Genealogy-Bryski(Polish)~Pelc(Austria)

My cousin tried relentlessly to get the ancestry/geneology on my grandmother. My grandmother's last name was "Bryski". My great grandmother came here at age 15, with her 9 year old brother from poland and settled in Polish Hill in Pittsburgh, PA. My cousin can not find any documents showeing the 'Bryski" entrance into the US, bt believed that it was in 1917, although the first official records of the surname Bryski showed up in 1937, nearly 20 years later and with 4 or 5 different spellings, a different one for each family member. My cousin also said that of the records she was able to find, many kept leading to the surname Pelc from Austria. We're both curious as to what our heritage is...My grandmother always used to say that her family was gypsies. We thought she was being crazy, but now, because the information on her surname is so scattered and conflicting, we are unsure if she really was joking at all!

Here is an adress to site which shows how many people with Bryska surname lives in Poland.
moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/bryska.html

Polish surnames have gender and are conjugated. Bryska is female surname (-ska ending), Bryski is male(-ski ending).

BRYSKI: possibly topo tag from the village of Bryki or derived from old first name Brykcy or Brycjusz.

PELZ: Polish spelling of Pelz, German pet form of the first name Balthasar (by tradition one of the Three Kings who visited Baby Jesus).

Hi I have the same problem Geneolgy as my mother was Austrian cannot find any trace of family tree on the web and my father Polish have had some luck from web on fathers side I am British as both my parents settled in UK after the war total brickwalls !!!!! Its the not knowing where your roots are is the headache .

Hi Cookie,

I'm the granddaughter of Jozef Pelc of Pittsburgh, Southside, PA where he and his second wife, Victorya Zaydel Pelc, owned a restaurant and boarding house named "Mother's Place" at Carson and 9th Sts. He lived in Brooklyn NY at first and moved to Pgh, PA where my uncle, Bernard, and aunt, Anna, were born. There were relations here that told him of the area. My mother was born in Brooklyn since they visited often there with Jozef's and wife's family were still living. Her name was Ceslava Tempolska.

He immigrated from Poland (residence of mother Anna Zawora, Lv. Yosef, Galicia) in 1910 to USA to his sister's, Bronislawa Pelz, who lived in Brooklyn, NY whom immigrated also from Poland to USA in 1908 from mother's, Anna Pelz, Nadworna Austria. There was another younger sister Agata Pelc (married Joseph Kerzinsky) who came to USA in 1912 from mother's, Anna Pelc, residence in Majdan Galicia and an older sister, Marya Pelc, who came through Canada from residence Tintkow, Austria, with a cousin Antoni Pelc. Marya then went to Brooklyn NY where Bronislawa went to when immigrated.. Have ship records for all through Ellis except Marya whose ship record is to Canada to residence of her brother-in-law, in Winnipeg. My mother used to write to the cousins in Winnipeg.

I am sorry, but I have not come across your grandmother's name in my searching. But it is funny that bit about she was a gypsy since my mother used to say that about herself ! My mother said her father, Jozef, did go back to Poland at some time to visit his mother and I have pictues of him with his mother and a cousin there when he visited. I don't think they were gypsies !

I still live in Pittsburgh area.

Mary Jane Walicki Allen

probably not gypsies

BRYSKI: derived from the old Polish first name Brykcy (of Celtic origin).

PELC: Polonised spelling of Gerrman Pelz which is both the German word for pelt, fur and hide as well as a pet name for Balthasar (the name traditonally ascribed to one of the theThree Kings).

GIPSIES: It's anyone's guess what your grandmother meant, but in Polish the term Cyganie is sometimes loosely used to describe Poles with an itinerant nature or even who just love to travel.