THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME?

Thank you for the wonderful information!! I am so impressed with your knowledge.

There is a town in Poland,(I was told ) in the Mazurian lakes area called Butryni....could that have been Lithuanian at some time in history??

Indeed, it could well have originated as a toponymic tag from the village of Butryny in Warmia-Mazury or Butrymowce in Podlasie near the Lithuanian border. Many names have multiple sources of origin. There also was once a Polish word butrym (variant form: butryn) which meant a fat, pudgy-faced child.

Thanks for the information! We pronounce it Lace:)

My g grandfather emigrated to Australia in the 1880's. He is supposed to have been Polish. The surname on documents is Veaschnafska. I am told there is no v in Polish. The name was later changed to Venaskie around the 1st ww. He gave his birthplace as Smollen, Prussia. Any help gratefully received.

What do you mean \?Dude he was your g grandpa you should know whether he was Polish or not!
Smollen could be Smoleń there two or three places in Poland which would fit Prussia description !


Wiesznawska - Wiesznawski. My guess is Wieszczyński!

Statistically the best bet is Wiśniewski (one of Poland's top 5 surnames).

My friends have been asking me if I know where their last name originated in Poland. Their name is Burdzinski. I have searched the internet looking for a Town of Burdz or Burds etc., but I have found nothing even similiar. Can you give me some help on this name? We are planning a big trip to Poland next year and want to visit some of the places in which our names originated.

I was surprised to find out the meaning of my last name and where it came from, which makes me ask the question of why

did Germany follow a leader that killed their own people and he was said to be Jewish, and claimed German blood.

Luther ( German first name)

so if you were German and renamed yourself polish you were pretty much toast.

Burdze village >> gmina (municipality) Bojanów >> powiat (district) stalowolski (Stalowa Wola) >> województwo (voivodship) Podkarpackie (Subkarpathian), 54 km north of regional capital Rzeszów.

BTW, there were nobles amongst the bearers of the Burdziński surname with a coat of arms to prove it!

Thank you for your information on Burdze!!! One more favor if you would please. The surname Roszak. Do you have any idea where that may have originated? Another couple that is traveling with us would like to stop in the area of Poland were their family may have lived.

First, take a look at this map: /mapa/kompletny/roszak.html

As you see from this map, there are 6305 Roszaks in Poland, and they are all over the place - with their bigger concentration in the West-Central Poland. In this case, there is no way you can pin-point a one single ancestral village of Roszaks from this map.

Reliance of the service "Moi krewni"? Very inaccurate, since it is based on voluntarily declaration of users. You join, you declare yourself or your ancestry and their database grows by one or several new names. Their database severely under-represents some surnames.

Using my own name as an example: "Moi krewni" reports 4,300 surnames like mine, all over the country - with their biggest concentration at Gniezno, Żnin, Poznań and Włocławek. Other databases, which are based on the latest census, estimate the total number of people sharing my surname in Poland at 8,000, more or less. You see, 50% inaccuracy. Besides, the historical data places majority of our ancestors at south-east, and south-north (covering today's Podkarpacie but also expanding to Ukraine and Lithuania) - not the central-west.

So much for the reliability of their service. It works well for some names (Śledziewski is a good example here. See the thread of this exact name), it does not work for the other ones.

ROSZAK: the -ak ending is usually a patronymic indicator, so it may have been derived from such fitrst namesd As Roch or Rościsław. Toponymically it could also trace back to such localties as Roszki or Roszków.

Anyone know the meaning of the last name Podsiadly?

PODSIAD£Y: It comes from the old verb podsiadać meaning to take someone else's (better) place at table (at a banquet or wedding feast for instance).

Thanks :o)

I saw earlier in the discussion, that RUKAT means FART?

Shouldn't laugh but that is funny

Thank you all for the information......I appreciate your answers and will pass it along.

What can you tell meabout Bochomulski?

Butrymas/Butrimas is also Prussian first name. But - to be and rim/(rym)- calm or serious. But Butryn sounds kind of Polish..

[Moved from]: Borowiak and Deering Families - Bolo and Dubois townships

Researching ancestors of Joseph Deering and Helen Borowiak, mother and father-in-law.
Thanks.

Harry Riggs, Saint Louis

Thank you for the information. I wish I had a time machine to go back to the middle ages. LOL Then I would know for certain!!!

BOROWIAK: probably patronymic from Borowy. Root-wrod bór (pine forest). The adjectiuval noun borowy coukd have originated as a topographic tag to descriebe someone living in or near such a forest, a toponmyic nick for an inhabitant of a locality called Bór or a descriptive; borowy can also mean crude, uncouth, reclusive, unkempt as of someone who leads a hermit-like existence and rarely leaves his forest.

