[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 35, Issue 24
Gary Warner
gary at warnerengineering.com
Fri Apr 21 09:02:04 PDT 2006
Verna,
I just asked a Polish friend who speaks both Polish and Russian, and
who is also part Ukrainian. She says that the sound of ski and sky
is identical, but she says it has to do with the Cyrillic alphabet
that the letter is a y instead of an i. She says that typically a
person with an ski name is Polish (or at least their name was formed
in Poland), and that sky is usually a Russian or Ukrainian name (or
at least their name was formed in Russia or the Ukraine). I
suppose that a German living in both Poland and Volhynia might have a
Polonized name that ended in ski, and when they moved to Volhynia
that it might have changed to sky.
The above reasoning agrees with the story told me by a cousin who was
born with sky at the end of his name (his father was born in Latvia
when it was part of Russia). He said that he was told by some
"learned individual" that since his father was originally of Polish
origin, that his name should really end in ski. He believed the
"learned individual" and legally changed his name. He is thus the
only member of his family who now has a name ending in ski, as
everyone else kept the sky. I thus achieve my ODD status honestly
from both my German and Latvian ancestors.
Gary Warner
At 08:26 PM 04/20/06, Verna Hutchinson wrote:
>Hello List;
>
>Our family Laudinsky had a "sky" put at the end of their name.
>My grandfather says that the original name was Laudin
>What would be the difference between having a "sky" or a "ski"
>on the end of your original name.
>Verna
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org
>[mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org] On Behalf Of
>ger-poland-volhynia-request at eclipse.sggee.org
>Sent: April 20, 2006 1:00 PM
>To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
>Subject: Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 35, Issue 24
>
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>Today's Topics:
>
> 1. -Spelling Changes-'Going Back'- (Otto)
> 2. Re: Spelling Changes - "ski" (Eduardo Kommers)
> 3. Re: Spelling Changes - "ski" (Gary Warner)
> 4. Re: Migrations of Our Germans (richard benert)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:10:32 -0400
>From: Otto <otto at schienke.com>
>Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] -Spelling Changes-'Going Back'-
>To: S G G E E <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
>Message-ID: <AE096DCE-DF8C-4C60-BF76-44674BAB9109 at schienke.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>Morning Everyone,
>
>A few observations on spelling variations and 'going back'.
>
>I've also come across variations in spelling of names and places in
>records as one passes through time and then became aware to the fact
>that these changes are introduced quickly. Not only the 'c'
>substitution for 'k', also the 'k' for the 'ck'.
>
>My curiosity being aroused I began researching, not the demography of
>the village cluster, but the background of the pastors serving the
>parish. Changes, including influx of population, were oft connected
>to them. A young pastor, fresh out of the seminary, would be eager to
>introduce new ideas to his parishioners. He often was the 'outside
>world' answer for the rural and isolated people. It is difficult to
>comprehend the isolation of those times in comparison to our era, as
>the youth refer to it, 'jacked in' information world at your finger
>tips, the world we live in.
>
>The SGGEE Web-site has parish information, also some information as
>to who the pastors were that served.
>Membership in SGGEE has proven beneficial to me. It remains one of my
>wiser decisions.
>
>The question also arose as to why many of the German emigrants did
>not return to their original homeland when the going got tough...
>Many sound reasons have been aired regarding their choices for the
>future. A question not answered is, "Why did they leave in the first
>place?" "Why did they emigrate from Germany? What conditions existed
>in the villages and states, causing their emigration to foreign soil
>and unforeseen hardship in the first place? Whatever it was, they
>undoubtedly chose not to go back to it. Even Adolph Hitler, near his
>demise, voiced a lament over America gaining the upper hand as the
>paraphrased following, "They have so many of our courageous Germans,
>the ones with the strength and determination to leave us in the first
>place, seeking a better life, they possess the vigor and stamina to
>change the world."
>
>Richard O. Schienke
>. . . Otto
>
> " The Zen moment..." wk. of March 5, 2006
> ________________________________
> "Remove what isn't... What is remains."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 2
>Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:44:39 -0300
>From: "Eduardo Kommers" <chiquinhok at terra.com.br>
>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Spelling Changes - "ski"
>To: Grupo Genalogia alem?es-russos
> <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
>Message-ID: <002d01c66491$5612dc70$6c07a8c0 at TUSSO>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
>Helle everyone!
