THE PIENIAZEK FAMILY (UK)
The Family Trees of
Compa, Mazurek, Pieniazek and Sobania
A Story of four Grandparents, and the Amalgamation of their family lines.
(Other earlier lines to be researched – Novak, Kramek)
A. The Grandparents
Joseph Sobania
Born 1898. Joseph had three sisters and five brothers (one of nine children). He was the son of Tomasz and Victoria Sobania (nee Kramek).
Anna Compa
Born 1910. Anna had two brothers and one sister (one of four children). Anna’s parents were Andrzej (born 1871) and Victoria Compa (nee Novak). Victoria in turn was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Novak, and she had one brother.
Tomasz Pieniazek
Born 189x? Tomasz had five brothers and three sisters (one of nine children). His parents were Jozef and Agnieszka Pieniazek (nee ?). One of Tomasz’s brothers, Stanislaw (Staszek, born 1891) became a Kapitan in the Polish forces and was killed at Katyn in April/May 1940.
Katarzyna Mazurek
Born 189x?. Katarzyna had three brothers and four sisters (one of eight children). Her parents were Jakob and Agnieszka Mazurek (nee ?).
The Result!
Joseph Sobania and Anna Compa were married in 1927. They had three daughters, including Julia Sobania.
Tomasz Pieniazek and Katarzyna Mazurek were also married, they had three sons and a daughter, including Tadeusz Pieniazek.
Tadeusz Pieniazek and Julia Sobania were married in 1953. They had three sons, Jan, Edward and Richard Pieniazek.
This is the start of our family tree research.
B. Where?
Poland is the homeland of the four family lines, although defining ‘Poland’ is never easy.
The complexity of the situation arises from the fact that, even in the past 150 years, there were times that Poland did not exist, when Poland was east of where it is today, and where different parts of Poland have been under Austrian, German, Prussian, Russian, Lithuanian, Belarussian and Ukrainian rule.
Still, it appears that at around the time our grandparents were born (1870-1900) they lived in the areas of Kielce/Radom (in the case of the Sobania and Compa famlies), and around Przeworsk (in the case of the Mazurek and Pieniazek families).
In the case of Kielce and Radom, this region was part of the ‘original’ Poland of 1138, and is considered to be part of the true Polish Homeland. Przeworsk, on the other hand, has spent much of the recent centuries in the hands of other, less favourable regimes.
Between 1870 and the First World War, Kielce was under Russian rule, these were difficult times, with strikes, insurgency, uprising and calls for Polish independence. Since 1815, the ‘Kingdom of Poland’ had held some autonomy but was in effect dependent on Russia. Between 1870 and 1900, 1,000,000 Poles emigrated to the US.
The same principles held true for Przeworsk, except it was under Austrian rule in the immediate period up until the First World War, part of an area called Galicia and part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
A major shift in family homes to occur before the Second World War occurred in the late 1920s when Joseph Sobania and Anna Compa’s families ‘migrated’ to the Wolyn lands which had been ceded to the new independent Poland after WWI, and they settled near Targowica (nearest big town was Luck). These lands would subsequently be lost to the Sobania family and indeed to Poland during WWII.
Today, in 2004, many of the Pieniazek family descendants still reside in the Przeworsk region, in the village of Debow in particular and surrounding areas. The Mazurek’s and Sobania’s are now dispersed from their late 1800s territories, and the Compa’s also.
Many branches of these families can now be found all over Poland, in Germany, the UK, France, Canada, the US and Australia.
C. What do the Surnames mean?
Courtesy of William F. Hoffman, Author, "Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings" PGSA Publications Editor www.pgsa.org
MAZUREK, pronounced more or less like "mah-ZOO-reck," comes from the noun_Mazur, "one from the Mazovia region of Poland" -- Mazovia is an area in the northeastern part of Poland, which was included in the area ruled by the Russians, but names beginning Mazur- are found all over Poland these days. The suffix -ek is diminutive, so the name means literally "little Mazovian," but could mean "son of the Mazovian." As of 1990 there were 29,797 Polish citizens named Mazurek, living all over the country (522 of them in Przemysl province).
As of 1990, according to the best data available (the Slownik nazwisk wspolczesnie w Polsce uzywanych, "Directory of Surnames in Current Use in Poland," which covers about 94% of the population of Poland), there were 569 Polish citizens named SOBANIA. The largest numbers lived in the following provinces: Katowice 57, Opole 63, and Radom 254; the list said only 1 lived in Kielce province at that time. This data suggests there are two pockets of concentration of this name, one in southwestern Poland (the region called Silesia), the other a little southeast of the center of the country (near Radom).
