Family History: Podsiedlik?

zombiequinnThreads: 2 Posts: 2 Joined: Aug 15, 09	Edited by: Administrator Aug 15, 09, 11:59 / #
I am trying to piece together my odd family history. To be honest, I'm not very good at this sort of thing, although I'm very interested in it. Anyways, my great grandmother's last name is Podsiedlik. According to her, her parents were from Poland, and she and her siblings were born shortly after they arrived. I love her to death, but her memory isn't as well as it used to be, so she doesn't remember much of the Polish language she once new. Also, she doesn't seem to like to talk about her parent's and such very much. All I know so far is both her parents names and all their kid's names. I used a few genealogy search sites and such, but got very little results for the name Podsiedlik. So, right now I really would like to find out about the name Podsiedlik. I can't figure out what it means, even though I have tried. Also, I can't figure out if it is an uncommon name or if there is another reason my searches never return many results. My 1st post! :D

Grzegorz_Threads: 81 Posts: 6,213 Joined: Nov 16, 06	Aug 15, 09, 12:28 / #
zombiequinn: Podsiedlik 866 people in Poland. http://www.moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/podsiedlik.html

zombiequinnThreads: 2 Posts: 2 Joined: Aug 15, 09	Aug 15, 09, 20:23 / #
Thank you very much. That's a useful link.

Polonius3Threads: 1,005 Posts: 4,833 Joined: Apr 11, 08	Aug 16, 09, 22:44 / #
There was once a now archaic verb in Polish posiedlić (to settle, take up domicile, plant roots) which could have generated Posiedlik to mean someone who had done so (settler, colonist, etc.) Could Podsiedlik have been a derviative or could the "d" have somehow got left out after generations of manual recopying??? The prefix pod- can sometimes mean to do something on the side, not fully, marginally, in the vicnity, etc. Perhaps (although this is highly speculative) Podsiedlik might have originated as a nickname for someone who had settled nearby, at the edge of the core settlement, etc. ???