Genealogy / Looking for relatives in Poland, Snaza, Miotke, Wirkus, Lewandowski [7]

LEWANDOWSKI: topo nick from Lewandów otuside Warsaw or Lewandowszczyzna in the Lublin area (Lavenderville).

Genealogy / Ksenofont Malewana [10]

MALOWANA: Malewana is probably a misspelling. The Malowana name exists and is concentrateed along today's Ukrainian border around Zamość and surrounding areas. Ksenofont is primarily Russian and Ukrainian first name but rare in Poland proper. Orignally it came from Greek and meant foreign (xeno) voice (phonm).

RADZIKOWSKI: topo nick from Radzików or Radzikowo.

USA, Canada / Polish Food Delivery in Chicago, NYC, or Boston? [7]

Nope, just heard about it. Next time I'm out that way I definitely plan to visit. Some of the dishes (esp. game) seem reminiscent of what the Polish Presidency is serving EU fatcats visitng Poland.

USA, Canada / Polish Food Delivery in Chicago, NYC, or Boston? [7]

Merged: Gourmet Polish eatery in Brooklyn

Those with a stereotypical potatoes & cabbage view of Polish cuisine should visit this place for a taste of Royal Fare (Królewskie Jadło):

krolewskiejadlo.com/eng/menu-ceny.html

Genealogy / Surname anaysis Sabiegai Sabigai Sabagai [6]

Using Polish penultimate stress (indicated here by upper case), it would be roughly pronounced as:
saw-BYEH-guy (guy as in guys & gals) for those whose whose spelling ends in
-gai or gaj, and saw-BYEH-gah for the -ga spelling.

Genealogy / Looking for relative with the surname WIDELEWSKI (Inowroclaw/Torun or Gdansk area) [4]

WIDELEWSKI/WIDLEWSKI: root-word widły (hay fork); topo nick from Widły Widełka or similar.
For more information please contact me

Genealogy / Surname anaysis Sabiegai Sabigai Sabagai [6]

SOBIEGAJ: Although no-one uses this surname in Poland at present, as far as I could determine, in that spelling it could be Polish, Ruthenian (Belarusian, Ukrainian) or Great Russian. Existing similarly rooted surnames currently used in Poland and mostly derived from the old first name Sobiesław include Sobielga, Sobiegalla (this looks Lithuanian), Sobiegraj, Sobiej. Sobień and Sobieraj.

History / Why did communism in Poland fail? [180]

Today's communism is the PC dictatorship. Like all leftist utopias it too will collapse.

Work / Polish salaries - New statistics [38]

Whta is average take-home pay of the largest single group of Polish wage-earners?

Food / Ever try Stawski beer? [8]

About the worst American I have ever tried is Bud Lite. A distinct tasting beer is (was?) Carling Red Cap Ale, but you don't see it around much anymore. In Poland the latest fad is piwo niepasteryzowane. It should have an exrremly short shelf life if it's for real, but probably it's just another gimmick.

Genealogy / Looking for information on ancestors - Nickolaj Skribenko, Parkulo, Kalapaj. [5]

Couldn't find any bearers of the surnames you mentioned in today's tiny, truncated Poland. They mnsut have been from the eastern borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or what are now the ziemie utracone (lost terrirories).

Food / Ever try Stawski beer? [8]

I have sampled Van Pur lager (but no Stawski beers) in the past. Not bad but with a slightly unusual flavour trwist I can't put my finger on. Tastes are bloody difficult

to describe in the first place.

Genealogy / About Raczkowski [16]

Your best bet would be to engage a detective agency and/or genealogical researcher.

Genealogy / Information on last name Geras [12]

The -ko ending is not only Ukrainian but All-Ruthenian including Belarusian. Kościuszko had no links to Ukraine but grew up in a Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian envrionment. The name is an endearing form of Konstanty comparable to the English Connie.

Genealogy / Information on last name Geras [12]

GERAS/GIERAS: This surname is probably derived from the old Polish first name Gerwazy (English: Jarvis). St Gervasius was a 1st-century bishop of Milan, who died a marytr's death along with his twin brother Protasius (Protazy in Polish).

USA, Canada / Polish-American mutilation of the Polish language [75]

I don't know if this is national legend or what, but I heard years ago that at one time it wasn't decided whether the official language of the US should be English or German. The Pennsylvania faction was very influential back then and was pushing German.

rybnik
I only herard it as a feminine kara. Incidentally, the word bar (pub) in Michigan was also feminine: bara. There were regional differences. In Michigan a stodoła or obora was a barna, but in Wisconsin it was palatalised - barnia, hence w barnie ~ w barni. And in the PA coalfields there was a saying: skifowało się (there's been a cave-in).

Genealogy / About Raczkowski [16]

Statistically it is more likely to be Razczkowski (some 5,400 users) than Rączkowski (only about 1,400).

