[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] pronounciation and spelling of names, was: Ziemer and Chodecz

[Jerry Frank]

One has to be careful about absolutes in genealogy.

There is not doubt that Krajewski could be a valid place name.  However, in 
context of the original question, it is associated as a regional name with 
the town of Chodecz.  That is very questionable since no such region 
exists.  That is why Al suggested that it might be a misreading or 
misunderstanding of Kujawski which IS a regional name definitely associated 
with Chodecz.

There is also no doubt that Cymer should be Zimmer.  And there is no 
question that Zimmer is distinctly different from Ziemer.  However, if you 
find one record for the birth of the child of Joe and Mary (Schmidt) Ziemer 
and the next year you find the birth of another to Joe and Mary (Schmidt) 
Cymer, who happen to be the same age, then you cannot hold that as an 
absolute.  Furthermore, with bad handwriting in the records, it might be 
difficult to distinguish between Ziemer and Zimmer.  The important thing 
for genealogists, and especially the original poster of the question, is to 
be aware of these anomalies regarding this particular surname and to 
consider them carefully in developing their family tree.

These kinds of problems regarding reading a surname are clearly 
demonstrated by Jan's most recent posting where he explains how he read the 
surname of people in a couple of records as Ziemer yet it is clear from 
other supporting records that it should be Ziemann.



At 12:17 PM 21/02/2003 +0100, Reiner Kerp wrote:
>al muth wrote:
>
>
> > I suspect that "Krajewski" could be a misreading for Kujawski.
>
>The very friendly man that first helped me to search in Poland was
>Leszek Krajkowski. So I thought he might be of German origin.
>
> From my point of view "Krajewski" is different from "Kujawski".
>All over Poland you find locations like
>Krajanek (KAL),
>Krajansw (WAL),
>Krajenka (PIL),
>Krajenki (BYD), or
>Krajewo-Borowe (LOM),
>Krajewo-Wielkie (OST) and so on.
>
>The writing of places and names is very, very variable in Poland.
>
> > My greatgrandmother Muth is an Abraham born 1821 in Chodecz parish
> > (the Catholic one), but in all my work, I have not had much success
>in
> > tieing her extended family to the many other Abrahams in the area.
>
>Perhaps before that time, a strange polish "translation" of that name
>was used in the churchbooks. As I wrote some time before, this was
>very common.
>In the Sompolno books I found:
>Kaminski for Steinke
>Mitowski for Mittelstaedt
>Dzik for Wilde.
>
>Pastor Kruschwitz kindly named the original in ways like "Steinke vel
>Kaminski".
>
> > As I have noted previously, I am quite interested in hearing from
>ANYONE
> > who can help me decide whether a Polish spelling "Cymer" is a German
> > family Ziemer or Zimmer, based on later usage by descendants.
>
>On that matter I4m absolutely sure, that CYMER is ZIMMER. This is
>because of the accent, the people had. One time I found CYMER with a
>dash on top of the M. This is to mark a double M. You find names like
>NAJMAN wich is NEUMANN. ELKE is OELKE and very probable my PEPEL are
>POEPPEL originally. It took me a very long time, until I found that
>SCHLAR (L is the dashed Polish one) is SCHUR, phonetically absolutely
>correct.
>Regarding ROSIN, this name is very likely to come from the french
>ROSSMN (with an accent I). This name is said to be of Huguenot origin.
>
>regards,
>
>Reiner (Kerp)
>
>P.S.: in our TV a polish woman, named MUTH said, her ancestors came
>from Bamberg/Bavaria.
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Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
jkfrank at shaw.ca