The Czepułkowski and Kaczanowski families

The Czepułkowski family were peasants from the zaścianek of Zabieliszki in the parish of Kiemieliszki. From this family came Tekla, who married in 1848. Her husband was Jakub Łukaszewicz. One of their sons was Stefan, Romuald's great-grandfather. The Kaczanowski family was the family of Tekla's mother, Marianna.

Where Zabieliszki lies

Zabieliszki is a small zaścianek, that is, a few farmsteads standing apart, outside a village. It lies about twelve kilometres north-east of the small town of Kiemieliszki, where the parish church stood. The land in Zabieliszki belonged to the parsonage, that is, to the farm of the parish priest of Kiemieliszki. The revision list of 1816 names only three houses in the zaścianek: two houses of the Czepułkowski family and one of the Jasiewicz family. Zabieliszki is less than three kilometres from Żukiszki, the zaścianek of the Łukaszewicz family, although the two zaścianki belonged to different parishes.

Tekla née Czepułkowska (1830-1888)

Tekla was born on 12 October 1830 in the evening in Zabieliszki. A week later her parents took her to be baptised at the church in Kiemieliszki. She was baptised by the priest Mojżesz Przewycki, a Bernardine friar. Her godparents were Adam Kumielski and Krystyna Wieliszkowa. Beside them stood a second pair, whom the register calls assistants. They were Franciszek Czepułkowski, the younger brother of Tekla's father, together with Elżbieta, the wife of Adam Kumielski.

In this record there are two words that come back throughout the chapter. With the word „pracowity” (industrious) priests marked a peasant. With the word „urodzony” (well-born) they marked a nobleman. So Tekla's parents were peasants while her godfather was a nobleman. The surname is also worth a look. In a single record the same priest wrote it in two ways: Czepiełkowscy and Czepiałkowski. Other registers write Czepułkowscy, Czepałkowscy or Czepółkowscy. It is always the same family. In this chronicle we use the form Czepułkowski.

Tekla was the youngest known child of her parents. When she was sixteen, two of her brothers and sisters married within two months of each other. Her brother Adam married on 17 November 1846 in Świrany. Her sister Anastazja married on 26 January 1847 in Kiemieliszki. Anastazja's husband was Kazimierz Witkiewicz of Sorokpol parish.

The wedding in Kiemieliszki

On 21 November 1848 the eighteen-year-old Tekla married in the same church where she had been baptised. Her husband was Jakub Łukaszewicz of the zaścianek of Żukiszki in the neighbouring parish of Sorokpol, son of Jan and Katarzyna née Wojciechowicz. The wedding took place in the bride's parish, as was the custom then. The banns were read twice, on 14 and 21 November. The dean of Świr released the couple from the third. Among the witnesses were Kazimierz Witkiewicz and Adam Czepułkowski. Kazimierz Witkiewicz was Tekla's brother-in-law, the husband of her sister Anastazja. Adam Czepułkowski was her brother.

The record states that the groom was 28. His baptism record shows that he was 32, because he was born on 22 July 1816. The difference arises because priests entered the age of adults by guesswork. Tekla's age given in the marriage record agrees with her baptism record to the month.

The two families were linked even before this. When little Jakub was baptised in Sorokpol in July 1816, he was held at the font by Wincenty Czepułkowski of Zabieliszki. The revision list of June 1816 names only one Wincenty Czepułkowski in Zabieliszki, Tekla's future father. So thirty-two years later Jakub's godfather became his father-in-law. The godmother, Helena Jasiewicz, bore the surname of a third family from Zabieliszki.

