[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Integration of Germans with Polish

[Rachael Patterson]

Yes...this "is" fun. The M Rec translation I attached was of the son of my
3GGrandmother who had the possible Polish name of Terezja Witkowska
(Witkowski), whoes religion was apparently Catholic, as her son my
2GGrandfather was not allowed to send bans of announcement out to his
Church, yet three bans were sent out to the Evangelical Church. Thus, he
Terezja Witkowska may have been of the Polish ethnicity, because as Jerry
mentions if there is Catholic involved, then there may be Polish. Perhaps
Terezja's husband converted to the Catholic faith when he married his
Polish? wife. But after seeing your research on your family with respect to
the Catholic faith...who really knows?? This is tough....:)

Gilda


In my opinion the changed names where written at the whim of the pastor or
recorder.  We could go on and on about the switching of names from Polish
version to German version and vise versa - my Gruening family name for one =
Zielinski.  I haven't done enough research back to the 1700's to determine
what the original name is.

My paternal grandmother was a Michalski with a German mother.  Her parents
married Lutheran, the marriage record clearly states that her father
Gottlieb/Bogumil was Catholic!  Obviously he did not convert to Lutheran,
but all his children were baptised Lutheran.
Gottlieb's father was Catholic Franciszek Michalski and mother a German
Lutheran girl. Franciszek's second marriage to a German Lutheran lady
indicated he also was Catholic!!  Four of their children were baptised in
Lutheran churches and two of their children, my ancestor Gottlieb and a
sister were baptised in a Catholic church.   Obviously Gottlieb did not wish
to convert.

Rolling through miles and miles of filmed records from 4 or 5 different
parishes (Lutheran and Catholic)  produced this story.   Isn't this fun..

Rose Ingram

From: "Jerry Frank"

>>>One indicator (it is not proof) might be if the family with the assumed
>>>Polish surname is Catholic.  You might assume true Polish ethnicity with
>>>such info.  This would be especially true in Russian Poland where there
>>>were few German Catholics.  However, there were some so one must not
>>>consider such a situation as proof of anything.

> Jerry