My father has been researching the genealogy of our family and our name Sniatkowski seems pretty rare, even in Poland. My great grandfather spelled it several ways, including Sniadkowski (his baptism papers), Sniatkowski (his draft papers and grave) and his father is spelled Schnapkowska on my great grandfather's birth certificate.
Supposedly the family came to the US from Suwalk in the 1890's.
Anybody who can provide insight into the surname would be appreciated.
I have just finished doing lots of research on the surname ZWIATKOWSKI. I found that the "T" in Polish looks like a T, but it is really an "L" with a slash through it.
Anyway go onto the site below which shows a map with areas where the SNIATKOWSKI name is located. There are several choices, written in blue... so be sure to ckick on all of them. There are some on Suwalki.
There are twice as many people in Poland surnamed Śniadkowski as Śniatkowski which probably started out with the d and got misspelt somewhere along the line. The reasion is simple: in front of a 'k' a voiced consonant such as 'd' becomes devoiced and is pronoucned like a 't'. A semiliterate clerk, scribe or priest simply wrote down what he heard with little knoweldge of Polish orthography.
The third Sch spelling you indicated was undoutbedly the doing of a Prussian official who also wrote down what he thought he heard but ended up pretty far afield. For more information on your surname please contact research60@gmail
