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

Hi Zooba... nice to meet someone from Poznan here ... I spent two days in your lovely city last year as I travelled around Poland....loved your country so much!!

Do appreciate your input on this ... In looking at that manifest, the spelling may really be "Grawza or Grawzinowe"
which could sound like "Gravza" "Gravzinove" -- is that any better??

Dee

Great job, Nancy, in locating these manifests. Do you agree that the location looks like �Grawzinowe�?

Yes, Kamila and Adolf are sister/brother to my Dziadek (Frank Zydanowicz) and I do know a lot about him in the US.
But, a brother Josef is strange as I have no family record on him, though I have found a Joseph in a few places, but his age didn�t match, and it was a different PA county.

I haven�t been able to find my grandparents (Frank Zydanowicz and Anna Szarejko) on any passenger lists yet, only in 1910-1930 Census... Frank arrived in 1888 and Anna came in 1889, but they only met and married in 1891 in Pittsburgh and the church record only shows "Russica Polonia". If you have time to check them out on your ancestry sites, I would certainly appreciate that.

Dziekuje bardzo!! � my Polish is at a standstill now, but trying Kai�s learning link may help if I can find the time!
Dee

Yes, I agree, Kamila's manifest says Grawzinowe and Adolf's says Grawza. On Zooba's suggestion, I tried "Gralza" but I am not sure that the returns I got helped. More detective work needed. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The link Kai gave is great - but there are only a couple of lessons there at the moment, so it does not take much time. But - I learned the cases much more easily there than elsewhere. I hope they keep adding to the site.

Dee,

Would you email me about this research? My email is on my profile page...

I have done a little searching for you and have a couple of questions.

Nancy

Hi Zooba, I agree! It came to my mind too amd in fact thay is how I arrived at Gro/zla, since -just like to your ear - Gro/lza did not sound 'properly'. But you may still be right and in some proper index or atlas of 1800/1900 Poland someone will find GRO/LZA! GROVZA sounds too 'foreign', that's for sure (well almost for sure - never say 'never' <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I wish Dee luck in his search, I remember my father digging in the parishs' dusty archives in a quest to extend our knowledge about some branches of our family - he was so excited!
(BTW - I agree with Dee, Pozan is really great and probably the most... tidy big city in Poland :-))

I keep trying every possible combination in both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets in the "Brockhaus and Yefron" encyclopdeia, which was published in the early 20th century in the Russian Empire. The encyclopedia contained 86 volumes, and had even very small villages in all parts of the former empire listed, so I'm sure if we can ever find the correct spelling of this place, assuming it had a population of over 20 people, I should be able to find it. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hey guys ... many thanks for your efforts in trying to figure out these names for me.

Bear with me here -- Zooba and Adam are looking at the written word GROWZA or GRAWZA and interpreting it in Polish as an "l" (with a slash)for the "w", right?

Now, I see it differently -- if I were an immigration officer (in 1900) hearing a Pole speaking this name (since he wouldn't know how to spell in English), I would "hear" it as GROVZA or even GRAFZA, and since a Polish "w" sounds like that to an American, I would write that into the name.
How about this theory? <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/wall.gif" alt="" />

Dee, Adam, Zooba:

I am sure that whatever those villages are, they are not spelled correctly on the manifest. Dee is lucky that the surname was spelled correctly and the handwriting is so clear! On one of my family's manifests, the village of "Piatkowa" was transcribed as "Padthiwa." The mispellings on manifests and census records are legendary among Polish-American researchers! It is a wonder any of us can trace our family in the US, much less back to Poland.

Do you not think that the option I found for "Grazinowe" might be correct?

And - is Grawza really a separate place? If so, why are brother and sister from two different villages? Or is this another "spelling" problem? They are also traveling to different people in the US (one to Franz, one to Josef)

Dee, have you looked at those 58 possilities that Shetlseeker found for Grawza? The Soundex system has some logic to it, I don't know it well enough to explain.


Here they are (sorry no diacritical marks)(if a name is repeated it is another place with the same name, I did not include latitude/longitude here):
Chorowice
Chrapice
Chrobacze
Chroberz
Cierpice
Cierpice
Cierpisz
Cierpisz
Garbacz
Garbacz
Garbas, Garbassen
Garba&#347;
Garbce
Garbicz
Gorowychy, Sonnenberg in Westpreussen, Sonnenberg
Grabarze
Grabce
Grabica
Grabica
Grabice
Grabice
Grabiec
Grabiec
Grapice, Grapitz
Gr&#281;bice, Starkenhorst
Gr&#281;bosze
Gryfice, Greifenberg in Pommern, Greifenberg
Karpacz, Krummh�bel
Karwacz
Karwica, Kurwien, Kurwia, Gross Kurwien
Karwice, Karwitz
Karwice
Karwodr&#380;a
Korobiec
Korpysy
Krappitz, Krapkowice, Chrapkowice
Krawarz, Preussisch Krawarn, Polski Krawarz, Polnisch Krawarn, Krowiarki
Krawce
Krawce
Kr&#281;pica
Kr&#281;pica
Kr&#281;pice
Kr&#281;piec, Krampitz
Kr&#281;piec
Krobica
Krobusz
Krowica, Krowica Pusta
Krowica
Krowica
Krowodrza
Krubice
Krupice
Krupiec
Krupiec
Kuropas
Kurowice
Kurowice, Rz&#261;dowe, Kurowice Rz&#261;dowe
Kurowice

Hi Nancy, hi Dee, after reading Nancy's 'Piatkowa' turned into 'Padthiwa' I think that Growza or Growzinowe might be much futher from the original then we expect. I think that we can't be very sure even about the first letter, since the letter "k" could sound as 'g' in the officer's ears, isn't that so?
Gora Wisniowa sounds like a perfect (and beautiful) name for the village. Growza, Grovza, Grawza, Gravza doesn't sound like real names, but it seems that Zooba's and my impression may be wrong since "Growza" returned 58 possibilities at searchmachine. I am not an expert here, I never did such research -it was all ready waiting for me (lucky I :-) but I think that nonetheless every single possibility should be meticulously checked, am I right, Nancy?

Hi everyone --- I think we've all come to the right conclusion about the mispelling...it has been butchered!

Nancy, I think that GORA WIZNIOWA sounds the closest at the moment; on that Shetlseeker list, I think the best guess might be GRABCE? Also, I feel that GRAVZE and GRAVZINOVE are the same area that brother and sister were from, but were just "heard" differently at separate times.

Adam -- you said "I think that we can't be very sure even about the first letter, since the letter "k" could sound as 'g' in the officer's ears, isn't that so?"-----------
I, personally, don't think so because I am pretty sure of my own Polish pronounciation from English, and "g" would not sound like a "k". I'm guessing that perhaps the first letter is really a "G" but what comes after is a mystery
for the moment.

I will just have to keep searching for more of my relatives that arrived here around that time and hopefully find more references to the village or town or whatever, as it is a big mystery needing to be solved now.

Dee