Genealogy /
What does it mean for surname to be included in Herb PRUS III? Napierkowski. [8]
THANK YOU SO MUCH VELES (sorry for the caps but I didn't know how to express my appreciation enough)! I can not tell you enough how much my 1st generation father (who lost his whole family at a young age in the U.S.) and I am the only surviving descendant of our Napierkowski (or the singluar version, Napiórkowska, that my my great-grandmother used still while living in Poland & probably tried to keep in the U.S. but with my grandfather being brought over with her when they immigrated it probably ended up being recorded as Napierkowski; everything was in handwriting & phonetically interpreted; I always figured too that maybe the matriarch of a family or a single female last name reverted to ending in an "a" where the male or neutral ended in an "i"...I'm probably wrong so please feel free to correct me as that was my best guess when asked why my name doesn't end in an "a" as certain actresses, for example, which was very often). Also, please accept my sincerest apology for the lengthiness of this post (especially the rambling). I just got discharged from the hospital after being there for over a week for a very lifesaving operation (I'm doing extremely well and I'm going to be better than okay as my quality of life will better than it was before; just right now it's affecting how I convey things as they operation included part of the lower part of my brain). I wouldn't blame you at all if this as too much for you to read (I still thank you for even looking at it).
As far as the Baltic roots my father that definitely makes since. My father always told me that he was certain we were Slavic, maybe part Czechoslovakian. The village of Napierki (when I guess we might have hailed even though it just seems like this small area consists of crossroads of major highways & one or two local establishments...in other words, not residential at all - from what I've seen in any photos of Polish-based publications regarding the area - but I understand things evolve the way they need to) is located near or in Olsztyn, so northeast Poland. I always wondered if we were part Swedish (due to my Swedish friends who have similar somewhat slanted eyes but that might be from the Mongol Invasion of Europe or that there was one specifically in Poland 3x; my eyes are hazel brown but my mom's entire side are blue & my father's side are a mixture of light blue to solid green (not hazel green) to hazel, & light brown; I feel like I can relate to how Prince George inherited his eye color and I'm at peace with my eye color in general; besides brown being dominate it seems to be even more so in my case especially since only 5% of my extended family have brown eyes where at least 70% have blue (to give an idea of the extremes). Plus, my Polish grandparents that have somewhat slanted eyes have one child that doesn't have this slant out of the three children they had and my daughter - though she's not full-Polish - like the others, didn't inherit the slant as well so I guess it's not that dominant; anyhow, I know there's mixing to explain this but since I'm only the 2nd U.S. born generation and we've been able to trace the roots in Poland from 1936 going back to 1,000 yrs depending on what side of my family I've noticed that Poland seemed more homogeneous when it comes to any significant mixing...for good or bad; thus, I thought maybe I found my 'true' home possibly, which if so, I feel VERY lucky especially since as I've said (probably a few times throughout a couple of posts) I'm the last one in my branch; lastly, I'm somewhat sad that I don't see one Napierkowski listed in Poland anymore as all the ones listed in the world almost all live in the U.S. according to my extensive research (some reside in Germany but none live in Poland if all these sources are correct; and I wonder if that has to do with WWII like with my family moving in the late 1930s even though they were Catholic and/or what happened to Poland post-war, or from 1945-1989).
Finally, my maternal side, Schaf (also spelled Schaff...again, most likely due to a wrong phonetic interpretation written in handwriting upon immigration), is said to be one of the Silesia's last noble families dating back to the 13th century that is on record (specifically, the House of Schaff-Gotsch that was based on the knight, Gotsche II Schaff; there was aristocracy on that side but I only find this knight relation interesting because it was recorded). The most important thing about this finding (that I've heard a lot from that side of the family when I was a child) is that it seems to affirm the association with the area of Silesia (I'm extremely sad to say during her lifetime my maternal grandmother only wanted to focus on being considered German by denying all Polish roots; thankfully, my maternal grandfather or her husband fought against Nazi Germany during WWII). She even held it against my father for making the family more Polish (he's proven to be a great provider to assist my hard-working mother so she's been content with that but she treated since I was born in a poor manner by disassociating herself - i.e. saying 'you look nothing like me' in the most negative way - because of how much more Polish I was and the rest of my family knew I unfairly suffered a lot for this).
Again thank you for for your assistance, your prompt response, and your patience with this post. I'm sure you didn't expect this extensive response and as I recover I'll probably regret that I wrote this much & bothered you (or anyone else reading this) with regards to some of these personal issues. I just wanted to thank you by posting this soon because I was told by my doctors that it could take until December before I really am able to resume a 'normal' life (again, when I get through all the recovery I'll be better than ever so I feel very fortunate for that...just timing was bad would be my biggest complaint especially for my family). All the best!
Respectfully,
Janina
P.S. Attached I put 2 pictures of how I look to give an idea about what I was talking about in the 2nd paragraph.
P.S.S. I just got a message about a large amount of the Napierkowscy family (not direct relatives to me that I know of but who knows?) migrated to Nowogród before moving to the U.S., which is about one hour and a half away from Napierki, and this former Polish city still has a decent population (no name of Napierkowski listed presently in Poland as I stated in a previous post). So that's VERY interesting as maybe that's where my ancestors ended up if they did in fact originally hail from the village of Napierki (the origin of Napierkowski; also, I've been told it could be a variant of Napiorac, that means 'to advocate' or as a result of the Scottish Napier clan when a lot of Scottish migrated to Poland in the 16th century; I do like 'to advocate' because it sort of relates to my career). Now if I can only find the one missing link, or origin of the only name in our tree that I can't find a record anywhere...Korzunowski or Korzonowski...again, due to phonetic interpretation written in possible illegible handwriting (last record of immigration to U.S. from Poland was 1909)!
