The Warsaw line
Six generations of Brodzikowskis of the Wieniawa arms: from villages on the river Bug, a few miles from Treblinka, through the Praga district of Warsaw, to a Home Army officer and an actor.
On the Bug: Postoliska, Sadowne, Kołodziąż
The oldest known ancestors of this line are Antoni Brodzikowski and Łucja née Leszczyńska. Their son Wojciech married Franciszka Filipkowska, daughter of Jakub and Bogumiła née Zebrowska, in 1824 in Postoliska near Tłuszcz.
Wojciech and Franciszka settled in the parish of Sadowne on the Bug, in what was then the Węgrów district. Around 1825 their son Leopold Adolf was born, and in 1837, in nearby Kołodziąż, Piotr Paweł, baptised with no fewer than five names: Piotr Paweł Bogumił Józef Kazimierz. Such rich names were usually given in families of some standing.
Kołodziąż and the area around Sadowne then belonged to the Zamoyski estates. In 1821 Stanisław Kostka Zamoyski received them from the Tsar in exchange for the fortress of Zamość, and in 1824 he passed them on to his son Andrzej. There was a manor farm here, and later also watermills, a sawmill and turpentine works. As armigerous gentry without a village of their own, the Brodzikowskis may have worked here as officials: stewards, bailiffs, foresters or tenants. This is our assumption, not yet confirmed by documents.
Leopold Adolf and Ludwika: between Sadowne and Praga
Leopold Adolf Brodzikowski (c. 1825–1906) married Ludwika Turkowska (1836–1918), daughter of Stanisław and Scholastyka née Bukowiecka, in Sadowne in 1852. The family lived between Sadowne and Praga in Warsaw. In Praga, in the parish of Our Lady of Loreto, Aleksander Szczepan was born (26 December 1853). In Sadowne little Andrzej died in 1860, and Władysław was born in 1861. Leopold and Ludwika had at least seven children, among them Roman Kazimierz and the youngest, Konstanty (1874–1954).
Wojciech, the head of the family, died in 1878 in Wielgie Ogrodniki in the parish of Stoczek Węgrowski, still in the same area on the Bug. Leopold Adolf died on 12 January 1906 in Marymont, Warsaw. He was buried in Powązki Cemetery, in the grave where his son Konstanty was later also laid.
The second branch: Piotr Paweł
Wojciech’s younger son, Piotr Paweł (1837–1920), married Marianna Wolska in Mińsk Mazowiecki in 1860. That same year their son Julian was born in Sadowne. Most likely he is the same Julian Edward who married Stanisława Osmulska in Praga in 1886. Their children were born in Chotomów, and Julian Edward himself died in 1945 in Dąbrówka Szlachecka (today Tarchomin). Piotr Paweł died in Warsaw in 1920. His other son, Bolesław, was our great-grandfather.
Warsaw: Aleksander and Konstanty
Aleksander (1853–1936) married Bronisława Stefania Jarzyna (1858–1937) in Wola in 1879. Their sons were Stefan of the Wieniawa arms (1892–1982), buried in Włocławek, and most likely Kazimierz (1897–1979), an actor, born in Włocławek.
Konstanty (1874–1954) married Jadwiga Zofia Podwińska (1876–1963) in the Church of All Saints in 1897. Her brother Wacław Podwiński (1872–1954) was a well-known socialist activist. They had sons: Jerzy (born 1900) and Wacław Euzebiusz (born 1903).
Jerzy: signals officer (1900–1944)
Konstanty’s son became a professional officer. In 1920 he fought against the Bolsheviks, and from 1938 he commanded the signals of the Masovian Cavalry Brigade, with which he went through September 1939. In the underground, under the code name “Embek”, he was head of signals of the Western Area of the Home Army. In spring 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo. He died during interrogation on aleja Szucha.
Kazimierz: a man of the theatre (1897–1979)
Leopold’s grandson acted for decades on the stages of Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Bydgoszcz and Toruń, and in 1935 ran the theatre in Częstochowa. He also taught at the Łódź Film School and translated Turgenev and Gogol. He played his last role in Andrzej Wajda’s The Maids of Wilko, in the year of his death. Kazimierz’s full page →
It is our line: confirmed by the records
Our tree begins with grandfather Stanisław Brodzikowski (1894–1969). In the MyHeritage tree his father was called “Stanisław”, but the documents say otherwise. In the registers of Praga, in the parish of Our Lady of Loreto (the same one in which Aleksander was baptised), the birth of Stanisław Brodzikowski, son of Bolesław and Julia née Iwanicka, was recorded in 1894. Bolesław married Julia in Praga in 1892, and later they also had Edmund (1895) and Bolesław Edmund (1901).
Birth record no. 849/1894: Stanisław was born on 14 April 1894 (2 April in the Julian calendar) in Praga. His father, Bolesław, aged 25, was a locksmith. The witnesses were Włodzimierz and Piotr Brodzikowski of Jabłonna. Marriage record no. 252/1892: Bolesław was born in the parish of Sadowne and was the son of Piotr and Maria née Wolska, that is, a grandson of Wojciech. He married Julia Helena Iwanicka of Łomża.
The decisive document is grandfather’s marriage record no. 127/1919: on 27 September 1919, in the parish of St Stanislaus in Siedlce, Stanisław Brodzikowski married Bronisława Polkowska, and his parents are entered as Bolesław and Julia née Iwanicka. His gravestone in Bolesławiec gives 12 April 1894, two days earlier than the register, which is common on gravestones. So grandfather Stanisław is a great-grandson of Wojciech of Sadowne, not through Leopold Adolf but through his brother Piotr Paweł. Jerzy and Kazimierz are our distant cousins.
Sources: indexes of parish registers in Geneteka (parishes of Postoliska, Sadowne, Stoczek Węgrowski, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Warsaw); M.J. Minakowski, Genealogia potomków Sejmu Wielkiego; Wikipedia: Kołodziąż; Info Sadowne; Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego, vol. XII; the biographies on the page Pages from history. We only show people who died more than 10 years ago.