BOCHOMULSKI: patronymic nick from one of the Ruthenian versions of bohomodlec (where the 'd' is dropped) -- meaning a pious person, literally one who prays to God.

Hi; how about Dyczkowski?

Also, Zwolinski and Scislowski, please and thank you

[Moved from]: Trying to get some info on "Plaschinski or Plachschinski"?

Does anyone know any translation or information on "Plaschinski or Plachschinski"? Thanks

P£ASZCZYŃSKI: root-word płaski (flat); probably topo nick from Płaska, Płaszczyca, Płaszczak or similar (Flatville).

Merged: name origins: Malczewska or Malczewski

Please, can anyone cast any light on the origins of the name Malczewska or Malczewski?

Thank you.

MALCZEWSKI: toponymic nick from the village of Malczewo or Malczew. Malczewska is the feminine version.

Merged: Surname Milostan

Can you tell me anything about this surname?

MI£OSTAN: root-words miły (kind, nice, pleasant) and stan (state of affairs, situation, shape). An Old Polish name similar to Miłosław and Miłobór.

As Polonius said ... and then some more:

The surname Milostan is of Old Slavic origin, and therefore this surname could also come from several Slavic languages. In Serbo-Croatian it means merciful or dear, pleasant, graceful. In Slovenian the name "milosten" means kind, merciful. The Polish version is spelled with L-slash, Miłostan.

Moi Krewni database, moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/mi%25C5%2582ostan.html, reports 50 Miłostan surnames - mostly in city of Poznań and in Wielkopolskie Province.

This thread, of Wielkopolskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne GNIAZDO, "Miłostan - poszukuje przodków", ww.wtg-gniazdo.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1235&start=0:, reports on several Miłostan persons currently living in Poland and abroad. One of its messages refers to the book mentioned below.

Here is an excerpt from ebook "Wiadomości historyczne o mieście Kłecku, zebrał X. Józef Dydyński, Dziekan foralny i Proboszcz Kłecki (Na dochód ochronki w Gnieżnie.); Gniezno, Drukiem J.B. Langiego, 1858." Digitized by Google, (from The New York Public Library 544623B Astor , Lenox and Tilden Foundation R 1950 L), page 67,

books.google.ca/books?id=ysIaAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

The corresponding English title would be: "Historical news about town of Kłecko", collected by Father Józef Dydyński, Branch Dean and Parson of Kłecko Parish, (For benefits of orphanage in Gniezno)"; Gniezno, printed by J.B. Lange, 1858. Pages 67, 68.

The text below refers to village Kamieniec, gmina (municipality) Kłecko, district Gniezno, voivodship Wielkopolkie, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamieniec,_Gmina_Kłecko

>> §. 12th. Branch church in Kamieniec
Village Kamieniec, going back to 13th c., is a part of Klecko parish. According to the privilege issued in Gniezno in "die Marci Evangelistae" year 1271, Kamieniec (formerly also known as Kameneczewo, Kamieneczno), owned by Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Gniezno, was donated by the same prince in perpetuity to the brothers Jakób, Wojciech and Andrzej Miłostan - as a reward "for faithful and very useful services".

According to one tradition of Miłostan family, still living in Kamieniec, these brothers - referred to by the privilege as "caretakers of royal land" (ministeriales terrestres) - hid Prince Bolesław in their estate during the war, and thus saved his life. Another local legend says that one of these brothers offered his own horse to Prince Bolesław, whose horse was slaughtered under him in a battlefield, and this way he saved the prince's life.

The Gniezno privilege has been confirmed by Polish kings, beginning with Zygmunt III (1623), up to Sanisław August (1767). The latter confirmation bears the Great Royal Seal and is personally signed by the King. This document is still in possession of Miłostan family in Kamieniec; they keep it as their dear ancestral legacy.

So the first lords and heirs of Kamieniec, after Prince Bolesław first, were the Miłostans, who paid for the donation privilege 60 silver "grzywnas" (30 Polish pounds) to the prince's treasury. Then due to branching of the family the village was being slowly subdivided and some of it fell into hands of others.

The church records of year 1735 state that Kamieniec was "bona regalia", inhabited by the caretakers of royal land (ministeriales terrestres), who have been given privilege by Prince Bolesław to become the free citizens in the likeness of the townspeople, settled according to the German law and observing their own laws (*). During Polish rules of Wielkopolska, Kamieniec was called a town and its citizens - "szlachta kamieniecka" (Kamieniec's nobility) because - according to the donation privilege - they had the same rights and privileges of all other Polish nobility. They did not pay any taxes, with the exception of certain amount of oats for the royal horses.

(*) The privilege document actually says: "*** omnimoda libertate et jurisdictione, qua omnes nobiles in nostra Polonia perfruuntur.", which means in English: "with complete freedom and jurisdiction, by which all the nobles of our Poland enjoy" <<

End of translated quote