I live in western Canada and I have been having a time in getting my Grandparents Baptismal records translated into English. Have posted here in the translations forum in hopes of knowing what my family last name truly was. I believe I may have located the ship they came to Canada on. They departed from Hamburg in 1912. What I found in the ships records was what I consider to be a possible German translation of a Polish name and then it was translated from German to English when they landed in Canada. However what drew it all together was their birth dates,home town and destination once in Canada. My father in grade three changed the spelling to Palchynski (to simply as he put it) from Powczynsky which I found that to be the English version from the ships records in German which was Palczynskyj. Now for my grandmother I have a German spelling of Bialokorowicz which seems to be close to her Baptismal record. Any help in this would be so amazing because any history of why my grandparents came to Canada was never talked about or anything at all of their families they left in Poland. My generation will be that last for the name to live on as there is no living sons beyond me that I know of.
PA£CZYŃSKI: possible root-word pałka (staff. stick, club); topo from Pałczyn (Staffbury, Stickville)
PALCZYŃSKI: possible root-wrod palec (figner); topo from Palczyn (Fingerton, Fingerville)
BIA£OKOROWICZ: probably topo-patronymic from Białokory (now in Belarus); someone was called Białokor becuase he hailed from there; when he fathered a son: Białokorowicz; root-words biała (white) + kora (tree bark):
Thank you so much for your interruptions.
I am looking for a better or closer spelling of the surnames from the baptismal records and then I will truly start looking to find out if there are any other living relatives which I can connect with. One day soon I plan on visiting Horyniec and would really like to know if at all possible where my grandparents really started out from. And at the outside of all that if I could understand why my father (a very God fearing man) needed to share with us this secret he kept for 78 years (I explain this further down this post).
I mention in my first post I am, at this, time in a place of knowing that I could very likely be the last of the males in my line. Not really sure how to feel about that. It is like knowing you are about to become extinct, there is an end of the line.
The family name that we grew up with has now passed away with our Brother five years ago as I took my Grandfathers first name over 30 years ago for then internal family reasons. My oldest brother (16 years my senior) dropped the family name and went by his middle name as a surname.
My Father was the first born with two sisters and just before he passed away he said he had a confession to make. So we were all ears and he started to share that all these year we had been told that our heritage was Ukrainian but it was in fact Polish. No other explanations or details and passed away shortly there after.
So this has left in me, the youngest of six at age 51 current day (three of each and our mid brother passed five years ago) really wondering what happened. Why did they not want us to know about other relatives or anything about our roots or where they came from?
In finding just resently what I believe to be the boat my grandparents traveled to Canada on, there was a younger sister to my Grandmother also registered. We knew nothing of a great aunt on my grandmothers side that traveled with them. And two years later what looks to me as another great aunt (younger sister still to grandmother) arrived in the US. Also found in the US around about the same time frame as my grandparent travels what appears to be an older brother or cousin to my grandfather.
You mentioned that possibly money was tight as a reason for their departure from Galicia but the Canadian document showed that both my grandparents entered Canada with a pocket full of money. And I am sure the travel from Horyniec to Hamberg had to cost not including the fares (at least three as my great aunt cold have been traveling with her mate also) to travel across the pond and then travel by train 1200 plus miles into the middle of Canada, register for a section of land (homesteading cost 25.00 for 100 acres), clear the land, build a home, and do all this with a my father on the way as he was born the year after they landed. So I do not really see money being to big of an issue.
So... as for most on this quest, we all seek to find something about where we came from and I want to learn all that I can. So I can share with the family.
Any suggestions or guidance would be so welcomed. Thank you.
I tried to find someone in Horyniec with the name like you have said on "nasza klasa" but with no successes. But there are some people with surname "Pałczyński" not fare from Horyniec in the little town Lubaczów. I gave just one answer and that was "no, now one from my family ever left Poland and gone to USA or Canada". Anyway surname Pałczyński is popular in that area. Offcurse you should to know about dreadful time by the II WW when many people had to changed the place of living e.g. for far end of Russia after the year 1939 or died between 1939 - 1947 or gone after "Akcja Wisła (campaign Wisla ) after the year 1945.
Your far relations were the lucky one to have so much money in that time. My grand grandfather had gone to USA just to earn enough money in order to buy some land here in the country. And so he have done it before 1912.
Maybe you have to reach a historian from the area of Horyniec and ask him. I don't know.
Good luck and sorry for my terrible English.
gask
I was in Horyniec last week and found the grave with the name Antonina Pałczyńska ( died 1950 ). If you like to get the photo of this grave I can send it to you on the address you pointed. My email address: jerry.gorski@yohoo.
Gask