Forty years in Żukiszki

After the wedding Tekla moved to her husband's home in Żukiszki. She lived there for forty years and gave birth to ten children. The eldest was Józef and the youngest was Marianna, born when her mother was almost 44. One son was named Wincenty, after his maternal grandfather. One daughter was named Tekla, after her mother. Among the children's godparents were people named Czepułkowski. In 1850 the eldest son, Józef, was held at the font by Teofila Czepułkowska and Kazimierz Witkiewicz. In 1865 Jan's godfather was Izydor Czepułkowski. In 1874 Marianna's godfather was Franciszek Czepułkowski. All the children of Tekla and Jakub are listed in the table in the chapter on the Łukaszewicz family.

In August 1867 Tekla lost two-year-old Jan to smallpox. Two months later she gave birth to Wincenty. On 1 November 1876 her husband died of fever. Tekla was then 46 and had eight living children, the youngest of whom, Marianna, was two. Tekla was a widow for almost twelve years. She lived to see the weddings of four of her children: Józef, Kazimierz, Stefan and Marta.

Tekla died on 2 June 1888 in Żukiszki. Two days later the parish priest, Father Hugo Godecki, buried her in the parish cemetery. She left eight children, the same six sons and two daughters named twelve years earlier in her husband's death record.

The priest wrote that Tekla died of old age at 60. According to her baptism record she was 57.

Jakub Łukaszewicz, Tekla's husband

Tekla's husband was born on 22 July 1816 and died on 1 November 1876 in Żukiszki. His life and his family are described in the chapter on the Łukaszewicz family.

Wincenty Czepułkowski (b. c. 1785) and Marianna née Kaczanowska (b. c. 1790)

Wincenty spent his whole life in Zabieliszki. The revision list of 1795 recorded him as a ten-year-old boy in his parents' home. The list of 1816 recorded him in the same house as a married man aged 31, with his wife Marianna, who was 26. The birth years of both are worked out from the ages given in the lists.

The Kiemieliszki baptism register names seven children of Wincenty and Marianna. The first was born in December 1809 and the last, Tekla, twenty-one years later. They were held at the font by their neighbour Antoni Jasiewicz and by Elżbieta and Krystyna Kaczanowska, who bore the same surname as Marianna before her marriage.

Tekla's brother Adam married on 17 November 1846 in the church at Świrany. His wife was Wiktoria, the widow of Andrzej Łoś, ten years older than him. The marriage record calls him the son of Wincenty and Marianna “née Kaczan” from the zaścianek of Zabieliszki and gives his age as 30. Adam may have been the same son whom the baptism register recorded in 1819 under two names, Tomasz Adam. The witness at this wedding was Antoni Czepułkowski.

The husband of Anastazja, Tekla's sister, was called Kazimierz Witkiewicz. So he bore the same first name and surname as the father of Rozalia Witkiewicz, who later became Tekla's daughter-in-law. They were, however, two different men. Tekla's brother-in-law died on 17 June 1897, an old man of ninety.

The Kaczanowski family

Marianna's maiden name was written in two ways: in Tekla's baptism record as “née Kaczanowska” and in Adam's marriage record as “née Kaczan”. The revision lists of 1795 and 1816 name no Kaczanowskis in Zabieliszki. So Marianna most probably came from another village. People of this surname lived in the neighbouring parishes of Korkożyszki and Świrany. In the village of Zaciszki in Korkożyszki parish lived Jan Kaczanowski, a man of the same generation as Marianna, who died on 14 January 1845 and left five sons and a daughter.

Jan Czepułkowski called Mala (b. c. 1765) and Krystyna

We know Jan and Krystyna from two revision lists made twenty-one years apart. The first was drawn up on 22 November 1795, just after Russia took over these lands. According to this list Jan was 30, his wife Krystyna was also 30. They had five children. Living with them was Jan's younger brother Adam with his eighteen-year-old wife Agata.

The list of 1795 places the family among the free people, that is, people who were nobody's serfs. The words “with them” refer to the householder, Wasil Jurewicz. Jan lived in his house with his wife, children and brother. The list calls Jan Jurewicz's foster son. Wasil Jurewicz died in Zabieliszki on 24 February 1807, aged 95.

