a new member & some Old Russian

[rumball107.livejournal.com]

hi everyone! my name is summer, and i studied russian for about two years in high school through a friend from belarus. i learned the alphabet, a handful of nouns & pronouns, and a handful of verbs. i was well on my way to becoming comfortably capable of basic conversation, but then i had to learn spanish for school and i lost nearly all of my russian. it got too confusing to keep up two foreign languages at the same time -- three actually, if you count my three years of studying latin. bleh!

anyhow -- right now i'm doing some family history research. if anyone in this community is fluent or quite proficient in russian, i'd be so grateful if you could help me! below i have an old birth certificate from 1888 for Teofil Kravulski -- my great-grandfather. it actually appears to be in old russian with all of its hard signs and whathaveyou.

could anyone decipher the handwriting, or even help me with the translation of the entire thing? things like this make me so sorry that i left my study of russian behind. i'm basically trying to find out who Teofil's parents are, and perhaps the location of his birth -- though ANY help with ANY part would be wonderful.

it's at http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v191/rumball107/teofil.jpg

or,

spacibo! hopefully now with this community, i can keep my russian in practice at least slightly.
-summer

Comments

[noser.livejournal.com]

Well, the province and district names are "Губерния Плоцкая, уезд Рыпинский", which means it was in Poland back when it was a part of the Russian Empire.

http://www.vgd.ru/SNOSKI/p5.htm#%CF%CB%CE%D6%CA

The "gmina" and parish/village names are hard to decypher... Something like Дзержно and Сведзебня.

Then it says:

Year 1885 act No 22
Province Plotskaya
District Rypinski
Gmina Dzerzhno(?)[transliterated. not Polish spelling]
Parish Svedzebna(?)

Metrical Birth Certificate

[This document]certifies that Theofil Krawilski(or Krawalski), son of [illegible] and his wife Eva, maiden name Gavlikovskaya, was born in Svedzebna(?) January 5/17, one thousand eight hundred eighty fifth year 1885.

д.(деревня? = village) Svedzebna April 1st 1910.

officer of civil status[literally, no idea how to translate properly]
Signature

[http://users.livejournal.com/_teemon_/]

Ahh, year. "Губерния Плоцкая, уезд Рыпинский", now i see :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_teemon_/]

Well, well, well. Let's see. It's old russian writing rulez with many "ъ" in the end of the words.

And excuse my english. I don't remember some nouns.

===
(For military service purposes or metric book)

Year: 1885
Act № 22
Province [old russian for "region"]: Pigotskaya [sp?]
Yesd [district? old russian for "small region"]: Rizhinsk
Gmina [smaller region???] Dzerzhno [sp???]
Curacy [smallest region maybe]: Svirzbb??? [can't read really]

METRIC BORN SERTIFICATE

Given in order that Teoril' Kravilskii, son of [??? really badly reading handwriting] and his wife Eva, with native surname Gavlikova[??] borned in Sverzeb???, in Januare, month 5, day 16, eighten eighty five 1885 year.

willage Sverzeb??, Au????, month 1, 1910 year.

[stamp: Administration of Curacy ???]

Official of civic state
[can't read signature]

[slashmel.livejournal.com]

[??? really badly reading handwriting]

I could be wrong, yet I think it's Vachnyukkus...

[rumball107.livejournal.com]

I kinda see Vavzhiku, but, man. who knows. it looks terrible!