For several years now, I have been in love with the BBC TV series Call the Midwife. The show documents both secular and religious order midwives as they serve London's working-class East End community during the 1950s and 60s. Call the Midwife is wonderful, because it gives you a sense of just how important midwifery was to the health and overall well-being of the entire community. I've always loved looking at my family's Catholic baptism records from the "Old Country," because they sometimes list the midwife who delivered each baby. In this 1845 baptism record from Brzezna, Poland, my great-great-grandmother, Sophia Golonka, was delivered by Marianna Golonka, who was her paternal aunt.

Despite my fascination with these Old Country midwives, I had never really thought about the midwifery networks in my ancestors American neighborhoods. All that changed, however, when I started doing some genealogy research for my sister-in-law's family. Like mine, her ancestors were late 19th - early 20th century immigrants who came to Cleveland to work in the booming industrial factories and foundries. I located her great-grandfather's 1900 birth return. His parents were Polish immigrants.

I immediately thought that something looked familiar about this birth return. The handwriting looked very distinctive to me. I went back and looked at some of the birth returns on MY mom's side of the family. This is my great-uncle's birth return, also from 1900. His parents were Croatian immigrants.

The same midwife, Bertha Ullrich, delivered both babies. So, of course, I searched for her in the 1900 census to try to learn more about her. She is in her 40s, married, has one living child, and immigrated from Germany around 1890. She has indicated that she can speak English.

So, here are two babies, from two recently-immigrated families of completely different nationalities and languages, neither of which is the same as Bertha's. Both mothers indicated in their respective 1900 censuses that they cannot speak English. Can you imagine trying to guide a person through childbirth without words? How frightening must it have been for these immigrant women to realize that the one person assigned to help them in this difficult and dangerous task may not be able understand their needs? Did Bertha speak any languages besides English and German? Did she perhaps study key words and phrases in the languages of immigrants most common in her neighborhood to try to be prepared? Or perhaps she was able to arrange translators before the birth to assist her and the mother when the time came.

I ask myself these types of questions, because it helps me add a certain amount of humanity to the factual information found within these genealogical records. When (If) I ever get around to writing a complete family history, I want to be able to write about these types of situations and about these people who came in and out of my ancestors' lives and helped them navigate through the trials and joys of life.

By the way, midwives often have their own section in city directories. Here is Bertha and a slew of other midwives from the 1903 Cleveland City Directory, p. 1643:

Sophia Golonka Baptism Record: "Poland, Tarnow Roman Catholic Diocese Church Books, 1612-1900," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XPYN-L77 : accessed 17 Jul 2014), Anna Bawotek in entry for Sophia Golonka, 15 Feb 1845, Baptism; citing p. 27, Brzezna, Brzezna, Kraków, Poland; FHL microfilm 1895995.

Gawryszewski Birth Return: "Ohio, County Births, 1841-2003," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-23317-12804-61?cc=1932106 : 21 May 2014), Cuyahoga > Birth returns 1900 > image 1 of 9030; county courthouses, Ohio.

Bellan Birth Return: "Ohio, County Births, 1841-2003," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-23316-98739-26?cc=1932106 : 24 May 2016), Cuyahoga > Birth returns 1900 > image 7678 of 9030; county courthouses, Ohio.

Ullrich 1900 U.S. Census: Year: 1900; Census Place: Cleveland Ward 23, Cuyahoga, Ohio; Roll: 1256; Page: 21A; Enumeration District: 0112; FHL microfilm: 1241256

©2016 Emily Kowalski Schroeder

I have recently been working on uploading to my family history website all of the baptism, marriage, and death records that I collected on my recent trip to Salt Lake City (SLC) a few months ago.  One of the families that I spent a lot of time researching was that of Michael Bodziony, who was my paternal grandmother's father.  According to his 1883 baptism record from the town of Świniarsko, Poland, his mother was named Sophia Golonka, son of Joseph Golonka and Anna Bawotek. (Aren't these Polish baptism records wonderful - names of the parents AND grandparents!)

Through FamilySearch.org's online search engine, I was able to find an indexed record from the nearby town of Brzezna, Poland that was likely Sophia's baptism record.  I confirmed that it WAS her baptism record when I was able actually look through the microfilm and found Sophia's marriage record to Michael's dad, Joseph Bodziony (also in Brzezna), in which her parents are also listed. 

Fortunately, the Golonka family had been in Brzezna for a few generations, so I was able to use the same microfilm to trace back that line to Sophia Golonka's grandparents, Thomas Golonka and Petronella Iwanszczonka (or Iwanska), who would be my 4x great-grandparents!  Not bad considering that I started out my genealogy journey not even knowing who Michael's parents were!

Here is the present day distribution of the surname Golonka in Poland today, according to Moikrewni.pl:

According to that site, there are about 4,400 people in Poland today with the surname Golonka, so it's not terribly common. You can see that there is a heavy concentration of the name in southern Poland, in an area that was called Galicia when my great-grandfather was born.  In fact, Nowy Sącz County, where both Świniarsko and Brzezna are both located, has the second-highest concentration of the name, behind the county of Limanowa, which is just to the west.

'Golonka' literally means 'knuckle' in Polish.  The word is used to refer to the Polish dish of ham hocks, which technically aren't pig knuckles, but instead are the animal's ankles.  In any case, my love of pork products can now be attributed to genetics - it's literally in my bloodlines.  :-)

A native Polish speaker also suggested to me that the name might carry the meaning of shaving or of being shaven.  The Polish verb for 'shave' is golić, so the surname might have the same root.

Family members, the link to the new and updated Golonka ancestor page is here.  The link to Michael Bodziony's paternal Bodziony ancestors is here.  I am still working on acquiring some additional records, so check back and let me know if you have any questions!

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder