Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Proper spelling: G£OWACKI, from the word G£OWA, a head.
You might find the following article interesting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_Bartosz_G%C5%82owacki

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]


sołtys: Hungarian szóltes, from German Schultheiss, today shortened to Schulz(e). It once meant an alderman. Schuldheissen means imposing sentence on a guilty party,

Former spelling of the office was: sołtestwo, sołectwo, sołestwo (in XIV and XV century).
etymologia.org/wiki/S%C5%82ownik+etymologiczny/so%C5%82tys

And since we are already here let us try "wójt":
wójt, wójcik, wójtowa, plural wójcia, wójtować - from German ...
etymologia.org/wiki/S%C5%82ownik+etymologiczny/w%C3%B3jt
Wójt, a village mayor. The word comes from Germanic dialectic "Voigt", this in turn from Latin "vocatus" (advocatus).

Genealogy / Common surnames in Poland NOT of Polish origin ? [87]


Because it is actually the winner of my little test. :-)

I started with a list of the most popular Polish surnames, referring to number of persons of a given surname and living in Poland at the beginning of 1990s, registered in PESEL database. The list begins with Nowak (220,217 occurences), followed by Kowalski (131,940) and ends with Lęcznar (270 occurences). That amounts to a total of 20,000 surnames. [The full list, including very rare names, has about 400,000 names]

The topmost foreign sounding name on that list is Szulc (25,556). And there is also Schulz, its cousin. The next on the list are: Serafin, Stelmach, Stec, Misztal, Majcher, Sołtys (sic!), Dec, Koper, Furman, Miller, Lenart, Szwarc, Herman, Roman, Werner, Gut, Szot, Ferenc, Krauze, Wach, Lange, Lorenc, Hoffmann, Knap, Wagner, Bernat, Szubert, Pelc, Frydrych, Schmidt …

If you know the pattern of some typical German names, you can easily create a list of surnames for such pattern by using GREP facility (Regular Expression). For example, the search pattern .+mann$ means: find a line of text that is made of one or more (+) of any character (.) and ends with ($) "mann". When applied to the list like this:

...
6221 Miller
....
4882 Wagner
...
1017 Hermann
...
the "1017 Hermann" will be found.

So here are some samples:
-mann pattern: Hoffmann (5187), Neumann (4259), Lehmann (2050), Hermann (1017), Erdmann (865), Hallmann (825), Ziemann (800), Lademann (685), Stoltmann (598), Reimann (587) ....
-man pattern: Furman (6575), Herman (6249), Roman (5730), Hofman (3167) ...
-ler pattern: Miller (6221), Miler (4216), Winkler (3223), Meller (3140), Keller (2109), Müller (1816), Adler (1371) ...
-ner pattern: Werner (5575), Wagner (4882), Langner (2848), Wegner (2731), Hibner (1308), Bitner (1150), Budner (1028), Lindner (1018) …
Etc., etc.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Expanding a bit:

There several known branches of Supiński (variant Szupiński) family. One had its seat at Supy (old Supy-Gręska), Parish Przytuły, North-Eastern part of historical Masovia, in so-called ziemia wiska (Wizna Land), 30 km NE of £omża. This branch used Lubicz coat of arms and was a part of petty gentry, settled West of the Biebrza River valley, on so-called biebrzyńskie błota (Biebrza Marshes). Supy, Przytuły, Jedwabne, Chrostowo, Szostaki are the names of the villages appearing often in various 19th c. birth, marriage and military records of Supiński family. They are often listed as petty nobility of £omża County, now Podlasie Voivodship.

Another branch of Supiński had its nest in Supienie, Parish Filipów, 128 km due North from Supie, 32 km NW from Suwałki. This region used to part of Augustów Voivodship, now Podlasie Voivodship. This branch of noble family Supiński uses one of the two coats of arms: Topór (Ax) and Trzybuławy (Three-Maces).

The surname de Supinski, with all its "DE" variations, appears only outside Poland for whatever reason. Vanity perhaps? The ancestry.com service says this: Supinski is Polish and Jewish habitual name from Supienie near Suwałki, NE Poland. I have no idea why the Jewish connection is ever brought here, with the exception of some geographical connection, since Geographical Dictionary of Kingdom of Poland lists population of Filipów in 1827 as: 323 houses, 2551 people, including 812 Jews. The ancestry.com contains 766 Supinski census records, some of them de Supinski.

