Missing/unknown letter in my great-grandmother's last name. Any ideas?

krysia 23 | 3,058

7 Jan 2010 #31

was searching a little bit . I put the 1890 for immigrants/ passengers list of people going to America. There is Rypyla Natalia, look maybe it's a connection:

Did his mother ever come to the US? She might not be on the list.

Polonius3 993 | 12,357

7 Jan 2010 #32

These are the only 3 surnames currently used in Poland that incorproate the letters Rypy-These are.: Rypyst Rypyś Rypyść. There is no surname such as Rypy*a, where the * would indicate a missing letter.

There are 35 people in Poland surnamed Rypała, 28 of whom live in SW Poland's Opole area.

caprice49 4 | 224

11 Jan 2010 #33

my grandfather's last name since it was obviously 'Americanized'

His surname may have been americanized but immigration documents should show true spelling - that is if you can view the handwritten ship's manifest and not the printed version. Also as suggest by others the correct spelling should show on naturalization.

The same applies to your grandmother

elkrupski 3 | 15

12 Jan 2010 #34

I was having the same problems with my great grandmothers name Dzmitkowicz.
You should check out
stevemorse.org
It is linked to Ellis island and has search engines for other ports of entry, marriage indexes...you can really narrow your search or broaden it out in the case of spelling errors. Census, Marriage, death, birth, indexes for most ports of entry, even canadian borders.

Check it out, it may help.