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Info on town/villiage in Poland

Started by zeropolis79, 17:26, 04 February 15

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zeropolis79

I need some help from anyone in this group who might live in Poland.. I'm trying to find out information about a specific town in the country for my surrogate US based mother who is trying to update her grandfather's journals with a view for publication (he and his family fled to Michigen, USA in 1913) with info about the town which was called Zytyn. As far as we can make out, it's no longer there but we can't find out anything. A lot of the websites I get my info from have let me down.. Many thanks!

(I did find an obituary of someone whose father came from the town, but typically, the woman is her aunt!)

TFM

Take a look into the maps of White Russia, Poland got pushed towards west all the time. Former Poland is today mostly Russian. Sorry, that I can't help more.



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twox

Maybe Żytyn? Zytyn is unnatural word in polish, i might this may be Żytyn because thats a lot more natural name. Hovewer, i dont know if its existing city. And yeah, russies and other east-vodkadrinkers was always invading Poland so you should check theirs maps.

MaV

#3
TFM is quite right. Poland has been much bigger at the time of her grandfather's emigration. I found the villages in the Ukraine.

There are two villages called Zytyn (polish: ŻYTYŃ) on former Polish territory; Żytyń Wielki, Żytyń Mały. And there's been a third village (?) that does not appear on current maps: Żytyń Cukrownia.

Here's the map in the upper right corner with all three villages (for some reason the link won't appear in the preview, so copy the line and delete the space before the two slashes):
http: //wolyn.ovh.org/opisy/zytyn_wielki-08.html

A map of Poland looked like this back then (the villages would be north-east of Równe close to the eastern border):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/RzeczpospolitaII.png

About the history of the region:
Volhynia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And the Google Maps link:
Riwne - Google Maps
(The towns are transliterated from cyrillic characters, so the are written Zhytyn here. A problem with the link again. Zoom out of the town a bit then look at the north-east.)




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MaV

Żytyń Cukrownia seems just to have been a sugar factory (I suspected as much).
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TFM

Ha MaV!!! You are the only humanoid better than Google!  :) :) :)
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Bryce

"White Russia" (Weißrussland in German) is called Belarus in English by the way.

Bryce.

TFM

Quote from: Bryce on 22:45, 04 February 15
"White Russia" (Weißrussland in German) is called Belarus in English by the way.


Hey, first you steal my coffee cup and then you complain that I'm tired in the early morning.  :laugh:
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ZbyniuR

I confirm "Cukrownia" is just sugar factory.
"Mały" and "Wielki" mean "Small" and "Great". Used to it was neighbour villages, now merged, so left only one name "Żytyń Wielki" or in Cyrylic alphabet "Великий Житин".
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Artsyemily

Not sure if you will see this, but I live near Detroit and just took a DNA test and found out my great great grandfather immigrated to Detroit in 1913 from Zytyn and was wondering if the surname Weber rings a bell?

MaV

Quote from: Artsyemily on 18:52, 26 March 22Not sure if you will see this, but I live near Detroit and just took a DNA test and found out my great great grandfather immigrated to Detroit in 1913 from Zytyn and was wondering if the surname Weber rings a bell?
Hi Artsyemily!

Unfortunately no, because Weber is a very common German surname (5th place according to this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_surnames_in_Germany). But I can try to give you a bit of information to help you in your search.

You might already know that the surname Weber means "weaver" in German. One of you ancestors certainly was a weaver by profession. Acquiring a surname could have happened between the 12th to 15th century in Germany, in remote areas sometimes even later.

Zytyn is part of the Rivne Oblast (region or administrative district) in the Ukraine. Historically this part was called Volhynia, and there used to live quite a lot of Germans.

There's a Wikipedia entry about the Volhynia Germans (in German).
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolhyniendeutsche

I've taken the liberty to translate the first part, which is relevant to your family history:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19th century

Russia Germans immigrated in multiple waves to the Russian empire. In the course of the 19th century a large number of Germans came to Volhynia, a region south of the Prypjat (or Pripet/Pinsk) marshes. This happened most notably between 1860 and 1895.

Already from ca. 1815 on, West Prussian and Palatinate (German: Pfalz) mennonites (the latter had their origins in Switzerland) began to settle in this region. A part of these mennonite immigrants belonged to the strict communities of the Amish mennonites. In 1831 Germans from Poland followed who did not partake in the November Uprising (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_Uprising) and were subjected to hostilities by the Polish population. In contrast to other groups of Russia Germans - and without being invited by the Czar - the Volhynia Germans settled not only as large landowners but also as tenants. They had their own parishes and schools. From 1880 on the Russian government denied the Germans to build new parishes, and they had to appoint Russian headmasters. In 1914 about 250.000 Germans lived in Volhynia in more than 300 German colonies.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a more complete history of Volhynia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volhynia

Given that many Germans who settled in East Europe were artisans, it is most likely that one of your ancestors travelled as a journeyman:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years

And last but not least, there is a website about Volhynia which might even have more details.
https://www.volhynia.com/


I hope that's a good starting point. It would be best to contact the local authorities or historians, but the current situation makes that impossible.

Don't forget that there's two towns called Zytyn - Żytyń Wielki and Żytyń Mały, and the next big town and capital of the district is called Rivne (or sometimes Rowne, Rovno).

MaV

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Artsyemily

Wow that is immensely helpful, thanks! My great great grandfather spoke Polish - but was ethnically German, living in present day Ukraine. So amazing! I wonder about his wife also, maiden surname Mendzik. I can't find any record of that name. Do you know if it was also German?

MaV

#12
Mendzik is a typical Polish surname.

So, given that you great great grandfather spoke Polish as his mother tongue, perhaps his father might also have been married to a Polish wife, and he was raised in a Polish community (or in a mixed German-Polish community, who knows!) in Volhynia or settled there from Poland.

But anything beyond these assumptions is of course even more vague without further records (and I am not a historian ;) ).
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