The life of the population in the lands occupied by the invaders varied in quality, depending on which invader took over the territory of the homeland.
Under Prussian rule, and Zenda's family came from this area, the economy was fairly well developed, or at least was developing. The Catholic Church was treated instrumentally, as a tool for the occupying power. Despite the invaders' considerable involvement in the development of the economy, and thus in the improvement of the population's life, it was not, of course, as the countrymen wished.
So they left for better places.
The Russian partition was oriented towards the liquidation of the church and the transfer of the faithful to Orthodoxy.
The Austrian partition was probably the most liberal. Additionally, and this is worth noting, the metrical books were kept quite orderly with an abundance of information. At least in some cases. Thus, in the entry of the birth of an ancestor, we can find, of course, the parents, which is logical and understandable, but also the parents of these parents, i.e. the grandparents of the born.
This is of great value, because it gives us immediate information about the representatives of the next generation.
It was similar in the case of weddings. In this case it was actually even better, because the bride and groom were older, so, of course, the information about the ancestors, or grandparents, reached further.
Returning to emigration, however, it is difficult to determine what percentage from each partition gave up their lives in their homeland, how many families moved - as emigrants - to America.
In any case, the Zenda family, like others, ended up there and settled in Milwaukee.
Of course, originally the family had the surname Zdradzinski, but that will be covered in a separate block.
All in all, it's interesting where the Zdradzińskis come from. Somehow they cannot be located in their homeland. They can be located in available databases of indexed birth records. Well, probably Mikołaj and Barbara - Franciszek's parents - are registered somewhere in the books.
It is a pity that there is no free access to the passenger lists, but one has to resort to tricks and create an account e.g. on MyHeritage to get free access for 14 days during the trial period.