1869 Marriage of Johann Maciejewski and Veronica Lewandowska in Nieżywięć, Prussia

The marriage register from Kosciól św. Jana Chrzciciela (Church of St. John the Baptist) in the village of Nieżywięć shows the marriage of 25 year old Johann Maciejewski and 21 year old Veronica Lewandowska on 26 October 1869.

1869 Marriage Record, Nieżywięć, West Prussia

1869 marriage record Johann Maciejewski and Veronica Lewandowska, Nieżywięć, West Prussia

Parish church of St John the Baptist, built turn XIII/XIV c.

In 1869, this area was under German rule, and the church records are a mixture of Latin, Polish, and German. I can read little more than the names and some of the places, but all the first names are German: Johann instead of the Polish Jan, Veronica instead of the Polish Weronika. The last names are Polish: Maciejewski and Lewandowska.

In German, Nieżywięć was Niezywienc, and the nearby village of Tylice was Tillitz. They were in the Kries (district) of Strasburg (Polish Brodnica), in the Regierungsbezirk (administrative region) Marienwerder of Westpreußen (West Prussia). After the 1871 unification of Germany, even more effort was made to Germanize the area.

After World War I, the country of Poland was re-established in the Treaty of Versailles. Poland was guaranteed a route to the sea. Most of the inhabitants of this area were Polish, so between the world wars this area was the Polish Corridor to the Baltic Sea and the Free City of Danzig (Gdańsk).

The powiat of Brodnica was part of Pomerania, the Bydgoszcz Voivodeship, and since 1999, is in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, or Kujawsko-Pomorskie.

I wonder what happened between their marriage in 1869 and the year 1883, when Jan and Weronika Maciejewski came to America with their infant son, our grandfather Antoni Maciejewski?

Update: I had at first found the marriage record on microfilm, which was dark and difficult to read.

In 2018, I replaced the image above with the easier to read digitized version from the LDS Family History Center. I also added the picture of the Parish church of St John the Baptist, built turn XIII/XIV c.

Sources

Church photo by Eder~plwiki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52061791