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Need information on Polish surname Ryszkowska - correct spelling



Adalea   Nov 19, 08, 20:31 /  #
Currently in the United states my relatives spelled their surname Rizkovsky... other children went to war and the army mispelled their names Rizkowsky and they just never changed it. The only record I have of who came over from Russia/Poland was My great, great-grandmother Xenia who spelled her last name Ryszkowska Vel Gryszkowska on the Ellis Island Passenger Record when she came over in 1930.

Xenia's husband (Mark/Marek) was Ryszkowski... Xenia's maiden name (so i'm told) is Petrenka... although that is not confirmed with documentation.

Any information on this name? Not sure if this helps but Xenia was born in 1872 in "Antowi Zcizus" (which I believe to be Antonie, Czestochowa, Poland) and last place of residence was Nancy, Poland prior to 1930. Her husband was Mark/Marek Ryszkowski (or varient spelling) and son Dimitri, possibly son Paul/Pawel/Pavel, and possible daughter Anna.

Thank you.
krysiaThreads: 26
Posts: 3,604
Joined: Aug 10, 06 		  Nov 19, 08, 20:51 /  #
In 1863, Russia's wanted to try and destroy the Polish culture by declaring Russian the official language. Prussia would do the same in 1872, forcing Poles in the Prussian territory to use German as the basic language. The Poles struggle persisted and near the end of the century, they had successfully establish political parties in all three regions.
So that's why you have different spellings of the same name.
Adalea   Nov 19, 08, 21:40 /  #
Interesting. Do you know if there is a place called Ryszkowska or Gryszkowska in Old Poland? So i'm told, most names in Poland usually came from villages/towns in Poland. On her passenger record for Ellis, they wrote down Ryszkowska Vel Gryszkowska... does this mean Ryszkowska (surname) OF Gryszkowska (Village/Town)?

Do you know the best way to find birth records or census reports in old Poland between 1871 - 1930?
KrzysztofThreads: 2
Posts: 1,146
Joined: Jul 26, 07 		Edited by: Krzysztof   Nov 20, 08, 04:23 /  #
First remark: surnames ending in -ski, -cki, -dzki are declined in Polish, that's why you'll have 2 versions (for men ending -ski, -cki, -dzki; for women ending -ska, -cka, -dzka).

I just found a site, but I don't know if it's reliable, someone more concerned about genealogy might be more helpful (because it's not my cup of tea)
Surname Gryszkowski - only 8 men + 6 women (Gryszkowska), all in Ełk region (NE Poland)

Surname Ryszkowski - 580 men + 610 women (Ryszkowska), in various regions of Poland (predominantly East, but almost 12% in Warsaw, which has about 5-6% of overall Polish population)

There are also 311 persons with the name Gryczkowski (mostly in NE Poland) and, judging by the geographical distribution, it looks like Gryszkowski is probably a misspelled version of Gryczkowski, not Ryszkowski (due to the historical and political circumstances mentioned by krysia in her post, I may add that the Germans during WWII also added to the mess, by writing incorrectly Polish names/surnames in their documents, many people had lost their Polish IDs during WWII and the German IDs were the only ones they had after the war, so if there were any mistakes they were transferred to Polish documents after WWII and some people never bothered to go to the court in order to bring back the correct spelling), but it apparently exists so it's hard to say who made the mistake in spelling and when (before 1918 - during partitions of Poland - or on Ellis Island in the 30's).

Adalea:

does this mean Ryszkowska (surname) OF Gryszkowska (Village/Town)?


The town/village name would rather be Ryszków / Gryszków (I haven't heard such names and haven't found any in Wikipedia, but it's not definitive, not every single of 35,000 Polish towns and villages is in Wiki), in the version Gryczkowski, it may come from "gryczka" (a plant species)
Adalea   Nov 20, 08, 17:37 /  #
What is interesting about your find is that my grandfather mentioned (and it's all that he can remember) that his father had a 1 acre plot of farmland on the eastern border (border of Poland and Russia). Now, i'm not sure where that would be as his father didn't come over "legally"... he was a stow away and jumped ship and swam to shore (so the story goes). It must be true because I have yet to find a record of him on any passenger records. However, by looking on a map it seems that the border between poland and russia was at the north-eastern most part of poland... because the eastern section was bordering Ukraine & Lithuania I believe.
KrzysztofThreads: 2
Posts: 1,146
Joined: Jul 26, 07 		  Nov 21, 08, 09:26 /  #
Adalea:

on the eastern border (border of Poland and Russia)

Adalea:

looking on a map it seems that the border between poland and russia was at the north-eastern most part of poland... because the eastern section was bordering Ukraine & Lithuania I believe.


Only if you are looking at today's maps :)
Between world wars (1918-1939) the borders of Poland were much more towards East, but the Soviet Union took them (about 40% of the pre-war Poland) after "liberating" us from Germans in 1945 (those decisions about borders were made in cooperation with the Allies and they gave us some lands in the West, previously ruled by the Germans, like Wrocław/Breslau and Szczecin/Stettin).

If your father was talking about the times before they had left Poland (around 1930) he probably meant Russian border in the East (Ukraine as a indipendent country has been existing only since 1991, for many centuries its lands were ruled by Poland, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then Russia and finally Soviet Union).

Here's a map of Poland in 1918-1939:
Polonius3Threads: 1,005
Posts: 4,833
Joined: Apr 11, 08 		  Nov 28, 08, 10:15 /  #
Localities that could have generated the toponmyic nickname Ryszkowski inlcude Ryszki, Ryszkowa Wola and possibly also Ryszewko.
There doesn't appear to be any locality within today's borders from which Gryszkowski/Gryczkowski could have been derived.
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