The "DE" surname prefix is not unusual in Poland. However, most such names are of foreign origin. For example, the book of Elżbieta Sęczys, "Szlachta wylegitymowana w Królestwie Polskim w latach 1836-1861 (1867)" contains index of 4513 surnames of proven nobility in Kingdom of Poland, in the years 1836-1861 (1867). The index is available here:

ornatowski.com/index/szlachta1836-1861.htm

As you can easily check it out, this index contains about fifty "DE" names. Typical "DE" surname has its "OWN" coat of arms, not shared with anybody else. This is contrary to typical Polish custom where one coat of arms is used by many families, sometimes as many as hundreds. Here are several such examples:

DZIANOTT de Castellati - Dzianott coat of arms
de FRYZE - de Fryze coat of arms
de la GRANGE - de la Grange coat of arms

There are some Polish sounding "DE" surnames, but they are very rare:
ŻARNOWSKI de Biberstein - Rogala coat of arms
ROŻNOWSKI de Skoki - Nowina coat of arms
de ROSENWERTH Rużyczka - Rużyczka coat of arms
£ASZCZYŃSKI de Verbno - Wierzbna coat of arms
£ĘSKI z £ęki de Zem - Janina coat of arms

BTW, surname Supiński is listed in that index three times.

Travel / What can Poland do to attract more tourists? Llamas farm? [71]


I like it too. But that seems like utopia nowadays. :-)


Some things are getting better, slowly bit by bit. I'll give you one example.

I used to sail Masurian lakes at times where there were only few tourists, and most of them were experienced, polite and scout-like eco friendly.

Well, my last cruise there was a great disappointment to me: we picked up a place near Wilkasy Academic Center on Niegocin Lake as our place of crew rotation (I was a leader of a fleet of five Omegas and two Ramblers and we rotated our crews every two weeks). The amount of garbage, empty cans and excrement around that place was unbelievable. At the end of the season I swore to myself: Good bye Mazury, I will never see you again!

Well, apparently things are quite good on Masurian Lakes today, at least at some places. Last year a new super duper marina was opened In Giżycko, just few kilometers away from Wikasy:

See for example this video promotion: Ekomarina Giżycko: ekomarinagizycko.pl (in Polish).

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

As Polonius3 already said - the surname is Latin based, applied to local spelling rules. There is no way to provide any correct judgement here. For example, there are 9765 people named Pietras in Poland. Does it mean that all of them derive from some Italian named Pietro? Generally not, but this can not be excluded in some cases.

The current statistics are:
The population of people named Peter is estimated as: 42000 Germany, 9216 Switzerland, 1165 Austria, 548 Poland, 682 Czech Republic
The population of people named Petera is estimated as: 88 Germany, 0 Switzerland, 243 Poland, 507 Czech Republic

We can asses that "Peter" would be a Germanic name with some reasonable probability and "Petera" - a Slavic name, more Czech than Polish.

Surname spelling is just one of the genealogical indicators. Geographical hints are the others. And of course, well documented paper trail tells all the story.

Genealogy / Poland Heraldry and Nobility in names/families [59]


Also known as a fee or fief. Here is a definition: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_(feudal_tenure)

Genealogy / Poland Heraldry and Nobility in names/families [59]


More like a hobby for most of the members, but then who knows, some of them could be very serious.


Here are more such organizations. The first one seems quite active and with many local chapters.

szlachta.org.pl, Związek Szlachty Polskiej, Confederation of the Polish Nobility

zspkwpoznan.republika.pl, Związek Szlachty Polskie Kresów Wschodnich i Galicji, Association of Polish Nobility of Easter Borderlands and Galicia

szlachtawielkopolska.eu/kronika, Stowarzyszenie Szlachta Wielkopolska, Association of Nobility of Greater Poland


Marcin Zamoyski comes to mind, pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcin_Zamoyski_(samorz%C4%85dowiec). Former Voivod of Zamość Province, democratically elected president of City of Zamość since 2002, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamo%C5%9B%C4%87.

See also Zamoyski Family, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamoyski_family (in English), pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamoyscy (much more in Polish)

Genealogy / Poland Heraldry and Nobility in names/families [59]


Maybe, but the above quote comes from different source, surnames.meaning-of-names.com/segal/, not from houseofnames.com/segal-family-crest. So you have two sources to hate and complain about now.

But Ancestry confirms what you just said.

Segal Name Meaning: Jewish (Ashkenazic) acronym from the Hebrew phrase SeGan Levia 'assistant Levite'

There is a separate web page, segal.org/name/index.html, devoted to the origin of the name Segal. And it talks a lot about Segals living in Germany, France, Poland, Hungary - not all of them Levites - and about possible variations of the surname: Segal, Siegel, Sagal, Sigal, Segel, Siegel, Segalot, Szegal, Ziegelbaum, Zygelberg, Segelbaum, Segalis (Lithuanian female:Segalyte, Segaliene), Chagall.

