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My grandmother's ship manifest states her city of origin as Cesna Russland.

She is Polish.

Does anyone have any idea what or where Cesna is?

PolyGeo
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Marilyn in AZ
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    Hi, Marilyn, welcome to G&FH.SE. I'm not an expert in Eastern Europe, but I wonder if it could be Cisna? I searched on JewishGen in the 'search for a town box' and they give alternate spellings of "Cieszyn [Pol], Těšín [Cz], Teschen [Ger], Tessin [Lat]". Cisna is one of the towns listed in the Geisher-Galicia Database. Is this passenger list the only clue you have? – Jan Murphy Oct 03 '14 at 18:32
  • Cisna was definitely in Galicia, in Austro-Hungarian empire. Cieszyn/Těšín/Teschen as well, and it's nowhere near where the border with Russia was, I'm afraid both those are missed guesses. – skolima Oct 06 '14 at 19:51

1 Answers1

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Cisna, Poland looks to be not far from Ukrainian & Hungarian boarders today but it has not always been that way. I looked for multiple other variations of Cisna / Cesna and Cieszyn and couldn't find any other references except for ones that brought me back to this area of what is today Poland.

I found this 1909 map of Russia that shows Cisna where Galisiya (Галиция) in the country labeled as Vengria (Венгрия in Russian) which is today Hungary. It is a bit hard to read so I am including a marked up version as well below.

Note: It was not part of Russia, but if they were "Russian Sounding" that may have been why they were labeled as from Russland. I also found reference to Cisna & Russland in a document here.

Marked Up: Note I cannot completely make it out but it kind of looks like Cesna in the vertical text. A key thing to note is Cisna/Cesna is at a cross-roads which helped identify it. The map below is also slightly tilted. enter image description here

Today: enter image description here

Mike Stoddart
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CRSouser
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