Genealogy / Pietras from Opole, Poland. Help with information on Great Grandfather. [6]

The second most common area for the Pietras surname is Opole Lublin, and that area used to be in Russia, so he probably was not from the Opole/Oppeln, that was formerly in Prussia/Germany.

Genealogy / Help finding Lesser Poland village, Kasinka Mala, in Limanowa county / Wągrowiec [4]

Merged: Information on the village of Lechlin, near Wagrowiec (Wongrowitz)

Does anybody have information on the village of Lechlin near Wagrowiec (Wongrowitz)? My great great grandmother was from this village, her maiden name was Kaminski or Kamienski and her mother's maiden name was Lukaszewicz (spelled Lukasawitz) on an American record. Are the people that live in this village today, mostly descended from the people that lived there in the 1870's, or did the original inhabitants get expelled after WW2, and the village is now inhabited by settlers from other Polish regions? Also would the original inhabitants have been considered Polish or Volksdeutsch by the Germans during WW2, and would they have served in the German Wehrmacht?

Old Postcard Of The Parish Church In Lechlin

Life / Polish-American Polka Music in Poland [60]

Hills of Shiner Polka by: The Czechaholics
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xfy8AVO9ouU

Haymaking Waltz by: The Dancehall Boys
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9ZhLjgI8zrg

can we see some discussion, please.

Genealogy / Warzecha [3]

Merged: What was Generaladmiral Walter Warzecha's ancestral village in Silesia?

Does anyone here know what was the home village of the German Generaladmiral Walter Warzecha's father Max Warzecha in Silesia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Warzecha

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  Walter_Warzecha.jpg
  

Life / Polish-American Polka Music in Poland [60]

[Moved from]: Polka and Waltz Music

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HCbgTD8rGN0

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5ab3uztaqPg
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=efwR-zSeCA4
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DFiqytHO4hw

Red Wine Polka by The Dujka Brothers
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9Id1aOq4kxU

Band from Radawie (Radau) near Zebowice (Zembowitz) in Upper Silesia.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FZkIcQc1ToA

Black Gypsy Waltz by: The Dujka Brothers
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eXYBbIoOxkA

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

Ziemowit: The older people in Panna Maria can usually still speak Polish. When I went to the visitor center in Panna Maria about 8 years ago, there was two older women working there and they started trying to speak Polish to me, but I only could speak English, so they talked to me in English also. I would not be able to tell if they spoke Polish good or not.

The first settlers came from around the village of Wielka Pluznica near Toszek or Gross Pluschnitz bei Tost. That was the home village of father Leopold Moczygemba, who first came to Texas to minister to the German immigrants in Texas in 1852, then he saw how the German settlers were prospering in Texas, so he wrote to his brothers back in Pluznica to come to America also. They passed the letter around the area and got a group of Immigrants together and left in the fall of 1854. So the first group was from Pluznica and the surrounding villages. One of the letters that is studied the most was from Johan Moczygemba from Pluznica.

My Ancestors Johann Warzecha and Margareth Kuczka were from Biestrzynnik and went to church in Szczedrzyk, and they came to Texas in the spring of 1855.

There is two books on the Silesian immigrants called Silesian Profiles and Silesian Profiles 2. Johann Warzecha and Margareth Kuczka were in Silesian Profiles 2. His brother in law Johann Kuczka was in the first book Silesian Profiles.There is a map of the villages in Upper Silesia that the immigrants came from on the website. silesiantexans.com/maps.htm It is the second map, the first map is one of where the Silesians settled in Texas.

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

Funky Sanoan, the Silesians of Panna Maria, pretty much stayed to themselves. If you read some of the books about Panna Maria by T.Lindsay Baker, they say that there was a family of German Catholics that lived in Panna Maria and had a store there, and they all learned to speak Polish. They also tell about how the American cowboys after the Civil War would ride into the village and shoot up the place and ride their horses into the church. They did this because the Silesians were suspected of having Unionist sympathies during the Civil War. Some of the Silesians would change sides if captured by the Union forces, because they did not own slaves and had no real loyalty for the Confederacy. After all they thought they were coming to the United States, not the Confederate States, only a few years before the war.

I got my email contact in Germany, who grew up in Upper Silesia, to read the old letter from Johan Moczygemba and she said that it was about 90 percent like the modern Silesian language she spoke at home growing up. She was taught standard Polish in school and had to learn standard German when her family moved to Germany in the late 1970's.

I went to Serbin once to look around, but the museum was closed on the day I was there, so I just explored the cemetery and looked at Jan Kilians cabin.

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

Polonius3, yes my ancestors originally went to Panna Maria in 1855, they were in the second group of colonists to Panna Maria, but they moved to Yorktown, Texas by 1862. Johann Warzecha was a sergeant in the confederate army, and survived the Civil War, but died in 1869 at the age of 43. He was digging a water well on his farm and suffocated after hitting a shallow pocket of natural gas.

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

Slavicaleks, the name sounds Czech or Bohemian, but what the person considered themselves, is about the only way to tell if they were German or Czech. They were technically a citizen of Austria, but could have been ethnically Czech. There was the German admiral Walter Warzecha who had a Slavic or Polish surname, but was completely Germanized and was considered a German.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Warzecha

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

Lyzko, I consider English my mother tongue, because I was born in America. My ancestor Johann (Jan, John) Warzecha and Margareth (Malgorzata, Margaret) Kuczka came to Texas in 1855, from the village of Biestrzynnik, which was spelled Biestrzinnik back in old Prussia, and Imperial Germany. The name of the village was given the real German name Ringwalde in 1932. My father was half Silesian and half Irish and Scotch/Irish. My mother was all German, but her father was low-German speaking and her mother was High-German speaking from South Bohemia near Honetschlag (Hodnov), then in Austria, now in Czech Republic. My parents only spoke English and I only know a little of the German, Polish, and Silesian languages.

I email this woman in Germany who was born in Upper Silesia and then moved to Germany when she was 13, and she is a distant relative of mine and tells me about Upper Silesia and what happened to my family, since my ancestors left in 1855.

There is a German War memorial in Biestrzynnik with the names of at least three distant relatives of mine on it, Josef Warzecha, Paul Mehlan, and August Mehlan. I would like to know more about Josef Warzecha's service in the German Wehrmacht, like which branch of service he was in, and what was his rank, and where he was killed.

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  Biestrzynnik_War_Mem.jpg
  
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  Biestrzynnik_Biestr.jpg
  
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  Biestrzynnik_War_Mem.jpg
  

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

I found a couple of Wikipedia articles that explain the Silesian dialect.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlesisch_(polnischer_Dialekt)
And also the less Germanized version spoken in Texas, by immigrants that left in the 1850's, before Bismarck's intense Germanization policies.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Silesian

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]

Your ancestors probably meant that they were Germanized, but taking the language or culture of Germany. The German minority in Poland today is mainly located in the rural villages near Opole (Oppeln). Most of these people have Polish surnames and are Catholic, but speak the Upper Silesian dialect known as Wasserpolnish (Water Polish), which is an archaic dialect of Polish that has many German words added during the time Upper Silesia was in Germany.