So the HouseOfNames was not that far off by saying that Segal originated in Germany. Some probably did. There are Segal people currently living in Germany (estimated 114), Austria (15), Switzerland (21).

From [verwandt.de/karten/absolut/segal.html] and similar search engines.

There were 9000 Segals and 24000 Siegels in USA in 2007. You can check frequency all the surname variations yourself, using this search engine.

Genealogy / Poland Heraldry and Nobility in names/families [59]

House of Names web page clearly says this up front: Where did Jewish Family Segal come from? What is the Jewish Segal Family crest and coat of arms?

And later:
The Segal family crest was acquired from Houseofnames.com archives. The Segal Family Crest was drawn according to heraldic standards based on published blazons.

Amazon sells cups decorated with Segal family crest.

Meaning of names website says this:
Segal Meaning: one who cultivated rye.
and this
Coat of Arms: A shield divided perpale: 1st, green with two scythes; 2nd, red half with four silver lozenges.

Both coats of arms miss some of the items I enumerated above. Firstly, it does not have "korona" on top of the helmet, which is characteristic to Polish nobility coats of arms. Secondly, its helmet is of the type "tournament helmet", or "żabi pysk" (frog's mouth) - very characteristic to "burgher coat of arms", pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_mieszcza%C5%84ski

This is in Polish only, but click at least on the picture inside to see a magnified image of Albrecht Dürer's coat of arms. He was a burgher.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]


Most likely IGIELNIK, not Egelnick, if it came from Poland. Approximate pronunciation: igaelneek
IGIELNIK stands for a pincushion, comes from the word IG£A - a needle.

US naturalization records show this entry:
Surname: GELNICK
Given Name: Kalman (Igielnik)

Birth Year: 1923
Admission Year: 1955
Kálmán is a Hungarian surname and male given name, also current among Jews in other countries. Outside Hungary, the name occurs sometimes in the form Kalman.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

LITWIN: Polish word for a Lithuanian male, plural Litwini. A Lithuanian female is called Litwinka, plural Litwinki.

LONGAWA: The root LONG- could derive from Latin word Longinus, long. There are 163 people of this name recorded in Poland. There are also about 20 other Polish surnames beginning with LONG- root.

Other possible root of this surname could be a native Polish £ĘG, £ĄG meaning swampy meadow. Also, the adjective £ĘGI means nimble, agile.

The suffix -AWA indicates possessiveness, as in WARSZ-AWA - a village belonging to a man named Warsz. (This village is now known in English as Warsaw).

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Derives:
+ either from the "Wal" type given names, such as Walentyn, Walerian
+ or from the verb "WALIĆ" - to destroy, to smash, to hit.
source: stankiewicze.com/index.php?kat=44&sub=555

I forgot to add that there is etymological connection between BÓG (God) and BOGACZ (a rich man):

BÓG = God, originally meaning 'luck', 'success' (Hindu: bhagas, bhadżati 'giving'); hence: rich.
The opposite is NIEBOGI, not wealthy, poor (NIE stands for NO, NOT in Polish). From that root come words NIE-BOŻ-EC, NIE-BOŻ-CZYK (misspelled nieboszczyk, dead), NIE-BOŻ-AK (a poor bastard).

ZBOŻE, meant in biblical times wealth (now corn), ZBOŻNY - rich, happy.

From the root BÓG- come BOGACZ (a rich man), BOGACIĆ (to enrich), BOGACTWO (wealth), also BOZIA, BOŻEK (idol), BÓŻNICA (now - a synagogue, before - any church), BOGINI (goddess), BOGINKA (nymph), BOGINIAK (odmieniec, freak), BÓSTWO (deity),

In compound words:
BOGOBOJNY (godly, devout), BOGURODZICA (mother of God).

Given names:
BOGUS£AW (Praising God), BOGUMI£ (Loved by God), BOGUCHWA£A (She who glorifies God),
...
More in here:
etymologia.org/wiki/S%C5%82ownik+etymologiczny/b%C3%B3g

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

There is very little mystery here but a lot of mis-transliteration. The telling tails are: G=>H transition, suffix -awicz, vowel transitions.
I assume that your ancestor was from East of Poland, where they use Cyrillic in their documents. His original documents has been probably transliterated from Cyrilic to Latin, using Polish transliteration rules. Here is the first problem:

The Cyrillic letter (Г г), stemming from Greek Gamma (Г) is used in Russian and Belarusian, Ukrainian, Rusyn (BUR) and some Balkan languages (of no interest here). But this letter represents two different sounds:

In Russian, this is G sound, as in garlic. Russian language have no H sound, only guttural CH (or KH in other representations) - like Bach in German or loch in Scottish).

