Daniel Telep [3908] (1766-1822) is a person of interest to me because he is the great-great grandfather of Metro Telep [7722] (1882-1978), who emigrated to North America at the turn of the 19th century and is the progenitor of the large family of Teleps who are spread across western Canada. Because he has so many living descendents who will probably find these pages eventually, I wanted to make sure all the information I have about Daniel is as accurate as possible.
Daniel's family name Telep (or, sometimes, Telepp-- I believe the added p is an artifact of the "soft sign" ь, which is included when the name is spelled using the Cyrillic alphabet) was associated with House 60 in Rozdziele and remained associated with that house across a hundred years and at least four generations, as that was Metro's birthplace in 1882.
Unfortunately, Daniel turned out to be a problem case that at first made me doubt the accuracy of my assumptions. For a while I thought there might be two men, Daniel Telep and Daniel Tylawski, living together in the same household.
The very first mention of House 60 in these records is in the 1785 marriage record of someone named Daniel Tylawski, not Telep. Here we find him marrying Anna Osowska, and the records that follow are confusing.
In 1790, Daniel Tylawski and Anna Osowska have their first child, Anastasia. In this record, we learn that Anna's father's name is Gregorius Osowski.
But then, in 1796, Daniel Telepp and Eva Olewicz have a child, Jacobus. This can't be the same couple, can it? Eva's father's name in this record is Jacobus Olewicz.
Years pass, and in in 1800 Daniel Telep and Eva Olewicz have a son, Andreas. Then in 1802, Daniel Tylawski and Eva Olewicz have a son, Joannes. Wait, Daniel Tylawski? Wasn't he married to Anna Osowski? How is his wife's name now Eva Olewicz? No evidence of death and remarriage can be found in these records.
Then in 1812, things get stranger still. Daniel Telep and Eva Kulenic have a daughter, Anna
...and then in 1816, we're back to Eva Olewicz and Daniel Tylawski. Here's the birth record for their son, Petrus.
It really looks like Daniel Tylawski and Daniel Telep are the same person; there seems to be no other explanation. It even seems like Eva Olewicz and Eva Kulenic are the same person. Given that Kulenic would be pronounced quite similarly to Olewicz, it seems like they might simply be the Rusyn and Polish variants of the same surname.
I was especially surprised to discover this connection between the surnames Telep and Tylawski. Tylawski is a very common surname in Rozdziele, and for generations members of the Tylawski family held the old feudal office of scultetus (mayor or headman). Possibly Daniel went by the nickname Telepp in order to differentiate himself, for reasons unknown, from the other Tylawskis in town.
But what about Anna Osowska? Her father's name (Gregorious) is distinct from Eva's (Jacobus), and that raises questions.
Aha, there happens to be a death record for someone named Anna Telepowa, in 1795. Could this be Daniel's first wife Anna Osowska? I'm not entirely confident about that death record, because her age at death was 43, which is significantly older than the age of Daniel's bride in 1785. She ought to be 34 at the time of her death, not 43. Is it possible that "43" is merely a scribal error made by a dyslexic cleric, who meant to write "34"?
That's a satisfying conjecture, but it leaves the problem of Eva Olewicz. There ought to be a marriage record for her, but I could find none, not for the longest time.
Finally, a clue is revealed in the 1839 birth record of Daniel and Eva's grandson, Joannes, who was born a few years before Eva died. Here, it says that Eva comes from Pielgrzymka, a village about 12 kilometres down the road from Rozdziele.
And when I consulted the record books for Pielgrzymka, I did indeed find the record of the marriage of Daniel Telep, a farmer from Rozdiele, widower, with Eva, born from her father, Jacobus Olewicz.
If I have reconstructed the timeline correctly, then there is one more interesting thing to note. Daniel's first wife Anna died at the end of July, 1795. Just one month later, he had found a new bride, Eva, in a village 12 kilometers away. Think of the social network that made this feat possible.
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