The following records were compiled by Debbie Greenlee. She is the owner and author of this page.
The accompanying databases are indexes to the Bukowsko Roman Catholic church baptismal records covering 1802 - 1940, Volumes IV - X, with the exception of Vol. IX, 1878-1892 which is archived at the Przemyśl Archdiocesan Archives. I digitally photographed the six volumes of records in Bukowsko between the years 2005-2010 and I hold the copyright on the digital images of these records.
These books or copies of these books have not been filmed by LDS and are not held at any archive in Poland. I felt it imperative that somehow these and other books in this parish be preserved. Ks. Kudła, like most priests in Poland, has very little time to help family researchers. He allowed me to digitally photograph his records with the agreement that I would index the records, place the index on the Internet, give him a CD of the records and do look-ups for people who requested them. This would largely alleviate his work load.
Since the priest will not be receiving donations for doing look-ups and research - the double edged sword for having his load lightened - I feel it only fair that I charge to provide copies of the actual records and forward the money to ks. Kudła, the parish priest in Bukowsko. If you would like a scan of a particular record or records, please contact me. Included in the fee will be a scan of the book cover. The record scans will be returned by email. If a person wants me to print out the record and mail it there will be an additional charge (which will cover my cost of copies and postage). Record images obtained in either manner may not be reproduced on the Internet, directly or indirectly, or in any other place or form, other than in a personal family history book printed in hard copy only. All fees must be paid before I send any records. When I forward the fee to ks. Kudła, I will include your name and the surnames you are researching.
In order for me to quickly locate the records you request please send me the Volume (Tom) number, page number, record number and the infant’s full name. Example:
Volume X, page 2, rec. 73, Antoni Sokoł.
There will be an added fee if you want the record(s) translated.
The baptismal records in this parish were written in Latin. Great care was taken to ensure that the information listed in the indexes accurately reflects the original records. This doesn’t mean, however, that you won’t have trouble locating someone. The spelling of surnames changed over the years so you may have to be creative when you search. If you need suggestions on different spellings of surnames, contact me and I will try to help. Some of the original records contain substantial additional information such as date of baptism, place of birth of parents, grandparents’ names, godparents’ names, whether the infant died young or married, and nobility titles of the parents.
Given names were written in Latin in the records. Your ancestor did not answer to that name, it was just the way the church recorded names in its records. In your own records you should use the Polish given name which is how everyone is listed in these databases/indexes.
Surnames in particular went through a transformation over the years as Polish grammar stabilized. The surname Chrząszcz for example, will appear as Krząscz, Chrząscz, Chrząsc, Hrząscz and Krząsc. The surname Kseniak will be found spelled Xeniak, denoting its Ukrainian roots. The letter “y” was eventually replaced with the letter “j” so along with Zając you will find Zaiąc. Hujsak can be found as Huysak. Some surnames did not use diacritical marks in the early years but added letters. Searches will be more successful if you use only the first few letters of the surname when doing the search. Polish diacriticals were used in order to spell the given and surnames correctly in Polish. If a diacritical was used in the surname in the original record, you will need to use it in your search terms.
Women’s surnames were spelled using the nominative masculine endings; -ska is listed as -ski and -cka is listed as -cki. So if you are looking for a woman with the surname Kowalska, search on Kowalski.
If an infant was given two names, both are listed. This can cause a problem when searching for a particular person if you don’t know the infant’s middle name, it happened to me. All I can suggest is that you search on the surname or the father’s whole name. You’ll find more children that way too.
The original record sometimes included two house numbers though the index only lists one. I am not sure why this was done.
House numbers changed over the years due to houses being burned down. If you travel to Bukowsko today, you will not be able to find your ancestor’s home/property based only on the house numbers found in these records. Other research using church records and cadastral records is necessary in order to determine where that original property might be located today.
Several volunteers were involved in the translating of more than 1,000 baptismal records which we started transcribing in February, 2011. My heartfelt thanks goes to: Mary Ache, Barbara Cozine, Jurek Ćwiąkała, Janet George, Sharon Turnas, John Zlotek, Andrzej Mandat and Roman Kaluzniacki. Thank you also to Philip Semanchuk for placing any and all information I throw his way onto his web site.
If you have any questions or corrections please contact Debbie Greenlee.
Transcription © 2011 Deborah Greenlee; no claim made to original records. Used at this website by express permission. All other rights reserved.