TEKLA from TRASZKÓW (Tekla z Trzasków) so she does not even have a surname as such.
Polonius generally is right but in this case I think that it's just a maiden family name of the wife. It was common practice to put maiden name when the family name is known from context.
So you could find in documents for example:
Jan Schoenbaum i Tekla z Trzasków what means exactly:
Jan Schoenbaum and Tekla Schoenbaum from family Trzaska.
Preposition "z" is shortened from "z domu" sometimes in latin "de domo" meaning "from house of".
There were many family names of German origin in Poland. Some of them were used by great Polish patriots and researchers like: Aleksander Brueckner (greatest Polish etymologist), Bogusław Linde (author of the first modern dictionary of Polish language), Krzysztof Szembek (primate of Poland), Emilia Plater (Polish woman-commander of the November Uprising in Lithuania).
Kobelke, nee Kauschke, family from Bunzlau (Boleslavia) post-1945 and pre-12th century Bolesławiec, on the Bober (Bobr) river. Yes, my ancestors considered themselves German however, look at their surnames, which hint of a Slavic origin! They migrated to Australia in around 1840 due to religious persecution
Maybe I, since Polonius not responded earlier ;-)
KOBELKE looks like germanized Polish KOBY£KA meaning
small mare or in plural KOBY£KI also
grasshopper or
locust.
KAUSCHKE looks also like germanized Polish or wider Slavonic diminutive. But it's not as obvious as the former. Diphthong AU could be equivalent of Slavonic U, so the original word could have sounded like KUSZKA or KUŚKA.
KUSZKA according to
books.google.pl/books?id=4XzRAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1195&dq=kuszka+inauthor:linde&ei=HoWVS4SBOo3gyATokLDWBQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q=kuszka%20inauthor%3Alinde&f=false
Samuel Bogumił Linde (1808)
could mean:
1. a small box to hold sharpening stone (whetstone) to sharpen a blade (chine) of a scythe, it used to be bound to a mower's belt (description in German: ein hohler Zapfen mit Wasser, worin die Maeher den Senfenstein am Guertel haengen haben)
2. a small crossbow.
KUŚKA used to mean: 3. a penis ;-)
So, having in mind that your ancestors were most probably of peasant origin the most plausible etymology is whetstone holder not a knightly crossbow and not an obscene moniker as well.
The environment of Boleslauez later Bunzlau was gradually germanized from XIII to XVI century. But your ancestors could came from another part of Silesia.
Your line about religious persecution in 1840, which made your ancestors fled, interested me much. What was it all about? What was their denomination?