>
>Was it comun the german families put "ski" in the end of their surnames in
>those times?
>I found my Kommers spelled Komminski.
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 3
>Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:20:21 -0700
>From: Gary Warner <gary at warnerengineering.com>
>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Spelling Changes - "ski"
>To: "Eduardo Kommers" <chiquinhok at terra.com.br>, Grupo Genalogia
> alem?es-russos <ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
>Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20060420095559.0315ad80 at warnerengineering.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
>Eduardo,
>
>I do not speak German or Polish, but in managing the master Pedigree
>Database for SGGEE, I would say that you are lucky that your name was
>not even more significantly Polonized. Evidently neither your
>ancestors, nor their Polish neighbors were able to relate your
>surname to an equivalent Polish surname. If they had, then your
>surname while in Poland might have been changed as some of the
>following surnames changed. Everyone needs to be on the lookout for
>how a German name might be changed while in Poland.
>
>Koenig became Krol (both names mean King)
>Schwarz became Czarnecki (both names mean black)
>Kirschbaum became Wisniewski (both names mean cherry tree)
>
>There are also other changes that occur in names, simply because
>there was no standard way of spelling until the late 1800s. For
>instance, one of my surnames is Duerr (that MAY be the correct
>spelling). I have also seen it spelled as follows:
>
>Duerr or Dyr or Dyrr or Duhr or Deren or Dicer or Doehr or Doerr or
>Dirr or Dohr or Duehr or Der or Dehr. The rule should be in your
>research that if a name sounds like your surname, it may well be your
>surname.
>
>See our list of alternate surnames at
>http://www.sggee.org/AlternateSurnamesDatabase.pdf
>
>You are perhaps lucky that your surname did not become Komarski, as
>the Poles would then have had a good belly laugh, since your family
>would then have been the family of mosquitos or gnats!
>
>A Polish friend, who was born in Poland, does not know why surnames
>end in ski (male) or ska (female)
>
>Gary Warner
>
>
>At 08:44 AM 04/20/06, Eduardo Kommers wrote:
> >Helle everyone!
> >
> >Was it comun the german families put "ski" in the end of their surnames in
> >those times?
> >I found my Kommers spelled Komminski.
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Ger-Poland-Volhynia Mailing List hosted by
> >Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe http://www.sggee.org
> >Mailing list info at http://www.sggee.org/listserv
>
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 4
>Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:18:18 -0600
>From: "richard benert" <benovich at imt.net>
>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Migrations of Our Germans
>To: "Jerry Frank" <FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca>, "Mike McHenry"
> <maurmike1 at verizon.net>,
><ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
>Message-ID: <001c01c664a6$cefd8df0$51e289d1 at richard01>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
>I've been following this discussion and agreeing with most of what's been
>said. But a few points bear mentioning. One major reason given by various
>German historians for the migration out of Poland into Volhynia was the
>Polish Rebellion of 1863 against the Russian government. German farmers in
>Poland tended to be conservative and reluctant to take up arms in the Polish
>
>cause. So, apparently (I've never read of any concrete examples), their
>Polish neighbors started to take it out on nearby ethnic German farmers.
>This, along with promises of land in Volhynia, probably encouraged them to
>get out of Poland. A similar thing apparently happened after a similar
>Rebellion in 1830, but I've seen little info on that. Incidentally, my
>great-grandfather, Samuel Patzer (a pastor), is alleged to have been killed
>by the Russians for doing some legal work for the partisans (probably during
>
>the 1863 Rebellion). Whether Samuel was pro-Polish or was just shanghaied
>into helping them we don't know.
>
>Also, Jerry mentioned that among the problems for Volhynian Germans in the
>1880s and 1890s was an "inability to own land". I think the word "own"
>should be read "acquire". Private property was OK, but some Russians feared
>
>the spread of German land ownership in this frontier province, thinking it a
>
>prelude to a German takeover (similar in some ways to current fears of a
>Mexican takeover of the Aztlan--the southwest U.S.). Hence, several laws
>were passed restricting the purchase of NEW land by Germans. Even though
>difficult, I suspect that some land acquisition still went on, in spite of
>the laws. We need a historian to look into this.
