Please help me trace my surname origin - Gurklis

silkrug 1 | -

9 Mar 2010 / #1

Please help me fing my surname's origin. My grandfather was born in Poland and moved to the uk after the war. There are many families in the usa with the surname GURKLIS but none in the uk. Can anyone shed any light on this as I am told it is Polish but it certainly does not sound like it, I wanted to trace my family tree but is proving very difficult.

many thanks

Ziemowit 14 | 3936

9 Mar 2010 / #2

It may be a surname of Lithuanian origin.

Mr Grunwald 33 | 2138

9 Mar 2010 / #3

yeah GURKLIS sound kinda Lithuanian

Polonius3 980 | 12275

16 Mar 2010 / #4

Gurklis is ethncially not Polish, probably Lithuanian. There is only one person currently using that surname in Poland and lives in the Bydgoszcz area.

silkrug8

3 Jul 2011 / #5

I am a Gurklis as well my great grandfather was from Lithuania came to America in the 1800s and worked in the coal mines I am too trying to find my family history as for now tats all I know

Polonius3 980 | 12275

3 Jul 2011 / #6

GURKLIS: Lithuanian for craw (a bird's gullet or crop -- where food is softened prior to digestion). Only 1 person with this surname in Poland.

MuddyShoes

21 Oct 2011 / #7

My husband's great-great grandmother was a Gurklis from Kowno (Kaunas) Lithuania.

Polonius3 980 | 12275

21 Oct 2011 / #8

GURKLIS: This is the Lithuanian word for crop. There is (or was) only one person in Poland named Gurklis living in the Bydgoszcz area. That was according to a previous census, so unless that peson was a male of reproductive age, by now the name may be extinct in Poland.

Valeriy

29 Sep 2018 / #9

Good afternoon ! My great-grandfather Joseph Gurklis. He served in the Polish army in 1918 and then was a prisoner in Russia. There he died of typhus. I want to find his family history