After breakfast we headed to Romany. On the way we needed to pull over for a herd of cows being moved back to the pasture; apparently due to the storm last night the cows were brought to high ground due to flooding . We met with the priest, who said he was new at this parish for only one week and his rectory is also under remodeling! He was very gracious and allowed us to look at the church records, some of the books over 100 years old! The years we are looking for are missing, Zenon said someone could have took the book or it was destroyed from wear.
I gave the priest a 50 zloty (about $17.US funds) for his help. From there we went to the State Archives in Lomza to check what books were available. I was surprised how small this branch was; 1 microfiche unit in the room with 3 desks. There are some films we would need but unfortunately the unit is book for today and tomorrow, and the Archives are closed Saturday.
We drove out to Lisy to see where Konstansty Korytkowski was born. Lisy is a very small village, maybe the size of 4 city blocks, and very few families live there. Nobody recognize the family names we were researching, there is also no local church in the area. We headed on to Zaskrodie home of Piasecki’s, but again no one recognized the names and no local church.
We stopped for lunch at another hunting lodge that was just beautiful, with woodcarvings, wicker and wood furniture. We had wolowe flaczki, which is beef tripe soup with rye bread. After lunch we went to visit Jon Zalewski for coffee, he told us my cousin Irena had died of kidney failure, she was in a lot of pain and lost much weight in the end. I found out that Natasha, Irena sister, died young from lung cancer. Jon told me that my Uncle Kazmier was about my height 5 foot 9 inches. He said his daughter Ania will be home late tonight, she is Gdansk studying for degree as a physiologist; his other daughter Malgorzata is in England and is a lawyer, neither are married. We left and promised to return tomorrow.
>Went back to the B&B I watched a DVD Zenon brought about peasant life in Poland. We went to the market square in Old Lomza for dinner. After that I went for a walk on my own. I am frustrated on not finding any of the records, but decided to enjoy my time in Poland and not worry about it.
I did learn a few things: Gas is 5.84 zlotys per liter which is about $7.78 a gallon U.S. funds! June 4th 1989 was the first free election in Poland and Lech Walesa, leader of Solidarity was elected the first president. November 11 is Freedom day after 123 years of partitions. May 3rd is the first consititution in Poland, Europe followed later. 1920 end of WWI. 1930 was marshal law Josef Pilsudski. A priest can do a list of souls, which was a type of census of the parish. 1920 census started about every 10 years.