how many know their own family histories?

if I could come to Poland, I would need at least 3 months to collect all the material
( family docs )..

One Name I am connected to is Gorecki. This is my grandmothers maiden name.
I cant even begin to tell you all the Gorecki's who came to the states..

and storys from my uncle .. he told me that some important man came to see
his mother and that the Police and secret service were blocking the street, no
one could go past them. he couldnt even to go home..

he said he was someone who was big in Poland ( one of grandmas nephews)
a relative that knows her and this was in the late 1930's..

my first thought was Henryk Gorecki!!! ha ha.. but nahh couldnt have been him
he is not from where my grandmothers from.. anyway.. thats my story.

Well, like I said, there's a link in my family to British India but also links in Canada. We got about a bit!

Actually, I might do a bit of research tomorrow now you've got me thinking about it again! :-)

That sounds really interesting

i know till my great grand father (paternal), also grandparent from maternal. I find all are poles from right inside warsaw :S.. too intense pole :D

It is Peter. Bit of a shock though! Lol. :-)

Some of the church records were in Latin... no problem!
The Polish records were a little fuzzy, but up on the International Floor, there was a helper ther who could speak Polish and translate. Also, once you figure out the pattern, they all pretty much follow the same. (These are Church records that I'm talkinf about)

what towns are you researching? or have researched?

I know,, i have that kind of power :)) LOL

I will start a commercial, have you had your fix of genealogy today?

;)

Right now I am researching Podhorce, near Tomaszow, Lublin and Sierpc, near Warsaw.

Have you heard the saying: Genealogy is a great hobby, except you lose your census!

Well sad thing about American raised.....is that my grand pa was a very hard working man but yet a alc..........he didnt think it was important to carry things on......my family for some reason dont like to talk about the past.....I think my family must of had some horriable things happen since they burned pictures and sold belongings =(......
All I know is that my family use to own many salt mines in poland, they abandoned them (well I know I still have family there that I do not know) during ww2 because of hitler was after salt for gun powder...I know my last name is Grabinski (from Grabben(german)) ...and the other is like wicicoft or something along those lines.......

I really wish I could find my family and talk to my family I was never allowed to know........if anyone knows anything please get back to me since must sites leave me to other languages =(

thats a good one :)

the FHC where i go theres a picture of guy sitting at a computer with roots growing
off his feet :) LOL

theres always a chance.. but we need to dig further in the past.
I am sure theres a few on here willing to help.



I hope this isnt the case.

Ya I hope so 2...... but why else would you burn pics and sell things? It's like they wanted to wipe the history away

I'd be grateful is someone would help me =)

well. there could be some things they dont want anyone to know. or
just to burn the past lifes.. my grandparents didnt talk much either..
my uncle told me bits and pieces of what he asked his mom. but it
wasnt offered to them..

my moms side was the same,, so dont feel left out.. :)))

we can try to help. did they immigrate after the war?

ya during ww2 to New York.....my grandpas name is Valentine Grabinski.....TAG is the most commen abbreviation in my family.............

I am going to check something real quick.. :) bb

Garden Grove, Orange, California

and another in New york.. did they stay in New york? or california..

is your grandfather still alive?

Most of our grandparents didn't want to talk about their former lives, probably because it was too painful. My grandfather would tell me "We are Americans, now" Even though we went to the Polish church, ate Polish food and they spoke Polish.
When I asked why our last name didn't sound Polish, he would tell me it was all in the Pronunciation. It wasn't till just recently thay I found out my ggrandfather and ggrandmother shortened their last names. Even their first names to sound more American.
I'm just sorry that I wasn't allowed to go to the Polish school, where I would have learned to speak Polish. They didn't want me to talk with an accent... I was an American!

What have you done to research you family names? Knowing this would give us a clue as to how to help you.

Witek found some info last night for her and I found cencus with her grandpa on it
and his father.. she has somewhat of a idea now.. :))

thanks GS

Super, it's always nice to hear good news like that.
Witek and you are the ones to be thanked!!!

:)

System wants me to put more than 5 characters, so I have write something here.

Witek,
I saw on anotherdiscussion that you have knowledge of Family Crests.
Have you ever seen anything connected to my family Surnames?

Kordulasinski, Narucki, Stempora, Swiecicki, Tyburski, Zywiatkowski, Adamczyk

I would appreciate anything you could tell me.
Thank you! :+)

My Polish family history ends with my Grandfather Grzegorz Makaruk, my Father Stefan came over to the UK at the end of WWll as a displaced person, he never spoke about his life in Poland.
And he never had any contact with his family after he was caught up in Hitlers forced labour camps.
I have been unable to find anything out about them at all.

On my father's maternal side of the family things can be traced from the first ancestor who plopped down in the states back in the mid-1600's to the early middle ages....the hard part has been getting from that ancestor to the modern day family. You'd think that it would be fairly easy considering that guy from the 1600s is the patriarch for that entire family in the states, but so far there have been many deadends. As for my dad's father's family little is known and my sister and I haven't had the time to do more serious searching on our grandfather....or even finding the missing link for our grandmother's family.

As for my Polish roots there is a lot of detail known. It helps that my Polish great-grandfather didn't cross the pond until the early 1900's and that many of his brothers and sisters remained in the same village where he was from. We also have been able to remain in contact with those family members through the years.

As with my dad's side not much is known of my grandmothers family except that she was Irish and had a VERY common Irish name so that will make things difficult.

well i know bugger all about my grand fathers(fathers side) side of the family!

i have only these names :Josef Kubiak died 1921 wife Victoria Dorna (no date as to when she died) there kids
Kazimierz Karl kubiak(grand father) born 28.2.1915 at 83 Grunwald st,Pozan Poland.

josef kubiak,Agneska kubiak,Wanda kubiak and Helena kubiak.....who i know nothing about i asked my Grand mother(still alive today) Wiebke Bracker(German and Kazimierz wife) if she knew if any survived the war and i just got a long look in the eye with no answer.....?

other than Pozan i don't even know were they came from?

searches on the net have turned up nothing!......so I'm going to see my lovely grand mother(Germans can be very arrogant at times) and "question" her with the great grand kids to soften her up :)

cheers Steve

i don't know that much... the main things i recall are war stories by my grandpas. i know that my extended family is large but i don't really know much beyond that. i have just recently reconnected with some blood in Canada though.

It does happen. For example, I am also researching Szylkiewicz and was able to get in touch with some persons carrying the same surname in Poland. It turns out that their Szylkiewicz ancestors were from the same town area as mine but the elder members of their family refuse to let anyone see what documentation and pictures they have.

Sometimes it is a good idea to make some sort of presentation to soften them up. It can also help if you tell them something historical/good about the family that they didn't know. This will show how serious you are about your family history and how important it will be to future generations.

Re: Presentation.
I used enlarged copies of photos, biographies and extra info, like who was king or queen at the time.
If you are lucky Gran or whoever will take an interest and then start to correct your notes, without realizing what they're doing. Don't expect older folk to admit to a suicide or illigitimate birth in the family.
Very often they are hiding the things you least expect.

All I know was that my family was in Russia during the Krakow Uprising and that my grandpa was a WWI vet and then changed his name from Kucharski to Kay (on the legal papers it just says for "convenience"), other than that I know absolutely nothing.