Genealogy /
Wyrombecki: someone can help with a difficult Polish name? [15]
Various forms of the same family name should surprise no-one. Such discrepancies often resulted from either an Old World misspelling or a New World respelling. One should bear in mind that centuries ago, most people were illiterate, and even many of the priests and village scribes who knew how to read and write were semi-literate at best. Often they mainly knew their local dialect and wrote things down that way. Moreover, generations of manual recopying could also lead to discrepancies. For instance, a not fully rounded letter “o” might be taken for a “u”, and an “o” with too long a right-extending “tail” could be misatken for an “a”. Americans often mistake the handwritten barred "ł" for a "t". Also the American-stye lower-case handwritten "r" may resemble the lower-case handwritten "z" to some. Poles (except for the Russified ones) generally did not write the small "z" to resemble the numeral "3".
From the late 18th century up till 1918, Poland was under foreign rule and non-Polish office clerks and officials could easily have misspelled or distorted individual surnames. In America, on the other hand, Polish names were often deliberately respelled to facilitate pronunciation. Since the letters “j”, “w”, “ch”, “cz”, “sz” and others were pronounced differently in Polish and English adn the nasal vowels "ę" and "ą" do nto exist in the English alphabet, names such as Jabłoński, Nowak, Chomiński, Czajka and Szymański were respelled as Yablonski, Novak, Hominski, Chayka, and Shymanski. Those with the nasal vowels were sometimes changed from Bąkowski and Dębkowski to Bonkoski and Dembkoski. Incidentally, dropping the “w” from the “-kowski” ending got rid of the “cow”!
To determine whether the change took place in Poland or America, if available, check your immigrant ancestor’s original Old World documents (birth/baptismal or marriage certificates, passport, steamship-ticket stubs, ship’s manifest, etc.) to determine how the name was spelled before he set foot in America. US-generated documents such as job and school records, naturalization papers, death certificates, obituaries, etc. are not good for that purpose, because they show the post-arrival state of the name which may have been modified in America. If unavailable, perhaps the signatures, addresses or return addresses on surviving letters from the Old Country, which many immigrants saved, may be able to provide a clue. Having contacts with relatives in Poland is another way of clearing up the spelling.
