Looking for city of Siedlitz, Poland

This city is on my aunt's birth certificate. I'm told it's an old town that has a German name. Once Poland gained it's freedom it most likely changed to a Polish name.

Any ideas where this city is?
Thank you in advance!

What is the date on the certificate?

Siedlce (a little place near Gdansk) was called Siedlitz until after the war. There's a much bigger Siedlce (both a town and a county) just east of Warsaw, however this had been in the Russian zabór, so Harry's question about dates is significant. If your aunt was born during the WWII occupation, maybe it was here.

To add, Siedlce (the bigger one) was also sometimes referred to as Siedlitz around the time of the First World War (though not necessarily on birth certificates) and a couple of years after and there are a number of very small villages dotted around Poland that also had this name, though this possibility is less likely. There was also a place called Siedlitz much further east in that part of the Austrian Empire that was mainly Polish but is now in Ukraine.

Do you have any information other than the name of the town. And a date (a rough idea even) would help.

My grandfather moved here before WWII.

I think there were also a couple (even a few) little places called Siedlice in the territory Poland 'recovered' after WWII.

At the end of the day, my motivation for locating this city is to trace my family. Once I find the city location and modern name I can start digging. Unfortunately everyone with that knowledge has passed.

On the birth certificate, does it just say the town name or are there any other details, and what year was the certificate from?

The birth certificate is a US document it only states that name as the city her father was from. The document is 68 years old from Cleveland, Ohio.

It could be various places in that case. Some names of towns were altered. If it was the Siedlitz near Gdansk, it wouldn't have said Poland on, since that had long been part of Prussia and in any case is only a tiny place however there's a good chance that whoever wrote out the certificate referred to Siedlce (near Warsaw) as Siedlitz. The others are just little villages. About the one that's now in Ukraine, I know nothing except it was probably a small place.

You should maybe concentrate your research on the town of Siedlce.

My money would be on a misspelling of Siedlce near-ish to Warsaw: it's bigger than all the other possibilities combined. And the certificate being from post-WWII makes it unlikely the German name was used.

Unfortunately I do not know the date my grandfather came to America. He was a little boy. He came with his mother several years after his father came here to get established.

If it wasn't until 1918 that Poland was an independent country it's possible that his town had the old German spelling if he were born prior to that correct?

I do know there are people from Gdansk who share my last name but have no idea if we are relations. I'm working on that.

It's unlikely: per WWI Siedlce was in the Russian controlled part of Poland.

It was referred to outside Poland as Siedlitz and remember that this is a document made by an American official (notorious for garbling foreign place names and even surnames) rather than someone in Poland so it may be possible.



The changes to place names etc didn't happen overnight - they had a lot to do. Harry is right though - in the Russian zabór they wouldn't have used the German name of the town (unless it was the brief period during World War One that the Germans controlled the town, and even then probably not) but then again, the document you have isn't a Polish one.

Remember there were mass population movements and most of the pre-war inhabitants of Gdansk left at the end of the war or just after. The people there who share your surname may well have come from somewhere else. Have you seen the surname map on moikrewni.pl?

Thank you!

Any ideas on how to trace his birth? Would there be records there from about 1912?

There should be. Many records and archives in that part of Poland were lost during the war however the town hall should be able to advise and also parish records (though there are many parishes there) and of course your aunt could have been born anywhere in the county (which was larger in those days).

I just found a newspaper article that reads:
POLISH PEACE DELEGATES REACH SIEDLITZ INSTEAD OF MINSK.
It is from August 14,1920.
Does this change anyone's mind or direction I should head?

That ones the Siedlce near Warsaw, the one that's most likely.