Kienow Family History and Heritage

My story begins in a land over 5,000 miles from Minnesota in a place called Pommern. Pommern was a province or state in the Kingdom of Prussia just south of the Baltic Sea. The village where my parents lived and where I was born was Meesow. It was in the county (Kreis) of Regenwalde. The map of Pommern helps us locate our village. The people living in Pommern were called Pommeranians. After World War II this land was taken from Germany and given to Poland. All the Germans living there were forced to leave the area by the Russians and Poles.

Meesow was too small to have its own church so we went to church in Roggow about 4 miles away. Recent pictures of Meesow, now called Mieszewo, Poland help us see the similarities. Many buildings in this village are over 100 years old. The following articles tell us about the village of Meesow:

“In 1791 the village of Meesow contained 21 farmsteads, 2 sheep farms, a blacksmith shop, a watermill and 40 furnaces. It later became the train line between Regenwalde to Sallmow and Labes to Daber.”