In BUR languages, Г represents H sound, as in hundred (more or less, but breathly voiced). Ukrainians has some G-words but they are rare and spelled with different character than Г.

Polish has both sounds: G and H, pronounced G (garlic) and H (hundred). However, most Poles mispronounce H as CH (as in loch and Bach).

There are many transliteration methods from Cyrillic to Latin. I will use the Polish one, as this is how your surname is written.
Example: English GOD, Cyrillic БOГ.
Russian transliteration: BOG
BUR transliteration: BOH, Polish (incorrect) pronunciation BOCH

So Bugaczawicz and Buhaczawicz are actually the same names, but transliterated differently: in Russian fashion vs. BUR fashion.

The ending -awicz is not typical to Polish, which would rather use -ewicz or -owicz. But this is not an error, it only suggests that the surname has originated in the East.

The single "Z" in the middle of BAHAZEWICZ (the second version of your surname) seems to be a typing error. It should be CZ, SZ or RZ. Assuming the first choice the corrected version would be:

BAHACZ-EWICZ vs.
BUGACZ-AWICZ

The -EWICZ vs, -AWICZ suffix is not an issue here, because they mean the same: son of.

But we still have some A => U vowel shift to deal with. I am not a linguistic expert, but I know many examples where Polish "O" would be spelled "A" in Belarusian, as in LUKASZENKO vs. LUKASZENKA. However, I am not sure what is the proper root of this surname:

BOGACZ (BOHACZ) => a wealthy man
BUGACZ (BUHACZ) => a man living on BUG (turn, bend of a river).

By the way, there are two rivers, named BUG:
+ The Bug River (Polish: Bug; Ukrainian: Західний Буг, Zaxidnyj Buh or Western Bug; Belarusian: Захо́дні Буг, Zaxodni Buh; Russian: Западный Буг, Zapadnyj Bug) is a left tributary of the Narew river. It flows from central Ukraine to the west, passing along the Ukraine-Polish and Polish-Belarusian border and into Poland, where it empties into the Narew river near Serock.

+ The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh, (Ukrainian: Південний Буг, Pivdennyj Buh: Russian: Yużny Bug, Polish: Boh)), rises in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary at Black Sea basin

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Very possible. The only one things against it is that a potential influx of Grasels from Austria would have to have bureaucratic or military character. I am led to believe that Grasels from Jasło region were predominantly farmers/peasants.

One Polish source, describing a village of Gliniczek (about 6 km east of center of Jasło) mentions natural gas and oil resources discovered in Gliniczek in 1920s. The first oil wells there were built on properties of Roztocki and Grasela families in 1925 -1930s. This new found wealth could have been a reason for slowing down the emigration of Graselas to USA in 1930s. There is some evidence than some Graselas returned back from USA to Jasło.

tarnowiec.eu/strona/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=13

A very preliminary search through some American genealogical services (I have no their membership so I cannot dive too deeply into the details) reveals these examples, where a specific birthplace is listed. I ignored other entries, that mentioned only Galicia, Poland or Austria.

Anna Grasela (1882-1934), born in Gliniczek, Podkarpackie
Bronisław Grasela(1893-1971), born Gliniczek
Maria Grasela(1889-1989), born Gliniczek
Kazimierz Grasela(1916-1970), born Gliniczek
Jozef Grasella(1871-?), born Gliniczek [see spelling]
Jozef Grasela, Niepla, Galicia(1883-?). Niepla is a village 12 km east of Jasło.

A funny thing about these records is that they mostly come from Pennsylvania, a home state of hundreds of Grassels (various spellings), imigrants from Germany.

Love / What strange/unnerving/funny things do your Polish wives do? [153]


So I must be an exception. I always smell tomatoes first, hoping to come across of nice succulent ones from "your mama's garden". If they pass the "tomato leaves" smell test (the "vine tomatoes" usually do by definition), then I assess their pulp either visually or by touch. Sadly, during winter months, this works only 50% a time and I often end up with the "armoured" ones: with a big chunk of hard white stuff inside and no pulp at all. [In summer the statistics is a bit better, as some stores keep offering local produce.]

In such occasions the standard phrase from a chemistry lab comes to mind: "Bez smaku, bez zapachu, słabo rozpuszcza się w wodzie" (Tasteless, odorless, slightly soluble in water). Strawberries is #2 on my "smelling list". But that's it. I often watch with fascination people from South Europe and Middle East selecting their melons and watermelons using the "knock, knock" method.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Well, for a start, take a look at the distribution of surname Grasela in Poland:

Its biggest concentration in Jasło district(96) + Krosno(4) + Gorlice(6) + Ustrzyki Dolne(13)=125 (out of 195) would suggest Walddeutsche connection: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walddeutsche

Kłodzko(13) and Słubice (7) again point out to German connection. Following this trail:

Gras in German means grass.

