Buczenski, Ostrowski and Matysiak. Discovering village/parish family came from?

I am a quarter Polish and am attempting to research my family line but I can't seem to place them prior to naturalization. Unfortunately, I do not know enough to figure out where they may have lived in Poland in order to aid in my research.

My grandmother was a beautiful Polish woman and I miss her deeply. I so wish I could ask her more about where our family came from.

I am also discovering some major misspellings during my hunt so I was thinking perhaps someone might be able to explain to me how might I change the spelling to be more successful in my search.

Here is the information I have found:

Szczech is the paternal surname and is the easiest to find. I have traced that line to Rzeszów and the other surnames I am seeing a long that line are Kracz, Przydzial, Ocytko and Bartho.

The other surnames for my great-grandparents are Buczenski, Ostrowski and Matysiak. I cannot seem to figure out anything about them or where they lived prior to coming to America.

All of my Polish family seemed to come across right around 1900 to the St. Paul area of Minnesota. My great-grandparents were born there, but their parents were born in Poland around 1870.

If anyone has any information on any of these surnames or where I might go for more information, I would be so, so grateful.

Thank you so much,
Lizzy Allen
lizallen@me.com

In 1870 Poland was partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary. I come from Bialystok and my grandfather name was Ostrowski and I new people with the names you mention and I think they are very popular last names as well so I would suggest going to “ nasza classa “ it is like face book an looking around if you know polish. Bialystok was under Prussian partition for short after Napoleonic wars it became under Russian occupation.

You should browse this site. There are many threads about genealogy.
You can find there about how to research your ancestry among other things.
There is also Polonius3 thread where he explains the meaning of Polish surnames. You should ask him, he is kind of expert in that matter on this site.

Liz, I started my family search from my closest relative and went backward. While I am stumped at both of my great grandfathers, I did find so much on other members of the family in Poland back to 1785 in some cases.

If your family went to St. Paul, there must be a public 'Hall of Records' as in NYC, Philadelphia, etc. You can either go in person (quickest results- but expect to stay an entire day), or request by mail which takes 4 to 6 weeks (in NY) to get the documents.

I have found marriage, death certificates with parents names on them, declarations of intent, petition for citizenship/naturalization which has town/village last resided.
There are so many documents that can be found at these public records buildings.
Also, search the Ellis Island archives for names, dates of arrival
You can expect to find many misspellings of names because many documents were completed by Americans who could not understand Polish and wrote what they thought they heard. Once you start you'll get the hang of it and learn what it all means.

Good Luck.

SZCZECH: Probably originally Sczech (z Czech = from Bohemia); possibly also pet form of Szczepan.

BUCZEŃSKI: root-word probably buk (beech); topo nick from Bucza or Bucze.

OSTROWSKI: root-word ostrów (archaic for island); topo nick from Ostrów, Ostrowo, Ostrówek and similar.

MATYSIAK: patronymic nick from Mateusz (Matthew).

KRACZ: from krakać (the cawing sound made by crows); when applied to people it indicates someone who always predicts bad things ahead, a doomsday sayer.

PRZYDZIA£: from przydzielać: to divide and share, portion out; nick for someone performing that task -- an army quartermaster, a civilian official entrusted with distrbution.

OCYTKO: uncertain; possibly a dialectal variant of Ocipko - a heavy, clumsy, lumbering person.

BARTHO: no such name in today's Poland, only Barthodziej and Barthold; the 'th' suggests its German orgin: Bartholomäus (Bartholomew).

Hi Liz, If you ever come across the name Ostrowski in your search check my 'tree' in genie.com to see if there are any matches. I know Ostrowski is a fairly popular/common name so it may take you a while to get somewhere. My family are from Misztale Tybory, Wysokie Mazowieckie.

My tree: geni.com/share?t=6000000016202876578
when it opens click the word "Tree" on top of page to open large view.