My grandpa's immigration record lists his birthplace as "Stofano, Poland", but I can't find a town by this name online. He was born in 1911 and the record is from 1950. The records are typewritten. Can anyone tell me where Stofano is, whether it's misspelt or just obscure?
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1A brief search on Google Maps found a village called Stefanów in SE Poland. From Wikipedia: "Stefanów is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Żelechów, within Garwolin County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately 6 kilometres west of Żelechów, 19 km south-east of Garwolin, and 75 km south-east of Warsaw. The village has a population of 504". That could be the place you're looking for, but I can't be certain without more information.– sempaiscubaCommented Feb 19, 2023 at 13:27
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Yes, I've been down this path! Wikipedia has quite a list of towns by this name, not to mention the variants. I've suspected Stofano is Stefanów, but I don't have the confidence to definitively link the two. When I put Stefanów into Google Translate, the pronunciation has a clear "V" sound at the end of it. I wonder if a Pole could confirm that (with accents or whatever), Stefanów might be misheard as Stofano. At the very least, I'd have a short list of suspects. Thanks for the help.– Benjamin PenneyCommented Feb 19, 2023 at 22:39
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2 Answers
I'm afraid ou'll need more details than that to get a useful guess.
I'm a native Polish speaker, and "Stefanów" could sound like "Stofano" to an English speaker. However, "Stefanów" ("Stefan's place", Stefan being Stephen in English) is a very common village name. There's 33 existing places by that name currently, and likely even more places that no longer exist.
You should be able to get 20th century records from the Civil Office in Poland.
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Thank you for your detailed answer and starting point for further research. Just to eliminate potential confirmation bias, do you know of any other town names "Stofano" might be a substitute for? Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 22:12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stawno,_Drawsko_County is another possibility, but thrre are more. My grandfathers father was from near there and called the village Stofano to my American boyhood ears but, he showed us on the map Stowano.. saying w is v sound..lol..
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1Another good possibility, and there's 7 'Stawno' places in Poland currently: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stawno– skolimaCommented Feb 21, 2023 at 11:00