Bukowsko Church Death Records Introduction, 1790 - 2008 (gap between 1920 and 1946)

The following records were compiled by Debbie Greenlee. She is the owner and author of this page.

Because these records are more recent than the baptism and marriage records we have, they are important when trying to add people to your family. However, it can be difficult or impossible at times deciding whether a particular person belonged to your line due to lack of identifying information in the records.

In the early books the priest did not number the records.

Occasionally the priest did not indicate the surname of the deceased or the parents. I don't know how you will find these people in the indexes unless you search by given name or house number and then compare the death record with other records.

If the person who died was illegitimate and unmarried, the mother's name was included in the record. We indicated this in the "Father" column as: (mother) Marianna Bochnak.

If the death was a stillbirth, the child usually was not given a name. However the father's name was listed in the record so it is included in the index.

Remember surname spellings did not settle down until the late 1800s so you may have to be creative when you search for a name. Polish diacriticals were used in order to spell the names correctly and you will need to use them in your search terms.

Records with very little information (in the index) may actually have more in the book. We found autopsy and doctor’s notes in the books so I included their information in the index. Most of these only had a name, date and village.

There are some question marks in these transcriptions/translations. Information is in the original record but we did not want to guess at what was written so we put in a question mark. If you request an image of the original document you can determine for yourself what is written.

Women’s surnames were spelled using the nominative masculine endings; -ska is shown as -ski and -cka is shown as -cki. So if you are looking for a woman with the surname Kowalska, search on Kowalski.

If a widow died, her deceased husband's name was not always listed in the record. If the husband was alive when the wife died then his name was mentioned in the record, usually. So if you see a woman listed who is of marriage age without a husband listed, it is possible that he died before her; the surname listed for this woman would be her married name.

If a married woman died, sometimes her parents' names were listed in the record along with her husband's name. In these situations we listed her with her married name under the "NAME" column and listed her maiden name under the "FATHER" column and her husband's name under the "SPOUSE" column.

Also, it was not common to see the wife's name listed in a husband's death record. This changed in the later volumes and they sometimes included the wife's maiden name or her parents' names. If the deceased husband's record listed his wife's maiden name then she was recorded with her given name and maiden name under the "SPOUSE" column.

Volume II

1822 lists seven family members from a Roczniak household and their Bochnak servant who died in a fire.

This volume also includes four records of autopsies. So as not to "lose" them I included them on separate lines in the chart however they are not listed as autopsies. They can be found on pages 70b, 72b, 80b, 80c.

Volume IV

Occasionally the priest included the number of years a couple was married. The numbers appear in parenthesis under the Nomen Mortui column in the original record. This information is not listed in the index as we only have so much space on web pages. However, this information can help to locate marriage records.

In many cases the priest was very specific about the age of a deceased child. We rounded up the age however, for standardization.

Volume V

If the deceased was a married woman the priest listed her maiden name as well as her married name. We listed her maiden name under the column, "FATHER" but listed her married name under "NAME."

And lastly, starting in approximately 1987, when a married woman died the priest listed her married surname. However, he did not list her husband’s name nor her father’s surname but he did list the woman’s mother’s given name and maiden name. This caused terrible confusion. So, I went back through marriage banns and baptisms to locate the father’s surname and included it in the index. Remember his surname will not be found in the original death record. I did you a big favor if one of these women is your relative because you never would be able to find her in the index without her father’s surname/her maiden name. However, there were a few marriages I could not locate so I couldn’t tell if the deceased woman’s father’s surname was actually his surname or his wife’s maiden name. In these cases I typed a question mark after the father’s surname.

Thank You

Thank you to the wonderful volunteers: Mary Ache, Barbara Cozine, Kathy Folk, Janet George, Roman Kaluzniacki, Andrzej Mandat, Carol Prorok, Sharon Turnas, Paul Rakow (not a BT member!), John Zlotek, Jean-Claude Zytka.

If you have any questions or corrections please contact Debbie Greenlee.

Transcription and English translation © 2015 Deborah Greenlee; no claim made to original records. Used at this website by express permission. All other rights reserved.