Descendants of Francisek and Urzula Welenc

prepared by Larry Welenc

This site is primarily the result of my research conducted in Poland at the Polish State National Archives in Mlawa in the fall of 2002. The discrepancies between the church records and municipal government records first established in 1808 in this area encompassing several "Powiats" (roughly equivalent to counties) including the "Powiat" of Mlawski and which at various times since 1792 was either under German or Russian control or the semi independent Duchy of Warsaw established by Napoleon, immediately become apparent to even the casual examiner.

I want to point out that not all the documents mentioned in this site have been translated and that due to Poland being divided at this time in history, the exact dates of some births as well as the exact meaning of some of the occupations are suspect. The official records as I have already stated, especially around the year 1816, do not correspond exactly with separate records kept by the Catholic church which overlap the years between 1816 to 1826.

However these discrepancies outstanding though they are seem to pale before the inconsistencies in the US Census records of 1910, 1920 and 1930 which I utilized along with my research at the Polish archives. In each year several families of Welenc 's appear in the census in the Northeast, (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts which disappear during the next census, new families of Welenc' s taking their place, the information in the census and/or Immigration records seemingly shared among the various families in their documentation. I published a paper with the offering a theory as to what was transpiring during these years which I intend to turn into a book pending further research.

It is also obvious that the transition from Polish to German then to Russian control of the land may not have followed automatically on the dates recorded in history. Certain documents indicated that this part of Poland may have still been under Prussian control in the year 1816 and possibly longer although the Germans themselves record 1815 as the date when this area past out of their control. Even after the partition of 1815, according to a leading Polish historian, Lithuanian-Ruthenian governments remained as part of the Russian empire.

It must also be mentioned that Poland kept more than one set of documents and probably more sets than most countries due to the country being divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia from the late 1700's until the early 1920's. The very fact that no ne of these documents were signed because all parties, except for the Parish Priest who was simultaneously the Provost Marshall, claimed to be illiterate, is cause to approach some of the information in these documents with caution.

This site, still under construction is as much a historical as well as genealogical site. In 1861 Czar Alexander II freed the peasants with the "Emancipation statue" The people known as "Gospodarz" who according to the definition I received from the State Archives in Mlawa, confirmed by a Lexicon of old Polish titles, were freemen who rented the land (from the nobles) and reaped all profits form it for themselves, seem to have disappeared. New titles probably deriv ed form Russian which then became the official language, such as Morgovnik and in the case of Adam Welenc, also "Zemledelec"came into use. A detailed account of their possible meaning as well as a listing of inhabitants of Kushkovo Kmiec, found on the owner's sister site at www.ancestry.com (see hyperlink below) at may shed some light on the question.... Who really owned the land?

Another interesting question is the possible relationship of a family of German Welens's in the Rheinland Prussia the 1700's found on the Mormon Family Search site below. The record of births ends with Franciscus Welens born in 1766. Coincidentally Francisek Welenc appears in Mlwaski, Poland in the late 1700's.

Click on the links below for the geneology of the Welenc family back to the middle 1700's in both English and German.

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