Meaning of surname GRASS: In both English and German this is a topographic name for someone who owned or lived by a meadow, or a metonymic occupational name for someone who made or sold hay, from Middle English gras, Middle High German gras 'grass', 'pasture', 'grazing'. [By the way, Uplander Sachsen (Saxon Highlanders) was another nickname for the German settlers in Beskid Piedmont in SE Poland. They obviously dealt a lot with pasturing.]

Also, in South German: a nickname for an irascible man, from Middle High German graz 'intense', 'angry'.

Grasela surname may have come from Grässel, which is a South German diminutive of Grass.
South German Grässel is also a nickname for a greedy person, from Old High German grātag 'greedy'.

As a curiosity: the word grázl in Czech is a common term for rascal or villain. It came from surname of Johan Georg Grasel, a leader of robber's gang, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Grasel.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Adding to what Jon357 said...


There are 45 people with surname Grzesiukiewicz currently living in Poland. Your mother might as well be right on this one single point: these people could be all related. Look at this surname distribution map: /mapa/kompletny/grzesiukiewicz.html. Most of them live in NE Poland, Podlaskie Voivodship - Augustów district (19) and Ełk district (16) - where their indigenous ancestry probably lived for ages there. I'll explain it in a while. The remaining 10 people are located in areas formerly governed by Prussia/Germany.

That's the only valid point of your post.

Jewishness has nothing to do with rarity of the name. So forget this trail - it would lead you nowhere. Any Polish surname could be assumed by a Jew, provided that he could provide some paperwork - either authentic or forged. And actually it is easier to hide in a crowd, not among just a few.

Your surname is in fact a part of extremely popular family of surnames. They are all stemming from the Greek name Grêgorikós - meaning vigilant, wakeful. From there it spread as Gregorius (Latin), Gregory (English), Gregorius, Gregor (German), Grégoire (French), Gregorio (Spanish, Italian), Grigorij, Grisza (Russian), Grzegorz (Polish). Polish diminutives of Grzegorz are Grzech, Grzesiek, Grzesio, Grzesiu, Grześ, Grzela.

There are following distribution of surnames GRZEŚ, GRZECH and GRZELA currently in Poland:
GRZEŚ - 1212
GRZECH - 1168
GRZELA - 1010

In early ages, when the surnames were slowly forming, the sons of GRZEŚ or GRZELA would be named by adding the suffix -AK, -EK or -UK. The latter is more typical to Ruthenian people, the former - to Polish.

So let us try some more statistics in Poland:
GRZESIAK - 10,097
GRZESIUK - 1497
GRZESIEK - 714

GRZELAK - 16,763
GRZELUK - 101
GRZELEK - 0

One way of etending of this scheme of the patronymic surname generation was to append suffix -ICZ, -WICZ, -EWICZ, -IEWICZ, etc. (or similar suffixes in other Slavic languages) - meaning again "son of". Let us try this now:

GRZEŚKIEWICZ - 1410 (-SIAK- and -SIEK- compressed to -ŚK-) but GRZESIAKIEWICZ - 0 (the economy of expression)
GRZESIUKIEWICZ - 45 (sticking to -SIUK might have being a sign of allegiance to Eastern religion and culture.

And as Jon357 said - The proportions between -ŚK- and -SIUK- would be reversed in Ukraine and Belarus.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

RZYSZCZEWSKI: Root RZYSZCZ from RŻYSKO: a stubble field, after corn has been mowed


Rzyszczewo, Gmina Sławno, Sławno County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship (former German Ristow, Kreis Schlawe) - Not this one!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzyszczewo,_S%C5%82awno_County
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzyszczewo_(powiat_s%C5%82awie%C5%84ski
Rzyszczewo, Gmina Białogard, Białogard County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship (formerly German Ristow) - Neither this one.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzyszczewo,_Bia%C5%82ogard_County
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzyszczewo_(powiat_bia%C5%82ogardzki)

Rzyszczew (Rzyszczów, ukr. Ржищів, Rżyszcziw, Rzhyschiv), a village in Kijów (Kyiv) region, on Dnieper river (76 km south from Kyiv), Ukraine, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzhyschiv

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rzyszcz%C3%B3w
- Not this one either.

Rzyszczew, old (Polish) gmina Brany, (Rzhyshchiv), £uck district (76 km SW from £uck). It consisted of: farm Rudka, village Rzyszczów, farm Rzyszczów, gamekeeper's cottage Stara Rudka.

But this one!