Polish name expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut mentions this name in his book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles]. He says it appears in records as early as 1469, and comes from first names beginning with Sob-. There are several names that could apply, such as Sobestian (a variant of Sebastian), or Sobieslaw or Sobiepan (ancient pagan Slavic first names, no equivalents in English). Poles often formed nicknames from popular first names by taking the first few sounds of the name, dropping the rest, and adding suffixes (much as we do with names like "Eddie" from "Edward"). So they would take the Sob- part from the names I mentioned above, drop the rest, and add suffixes to come up with Sobania.
There is no way to translate the name, any more than we can translate "Ted" -- they're just nicknames from longer names that did mean something long ago. The closest we could come is "kin of Sobie," noting that that is a nickname from Sobestian or Sobieslaw, etc.
As of 1990 there were 185 Polish citizens named COMPA, widely scattered all over the country, with the largest numbers in the provinces of Leszno (28), Olsztyn (27), and Radom (33); 4 lived in Kielce province.
Note also that in Polish there is a nasal vowel written as an A with a tail under it, and before P this vowel sounds like OM; so COMPA could also be spelled phonetically by Poles as CA~PA, and you might run across that spelling. This form is very rare in modern Poland, however; as of 1990 there were only 15 Poles who spelled the name that way, found mainly in northern Poland.
"PIENIAZEK" means in Polish "small coin". According to Alexander Brückner, the author of a dictionary explaining the origins of Polish words, this word is an old Slavic borrowing from German "Pfennig". "Pieniazek" is spelled in Polish with two special letters. The "a" with a cedilla in Polish represents a nasal sound, similar to French "on" in "mon". The "z" with a dot accent represents a sound similar to French "j" in "Jean". In English transliteration, the closest phonetic representation would be: "Pea-yen-YON-zhek". The stressed second syllable is shown in capital letters.
Possible spelling variations of the Pieniazek surname
Many immigrants to America and to other countries had their surnames corrupted by Immigration officers, especially if their surnames were difficult to transliterate. Thus, some people that originally had the Pieniazek surname could have it changed to "Piniazek", "Piniosek", "Piniozek", "Pienioszek", "Pieniaszek", etc. US white page Internet search shows that this may have been the case. Some variations may have originated in Prussian-occupied Poland, where all official records were kept in German by officials that did not speak Polish.
History of the Pieniazek surname
Although it is commonly believed that Polish surnames formed from names of things, professions, or names of animals are younger than typical Polish surnames formed from names of places and ending in "-ski", the Pieniazek surname is one of the oldest Polish surnames and was used by many people that were prominent in the early history of Poland.
Early documents show that this name, probably first used as a nickname, was adapted by Andrzej Szydlowiecki, castellan of Sandomierz in Poland, who used the coat of arms Odrowaz. As these early documents were written in Latin, the nickname was spelled "Obulo", which means a "small coin". Szydlowiecki was know to love money, so the origin of this nickname is easy to guess.
The Odrowaz coat of arms is one of the ten oldest Polish coat of arms. Quite many Polish families belong to the Odrowaz clan.
The history and genealogy of this oldest Pieniazek family is very well documented in the books on Polish nobility. Sources show that the Pieniazek surname was very well known in early Poland. Thus, people who fraudulently used this name and claimed to be members of nobility were listed in a controversial book published in Poland in about 1640: Liber Generationis Plebeanorum [Book of Generations of Plebeians], also known as the Liber Chamorum [Book of the Sons of Ham, i.e., Bondsmen] written by Walerian Nekanda Trepka.
A Pieniazek listed in this book that falsely claimed to be a descendant of the noble Pieniazeks, was a glassmaker in Krakow.
Different Pieniazek clans
Polish heraldry books list three Pieniazek clans, each using a different coat of arms: Odrowaz, Jelita, and Glowa-Bawola. As was said above, the oldest was the Odrowaz clan. For this reason, some people from this clan changed their last name to Odrowaz-Pieniazek to stress their ancient noble roots.
In addition to the aristocratic (Nobilis) Pieniazeks, this surname was used by families that were members of the craftsmen (Honoratus) and peasant class (Laboriosus).
It is very difficult to trace the origins of the surnames of these families, although any relationship to the Nobilis Pieniazek is rather highly unlikely. Nevertheless, these surnames are also quite old.
From our contacts with Pieniazeks that are not related to us, we know that they have roots in Garwolin, in Podole (now in the Ukraine), the Lomza and Augustow region, Sieradz, Warsaw, the Rzeszow region, and the region of Podhale south of Krakow. In addition, there is a Jewish clan of Pieniazeks, originating from Wasocz near Szczuczyn (between Lomza and Augustow). The descendants of this clan live in Argentina, USA, France, and possibly in Poland.
There are eleven more chapters, and about 300 pages, and plenty of graphics to work with. The website will evolve!
EP 5/Jan/2004
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