USA, Canada / Polish-American mutilation of the Polish language [75]

PennBoy
Was it perhaps a guy named Grzesiuk? Later Jarema Stępowski did songs in old Warsaw street slang.

USA, Canada / Polish-American mutilation of the Polish language [75]

Merged: AmPolonian colloquial speech

Here are some of the anglo-polonisms encoutnered in the US Polonia now and in the past;
hauza - house
flor - floor
giejta - gate
jarda - yard
kara - car
trok - truck, the DP generation woudl said trak
sajdłok - sidewalk
sztor - store, shop
siapa - shop meaning factory
buczernia - butcher's
giezolina - gasoline (petrol)
majna - colliery
druksztor - drug store (pharmacy)
policman - policeman
fajerman - fireman
drajwer - driver
stepsy - steps
strytkara - streetcar (tram)
tomejdusy - tomatoes
korna - sweet corn
musztryk - mustard
sklep - cellar (immigrants friom wielkopolska)
drajwować - to drive (a car)
pejntować - to paint
klinować - to clean
orderować - to order (place an order for something)
Just a tiny sampling..... If anyomne's interested, I can easily provide many more examples, all of them personally encountered in speech and/or writing.

USA, Canada / Sending money to Poland from the USA? [48]

Merged:

Sending $$$$ to Poland?

People often ask: WHAT IS THE BEST, MOST HASSLE-FREE AND CHEAPEST WAY OF SENDING DOLLARS FROM THE USA TO PEOPLE IN POLAND?
Has any PF-er had various experience with bank transfers, American Express, Western Union, PayPal, Pekao? I think the Polish Post Office also hands some kind of dollar transfer service.

What do the different outfits charge to send, let's say, $100 or $1,000 to a recipient in Poland?
What are the snags? Does the recipient have to be online, have a bank account or go to the nearest town where the cash-transferring agency has an office? Do any of them offer doorstep cash delivery? Is it in dollars or złotys?

Typically, many of the recipients are elderly rural and small-town folk in Poland who do not have bank accounts, do not use the Internet and have limited travel ability.

Genealogy / Looking for REM family [20]

Having a rare surname like Rem can be a boon to family tracers because there's a good chance you are related to all or mostt of your namesakes in some way. Think of the problem a Nowak (200,000+ users) would have if all he had to go on was the name.

You migth check with a reliable genealogist who may be able to help you such as:
Iwona Dakiniewicz at genealogy@pro.onet.pl

Love / Is the Polish wife the boss? [33]

It all depends on the proximity factor. If you live in Vancouver and your mum-in-law is in Skierniewice and you see each other only once a year, then that shouldn't be too big a problem. But in the case of a live-in m-i-l, that would be a different pair of shoes altogether. Prolly the daughter-in-law/mother-in-law equation is the thorniest, because of rivlary over the darling son. Men seem to hit it off better with their fathers-in-law -- they can go out together for drinks and complain about their wives.

Genealogy / Polish nationality? Which of the following (if any) determine being Polish. [231]

isthatu2
You are what you feel you are. Ethno-cultural awareness and self-identity are subjective concepts, a thing of the consciousness or soul, and no scrap of paper, no chip, no laws, rules, regulations or red tape can change that. Under extreme conditions, one may bite one's lip and not admit one's feelings (if someone, for instance came to power saying 'Starting tomorrow all Norwegians get shot'), but that doesn't have to change how you feel.

USA, Canada / Polish barber shop in Chicago [5]

Has anyone ever seen online or anywhere else an ethnic map of Chicago, showing through different colours were Hispanics, Irish, Poles, African-Americans, Arabs and others live?

Life / Poland has to pick a nation and accept 3 million people of that nation - who do you choose [59]

I'd choose Italians any day. The two countries have never been at war. Italy has made many cultural and culinary contributions. And the two nations share various characteristics such as being very family-minded, the Catholic faith, the importance of food and hospitality and emtoional expression (although admittedly Italians are louder and more gesticulatory).

Feedback / Language used here - how come this forum is all in English? [78]

The English saying that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' was never truer than of the Diaspora, any Diaspora. It typically has an idealised view of the motherland as 'a better place', because émigré Poles and their descendants do not have to deal with the grit, grime and slime encoutnered in the country on a daily basis.

Besides, at some stage in life a person may decide not to live with his mother any longer, but that surely doesn't mean he has stopped loving her!

Feedback / Language used here - how come this forum is all in English? [78]

No-one chose the country he/she was born in, so some conclude that it's foolish to love a country that was in effect forced upon one. But similary no-one chooses one's mother. Does that mean we should not love her? Even if she's not as bright as Madam Curie, as attractive as Claudia Schiffer or doesn't cook s well as Martha Stewart, we still love her, simply BECAUSE SHE IS OUR MOTHER. Does the same not hold true for Macierz Polska, our Polish Motherland?