Rzyszczewski - Pobóg coat of arms, vel Ryszczewski, old Wolhynian family, derived from Rusyn boyars, mentioned already in 1528 r. in Wolhynian Metrics. It took its name from estate Rzyszczew in £uck (Luts'k, ukr. Луцьк) district. One Rzyszczewski branch received an Austrian hereditary count title. Two castellans came from this family: 1774 -- 1792.

The Rzyszczewskis owned estates in £uck and Krzemieniec districts of Wolhynia: Rzyszczew, Koźlaki, Pańkowce, Wyżgrodek, Rydoml, Żukowce, Uwin, Iwanie, Buszaki, Rokitno, Oleksiniec Nowy an Stary; Powołoczysk in Galicia; former royal estates Rawicz w Sandomierz Voivodship; village Giełczyn in Mazowsze Voivodship; Żelazne, Rososze and Rososzki Czersk land; Wielkie i Małe Krzycko in Wschowa district w in Wielkopolska.

polishgenealogy.blogspot.ca/2008/08/rzyszczewski.html

Woronowski:
There are 85 Woronowski men and 69 Woronowska women registered in Poland. The name derives from "worona" - Polish: wrona, Belarusian: варона, Ukrainian: ворона, English: crow. Yes, it sounds more Ukrainian or Belarusian than Polish Wroński (4625 men) and Wrońska (4950 women), or Wronowski (784 men) and Wronowska (785).

The name distribution, with large concentration of Wronowskis in Przemyśl, Lesko, Sanok, and Ustrzyki Dolne suggest Ruthenian roots of the Wronowskis (=Woronowskis).
moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/wronowski.html

Language / -ski/-ska, -scy/ski, -wicz - Polish surnames help [185]

The joke is on me. Why do I even get involved in this charity?

Life / Help me find this Polish band and song.... [117]

This is a very old, traditional play for kids. It requires a large number of participants, so it is great in a nursery or during birthday parties. Children sit cross-legged in a circle, each participant puts his hands behind his/her back, on the floor, palms up. One of the children, a so-called "fox" goes around the circle with a little ball in his hand (it can be just a ball of paper) in the rhythm of the song sung by children.

A little fox walks near the road,
It steps very quietly,
It sneaks very quietly,
And says nothing to anybody.

During the singing the "fox" plants the ball gently into a palm of one of the seated children, and quickly runs around the circle. The child who got that "gift" needs to catch the fox. The chase continues until the fox runs around the circle and sits down on the space vacated by the child (or if the fox is caught). A child with the ball becomes the new "fox" and the fun begins again.

Genealogy / Trying to find a town called Masana Delma (Mszana Dolna) in Poland - Sentysz surname [20]



Working on the assumption that the the person identified by maxym is your grandfather, we have the following data:

Kazimier John Sentyz, born 1892-02-12, Mszana Dolna, Poland
Wife: Katherine Sentyz
Address: 207 Tasker St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Get baptism certificate from the Parish
The straightforward approach to obtain the birth certificate of your grandfather is to contact the Parish of Saint Michael Archangel in Mszana Dolna (Parafia Św. Michała Archanioła w Mszanie Dolnej), [parafiamszanadolna.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=7&layout=blog&Itemid=7]. This web page provides telephone number, tel. 018-331-00-87. To use it from abroad you have to precede it with your international call number + 48 for Poland + the rest (ignoring leading zero). So calling from Canada or US would require this sequence: 011 48 183310087.

A bunch of extensions is listed below the main number; hopefully someone there would speak English. But before you call them - contact them by email: mszana@katolicki.eu .

You have to explain to them about your spelling doubts: Kazimier vs. Kazimierz (possibly Casimirus in Latin) and Sentyz vs. Sentyrz vs. Sentysz. Giving them the exact birth date should solve the puzzle. You will have to pay something for the service. Ask them. Fees depend on various things (soft copy vs. hard copy vs. photocopy) and parish, but should not be more than few dollars. Sending something in advance would not harm.

There are other alternatives. Many parish records are being digitized now all over Poland. Similar work is being done for Registry Offices. The result would be either in form of a direct access to the records on line, or at least the exact pointers to paper or digitized archives. Unfortunately, the work for the region of Lesser Poland (Kraków) is at the moment very spotty.

National Archives
Apparently there is one database available from Mszana Dolna: births covering the period 1890-1900 (no marriages and no deaths). Here are the details where the archives are stored: Archiwum Państwowe w Krakowie, Oddział w Nowym Sączu (National Archive in Kraków, Nowy Sącz Branch)

[baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.php?l=pl&mode=showopis&id=17710&miejscowosc=Mszana%20Dolna&gmina=Mszana%20Dolna&wojewodztwo_id=32&wyznanie_id=23].

