BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Where is Growza or Growzinowe located in Poland?

Does anyone know of a location in Russia/Poland during 1890-1910 known as GROWZA or GROWZINOWE? It�s listed on a ship manifest as the last residence for a great uncle in 1904, and on another manifest for a great aunt in 1906. They had emigrated to the U.S. at that time. I have been trying to trace my grandfather�s journey here during 1888-1890, and this is the first clue I have found. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

I tried looking in the "Brockhaus and Yefron" encyclopedia from the early 20th century, which was the major encyclopedia of the Russian Empire (of which Poland was a part) at the time.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any entries for either names. So, probably they were such small places that they didn't warrant an article in the encyclopedia.

Sorry! <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Dziekuje bardzo, Eric, for your efforts on this.
I am hoping some of our friends in Poland may have heard of the area, and lead me to the right map for it. I may be reading the writing on the manifest incorrectly, or the spelling could be a language error, as the ships came from Germany and Liverpool to the U.S.

Hi,
nothing comes to mind mind, nor have I found any data in the sources at hand. I think that you are right - we should take into consideration that the name is heavily twisted. It really doesn't sound 'good' to my ear. All I can think of is the name Gro/zla (zet with liitle dash over it), which is easy to twis into Growza. And Gro/zla is moderetaly popular name of szlachta (the noblemen).
http://www.przodkowie.com/en/ind_naz/naz_g.shtml

So now we have Gro/zlinowe Pole - which means in Polish "the field, or the property, of Gro/zla family." In past times people in the villages often used the name of the proprietor to name the place they lived in in place of the one used by cartograps and so on. If you find out where the noble family of Gro/zla did have the property (majatek) with a village - perhaps you'll be able to find 'the proper' name of the village.

Dee,

Your search is the type of search that is dear to my heart! <img src="/images/graemlins/heart.gif" alt="" />

First, an excellent site for finding villages is the jewishgen.org "shetlseeker" page. I plugged in both of your village names, and using the Soundex system, they returned some possibilities in Poland. Nothing had the exact spelling(s) that you gave.

"Growzinowe" yielded "Gora Wisniowa", which is 68.8 miles WSW of Warsaw (near Lodz).

"Growza" returned 58 possibilities, none very convincing.

I would be happy to look at the manifest you found if you send me the link for it ... possibly I could confirm what your eyes are seeing as the place of residence.

Nancy
(excited that someone here is doing genealogy research!)

Thank you so very much for your breakdown of that name, and the link showing the surnames...so 2181 Grozla might be the name taken for the village. The writing on one manifest looked like and was indexed as "Growza"... the other index had only Russia, yet, when looking at the actual image, the writing looked like it was "Grawzinowe" and the other does
now look to me like "Grawza"...on the link there is a name Grawzanowski which may be correct and I'd have to locate the Grawza village? It is nothing like my family name ---
"Zydanowicz"--- and don't even see that on the surname list.

I thought that finally finding a listed residence was opening the door to my search! <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Hi Nancy ... I just knew this question would get a rise out of you!! and I do appreciate your interest in my search. Have been working on this for the past five years! off and on, so when I find one clue it spurs me on for the next few weeks!

I read your great geneology articles on "The Gift of Family" and it sounds exactly like what I've been doing, with one exception: you are so lucky to have found your family's village on a citizenship document --- a distant cousin sent me a copy of my Dziadek's naturalization in 1896, but it only says "Russia", with no number visible to follow this up, which I did for over 6mos. of writing to INS... still have to get to the Archives on this.
I do know of that link, but haven't gotten to trying this name there as yet and will do so later.

As you'll see in the previous post to Adam, I've tried to explain more about the name. I would be happy to send you the link for the manifest, but it is on my library's site
thru search at ancestrylibrary.com, for the name Zydanowicz in the Immigration/passenger lists for Baltimore in 1906, and in Philadelphia for 1904. Unless you have subscribed to ancestry.com, which I have not, don't think you'll find it, but if you can, I'd appreciate other eyes looking at it! I am certain these are relatives, as their US destination in Pittsburgh confirms that.

Thanks for the interest.
Dee

Dee,

I do have a subscription to Ancestry.com so I will see if I can find the manifest.....

Dee,
I believe I found the two manifests that you are talking about. Kamila arriving in Baltimore in 1904, from Grawzinowe and Adolf arriving in Philadelphia from Grawza.

I see that Kamila is going to her brother Franz in Pittsburgh. I found a Frank Zydanowicz in the 1930 census, living in Pennsylvania, maried to Anna, several children - is this a relative? He lists his immigration as 1898, so if you could trace him you might find more information.

Adolf is going to a brother, Josef, in Pittsburg and again, if you can trace him you might find confirmation of the locations in Poland (or - "Russian Poland", as it was often called at the time).

Were Franz and Jozef brothers, or are these two different families?

Good Luck, let me know if I can help, we subscribe to lots of genealogy resources.

Nancy

PS. How are your Polish lessons coming along?

There might be one more explanation, but I'm not sure if this will lead us anywhere better. Pronunciation of English "w" is written in Polish as "l" with a dash across it, so actually it might be spelled in Polish as "Grolza". Unfortunately this also doesn't sound familiar.
A_dam, have you got any ideas? What's this can be?