[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] British sounding surnames in current Poland

[Jerry Frank]

Vera,

What you are trying to interpret seems to be dependent on how you interpret ethnicity.  Ethnic, according to the World English Dictionary means:
1. relating to or characteristic of a human group having racial, religious, linguistic, and certain other traits in common 
2. relating to the classification of mankind into groups, esp on the basis of racial characteristics 
3. denoting or deriving from the cultural traditions of a group of people 
Your dna results reflect the #2 definition but the more common inference in our genealogy context has to do with #1 and #3.

I am not sure where you are getting the British inference.  Engler and Marsch are common enough Germanic surnames.  

You also have to be careful about associating surnames with ethnicity.  It may at first glance appear that my Girschewski ancestors were Polish but they were ethnically German along with all the rest of my ancestors that I have found.

Jerry





----- Original Message -----
From: Vera Miller <equalityforall at hotmail.com>
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:53 am
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] British sounding surnames in current Poland
To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org

> 
> Hello all,
> I have two direct ancestors who have surnames that sound 
> British. I am trying to understand this. I was part of the beta 
> group for Ancestry.com's newest DNA test that determines 
> ethnicity. I am Russian/Finish and Eastern European.
> How do I explain that my 5th-great-grandmother was Anna 
> Elizabeth Engler (born 06 Nov 1768 in Schwiebus) and her 
> father's first name was Hans, definitely not a British given 
> name. And then a 6th-great-grandmother was Katherine Elizabeth 
> Marsch. I do not have a birthdate or birthplace. She lived in 
> Züllichau (now Sulechow, Poland).
> VeraBlog-
> https://lostrussianfamily.wordpress.com/                                               
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