Apparently, the records are not microfilmed, so you have to negotiate their services via email and phone or to find someone in Nowy Sącz to do the searching and copying for you. The access is free for everyone, so your representative does not have to show any proof of kinship to your grandfather.

Indices from Parish Books of Małopolskie Voivodship
This database is also very spotty. It contains the following data, pertaining to Mszana Dolna:
+ Births: 1825; 1839; 1844
+ Marriages: 1825; 1839; 1844
+ Deaths: 1825; 1844
Because of the years involved, it does not apply to your grandfather. But it has this advantage that it is available on line in a simple text form, [rootsweb.ancestry.com/~polwgw/archives/mszanadolna.html#births25] . Switch between various records at the top of the page. Then search for the text SENT. Surprise, surprise! At those early years the only names similar to your granfather's were SENTERZ. Not Sentyrz, not Sentyz, not Sentysz but SENTERZ!!!

I hope this helps.

Genealogy / Trying to find a town called Masana Delma (Mszana Dolna) in Poland - Sentysz surname [20]

I see no new scans of your documents here. They probably did not get through due to some image size limitations on this forum. Store the images somewhere else (free image hosting websites, such as picasa, flickr, photobucket) and post their URL links here.

Language / -ski/-ska, -scy/ski, -wicz - Polish surnames help [185]

mods: I realize that this post wanders into off topic area but I am responding to a direct question of a new poster, who does not seem to be familiar with the rules here.


To start with: Get as much as possible of the vital data regarding your father and grandparents: given names, dates of birth, marriage, death. I am assuming you live in USA, so you could get some of this data from local records: books, papers, cemeteries, parishes, voting registrations, census data, etc.

For example, this webpage: Emmigration from Triple-village: Istebna, Koniaków, Jaworzynka to USA. describes life of Cieszyn Highlanders, who settled in mining towns around Sheridan, Wyoming: Dietz, Acme, Model, Carneyville (later Kleenburn), Monarch, Kooi. There were 20 Legierski people living in Sheridan County at some time. There were also some Legerskis (with slightly different spelling) around there; one list of Red Cross donors (of 10$ or less) during the WWI, contains the following Legerski names: John Legerski Kiepus, Mike Legerski, John Legerski, Paul Legerski, Joe Legerski, Mike Legerski, John Legerski - all from Kooi, and George Legerski from Acme.

Another good source of information are Ellis Islands Immigration records, publicly available. You can scan them for various legitimate variations of the surname Legierski, Legerski, Legersky. One good soul has extracted a list of all immigrants that have come to USA from the so-called "Three-village" (Trójwieś) in Cieszyn Silesia: Istebna, Koniaków, Jaworzynka - in a period of about 20 years, between 1903-01-26 and 1923-12-10. This list is available here Ellis Island immigrant list by date and ship. You can extract from there all Legierski/Legerski/Legersky records for this period. [If this list does not cover the period of your interest, then you would have to go back to the original Ellis Island records]

Here are few observations, coming from that list:
There are 10 records for Legierski, 19 for Legerski and 6 for Legersky. Of the latter surname two persons were identified as Bohemians (Czechs) from Koniakov; one from a mysterious village Kanighaw, Hungary; and two as Polish from Koniakow, Austria.

I do not know whom to blame for all those misspellings: the clerks in Antwerp or (mostly) Bremen or the immigration officials in Ellis Island. I somehow cannot believe that any German clerk would misspell Silesia as Siberia or Tilesia; and Galicia as Galicy.

Here are the name variations (mostly misspellings) you can find there:

Polish Galicja, Austrian Galitzen, English Galicia => Galicy, Galicia, Galizia

Koniaków => Kaniakow, Kanighaw (Hungary), Komakov, Komakow, Koniakan, Koniakaw, Koniakov, Koniokow , Konikow

Istebna => Fstebue, Istebna, Istebne, Istebuc, Jistebna, Jstebna, Jstebosa, Tstebna, Tstebria

Silesia => Tilesia, Siberia, Silesia

Jaworzynka => Jaworzinka, Jaworzynka, Yaworzynka

After you have clearly identified the American side of your grandparents life, you need to continue your search in Poland. The task is unfortunately not that easy, since there is no central archive yet for that area. There is some work being done on digitizing all the archives of Bielsko-Żywiec diocese to which Istebna deanery (dekanat) belongs - with its various parishes in Istebna, Koniaków and Jaworzynka. Until they finish their digitizing work all you can do at the moment is to contact specific parishes and require copies of specific baptism, marriage or death certificates. Such service is not very expensive, but it is not free. I am assuming that your grandparents were Roman Catholics. In case they were of Evengelical-Augsburg (Lutheran) faith you can browse the certificates in both standard and digital form at Tschammer's Library and Archives in Cieszyn, [biblioteka.cieszyn.org.pl].

