Frank Wisniewski and Mary Novak: Series Post #2 - Town of Origin

Welcome to Part 2 in my story of researching my Polish great-great-grandparents, Frank Wisniewski and Mary Novak! If you haven't read the first post, start there for a little more background. Below is a basic pedigree of this family line for reference:

Mystery #2: From where and when did they emigrate?

Generally, it is very difficult to trace immigrant families' lives back into their home country without a town of origin found in American (i.e. post-immigration) records. Probably the clearest source for the hometown would be a naturalization record, but many immigrants never went through the process to become an American citizen. I have not been able to find a naturalization record for Frank or Mary.

Based on census records and Frank and Mary's death certificates (informants: Mary and their son Stanley, respectively), I think Frank came to the U.S. around 1894 and Mary likely arrived between 1891-92. Frank was from the Russian partition of Poland and spoke Polish. Mary was from the German or Prussian partition of Poland, and sometimes reported speaking German and sometimes Polish on these records.

I have not found any passenger lists or ship manifests that are clearly the correct Frank or Mary. Variations on the names Frank Wisneski and Mary Novak are quite common. Without knowing an exact year/date of immigration, or a ship name or names of those they traveled with (parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors), it's very tricky to single out the correct record. 

Luckily, another clue was offered by Mary's obituary: the name of her brother, Bruno Novak, living in Lorain, OH in 1947.

I began researching Bruno Novak and his family, who immigrated later than Mary. Although all of Mary Novak's children were born in the U.S., several of Bruno's were born in German Poland. Finally, I found Bruno's son Henry's WWI Draft Registration Card. Bingo - a town of birth! 

Perhaps "bingo" is a bit of stretch. Can you read the name of the town on line 5?

It looks to me like "Cl--dlitz." Searching for "C*litz" in the Meyers Gazetteer turns up three towns that could possibly be correct:

Chüttlitz, Salzwedel, Magdeburg, Sachsen, Preussen
Creidlitz, Coburg, Coburg, Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha
Cwiklitz, Pless, Oppeln, Schlesien, Preussen

"Creidlitz" at first looks closer to me to what is written than the other two. However, spelling and handwriting are so unreliable in these kinds of records, that's not enough to go on to make a conclusion. With some map analysis, I've concluded that this town, in the area of Coburg, was always solidly German. It was in Bavaria, not Prussia, and I think it was not likely to have a lot of Polish residents at any point in the late 1800s. This map from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection was helpful. 

Creidlitz isn't on it, but it is just slightly south of Coburg, and Coburg is southwest of Dresden, outside the boundaries of Prussia.

Moving along to an analysis of Chüttlitz, which could plausibly be what's written on the form . . . it's very close to Salzwedel, which lies southeast of Hamburg and northwest of Berlin. Salzwedel falls just inside the border of Prussia on the same map from the Rumsey Collection. However, it was well outside the Polish Prussian partition based on this 1858 map (below) from the Rumsey Collection.

David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries

Our third candidate town, Cwiklitz, on the other hand, falls within the Prussian partition of Poland on the same 1858 ethnographic map (above), and is noted to be inhabited primarily by Polish people, with some Germans in region as well. (Cwiklitz is in the region labeled Oppeln in the lower left peach portion of the map). The town exists in modern Poland, and its Polish spelling is: Ćwiklice.

So where does all of this rudimentary geographic analysis leave us? Well, with nothing definitive. But, my best guess, and hypothesis moving forward, is that Mary and Bruno Novak came from Ćwiklice, Poland, which was a part of the Prussian/German partition in the late 1800s when they were born and emigrated.

Next Steps:

I plan to request baptismal and marriage records for Frank and Mary and their children from the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh in the hopes that they will confirm a town name or region. This process will probably take a couple of months, so in the meantime I also plan to look for the records available in Ćwiklice, Poland to see if there is anything indexed and searchable for Mary or Bruno Novak, or Bruno's wife Rose.

Thanks again for reading! Please leave a comment or question to let me know you're here, and follow the podcast to receive updates when new posts are published.