I think I need a polyglot

Question

So, I'm working on Nickels this month, and I managed to find John Nickel's record on Find A Grave, which allowed me to connect his profile to his parents' profiles. But figuring out where he was born is kind of complicated. He seems to have been born in what is now Poland, but was divided up between Prussia and Russia from before he was born until about the time of his death. There's a scan of a document on Find A Grave which may help answer the question, but it appears to be written in Latin, which I have never even pretended to study, and some of the placenames look German and others look Polish. I think I need help.

Comments

Okay, this story is getting more complicated, and I'm going to need somebody with access to New York records to sort it out. The GEDCOM that John's profile was created though says that he married Mary Seils, but Find A Grave says that Mary Seils married Andrew P. Nickel, and John Nickel married Michaelena Janoski.

Answer 1

There are two John Nickels buried at Holy Sepulchre. There is John Nickels with wife Lena and a John B Nichels with wife Mary. The profile appears to be a combo of the two men. There are two Find A Grave listings with separate plots and I'm working to separate the families, yikes.

Answer 2

Great question Greg!
Some many puzzles to unravel!

As you noted, Wielkopolskie, Poland and Germany refer to present day locations that did not exist in 1859.

John is an English version of a German name. His father's grave shows Johan, however Johannes is another alternative.

If Zakrzewo shows the birhplace, then around 1900, the village might have been in the kreis of Bomst (in province of Posen, kingdom of Prussia) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Bomst_%28Kreis%29%2C_Posen

I have not given a complete answer to your question. My recommendation is to create a Free Space Page to collate the hints that might be available from the profiles of other members of the family.

Answer 3

The FamilySearch profile for John Nickel has some good tidbits including an immigration record. And I did indeed find what looks like a match for his parents' marriage (the parents listed for him in the Latin marraige record on FindAGrave) in the Poznan Project database:

The church records for Zakrzewo (in Złotow county) are available on FamilySearch but you must go to a FHC or FamilySearch Affiliate Library to view them. And the records after 1824 don't appear to be digitally indexed so you would have to browse the images to find the marriage and Jan's/John's birth. I suspect they will be in Latin.

Comments

@Frank - this is very useful information. There were more than 4 different villages named Zakrzewo in the prussian province of Posen and 2 in the neighbouring province of West Prussia.

The Zakrzewo in the powiat (county) of Złotów is 9km North-East of present-day Złotów (prussian name: Flatow). Zakrzewo is shown at the very top of this 1905 map https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C5%82ot%C3%B3w#/media/Datei:Posen_1905.png. It is just below the letter 'T' of WESTPREUSSEN.

The History section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C5%82ot%C3%B3w is interesting. This region was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the first partition of Poland in 1772. There is also a description of emigration to America around 1871.

I have not found a Wikitree category for Zakrzewo but there is one for the county seat, Flatow https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Flatow%2C_Flatow%2C_Westpreu%C3%9Fen

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https://www.meyersgaz.org/place/21211032

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Thanks again Frank.
It is worth highlighting that the church records might have been written in Latin. The names in a baptism record might have a different spelling to the German (or Polish) names that a person used during the rest of their life.

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Thank you both. I thought he was born in Posen, and didn't understand the West Prussia reference (which I had assumed would be in, you know, the West). Now I know where he was actually born. (And a lot more about the very complicated history of the area.)

Answer 4

This scan is marriage record in Latin. I'm not sure 100% but in my opinion it claims:

"I, the undersigned, by declarations and implied consent of the contracting parties, have joined in words to this marriage of Joanness (Jan in Polish) Nickel of Zakrzewo Westpreussen, son of Joannis (Jan in Polish) Nickel and Caroline (Karolina in Polish) B(illegible here ) with Helen Janofska (in Polish I think Helena Janowska) of (illegible for me) Westpreussen, daughter of Martini Janofski (in Polish Marcin Janowski) and Anna Skibinska (if I see correctly) (in Polish Anna Skibińska).

presentibus testibus are witnesses".

I was looking for a record in 1882 [https://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php here] with no results.

It may be useful: Nickel in English and German is Nikiel in Polish.

Comments

Caroline's surname looks like Bullmann to me.

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The marriage record is from the year 1882 at St. Joseph Church, Rochester NY and is indexed here: https://www.rcip.info/searchm.php?surname=jano*&type=0

FamilySearch film: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/452279?availability=Family%20History%20Library

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According to Find A Grave, Caroline's surname was Baumann, although it does look like "Bullman" here. But thank you all for helping to nail down the date and place. I have updated the marriage.

Answer 5

Prussian is hard and a bit lost in some regions I believe.  but the key for me was Wymysorys Language, here is the link with also the other dialects and information on that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wymysorys_language. Hopefully that helps.