Genealogy /
Why did(do) Poles sometimes have German first names? [28]
I agree with both of you regarding the last name - it's probably not that important, and given the fact that it's so hard to identify as to a clear nationality, and the fact the name has such a small incidence - I've come to believe that it as probably changed by the family sometime in the past, either to assimilate with a new culture or as a result of misspellings over the years.
Btw, can you imagine that only thanks to this thread I found out that it's possible that I have some Lithuanian roots?
Lithuania has such a rich history, too! I'm glad I could maybe inspire you to do genealogical research into your family! It really is quite fun - frustrating at times when you hit a brick wall - but still fun, especially when you are able to get help from nice people online, as I did here.
It doesn't look German... But I really have no idea, I would have to read into this stuff and I don't have time for this these days, I'm sorry...
Don't worry about it! Like I said, I've been convinced for a while that the surname underwent a sort of "evolution" to what it is now, so it was probably originally something very different, so research into it would probably be useless anyway.
This is pure fantasy. Sources from the 10th and 11th centuries on Poland are more than extremely scarce.
Yeah, it seems that way with every country in central Europe, at least to me. However, one thing I did find which was kind of interesting to me at least, was this:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C5%82uchoniemcy (Hope this link works, if not it's a page called 'Gluchoniemcy' on the Polish wikipedia.
It seems there was some recorded settlement of Germans in the later middle ages in the same region my great grandfather. Incidentally, the town he came from, Lalin (Lalin Niemiecki, in this case) is listed as one of their many settlements on this page. The Polish version of this wikipedia page has far more information than the English version, so I chose to use that one, but unfortunately I am not fluent in Polish (yet) so I had to use google translate, and as I'm sure you guys know, that can be kind....ehhhh...
But what I did find interesting, at least if the information is accurate, is that there was a recorded presence of these people all the way up to the late 1850s, which would fit around the time of my great grandfather's parents, roughly. According to the not-so-good translation, these people, while ethnic Germans, more or less identified as Polish and spoke only the Polish language - but the way the researcher was able to identify them was that they sometimes had "contemporary German names" I don't know if its refering to first or last names, (according to the page most of these people Polonized their last names, so it leads me to believe its referring to first names) but in the case of the former, it could explain my great grandfather having the first name Andreas, and, presumably, his father having the name Wilhelm. Like Atch said, maybe Wilhelm had a German parent(s).
It turned out that the medallion she picked for me depicted Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn (Matka Boska Ostrobramska) from Vilnius in Lithuania with the coat of arms of Lithuania on the other side of the medallion :)
I like this story! It made me think that since Gluchoniemcy roughly means "forest people" (or Germans?), at least from what I understand, maybe, somewhat similar to your situation, it would explain why I always, always, loved hiking in the woods and generally just being around them, hehe. =P
I hope I can help you with your own research someday to repay you!
