Serwis Polskiego Towarzystwa Genealogicznego

Czy masz akt zgonu Leokadii żony Henryka Pilkowicza?
Wydaje mi się, że z Leokadią płynie jej siostra Aniela (20 lat) Kirkis/Kurkis

Regarding the birthplaces of the children, it is only mentioned as "near Vilnius, Lithuania."
However, I found out that there is a town called Łomianki near Warsaw. To my ear, the name sounds very close to what was written in the entry from 1912, although it doesn’t match the 1911 data, where "Wilno" was added as a reference. I’m also not sure if moving from Vilnius to Warsaw was common back then, the way moving between states became common in the US, for example.

However, I know that Leokadia’s official maiden name was written as Kurkievics in the US documents.

Hi,
You're probably familiar with this, but just for others' reference I assume this is the person in question:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139 ... olkultinis

Spis powszechny 1920r. - na samym dole Leokadia Pilkowicz z dziećmi
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 11&lang=pl
Spis powszechny 1930r. Lydia Pilkowicz
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 3AX7NF-JLB
Może coś z tego wyczytasz więcej - akt II ślubu Leokadii Anastazji Pilkowicz 53 lata z Janem Polkultinisem 15.VII.1941r. Jej rodzice to Michał Kurkis i Cyryla Stasian
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 40&lang=pl
oraz
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 41&lang=pl
Spis 1950r. Lydia pod n-rem 40
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 15&lang=pl

Henryk Pilkowicz
https://www.familysearch.org/pl/tree/pe ... s/P9B5-TRB

Highly improbable. Łomianki near Warsaw had been my first thought when I first read your post. But I would rather assume this place was some small settlement near Dubinki. They must have lived there right to the point when they emigrated to the US. I think you need to browse the metrical books of the nearby churches for the baptism records of their children. Their place of birth will be mentioned in them and then you will locate the place.



This one is simple – her family name was Kurkiewicz. There are some Kurkiewicz entries in the database, mainly south of Vilnius.

Just curious - have you come across this kind of term before? What it might have meant in practice?

What term exactly do you mean? Wilno Christian Society? If that’s the case, then no, never heard of it. I have tried to google it out, but nothing appeared on the Internet. In Polish this would be Wileńskie Towarzystwo Chrześciajńskie.

If you mean their social class designation – his parents were Wiłkomierz burghers (that is what the word мещан means). That may mean his ancestors had been petty nobility who failed to pass the strict verification process of confirmation and admission to the Russian nobility class imposed by the Russian occupants after they partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. To verify this you need to check records related to their ancestors living at the turn of 18th and 19th century and see if they were recorded as nobles.

If, in turn, form the fact that he was a member of this Wilno Christian Society, whatever it was, you draw the conclusion that he moved somehow to Wilno, then this is too weak a premise to draw such a conclusion.

Don’t even attach too much importance to this “Wiłkomierz burgher”. Russian society was a rigid, stratified structure with everybody ascribed to some specific class, called Сословие, and place they were born. Here is an article on this in Russian Wikipedia:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0 ... 0%B8%D0%B8
This was unheard of and entirely unknown to Polish-Lithuanian population.

Right after the partitions the Russians launched a compulsory administrative procedure of classifying anybody alive. Petty nobility, who were poor and unable to prove their noble origin, were forced to choose between peasant or burgher class. Those people commonly chose burgher class due to some privileges connected with this choice. To this end they registered in the so called Municipal Book as the burghers of some particular town. Mostly these were the towns closest to the place they resided. In most cases they never lived even one single they in the town they chose, although they might.

So, it might turn out in the end that your Piłokowiczes originally resided in some village near Wiłkomierz and then moved from there to other places.

Hope this helps you understand the content of those records. Ask if you have more questions.

BTW: It the requirement on this forum to sign your posts.