Szukając przodków „stela”. Amatorska genealogia na Śląsku Cieszyńskim

Michael Morys-Twarowski, “Szukając przodków „stela”. Amatorska genealogia na Śląsku Cieszyńskim,” in Dziedzictwo kulturowe jako klucz do tożsamości pogranicza polsko-czeskiego na Śląsku Cieszyńskim. Kulturní dědictví jako klíč k identitě česko-polského pohraničí, eds. Halina Rusek, Agnieszka Pieńczak, Jacek Szczyrbowski (Cieszyn – Katowice – Brno, 2010): 140–148.

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Abstrakt / Abstract

Since the birth of scientific genealogy (the 18-19th century), its amateur type has been developing simultaneously. In the Polish territories, the latter had been mainly the occupation of the gentry until 1989, when the descendants of bourgeois and peasant families became interested in their roots on a larger scale. Amateur genealogy in Cieszyn Silesia has developed in a different way. At least since the interwar period, family roots have been the subject of interest for descendants of peasantry (among others: Jan Wantuła, Jan Stonawski, Andrzej Żurek), both Catholics and Protestants. In the reconstruction of their genealogies, they usually relied on family documents and made archival research in birth registers. Quite frequently, family reunions triggered the genealogical search (the Michejda, Guzior, Skrzypek Family). Amateur genealogists wanted to get acquainted with real vicissitudes of their ancestors, for example – they did not want to attribute noble origin to themselves against the facts.
These vicissitudes of families “from here” comprise the history of Cieszyn Silesia, with its religious, ethnic and national specificity. Amateur genealogical search can confirm or consolidate the Cieszyn Silesia identity, which is omitted in narrow approaches to the history of  Poland and the Czech Republic.