Local heritage book of Bielsko

Bielsko, Kreis Birnbaum, Provinz Posen   (pol. Bielsko).

The data of this OFB are mainly based on the protestant parish register of Birnbaum 1819-1874, to which Bielsko belonged with several other surrounding villages. the years 1828, 1829, 1831 are missing completely. On family search it can be found at  Birnbaum evangelish parish register on FS   and at Ancestry   Birnbaum evangelisch parish register

The relevant civil registration office was Birnbaum, but some inhabitants got registered in surrounding civil registration offices, such as Zirke, or or Radusch. The records are stored at the Landsberg/Warthe Archive in the polish Archive system under the signature  66/291.  Currently the following records are in existence/online   Births 1874-1919/1874-1910, Marriages 1874-1939/1874-1910, Deaths 1874-1939/1974-1910.   Birnbaum civil registration

This is a work in progress and not yet complete, although all Birnbaum protestant parish entries were captured in toto. The data are an excerpt of my much larger data set of Kreis Birnbaum, which is found under GEDBAS   my Birnbaum dataset    search by name 

Bilsko consisted of a small village and a sizeable manor house/estate, abt one mile east of Birnbaum, right at the Bielsko lake. in 1837 there were ca 182 inhabitants, which grew to abt 322 in 1888. In addition there were the people associated with the manor house/estate. Initially mostly protestant evangelish, this changed over time with an influx of more and more Poles, which for the most part were catholic. The population in the area was to a large part bilingual, as seen in how the parish entries are written. There was a mill, and toward the end of the 19th century brown coal was found and partially mined. Another small village part was called Grüne Tanne (Zielona Chojna), north east, along the road toward Zirke.  Directly on the road to Zirke, on the left, there is the ruin of a large building complex, possibly the old estate buildings. Across the road there is a fenced in wooded area, which cannot be entered, which supposedly was the cemetery. There does not seem to be a real center of Bielsko as in other villages. 

I welcome any corrections/additions

Karin Cox, April 2024