Person:Adam Opalka (1)

From Felix Unger, November 06, 1999 felixunger@@anywhere.com

Shaun: This may be way out in left field, but as a student of languages, I believe both Matrisch and Opalka are Polish, or some other Eastern European location, in origin. Given the area where they were born and grew up, you should probably be checking Polish records of births, marriages, and deaths, or other records of family surnames.

"Matrisch" is probably a variant of something like "Matrushka" based on the Slavic word "mat" or "mother" with the meaning of "motherland". Likewise, Opalka with "-ka" on the end is what we call a diminutive, or nickname, or a name given inaffection for something. In Russian, for example, the word "voda" meaning "water" becomes "nice type of water" or "vodka". I think the "Opal" in your name probably means the gem "opal" or comes from the Slavic "o polye" meaning "connected with a field", that is, "farming". So Opalka might have meant "a little jewel" or something like "gentleman farmer" or "small time farmer" or "farmer with a small field".

Try some of these sites for more info:

European Countries - http://s700.uminho.pt/europa.html - click on map of most countries in Europe (include. Balkans) - Find out a bit more about your ancestor's country of origin.

AltaVista International Search Network - http://www.altavista.com/av/content/av_network.html - AltaVista has partnered with sites in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Latin America, Northern and Southern Europe, as well as the US. Our international network lets you take advantage of AltaVista's vast Web index with regional Internet connections. The AltaVista Web index features pages from across the World Wide Web, in 25 different languages.

- http://www.infobel.com/inter/world.asp - Select Country and Option (NOTE: this may not work well)

Federation of East European Family History Societies P. O. Box 510898, Salt Lake City, Utah 84151-0898

FEEFHS - http://feefhs.org/ - - webm/cyberspy.gif - Webmaster of FEEFHS East European Maps - http://feefhs.org/maps/indexmap.html -

- http://feefhs.org/ah/gal/bookrev.html - Pradziad "Ancestor" Databases Now in Book Form “in Ten Polish Words or Less” - A Book Review by Gayle Schlissel Riley

- http://feefhs.org/ah/gal/update-1.html - Records from Galicia area of Poland in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

“Polish Roots” by Rosemary A. Chorzempa - tells you what to write in Engish then in Polish. E-Mail: - claudine@@281.com -

In 1998, the Polish Central Department for Archival Information published a relatively complete book, listing all of the records in each of their regional archives. This exceptionally easy to understand book is written in Polish. It is titled "Ksiegi Metrykalne i Stanu Cywilnego w Archiwach Pantstwowych w Polsce"." The database lists civil and religious records. Some of the religions mentioned are: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Mennonite, Protestant and Jewish. It is organized much like Miriam Weiner's book, "Jewish Roots in Poland." The book lists the towns in alphabetical order using both Polish, German and some Russian town names.

Some of the towns included are from the current Ukrainian county of Lvov. After the town names, one might find listings like: "pow" for powiat, "woj" for wojewodztwo, "gm" for gmina, "gub" for gubernia and "par" for parafia. These are words describing units of land from parish to county size.

Instead of BDM, for Birth, Death and Marriage, the book uses UZM, Urodzin for birth, Zgonow, for death and Malzenstwo for marriage. Each town's citation, contains a square with three numbers in it. The first number is the number of the regional archives. The second number is the record number. As for the third, it is usually zero and is an unknown notation.

In the beginning of the book, one will find a very complete and updated list of all the regional civil archives and their address. The bibliography from this book is tremendous, listing books about civil and religious records.

1. ↑ Family Tree of Irma Faeth.