[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Kwiatkowski - Bluemke

Sun Aug 31 20:05:04 PDT 2008

Information like this is why I stay on the list.

Thank you. 

Nell Schemioneck
Brisbane, Australia

-----Original Message-----
From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org [mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org] On Behalf Of Otto
Sent: Monday, 1 September 2008 12:22 PM
To: GPV List
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Kwiatkowski - Bluemke

Good evening Dave,

As you research the surname in Poland be mindful that since circa 1813 and Russian domination of Poland all civil/church records were recorded in Polish until the Poles rebelled and Russia put down a heavy hand on Poland and then all records were recorded in Russian using the Cyrillic alphabet since 1866. +/-.  Cyrillic is an exercise in mental agility. My grandfather with the simple name of John  
Schienke became "Ivan Stodulski". . .  Now spell that out in Russian,   
I can almost hear the melancholy music in the background.  :D

The Poles use the Roman alphabet as do the Germans. Both countries adopted the Roman alphabet. In order for the Roman alphabet to fit the Polish speech patterns diacritical markings are used to shape the proper sounds and a few extra letters are flipped in creating about 28 in count.

German uses a few diacritical markings, specifically umlauts, seeing the German language is spoken in the throat as to were the English language has shifted to the front of the mouth to the tongue tip. In German language cases where the trailing vowel has to be pronounced at the tip of the tongue, the leading vowel becomes an 'umlaut' with the two diacritical marks above it indicating the speaker must bring the sounding of it out of his throat and halfway up his tongue so the trailing vowel will be sounded on the front of the tongue/lips.

Language is about sound.
Parish ministers in recording birth,  marriage, and death records altered spellings of names to make the German names sound out properly when saying them in Polish. At times they translated the German names into Polish equivalents such as your Kwiat-kow-ski. Polish is laden with suffix endings as to who this 'Kwiat' is.  Kwiatkow means 'of Kwiat' (The -k- is from the diminutive suffix -ek or -ko) and 'ski'  
from the estate of.  The suuffix 'ski' is not the Polish substitute for the Baltic flat-land German 'ke' suffix, which is a diminutive meaning 'little' as in the case of 'Blüm-ke', little Blüm or simply son of Blüm or Blum.

Some families willingly, unwillingly, or unknowingly, in an attempt to modernize the sound of their surname have dropped the 'ke' suffix and trashed a whole armful of history at the same time.

Gary is correct. Become familiar with the various spellings of the surname.  Each spelling is peculiar to a point in history as it passes through what we call time. Each spelling is a historical take-out, a particular point in time regarding the history of your ancestors.  
Spelling changes usually mark some large event in their history.

You ask, "Was Bluem-ke originally Blüm-ke?"
A very good possibility.  Then the question, Why the 'e'?  Some could be attributed to dropping the use of diacritical markings altogether and simply flipping in a trailing 'e' to get the sound out of the throat.  Much of it could be due to the rascal of the past we called the 'mechanical typewriter'.  It had no umlaut keys necessitating the use of a trailing 'e' to indicate the leading vowel was an umlaut.

In researching the 'Kwiatkowski' surname I would consider all of the following 'correct' until you prove out through research and developing a 'paper trail' if any or all of them are kin.
Kwiatkowski, Bluemke, Blümke, Blumke, Blum, and Bloom. By all means this is not an exhaustive list. You may add to it as you do your research.

In fact an E-letter just arrived in which Maureen has just added some more variations to Blumke.
My family had a relative who simply changed it to 'Bloom' for the Americans who have a compulsion to pronounce everything on the tip of the tongue.

My own surname and the old spelling of it which I still use, "Sch'ie'n- ke, is harnessed with a diphthong and Baltic suffix.  If Schien is Old Prussian the meaning is still vague, if Schien is similar to the East Prussian Platt or Dutch of the 1500's (my first finding of the use of the surname in Danzig) its meaning is 'shins' or the English meaning 'Longshanks" similar to an uncle with the German Platt surname of 'Krahn' or crane. (stork-legs)  So... add a 'ke' suffix and I am the son of Long-shanks. This has a ring of validity to it in a way seeing there are kin that stand at 6'7".

As my surname passed through 500 years the spelling showed signs of language change and adaption to it and also the effects of translation to other languages.  The 'ie' diphthong creates the greatest problem in translation. Examples, I begin with the oldest example: Schienke, Schiencke, Schinke, Schänke, Schenke, Schönke, Schoenke, Schoencke, Schonke, Schünke, Schuenke, Schunke, Stodulski. Maureen just signed off in her E-letter with another variation of the spelling, 'Schoenky', with a 'y' to round off the 'ke' suffix (properly sounded as 'keh' with a short 'e') but only in the American way of sounding it out. Some of those are Shinky and Shinkey. These are most of the variations of the surname... but not all.  :D

All spellings are correct when they are used legally by the holder of them, but do they lead to immediate kin and history of the soon forgotten past? A paper trail is the only proof.

On Aug 31, 2008, at 12:02 PM, Dave Neumann wrote:
> Gary: Was Bluemke originally Blümke?
> Dave
> _______________________________________________
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. . .   Otto
          " The Zen moment..." wk. of March 23, 2008-
               ________________________________
                 "Each of us. . . A bundle of possibilities."

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