Some explanation re SMALL PETTY NOBLES in Poland - here as CIEMNE MAZURY
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In reply to:
Re: Stefan Baranowski born Poland 1885 - I want win !! :)
George Baranoski 9/01/11
Dear George & family Baranowski in the US,
Your joy is our joy, good luck in discovering your family Polish roots. I want also tell few words about "small, petty nobles" roots in Poland, as you can read from the weblink I gave you in my analysis the Polish nobility were in common speech divided into:
I. magnates (magnaci): the wealthiest class; owners of vast lands, towns, many villages, thousands of peasants
II. middle nobility (srednia szlachta): owners of one of more villages, often having some official titles or Envoys from the local Land Assemblies to the General Assembly,
III. petty nobility (drobna szlachta), owners of a part of a village or owning no land at all, often referred to by a variety of colourful Polish terms such as:
# szaraczkowa - grey nobility, from their grey, woollen, uncoloured zupans
# okoliczna - local nobility, similar to zaĆciankowa
zagrodowa - from zagroda, a farm, often little different from a peasant's dwelling
# zagonowa - from zagon, a small unit of land measure, hide nobility
# czastkowa - partial, owners of only part of a single village
# panek - little pan (i.e. lordling), term used in Kaszuby, the Kashubian region, also one of the legal terms for legally separated lower nobility in late medieval and early modern Poland
# hreczkosiej - buckwheat sowers - those who had to work their fields themselves.
# zasciankowa - from zascianek, a name for plural nobility settlement, neighbourhood nobility. Just like hreczkosiej, zasciankowa nobility would have no peasants.
# brukowa - cobble nobility, for those living in towns like townsfolk
# golota - naked nobility, i.e. the landless. Golota szlachta would be considered the 'lowest of the high'.
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In your case the historical sources confirm the Baranowski's, Czapliski's and other families living in abt 1880 in this Krzynowloga Wielka were named as "Ciemne Mazury" - from this name we can tell:
"Mazury" means they originated from Masovia before they settled in this Krzynowloga (estimation time is 13-15th century).
"Ciemne" means they were substantially pauperizied in the 19th century - like many other Polish Noble families under the Russia Empire, when from the end of the 18th century they lost their nobility rights due to Russian Empire policy and regulations (same it was under Prussia-Germany and Austria-Hungary Empire). The pauperization was so deep that many family members decided to emigrate abroad, mainly to the new world named United States.
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For today I want also to give you a symbolic present, here is the image of the family Baranowski's ancestral church in this Krzynowloga Wielka, where all family members were baptized, married, and burried in the local cemetery, this was the most holy place for them, the focus of their rich social and religious life:
http://parafie.genealogiapolska.pl/details.php?image_id=306&mode=search&sessionid=d0f87233f9284bce5df3aef60d9ccb50http://parafie.genealogiapolska.pl/details.php?image_id=306&mode=search&sessionid=d0f87233f9284bce5df3aef60d9ccb50
Good luck in your further search, you can check family vital records from this parish Krzynowloga Wielka microfilmed and filed in FHL/LDS centre in Salt Lake City, here are detailed numbers of the microfilms:
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/printing/titledetailsprint.asp?titleno=299455http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/printing/titledetailsprint.asp?titleno=299455
Tadeusz
RootsPoland, Warsaw