Finally! A Starting Point for Krzysztof.

lookingforthelukas
Mar 9
2 min read

Updated: May 31

It's been a couple of years since I looked at any family history stuff, so imagine my surprise last week when I logged onto Geneteka and found....the birth certificate for Krzysztof! Just when I was beginning to give up on finding any more information on him and relegating to him to 'ghost' status.

Translation...

'It happened in Warsaw, in the St. Michael parish office, on March 29th, 1919 at 7pm, appeared Franciszek Lukasik, a policeman, 29 years old, living in Warsaw on Kwiatowa Street at number 3, in the presence of Stanislaw Kowalski, a day labourer and Piotr Grossman, a farm, both of age, both living in Warsaw and presented us a newborn male child, who was born in his apartment on the 16th day of the current month, at 4pm, to his legal wife, Stanislawa nee Grynkiewicz-Moszulska, 19 years old. At the Holy Baptism, held today, the child was given the name Krzysztof and his godparents were Stanislaw Kowalski and Katarzyna Piotrowska. This act was delayed due to the father's work and it was read to the declarant and the witnesses and it was signed by us only.'

So this confirms the only thing we did know, his parents names. But we also learnt the birth year on Krzys' Ministry of Defence records is incorrect as those records show 1916. It tells us the following new information:

the city and location where Krzys was born;
the ages of his parents;
where Krzys was baptised; and
the occupation of his father.

It opens up many more questions to be asked. This was a new time in the second republic of Poland, which only commenced in 1918 at the end of WW1; Poland had not existed for about 100 years. The police force in Warsaw was not initiated until July 1919, so it would have been a kind of 'in between' period. It was also still a tumultuous time for Poland as she was fighting the Polish Bolshevik war in 1918/1919 and the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. It is highly possible, given Franciszek's role that he may have been in the military, something we are yet to establish.

I love the name of the street Krzys was born on - literally 'street of flowers'. There are two Kwiatowa street's in Warsaw - one out past Praga and the other, in the suburb of Mokotow. Both locations are 20 - 30 minutes from the centre of Warsaw where we were staying on our last visit in 2019 / 2020! Given the word 'apartment' in the birth certificate translation above, I am assuming it is the location in Mokotow, as the location near Marki is a house. I could be wrong. But check out the link to see where Krzys was born! ....