The second list was drawn up on 16 June 1816. According to it Jan was 51 and was by then the head of his own household, entered first in the zaścianek. Living with him were two married sons with their wives. The ages of Jan, Wincenty and Franciszek agree to the year in both lists.

This single entry places three generations of Romuald's ancestors side by side. The first is Jan with Krystyna. The second is their son Wincenty with Marianna. The third and oldest generation can be seen in the words “son of Jan”, because they refer to Jan's father, who was also called Jan.

Where the byname Mala came from

In the list of 1816 there is one more word before Jan's surname: Mala. It is a byname, a second surname for the family. In the countryside, where many neighbours shared the same surname or the same first name, families were told apart by just such bynames. The Czepułkowskis of Zabieliszki had the byname Mala. Priests and officials wrote sometimes the surname, sometimes the byname and sometimes both.

• In 1804 the Kiemieliszki register wrote: “Jakob Mala alias Czepiełkowski”. The Latin word “alias” means “otherwise”.
• In 1812 and 1814 the same register recorded Tekla's parents under the name Mala at the baptisms of their children.
• In 1816 the revision list recorded Jan as “Mala Czepułkowski” and recorded his brother Adam in the same way.
• In 1823 a marriage record recorded a young woman from Zabieliszki as “Jozefata Malowna”.
• As late as 1928 an official notice named the brothers “Mala vel Czepułkowicz”. The Latin word “vel” means “or”.

So Mala and Czepułkowski are one family under two names. The byname lasted more than a hundred years. The family itself also lasted in its zaścianek: in 1939, when the land in Zabieliszki was consolidated, there were eight Czepułkowski farms there.

Wincenty's brothers and sisters

Krystyna, Jan's wife, was godmother to her grandchildren. In 1816 and in 1819 she held at the font the children of her younger son Franciszek.

Jan died in Zabieliszki on 10 January 1833. He was already a widower by then, as Krystyna had died before him. Two days later Father Cyriak Motelski buried him in the parish cemetery at Kiemieliszki. The death record names the two sons Jan left behind: Wincenty and Franciszek. They are the same sons that both revision lists recorded with him.

The priest gave Jan's age as 84, but both revision lists show that Jan was born about 1765, so at his death he was about 68. The ages of old people were recorded only roughly at that time. At the place left out of the quotation the record gives Krystyna's maiden name, but the handwriting there is unclear and the name cannot be read with certainty.

Adam, Jan's brother

The second Czepułkowski house in Zabieliszki belonged to Adam, Jan's younger brother. Adam was born about 1771. His first wife was Agata and his second was Felicjanna née Ślepikowska. The list of 1816 names in his household the sons Ignacy and Andrzej and the daughters Krystyna, Józefata and Ewa. Józefata was born on 5 March 1803 and Ewa on 1 May 1809.

Adam's daughters also married into the Łukaszewicz family. Ewa married on 16 November 1830 in Kiemieliszki. Her husband was another Jakub Łukaszewicz from Sorokpol parish, an older namesake of Tekla's husband. Józefata is most probably the Józefata Mala from Zabieliszki who married in 1823, her husband being Jan Łukaszewicz from the second house in Żukiszki. So Tekla was not the first young woman from Zabieliszki to marry into Żukiszki. Ewa did so before her. Most probably Józefata did too. Both were first cousins of Wincenty, Tekla's father, through their fathers.

Jan Czepułkowski the elder (b. before 1745)

We know the oldest ancestor of this line only by his first name. Both revision lists name his sons after their father: in 1795 “Jan Jana Syn” (Jan, son of Jan) and in 1816 “Jan, son of Jan” and “Adam, son of Jan”. Since the elder of the sons was born about 1765, the father must have been born before 1745. The list of 1795 no longer names him in Zabieliszki. The elder Jan is Stefan's great-great-grandfather and Romuald's ancestor seven generations back.

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