Hi Dear John,
Welcome to your family old country, if you mean "a specific area of Poland" as pre-partition The Kingdom of Poland from the 18th-century and earlier, after political partitioning in the end of the 18th-c and 19th-c till WWI as the Prussia-Germany including your Silesia province, and Russia, Austria-Hungary named as Galicia, thus all this part of the country could be researched by us, so let"s try to help you:
I. Places:
Karnetmeister is giving two places named in Germany RADAU, one is named in Polish as RADOWO, and it"s located near Braniewo/Elblag, old Prussia, so seems the second one is the correct one, it"s RADAWIE, located in Silesia, between Olesno and Opole, see following data:
German Name Radau
Today"s Name Radawie
Kreis/County Rosenberg
German Province Schlesien
Today"s Province Opolskie
Location East 18°17" North 50°47"
Location Description This village/town is located 13.8 km and 223 degrees from Rosenberg, which is known today as Olesno
Lutheran Parish Guttentag, Kreis Lublinitz 1905
Catholic Parish Zembowitz 1905
Standesamt/Civil Registry Radau 1905
Gemeindelexikon/Town Index VI-56-49
Population By Year/Einwohner 1905: 396
source:
http://www.kartenmeister.com/preview/databaseuwe.asp
Using the power of internet we can invite you to visit virtually your family ancestral town RADAWIE in Poland:
On the detailed map of Poland, with zoom in (Przybliz) and out (Oddal):
http://mapa.szukacz.pl/?x=450018&y=324600&zoom=3
You can see this nice and quiet village in 2007 Poland, located amongst deep and beatiful woods, counting now 940 inhabitants.
= The gmina (administrative community) for this Radawie is Zebowice, please see Polish website of this gmina:
http://www.zebowice.pl/
You can find there also local map.
= You can have a great historical info for your family history book, here is weblink to wikipedia about your family homeland Radawie, for translation into English you can use any software tools, but be careful, this kind of translation could not give you the exact words, but it"s worth to try:
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radawie
You can even see your family ancestral land from our angels" view
http://wikimapia.org/#y=50783333&x=1828 ... 2&l=28&m=h
II. Family names:
WOJTASCZYK with Polish roots could be WOJTASZCZYK, the best Polish etymologist and expert Prof. Kazimierz Rymut from the Institute of the Polish Language in Krakow is giving in his invaluable work "Nazwiska Polakow Slownik historyczno-etymologiczny" (The Surnames of Poles..."), Krakow, 1999-2001, t.II, page 695: both surnames are going from Polish Wojt, noted in old Poland from 1382, and our friend Jacek Mlochowski is right, according to the next Prof. Rymut"s work locating the surnames in 1990/2002 Poland,"Słownika Nazwisk Współcześnie w Polsce Używanych"
http://www.herby.com.pl/ there were only few person with that name living in present Poland.
= Checking Poland white pages with this Radawie and Olesno I can not find any family WOJTASCZYK, but! in this ZEBOWICE one! record can be found out!: Ernestyna WOJTASCZYK, Zebowice, Poland, ph.no: +77 4216132 ; matter need personal contact, maybe Mrs. Ernestyna and her family from this area of present Poland could help you in your search!
III. Your genealogical search in Poland, and... in the U.S.
Here are base sources:
a. The Index of the parish book/parish records, invaluable source, from this website!, here is the version in English!:
http://genealodzy.pl/index.php?name=katalog
With RC index of records from parish Zebowice the detailed link is here:
http://genealodzy.pl/modules.php?op=mod ... h=Zebowice
b. Polish state archives system "Pradziad":
http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.eng.php
You have also the church and civil records there, clicking with the exact line on "more" you will have the full address of the archive.
c. Archidiocesan/Diocesan Archives, use the internet to have the address.
d. Local sources, for eg. USC - Urzad Stanu Cywilnego - Civil Registration Office of gmina (here this ZEBOWICE), for all records aged less than 100 years, the older ones are in the state archives mainly.
e. FHC/LDS mormons microfilms you can order in one of their centre in the U.S., here is the detailed information with the number of microfilms:
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library ... eno=672890 - church records
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library ... eno=723793 - civil records
In general, use all these sources also for Olesno.
Any more links?
==
Hope this helps a little in your search,
Sorry any fast help errors,
Good luck,
Tad - Tadeusz, Warsaw
+ non-for-profit open help room, where you can e:mail as scanned any your family document from Silesia asking our help in reading:
http://www.narodowa.pl/help
Do forum: bardzo przepraszam za moją pierwszą fotkę, ta jest z wyprawy do Afganistanu i Azji w 1978 r., no innej nie mam teraz pod ręką
, pozdrawiam wszystkich serdecznie tą szklaneczką... afgańskiej herbaty, Tadeusz