Name of Klawinin today and where is it?

Question

I have a grandparent whose US Declaration of Intention states that they were born in Klawinin which in 1878 was part of Russian Poland.

Can you tell me what that town is called today and where it is located?

Answer 1

The name gives no hits on a cursory Google search, save for your question on this and other sites. Fortunately, we have an index of localities from that time period. Skorowidz Królestwa Polskiego czyli Spis alfabetyczny miast, wsi, folwarków, kolonii i wszystkich nomenklatur w guberniach Królestwa Polskiego, z wykazaniem: gubernii, powiatu, gminy, parafii, sądu pokoju lub gminnego, oraz najbliższej stacyi pocztowej, wraz z oddzielnym spisem gmin podług najświeższej ich liczby i nazwy ułożony, wykazujący: odległość każdej danej gminy od miasta powiatowego i sądu swojego gminnego; czy i jakie znajdują się w gminie zakłady fabryczne lub przemysłowe, szkoły itp. oraz ludność każdej gminy, obejmujący także podział sądownictwa krajowego świeżo urządzonego. was published in 1877 and claims to contain all "cities, villages, farms, colonies and every other names" in the then Kingdom of Poland (also called Vistula Country). And it is available online here.

Unfortunately, there are no hits for "K[l/ł][a/ą]wini[n/ń]" (to cover the cases where Polish letters were omitted). This most likely means one of two things - either the orthography was different from what was on the US Declaration of Intention or the locality was not within the Kingdom of Poland, but within e.g. the First Commonwealth.

In the first case, we are left to be guessing what your ancestor meant. The word "Klawinin" is not a word in current Polish. Similar words that could be the root of the locality's name could be:

• Polish word - translation - (Possible locality name)
• Kalwin - Calvin - (Kalwinin)
  • No hits in the index
• Klawisz - Button - (Klawiszyn(o))
  • Klawisz folwark, low probability, does not match typical pronunciation

What if some of the wovels were misheard or misread?

• Klewinie - 5 hits, all in the Suwałki Governorate, either Marjampol (today's Lithuania. Marijampolė in Lithuanian or Mariampol in Polish) or Suwałki powiat.

I think that these five localities could be what you are searching for, but I cannot discriminate between any of them currently.

In the second case, the locality would get a Russianised name. As I do not know Russian well, I cannot help you there. Cursory search for a simple transliteration gives no results.