Our first day of relatives hunting began today. A combination of detective work and history.
It was Tuesday and our first day of relative hunting. Our guide Lucjan Cichochi arrived at our hotel in Rzeszów, Poland to take us to our first destination for the week. One big advantage we had was a personable tour guide who spoke both English and Polish was a professional genealogist who Ethan had consulted with on our family history. So, he already had some familiarity with our case(s).
What’s in a Name?
Ethan’s mom Judy’s mom was Helen Dolac (maiden name Stobierski). Her family was known to come from an area about 40 miles north of Rzeszów in the town of Świerczów. We had an address for a Stobierski and approached a woman living there who said no one with that name lived there and there were many families with that name. She suggested trying another address down the road where Halina lived who might be from that family.
It was in a multi-family apartment building which seemed might be daunting for a stranger to ring a doorbell. Lucjan, however, never let that stop him from asking around. Through a neighboring park attendant, he called Halina Knipa (formerly Stobierski ) and asked if we could meet to discuss her family for the benefit of three strangers from the U.S. seeking family history.
Naturally, it seemed, she let us in her modest apartment and treated us to coffee and cake while he began asking questions to see if she was indeed connected to the Stobierski family who immigrated to the states. She spoke only Polish but her 28-year old son Bartek, spoke some English and joined us as we looked through old photos. Ethan and Lucjan agreed that there probably was a connection to the the U.S. Stabierski’s through a great grandfather. She even agreed to take us to the town hall records building to verify his birth record to see if he was a brother of Tomas Stobierski, Ethan’s great grandfather.
Halina and Bartok then took us to the house where she and the Stobierski family once lived which is now vacant along with many others in the area. Once mainly a farming community, commerce had settled in and the family moved on. With no one interested in a house in need of repair, a barn and acres of farming land, Helena’s sisters now owned the land and its future was uncertain. It seemed likely the family home would be sold off someday. We agreed to exchange emails and make a connection
The land in this area is mostly flat and fertile. It’s fairly busy with traffic although the population is not dense and there seems to be an oversupply of land with little influence from big agricultural companies. It seems like a place where time has stood still, at least for now.
Visiting the Ethnographic Park
After a quick lunch we headed to the Ethnographic Park in Kolbuszowa a few miles away. The term “Ethnographic Park” is probably a more globally acceptable term for a recreation of a past time and culture. Williamsburg in the U.S. is considered as such. There are many such places in Europe reflecting past history and how people lived in those times.
The southeastern part of Poland was mostly an agricultural area and the common village people who worked the land and raised farm animals, mostly for the benefit of wealthy landowner aristocracy. The park is an assembly of about 60 buildings in an area resembling what a Polish village might look like several hundred years ago.
All buildings in this living exhibit were historically accurate and selected from the nearby areas then reassembled to create this reconstructed new village, including peasant houses, barns, shrines, schoolhouse, silos and manor house.
Ironically, our guide Sabina was married into the Stobierski family but we quickly realized that there was no direct connection to our’s. She became our private guide walking us through the village and explaining the history of the early settlers in this part of Poland. It was a great way to appreciate the past and think about how are history was both the same and different.
The Ethnographic park continues to expand and is a very popular destination for visitors from Poland and beyond. For a relatively new and small area of Poland, they are now attracting up to 50,000 visitors a year. Probably most important to many visiting these days is that a popular Netflix streaming comedy series (in Poland only?) called “1690” was shot here for its first season and a second season is in the works. We’ll be looking for it on Netflix when we get back to the states. I guess you could say it’s a virtual recreation of past, not unlike what we are trying to do.
Paul Kiczek
(This blog post series originally appeared on Paul’s blog (https://myplanc.blog/) and is published with his permission.)