill (22), Pac (18), Rau, Deruytter. Also data about our partners and their families are included.
The oldest written Wojciulewicz records are found at Turgiele, date from the 17th century, and are in Polish, the state language of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The family (at that time bojary, bajorai, landlords) for centuries lived and had their lands in the border region between actual Lithuania and Belorussia (Wilno, Turgiele, Bojary, Giemzy, Sjostaki etc). Members of the family lived in Bialy Dwor (the White Court) the ruins of which can be found not far from Turgiele.
Over the centuries, the many dialects and languages used in the region created multiple spellings for the family name : Wojciulewicz, Wojciulewitsch, Wojtulewicz, Wojtalewicz, Wojtalowicz, Voiciulevic, Vaiciulevic, Vaiciulevicius, Vaiciulowic, ... .
The Chodkiewicz branche is documented up to deep in the Middle Ages. Famous ancestors are : Alexios I and Constantine IX, emperors of Byzantium; Gediminas, Algirdas and Vytautas, Grand Dukes of Lithuania; Ryurik, Grand Duke of Novgorod; Vladimir I, Grand Duke of Kiev. The Chodkiewicz family was one of the leading aristocratic families in the Lithuanian part of the Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narod�w. Over the centuries, the many dialects and languages used in the region created multiple spellings for the family name : Chodkiewicz, Kotkiewic, Kotkevicius, Katkevic, Katkevicius, ... .
Click on the maps for a full size version.
Vilnius and Turgeliai
were called
Wilno and Turgiele
in the Polish periods/MapBojary-a_small.jpg)
Bojary, Szostaki, GiemzyContinuous agression of Prussia, Russia and Austria, made disappear the Rzeczpospolita from the maps for more than one hundred years, up to World War I. Eastern Poland and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire. The family probably refused or wasn't able (or allowed?) to confirm its nobility status under tsarist occupation. They became 'noble peasants' : managing their own lands. The severe repression after the uprisal in 1863 forced thousands of Poles and Lithuanians into emigration to North America (up to 4 million people, among them a lot of family members). This emigration continued until the beginning of the 20th century.
After the 1863 uprisal the church records were written in Russian and, except for the greater cities, they are difficult to find. In our opinion a lot of them are simply lost. That is why the family data found are severely fragmented. Lots of links between different branches of the family are missing.
After the first world war Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia and Ukraine claimed independence. They once formed one nation, but it seemed impossible to renew the former Rzeczpospolita. Part of actual Belorussia and Ukraine were nearly immediately annexed by the Russian Federation of Socialist Republics (later Soviet Union), and Lithuania was not interested. It became an independent republic with capital Kaunas (Kowno). The southern part of actual Lithuania, with Wilno (Vilnius), became part of Poland, together with the western parts of actual Belorussia (Grodno, now Hrodna) and Ukraine (Lw�w, now Lviv).
After the second world war the whole Baltic region and the eastern Polish borderlands were annexed by the Soviet Union for 45 years. The Polish borderlands (Wilno, Grodno, Lw�w) were formaly annexed to the Lithuanian, Belorussian and Ukrainian Socialist Republics. Again (Polish speaking) people had to leave their home lands in the eastern parts of pre-war Poland and went to post-war Poland and Western-Europe. Among them our parents and grandparents.
An often raised question is wether we are Polish, Lithuanian or Belorussian. We don't think it has any meaning to make a choice. We certainly had ancestors in all of these countries, and at this very moment we have relatives in all three (and other) countries.
One of our ancestors was Kzrysztof Chodkiewicz, who was married to Elzbieta Kiszczanka. They are our 10th great-grandparents. They are also the 9th great-grandparents of Maria Komorowska, mother of Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz (see e.g. Some Ancestry of Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz ) . A seperate page is devoted to the history of the Chodkiewicz family.
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More details on the family tree are available for family members on our Family Pages, which are protected by passwords. A complete list of names is available in the Index of Names. If your name appears in that list write us a note with your name and the country and city you live in, and we will send you the passwords.
The data included in our files are checked with various professional documentation, databases and archives, such as the Central Archive of Vilnius, the Historical Archive of Vilnius, the church archives of Turgiele, the Family History Centers of the Church of the Last Day Saints, the International Genealogical Index. Other references are the 'Encyclopedia Lithuanica', 'Naruszewicz : Historia Jana Karola Chodkiewicza, Warszawa 1805', 'Wolff : Senatorowie i dygnitarze Wielkiego Ksiestwa Litewskiego, Krakow 1885'.
Links with maps of Central and Eastern Europe
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Historical atlas of the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy
MAPSTER - Mapy
archivalne Polski
Maps of Poland, Lithuania and Letland
Edited by Velhagen and Klafing, Bielefeld,
Leipzig, 1938
Lithuania and Letland
Poland
Carte Nouvelle Pour Servir a
l'Intilligence des Affaires des Couronnes du
Nord
ou sont les Estats de Suede, de Dannemarq, et de Pologne,
L'Empire d'Allemagne et les XVII Provinces de Pays Bas.
Avec les Routes de Paris dans tous ces Estats. Par le Sr. Sanson a
Amsterdam chez P.Mortier
T�atre de la guerre
des Couronnes du Nord (Estimated 1705, title as on map).
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The
Light of the Candle
A cold, frosty window against the darkness of the night A lonely candle burns with a small flickering light A small boy watches the flame with curious eyes Babciu, you lit this candle, can you tell me why? I lit this candle to remember someone I never knew Somebody I just heard about when I was as little as you. This is for my grandparents who never got the chance to see Their homeland again and a new world with just me. They lived in a time when their Polish freedoms were taken On a cold February winter night, all humanity forsaken. I only knew them from the many stories that were told How they struggled to survive with hunger and bitter cold. They never had the chance to get back what they knew Their lives were destroyed and there was nothing they could do Their last steps on earth were struggling to return And I try to remember this as the memory candle burns. I missed the warm hugs they might have given me If they had just been given another chance to see But in my heart I always felt their love stream thru And from my heart I give Babunia and Dziadek to you. They were warriors of faith and loved their land Their fate was unnecessary and hard to understand They were proud people, gentle and strong Trapped in a world where so much went wrong. When the 10th of February comes, remember this light And the story I will tell you about them tonite. May the candle burn bright and their memory survive As their spirit touches us as if they were here and alive. When I light the candle it is because I hope they will see That their story will be passed on down to you, thru me I can feel their smiles from the warmth of the flame I hope the lit candle will always make you feel the same. |
Poems of (top)
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Mamusia and the Red Scarf I peeked into the dimlit room and saw my
Babcia kneeling in prayer. |
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