Walter Kataczynski or Katacinski

debbehagner1

First name is Vladislaw or Wladislaw
He was born about 1881-1885  He was ADOPTED by a priest whose surname is Kataczynski.

Came to USA in 8 aug 1907 from Hamburg on ship called Amerika

According to the NY passenger  list he was born in Pulawy?  Left from Kaunas.When to visit a friend in Scranton named Jacob ?
According to 1920, 30 He was an alien.  Working on trying to get access to that record.

Lived in Wiles-Barres, luzerne, PA

Died in mine accident in 2 Mar 1943

Any suggestions?? trying to find his birth parent. Is there a list of priest in Poland/Russia/Lithuania. He is really Jewish but raised Catholic.

Eppich Maria

DNA test may be helpful, as Poland/Lithuania/Russia are big countries.

katerinaschmidt

Hello! If I understand your question correctly, you are trying to find his birth parents/locate more information about his birth. There unfortunately is not a list of known priests in Poland/Russia/Lithuania; at least not one that I know of. Your best bet would be to try to find the records for Pulawy and look for the birth of Walter/Władysław Kataczynski. If you could find any U.S. document that lists his parent's names (such as a marriage record), that would make it easier to identify the correct birth record in Pulawy.

When looking for records in Poland, you will want to find out the correct parish or synagogue that the residents of Pulawy would have attended, as the records would have been created by the religious center at that time. I would recommend searching for Pulawy in the 1930 Skorowidz gazetteer (found on the Poland Gazetteers FamilySearch Research Wiki) to find the location of the Catholic parish (this way you can see if there is a priest signing his name on the records, or possibly Walter's birth being recorded in the catholic records). To find out if Pulawy was a Jewish community, I would search for Pulawy in the JewishGen Communities Database (you will need to create a free account to use this). If Pulawy does not show up in that search, try searching in the JewishGen Gazetter - once you search for Pulawy, click on the coordinates in the "Coordinates" column and look for the closest tree icon, as this will represent the closest Jewish community.

Once you find the location of the Catholic parish, try looking for the records on the Polish State Archives Website (Szukaj w Archiwach).

Once you find the location of the closest Jewish community, search for the name of the community on JRI-Poland (you will also need to create a free account for this) and the section on the right will display the different records available for the Jewish community.

I hope this helps! If you would like more research suggestions, you can also sign up for a free online consultation here.