Mathias
22 Aug 2018
Genealogy / Ethnic Poles or Ethnic Germans? My family mystery [37]
Hello everybody.
I have always been quite interrested in my heritage and in regards to that i have very conflicting evidence and pointers as to what i can regard myself as. My grandmothers family seems on the surface to be german, spoke german, german names. The information i got was that they were from West Prussia. I have done research and taken my family tree beyond my grandmothers parents to see if that was true.
What i can see is that, my grandmother was born outside Gdansk in 1933, which was called Danzig back then. She was born "Irmgard Eichler" What then suprised me greatly was that her parrents had adopted the name Eichler. But actually their birth names were very different.
Their names seems to be german first names but with polish sounding last names??? whats going on there?
Their original names were:
-August Dombrowski
-Luise Lorbitzki
They seem to have been from around Tczew and Malbork, kujawsko pomorskie kinda region i think its called.
When i go one line further back last names are again polish sounding to me:
-Dombrowski
-Lorbitzki
-Jaknbowski
-Schmuschinski
But again with german first names, like Agnes, Anna and Johann.
Also what is interresting is that they are Catholic and not protestants!!!!!
What are the history around this? Why german first names? Was this common back then and do you think they were poles ethnically based on this information?
Hello everybody.
I have always been quite interrested in my heritage and in regards to that i have very conflicting evidence and pointers as to what i can regard myself as. My grandmothers family seems on the surface to be german, spoke german, german names. The information i got was that they were from West Prussia. I have done research and taken my family tree beyond my grandmothers parents to see if that was true.
What i can see is that, my grandmother was born outside Gdansk in 1933, which was called Danzig back then. She was born "Irmgard Eichler" What then suprised me greatly was that her parrents had adopted the name Eichler. But actually their birth names were very different.
Their names seems to be german first names but with polish sounding last names??? whats going on there?
Their original names were:
-August Dombrowski
-Luise Lorbitzki
They seem to have been from around Tczew and Malbork, kujawsko pomorskie kinda region i think its called.
When i go one line further back last names are again polish sounding to me:
-Dombrowski
-Lorbitzki
-Jaknbowski
-Schmuschinski
But again with german first names, like Agnes, Anna and Johann.
Also what is interresting is that they are Catholic and not protestants!!!!!
What are the history around this? Why german first names? Was this common back then and do you think they were poles ethnically based on this information?