You can find more about this subject (in Polish) here: gazetacodzienna.pl/artykul/kultura/jak-szukac-przodkow-stela-1

Language / I would like to make a collection of beautiful and/or funny polish quotes [30]


Kto rano wstaje ten leje jak z cebra.
The early bird catches the raining cats and dogs. (He who gets up early pisses like from a gutter.)

Here are few dozens of twisted Polish proverbs
nonsensopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Przys%C5%82owie

Language / I would like to make a collection of beautiful and/or funny polish quotes [30]


And the exact German opposite of the above is:
Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen Leute
English: Tomorrow, tomorrow, just not today, all the lazy people say. (Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.)

Kiepskiej tanecznicy wadzi skraj spódnicy
Even a hem of skirt is an excuse for a bad (female) dancer.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]


Kurzawianka is an old fashioned form of a surname indicating an unmarried woman. It stems from the male name Kurzawa.

In the Polish linguistic tradition surnames of married and unmarried women are slightly different from the surnames of their husbands and fathers. Currently, state law does not recognize the traditional variety of female names - with the exception of the names with adjective origin, where male names ending in: -dzki, -cki, -ski are converted to the female forms ending in: -dzka, -cka, -ska, correspondingly.

In the past, female names - other than those with the adjective origin - were formed as follows:
For married women the suffix -owa was added to the root of the male name:
Marek => Markowa, Kuraś => Kurasiowa, Linde => Lindowa, Bańko => Bańkowa, Piętka => Piętkowa, Pług => Pługowa, Skarga => Skargowa

Maiden names used to be created by adding the following suffixes:
1. -ówna - to the male names ending in a consonant (except g) or vowel -e, -o:
Marek => Markówna, Kuraś => Kurasiówna, Linde => Lindówna, Bańko => Bańkówna

2. -anka - to the male names ending in -a, -g, -ga, -ge, -go:
Piętka => Piętczanka, Pług => Płużanka, Skarga => Skarżanka
[Otherwise using -ówna with some roots, such as Skarga, would produce offensive sounding results: Skar-gówna (gówna is plural form corresponding to "excrements" in English)].

These distinct forms of the female names are no longer used in the Polish language, unless the intention of the speaker is styling or a joke.

Language / -ski/-ska, -scy/ski, -wicz - Polish surnames help [185]


According to "Moi Krewni" (My relatives) database, there are 888 Legierski persons registered in Poland - most of them in Silesia, with their largest concentration in Cieszyn County (579), Żywiec County (57) and town of Bielsko-Biała (22).

So yes, Istebna and Koniaków are in Cieszyn County - in Beskid Śląski mountain range.


He was born in Koniaków, Cieszyn County.


Silesian "legier" word stems from the German adjective "leger", meaning: casual, informal, lax, laissez-fair.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

That's true, but we are trying our best. :-) Here is what I found in today's news:
Pobiedziszczanie (citizens of Pobiedziska) granted a title of "Honorary Citizen of the City and the Municipality of Pobiedziska" to Ludovic Obraniak, a French born football player, who is playing for Poland in Euro 2012. His grandfather, Zygmunt Obraniak, was born and lived in Pobiedziska, near Poznań. The official title granting ceremony will take place right after the Euro 2012.

["Pobiedziska" means "place of victories"; it stems from the Old Slavic word "pobiada" (modern Russian: pobieda) - a victory.]

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Mind you, these are just some speculations. When in 1706, General Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld defeated Russian-Saxon army under Wschowa (Fraustadt), at the western border of Poland in those times, Charles XII entered the Saxony and forced Augustus II the Strong to abdicate in favour of Stanisław Leszczyński, a Polish ally of Charles XII (Treaty of Altranstadt, Saxony, near Leipzig). [Augustus II the Strong was Elector of Saxony and also King of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]

Russians and Saxons lost 7300 KIA and 7600 POW in Wschowa (Fraustadt) battle. One of these prisoners of war could be your "man from Sachsen (Saxony)". So young, 16 years old? Could he possibly be a servant or a page of some sort? Mind you, a part of Saxony, Upper Lusatia, has been home of Upper Sorbians (Lusatian) people, the westernmost Slavs. Names like Mitzki, Mitski should not be a surprise there.

His surname could have come, for example, from the name of town of Mišno (Sorbian spelling), or Meißen (German), Miśnia (Polish), Meissen (English), famous for Meissen porcelain.

In my mind, there is no connection to Poland in this story, other than Slavic sounding surname. The Sorbian connection seems like the one of the few promising directions to follow. Another possibility is that he could have been one of those Russians POWs from the Fraustadt battle.