Karen..........I don't know if this info will help, but it will give you an idea of all the partitions going on in Poland and Eastern Europe. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~polwgw/areas.html At the time our ancestors from Poland started coming here in droves , I would say that land, and work, were what brought them, as well as knowing others who had come before. Just like now! Also, the constant wars, but by the late 1880's the railroads were canvassing alot of villages to entice new laborers, as well as the churches, who were involved in the immigration too. One of my grandfathers came from the same village as Marge's but stopped off in Detroit for a few years. I still don't know who it was that he knew that made him continue on to Columbus. KathyB ____________________________________________________________ Get Free Email with Video Mail & Video Chat! http://www.juno.com/freeemail?refcd=JUTAGOUT1FREM0210

Comment : Another thought - I think the odd's would favor more Polish immigrants firstly from Prussia than Galacia, from Russia than Glacia, from Prussia than Russia. Everything that I have read over the years seems to support this. Prussia always seems the worst, followed by Russia, and then Galacia. Galacia was administered by the Austrian Hungarian Empire, which in my opinion, are always credited with humane (more or less) treatment which was carried over to occupied Polish lands. Tomasz On Jul 5, 2011, at 11:20 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > Karen..........I don't know if this info will help, but it will give you an idea of all the partitions going on in Poland and Eastern Europe. > > http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~polwgw/areas.html > > > At the time our ancestors from Poland started coming here in droves , I would say that land, and work, were what brought them, as well as knowing others who had come before. Just like now! > Also, the constant wars, but by the late 1880's the railroads were canvassing alot of villages to entice new laborers, as well as the churches, who were involved in the immigration too. > One of my grandfathers came from the same village as Marge's but stopped off in Detroit for a few years. I still don't know who it was that he knew that made him continue on to Columbus. KathyB > > > ____________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email with Video Mail & Video Chat! > http://www.juno.com/freeemail?refcd=JUTAGOUT1FREM0210 > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Tom, A comment on your comment: I agree that the Austrian Hungarian Empire seemed to be much more relaxed in their treatment of the Poles in the Austrian partition, from what I've read. But...I've also read that Galicia was by far the poorest of the Partitioned Poland. The area was mostly agricultural, there was very little industrialization. My cousin Roman in Poland has also mentioned this from time to time in our chats. Some time back Roman highly recommended to me the book "God's Playground: A History of Poland" by Norman Davies. It is a two volume set...which I have not read all the way through. It is a great reference though. Davies writes about the Austrian Partition: Economic, social, national, cultural and political factors combined to aggravate the poverty in which most of the people lived. The ... "Galician Misery" was proverbial. A well-informed analyst, writing in 1887, contrived to demonstrate that rural overpopulation in Galicia had outstripped that in all other parts of Europe, and was approaching levels prevalent in China and India. According to his study, the cumulative effects of inefficient agricultural techniques were compounded by rigid, conservative attitudes, by crippling taxation, and by the inordinate number of unproductive petty officials; some 50,000 people were dying each year as a result of near-starvation conditions; and one-quarter of the total inhabitants could safely emigrate before any improvement might be expected. Of all the three Partitions, Galicia had the highest birth-rate and the highest death-rate, together with the lowest rate of demographic growth and the lowest level of life-expectancy. Galicia was in a worse predicament than Ireland at the start of the potato famine. As compared with the standard of living in England at that time, the average Galician produced only one-quarter of the quantity of basic foodstuffs, ate less than one-half of the standard English diet, possessed only one-ninth of the Englishman's propertied wealth, and received barely one-eleventh of the English farmer's return on his land; yet he paid twice as high a proportion of his income in taxes. One need not necessarily take Szczepanski's figures as gospel to accept the obvious conclusions. All available statistics point in the same direction. Galicia could fairly claim to be the poorest province of Europe. (Volume II, page 145) Davies goes on to write: For many peasant families, emigration offered the sole chance of survival. In the twenty-five years before the First World War, more than two million people left Galicia for good. No less than 400,000, or almost 5 per cent of the population, departed in 1913 alone. Some went to the industrial areas in Silesia, and in particular to the Duchy of Teschen where the Polish element in the expanding mining community at Karwina grew quickly into a strong majority. Others went to France or Germany. But most took the ship from Hamburg for America, joining the ceaseless tide of Europe's weary and oppressed who passed through Ellis Island on their way to the mines of Pennsylvania or to the frontier land of the mid-West. (Volume II, page 147) I imagine Davies made his comparison between the Galician population and those in England, because Davies is English. He is married to a Polish woman. One of the reasons Roman recommends this particular history, is because Davies is English. Therefore, Davies sees the Polish history from an outsider's perspective and writes with less bias than someone from Poland. Marge Thomas E. Lassek wrote: > Comment : > > > Another thought - I think the odd's would favor more Polish immigrants firstly from Prussia than Galacia, from Russia than Glacia, from Prussia than Russia. Everything that I have read over the years seems to support this. Prussia always seems the worst, followed by Russia, and then Galacia. Galacia was administered by the Austrian Hungarian Empire, which in my opinion, are always credited with humane (more or less) treatment which was carried over to occupied Polish lands. > > Tomasz > >