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THE RECORD OF DISEASES IN THE PARISH DEATH REGISTERS IN THE CHELMNO LAND IN THE 18TH AND THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH C. (Rejestracja chorob w koscielnych ksiegach zgonow ziem chelminskiej i michalowskiej w XVIII i pierwszej polowie XIX w.)

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Zielinski M. G.

Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

2009

vol. 57

issue 1

55-66

The correct identification of diseases that affected Poles in the past centuries is not an easy task. This is due not only to the scarcity of sources but also to the lack of data on clinical symptoms which would be parallel to the data on the patient's medical history obtained by contemporary doctors. It is only the correct identification of illnesses that gives us a fair chance to assess their impact on society and to verify exaggerated views, usually resulting from the fear of death which inevitably accompanied incurable and highly contagious diseases. An interesting region to explore in that respect is Chelmno Land (Kulmerland), whose borders coincide with the old voivodship and bishopric of Chelmno, which after the first and third partition of Poland became part of the Prussian state and later temporarily belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw. The fact that the territory was never divided guarantees the homogeneity of the source material. A crucial element in identifying diseases is a qualitative and quantitative analysis of death records in parish registers, which can bring most interesting results, especially as regards small villages. The record of diseases as causes of death in parish registers in Chelmno Land was started after the territory was incorporated to Prussia. The earliest records date to 1774. The practice was not widespread until 1780; it seems that priests were reluctant to note the cause of death in the registers. The cause of death was noted by the registrar, who was usually the parish priest, on the basis of witnesses' account. With time, the record of death causes was accepted and became more precise, as is evidenced by the growing catalogue of the illnesses that appear in the records. In the case of common and well-known diseases, such a smallpox, the identification can be assumed trustworthy; with new illnesses, however, such as cholera in 1831, the first cases may not have been diagnosed properly and may have been called diarrhoea. The description of the cause of death usually included general symptoms; initial causes were mentioned rarely, while secondary and direct causes were neglected. The record was certainly influenced by individual priests, who, having collected information on symptoms from witnesses, identified illnesses according to their knowledge. Such practice is suggested by fixed lists of illnesses detectable in the records made by particular priests, which partly change with the change of the registrar. It is not particularly difficult to link Latin and German terms with Polish names of diseases. Yet, the recorded popular names are often so general that a precise identification of an illness is problematic. Parish registers do not offer a survey of all illnesses, being limited to those that were common causes of death.

Pamięć rodu Działowskich w świetle XVIII i XIX-wiecznych zapisów rodzinnych

100%

Roszak S., Targowski M.

Folia Toruniensia

2011

vol. 11

35-44

The Dzialowskis living in Chelmno Land until the 20th century belonged to the szlachta (nobility) and the landed gentry who attached significance to learning about, constructing and maintaining the memory about members of their family. In the first half of the 18th century the writer from the Prussian territory Wawrzyniec Dzialowski created the so-called black book of the Dzialowskis on the basis of preliminary research in the court and private archives from Royal Prussia. It is a lost manuscript including extracts from documents and diaries from the 16th to 18th centuries, concerning the family and families related to them. Wawrzyniec was motivated not only by his curiosity, but also by the desire to strengthen the prestige and the social position of his family. That is why when in 1738 in the second volume of the armorial of Kacper Niesiecki there appeared a very laconic comment about the Dzialowski family, Wawrzyniec asked Jozef Andrzej Zaluski for help, and sent a summary of the work about the Dzialowskis to the author of the armorial, who included it in the supplement to the 4th volume. It shows that since the 18th century the representatives of the family had spread the untrue legend about their origin from the medieval knight Mikolaj Dzialowski, known for supporting Poland during the Thirteen Years' War. Handwritten notes in the above-mentioned copy of the volume, kept in the collection of Copernicus Library in Torun and belonging to Wawrzyniec's descendants until the end of the 19th century, show that the Dzialowskis treasured the memory about their family. Wawrzyniec's son, Teodor, recorded births, weddings and deaths of his family's members on the endpaper of the book in the years 1763-1778, thereby creating a kind of family chronicle of the Dzialowski family residing in Mgowo and Turzno. The records, which came from the manuscript traditions of 'silva rerum', were later completed by Teodor's brother - Dionizy, Wawrzyniec's great-grandchild - Ksawery, and the unidentified person who continued writing the chronicle until the genealogical line of the family died out in 1899. In this way the unique source of information about the genealogy of the Dzialowskis family and their desire to maintain the memory about their family was created.

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1 Zielinski M. G.

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THE RECORD OF DISEASES IN THE PARISH DEATH REGISTERS IN THE CHELMNO LAND IN THE 18TH AND THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH C. (Rejestracja chorob w koscielnych ksiegach zgonow ziem chelminskiej i michalowskiej w XVIII i pierwszej polowie XIX w.)

Pamięć rodu Działowskich w świetle XVIII i XIX-wiecznych zapisów rodzinnych