Discovering My Roots

17 October 2008

Using Gazetteers to Construct a Village Description
By Jim Onyschuk

I had never heard the term “Gazetteer” until I started my genealogical pursuits. I read that if you wanted to find the records of your ancestor’s village, you needed to consult a gazetteer. For example, suppose the village you were searching was called Biala. You would soon discover that there were a lot of Bialas in Ukraine.

According to the “Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia,” by Brian J. Lennius, there are seven Bialas listed. Your task would now be to determine which Biala was that of your ancestry. To pinpoint your Biala, you would need to know some towns that were nearby, to locate the correct Biala. You ask your aunt if she remembers some nearby towns and she mentions Czortkow. Now you are in luck, for the gazetteer lists a Biala in the Administrative District of Czortkow. The gazetteer also indicates that the Roman Catholic Church for Biala was not in Biala but in nearby Czortkow, while the Greek Catholic Church was in Biala. So the gazetteer also indicates that if I were searching for Roman Catholic records I would not find them in Biala, but in nearby Czortkow. Had I not consulted a gazetteer, I could end up spending a great deal of time searching through the records of a number of Bialas to no avail. So, by using this gazetteer, I was able to locate the correct parish that I would need to search for records.

So what exactly is a gazetteer and why is it a valuable tool for genealogical research? Simply put, a gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory of information about places and place-names. It is commonly used in conjunction with an atlas. It would contain information about the geographical makeup of a country or area. Some gazetteers provide information about places and features; for example, a history of the locale, religious breakdown, population data, physical data such as elevation and size, or the pronunciation of the name. There is remarkable diversity in approaches to the description of geographic places and no standardization beyond authoritative sources for the geographic names themselves.

A gazetteer will help you locate an ancestral village. It will give the correct spelling and alternative spellings of the village or town. For example Biala is the Polish spelling, while Bila is the Ukrainian spelling. It will locate the parish to which the village belonged. A gazetteer may also indicate the nearby villages. This would help locate other nearby villages that your ancestors may have come from or moved to. A gazetteer may also give a breakdown of the population, the size, the religions and the local history of the village.

We know that one’s surroundings can have a profound effect in shaping our lives. A gazetteer may indicate some demographic, which may have impacted on our ancestors life. In addition, the information gleaned from a gazetteer can help us breath life into our family histories and facilitate our envisioning of what it might have been like living there at that time. Here are four gazetteers and what they showed me about the village in which my father lived.

1) `Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia
By consulting different gazetteers I was able to get a better picture of my father’s village. First I consulted the “Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia” by Brian J. Lennius, which covers the period from 1896-1914. Here, I found that the Ukrainian spelling of the village is Shydlivtsi (ШИДЛІВЦІ) and the Polish spelling is Szydlowce. It is in the Administrative District of Husiatyn. The Judicial and Tax District is also Husiatyn. The Roman Catholic parish was in nearby Sydoriv (Ukrainian) / Sidorow (Polish). A footnote inicates that the Roman Catholic Church was erected in 1784. The Greek Catholic parish is locally situated in Shydlivtsi / Szydlowce.

2) Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego
Next, I consulted the Polish Gazetteer called “Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego”, (Geographic Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic Countries) Warsaw, 1880-1902. I found much additional information. It is in Polish and was translated thanks to TUGG member Eva M Zuber. I learned that Szydłowce (Galicia) is a

“Village in the Husiatyń powiat [county, district], 8 kilometers south of Husiatyń. In Husiatyń there are: the district court, the railway station, and the post and the telegraph offices. To the West and the North-West of Szydłowce lays Sidorów, to the North Trojanówka (part of village Suchodół), to the East and the South Kryków (district Kamieniec, gubernia [province] Podole – [in Russia, ed. EZ]). River Zbrucz flows along the border [with Russia –ed. EZ]. The houses are built alongside the Zbrucz valley. The majority [nobility, landowners – ed. EZ] owns: arable fields - 92 morgs, meadows and orchards - 26, pastures - 10, forests - 457 morgs. The minority [peasants – ed EZ] owns: arable fields - 93, meadows and orchards - 75 and pastures - 16 morgs. In 1880, there were 178 houses, 1012 inhabitants in the gmina [township], and 5 houses with 37 inhabitants at the manor estate. The population by religion: 782 Greek-Catholics, 242 Roman-Catholics, 21 Jews & 4 others. The population by nationality: 928 Ruthenians, 121 Poles. The Roman-Catholic parish is in Sidorów, the Greek-Catholic parish, which includes also village Zielona, is local and belongs to the Husiatyń decanat. In the village, there is a Św. Mikołaj cerkiew [Greek-Catholic St. Nicolaus church], 1-room school and a water-mill. Lu.Dz. [initials of the submitter/writer – ed EZ]”

