Dear Listers,

Joseph Hirschfield wrote:

Knihinin is in the Stanislawow district of Eastern Galicia.
According to Lenius' Gazetteer of Galicia, "...this place did not
include a community by this name."

While Joseph's quote >from my gazetteer is correct, this reference
taken without full details might seem confusing and imply that
there was no community that included the name of Knihinin. In
fact, my "Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia" (GGG) lists three
places with the name "Knihinin" in the "Primary Community /
Estate list" Admittedly, the endnotes in the case are a bit cryptic,
but are correct. To clarify, I submit the following background
information.

There were two primary forms of jurisdictions in Galicia:

1. Communities - these were theoretically independent
communities, usually with substantial land and population, were
physically outside the landlord's estates and governed by a local
elected council.

2. Estates - these tracts of land with a small resident population
were owned by a landlord and were governed by him/her or their
appointee.

A quick examination of any Administrative District (AD) in the
official Austrian "Gemeindelexikon von Galizien" (1907) shows
two separate and distinct lists of places - "Ortsgemeinden"
(communities) and "Gutsgebiete" (estates). Each list within an AD
show places with separate land areas, population statistics, and
other features. The places in the two lists are administratively
distinct >from one another and clearly a listing with a certain
name in one list is not the same "place" in the other list although
they are most likely adjacent to each other.

In most cases, but not all cases in Galicia, each "community" had
an adjacent "estate" by the same name. Therefore, in the GGG, in
order to save the book >from requiring yet another 150+ pages, I
combined these two sets of jurisdictions (communities and
estates). By default every place in this Primary List of the GGG is
assumed to have had a community and an estate by the same
name. However, where this was not the case, the estates and
communities are listed separately and clarified with an endnote.
If a community by a certain name had no estate by the same
name, then an endnote might read, "there was no estate by this
name". This may appear unclear and in hindsight perhaps I
should have used a more precise endnote wording such as "there
was only a community, but no estate, by this name."

So in the case of Knihinin there are 3 primary places listed in the
GGG with this name. All were related but administratively and
physcially distinct.

1. Knihinin - this was an "estate" which can be identified as such
in the GGG by endnote 3 as correctly quoted by Joseph
Hirschfield stating, "This place did not include a community by
this name." In other words it was only an estate.

2. Knihinin Wies - this was a "community" that was a village
(Wies) during the time frame of the GGG (1896-1914) and
identified as a "community only" in the GGG by endnote 2 that
states, "This place did not include an estate by this name."

3. Knihinin Kolonia - this was a German Evangelical colony (GGG,
p. D-9) established in the 1820's and identified as a "community
only" in the GGG by endnote 2 that states, "This place did not
include an estate by this name."

Alexander Sharon has provided an informative posting including
the jurisdictional situation and statistics for this place after WWI.
In addition he kindly provided the population statistics
breakdown for the two "communities" (2. & 3. above) according
to the Austrian census of 1900. These statistics are taken >from
the above mentioned "Gemeindelexikon von Galizien" which was
published in 1907 but includes summarized statistics for each
community and estate in Galicia according to the Austrian census
of 1900.

I hope this post will help members more fully understand the
nature of Galician jurisdictions and specifically the nature of all
3 related, but distinct, places by the name Knihinin.

Respectfully submitted,

Brian J. Lenius
Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada