Antoni Uszylo - surname and place

hi i am reasearching past history of my father. all i know is that he was born in a plce called BORTELA according to his passport name is Antoni Uszylo born 15 Nov 1927.

any information or links would be much welcomed.
thanks
Keith.

There are only 14 people in Poland sharing the Uszyło surname, and all of them live in the Koszalin region (formerly German Köslin). That suggests that they are all memebrs of the same family and that after the war they were amongst the Polish repatriates transplanted from the one-half of pre-war Poland annexed by Stalin and never returned. The name itself is one of many verb-derived surnames which include Przybył, Biegała, Świtało, etc. Its root is the verb "szyć" (to sew) and l literally means "it has sewn".

Could the locality you mentioned be today's Bertuliai (in Lithuanian) which is now in Lithuania?

I agree with this. another spelling is Borteli

thanks for the quick reply. i can only go by whats in the passport. do you know of any links with the region where the uszylo family are.

as you seem to be at the start of your search.

jewishgen (they have lithuanian threads and links)

ancestry (your name does appear there)

wikipedia (for history and town)

genealogy.com

any problems... please get back to us.

You can also contact the Koszalin district authorities and ask them for the Dział Ewidencji Ludności (population records dept):
Województwo: Zachodniopomorskie
Powiat: Powiat m. Koszalin
Gmina: M. Koszalin
Poczta: Koszalin
telefon: 0-94 342-27-11
faks: 0-94 346-22-61
Adres e-mail
poczta@powiat.koszalin.pl

Tell them you are searching for long-lost relations and ask them if there are any Uszyłos on record and, if so, could they provide you with soem addresses.

You may run into the privacy-protection nonsense that oppresses us these days at every turn of the way. Naturally, yo'll have to to all this in Polish. If not fluent in the lingo, find someone who is.

Good luck!