What's on my mind
Family Research Blog - Ancestors of Władysław Drwota
Pedigree of my grandfather Władysław Drwota is the one that has been best preserved and documented in my family tree.
My grandfather kept connection with his family and has always been a collector, keeping photographs and letters. Unfortunately, most of his memories has been lost by war and family conflicts.
Reconstructing his heritage has been challenging but extremely interesting. As a mix of number of prominent families, from Poland and Astro-Hungry, there are number of historically significant and generally interesting individuals.
This a blog on my research in this family history.
Lund, 2021-05-14
Władysławs paternal grandfather, Ferdynand, was born in Austria. Unfortunately, the exact place can be disputed. I have tried to find confirmation. According to Władysław it was Ottenheim or Ottensheim. Documents are not consistent. I studied the birth records for Ottensheim und there are no Drwotas born that year. Ottensheim does not have any digitized records for that year.
Austria is a genealogical black hole. Until 2001 there were no central residence registry. Most church registers have still not been digitalized. And those that have are not indexed. Unless you know exact parish and year you are out of luck.
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Immeln 2021-05-13
I have spent many years looking at Władysław Drwota heritage. It is very puzzling.
Looking at timeline, Władysławs ancestors has been a very mobile family. Many families are pretty much bond to a place or a geographical region. You could say that this family is bound to a region, but a very large one.
Even that there is an overlap, there are big differences looking at Władysław fathers and mothers’ ancestors.
Going back to early1800s, Drwotas and relatives were mostly born in Austria and Czechia. Moving into second half of 1800s, they start appearing in other regions of Habsburg rule, in today’s Poland, Ukraine and Romania.
Expansion north and east are likely connected to third partition of Poland in 1795 and creation of Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria as part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Below heatmaps for 1800s show, on the left, Drwotas birth and death locations. On the right are Mrazek’s, Władysław mothers’ ancestors. Overlap in today’s Poland and Ukraine are clear. As Mrazek surname is neither Polish nor Ukrainian, but Czech in origin it is likely that they migrated into the region earlier. Perhaps in late 1700s.
Third, lowest heatmap show, what is defined by MyHeritage as Podkarpaty ethnic group in 1800s. According to genetic ethnicity estimation this group corresponds best to larger part of my DNA. Overlap with pervious heatmaps confirms this estimation.