Translator’s Notes

1. Morga(s) – measurement of area. It varied in different parts of Central Europe. The Galician morga= 0.57 hectare (1 h~ 2.5 US acres)

2. Województwo – province – the largest administrative unit in Galicia. The number of provinces varied depending on the era. For example, in XIXc Galicia there were 3 provinces: Kraków, Lwów and Tarnopol.

3. Powiat - district, county – smaller administrative unit. One powiat consisted of many gminas (townships). The head offices were located in the largest town/city in the area.

4. Gmina – township - the smallest administrative unit. The gminas included several villages and settlements. The main office was usually located in the largest village in the area.

5. Gubernia – equivalent of województwo (province) in Russia.

6. Decanat – a church jurisdiction district. Decanats consisted of many parishes. Decanats belonged the archdioceses. Decanat jurisdiction did not correspond with areas covered by powiats!.

Translated by Eva M Zuber. All rights reserved.
Source: Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego, Warsaw [1883, vol. 12, p. 99]

3) Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Konigreiche und Lander
Another Gazetteer I consulted is the “Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Konigreiche und Lander.” (Gazetteer of the Crown Lands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council) - Volume 10: Galizien (Galicia).  Vienna, 1907.

It is arranged in table format. One table indicates that Szydlowce is classified as a village on 122 hectors of land. There was a total population of 1,135, consisting of 554 males and 581 females. There were 207 Roman Catholic, 901 Greek Catholic and 27 Jews. The colloquial speech was 239 Polish-speaking and 893 Ukrainian-speaking. There were 213 homes, a Greek Catholic Church, an elementary school, five constables and about 220 adult males.

A second table reveals that there were 170 horses, 372 cattle, 19 sheep and 214 pigs. There were, on the whole 468 hectors of land with 431 taxable hectors, 312 hectors of fields, 0.07 hectors of meadows, 16 hectors of gardens, 44 hectors of hills and 52 hectors of forest. There was 1 greatland property and no factories.

The Gazetteer also gives a general indication of the make-up of the population by language and by religion for each county in 1907. The County of Husiatyn had a population of 98,196. There were 93 German-speaking; 39,198 Polish-speaking (40 %); 58,881 Ukrainian-speaking (60 %) and 24 Other-speaking. The total population by religion was 93,854 of which, 24,649 (26 %) were Roman Catholic; 56,596 (60 %) were Greek Catholic;12,573 (13 %) were Jewish and 36 were listed as ‘Other.’

4) Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej
One Gazetteer that just came online is “Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej,”(Index of Places of the Republic of Poland.) Przemyśl : Wydawnictwo Ksiaznicy Naukowej, 1934.

This gazetteer is also arranged in table format. It indicates that Szydlowce is a village in the rural district of Szydlowce in the Political County of Kopyczynce in the Province of Tarnopil (Ternopil). The postal, telegraph and telephone office is in Husiatyn. The railroad station is in Husiatyn, which is 9 kilometers distance. The nearest bus line is 10 kilometers distance in Husiatyn-Kopyczynce. The city court is in Husiatyn and the district court is in Czortkow. The Roman Catholic Church is in Sidorow and there is a local Greek Catholic Church.

Based on the information gathered from these four Gazetteers I now have something solid to work with to help me describe my father’s village. Below is a description, placing my father’s family in the village and employing material from all four Gazetteers.

Part Two will show how this information was used to  construct a description of Shydlivtsi