Nicoli Mikolaj OLAWSKI

ABT 1855 - ____

• RESIDENCE: 1906, Okolice, Olawie, Pl
• OCCUPATION: Farmer
  1906
• BIRTH: ABT 1855, Olawa, Powiat Olawski, Lower Silesia, Pl
• DEATH: Remained in Poland

1.  Eufemia Fannie OLAWSKI
2. +Valentine OLAWSKI
3. +Anthony J OLAWSKI

INDEX

[N10837] Source Fred Hoffman .... fredhof33@yahoo.com .... Okolice, Olawie County versus Olawa

I can find no mention of a place named Okolice, except for a couple of small villages in what is now Lithuania. I looked through several good reference
works, including the Slownik Geograficzny and Bystrzycki's detailed gazetteer of places in Poland between World Wars I and II. So I think my first instinct on this is probably correct. In Polish, _okolica_ is a noun meaning "vicinity, neighborhood." It has some other meanings, for instance, an _okolica szlachecka_ was a settlement of nobles' farmsteads. But the reference to Olawa strongly suggests to me that he was saying he came from the vicinity of Olawa, and the clerk mistook it for an actual name of a town or place. I'm not 100% certain this is the correct interpretation, but it does make sense. If you Google "okolice Olawa," you'll see Polish pages with people saying things like "I'm from the Olawa area." A Pole would say he was from _okolice Olawy_, and it doesn't seem farfetched to suggest that's what got recorded as "Okolice, Olawie County." How many English-speaking people in Indiana would know the difference?
That's my best guess. See if it leads anywhere.

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Olawa County (Polish: powiat olawski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It was created on January 1, 1999 as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. The county covers an area of 523.7 square kilometres (202.2 sq mi). Its administrative seat is the town of O?awa, and its only other town is Jelcz-Laskowice. As at 2006 the total population of the county is 71,118, out of which the population of O?awa is 30,908, that of Jelcz-Laskowice is 15,196, and the rural population is 25,014.