>
>Finally, concerning the matter of returning to Germany, quite a few thousand
>
>Volhynian Germans did return after about 1905 up into the 1920s. There was
>heavy recruitment carried out by a "F?rsorgeverein f?r deutsche
>R?ckwanderer" and an "Arbeiter Centrale" before the war, trying to get
>seasonal workers to come to the aid of German agriculture. For those who
>read German, Oliver G?nther has an article on this which used to be on Irene
>
>Kopetzke's website (www.wolhynien.de), but which I can't find now. The
>article is entitled "Die R?ckwanderung von Wolhynien nach Deutschland bis
>1918". Can anyone give directions for finding this? Interestingly, G?nther
>
>says that so many laborers were leaving Volhynia before the war that big
>German landowners were getting upset and so was the Russian government.
>This at the very time when SOME Russian officials (the military type) were
>getting nervouser and nervouser about German landowning in the border
>provinces. Other officials were concerned that the German landowners were
>losing the seasonal workers they needed! History is never simple.
>
>How many of those who returned to Germany in these years were landless
>workers and how many were (small) landowners is an interesting question. We
>
>do know, thanks to the work of Nikolaus Arndt and others, that perhaps 7,000
>
>(or more? I've forgotten) Volhynian Germans left for the Baltic provinces,
>invited by some big German landowners there between 1907 and 1910 or so.
>These would have then gotten back to Germany in 1939-40 when Germans were
>evacuated from the Baltics, just weeks or months before those resettled from
>
>Volhynia, as a result of the Hitler-Stalin agreement.
>
>Sorry this got so long....
>
>Dick Benert
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jerry Frank" <FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca>
>To: "Mike McHenry" <maurmike1 at verizon.net>;
><ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:35 PM
>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Migrations of Our Germans
>
>
> > Some of them did migrate back, in particular to East Prussia. Others
> > went to work for the industry that was also sprouting right where
> > they were - the sugar plants in Kutno, the cloth production
> > facilities in Lodz and Zyrardow, etc. But for many others, farming
> > was in their blood and the opportunity for cheap homestead land in
> > central North America was more attractive than working in industry.
> >
> >
> > Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
> > FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > At 07:26 AM 19/04/2006, Mike McHenry wrote:
> >>I recently read a history of Germany 1845-1945 by Holborn. Germany had
> >>rapidly industrialized in the latter part of the 19th century and up to
> >>WWI.
> >>Unemployment was low and some cases labor shortages. Why didn't our
> >>Germans
> >>migrate back to Germany?
> >>
> >> Mike
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org
> >>[mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org] On Behalf Of Jerry
> >>Frank
> >>Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:02 AM
> >>To: marlo; gpvjem; rlyster at telusplanet.net
> >>Cc: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
> >>Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Migrations of people--Germans to
> >>Wohlynia
> >>
> >>At 03:47 PM 17/04/2006, marlo wrote:
> >> >Would you be able to help us understand why my husbands maternal
> >> >grandparents
> >> >moved from the area of Lubben Kreis Rummesburg in Pommern to Volhynia in
> >> >1871 and than left to come to US in 1888?
> >> >My mother-in-law was born in Volhynia and was only 6 years old when they
> >> >emigrated and she only said they came to US because they would have been
> >> >killed if they had stayed there in Volhynia
> >> >or Russia as she referred to the area? I
> >> >don't know what profession her father was but they went directly to
> >> >Berrien
> >> >County MI
> >> >and became fruit farmers.
> >> >Any help? Margaret
> >>
> >>
> >>The Gartzes, Girschewskis, Ottos, Gitersonkes, some Schultzes and
> >>others indeed migrated from Rummelsburg to Volhynia and then later to
> >>Manitoba and Berrien County, MI. I have less detailed information
> >>about circumstances in that region but I would suggest that the
> >>reasons were probably similar to that for those from Russian
> >>Poland. They wanted to better their lot in life and that opportunity
> >>appeared to be available in Volhynia. Other Volhynian Germans not
> >>from Pomerania also went to these same places.
> >>
> >>There may have been some fear of staying in Russia c.1888 and
> >>certainly freedoms were already being eroded but I'm not sure that
> >>the fear of death in the 1888 time frame was a strong reason for
> >>migrating. Many Germans continued to remain after that in Volhynia
> >>without facing death. Others first went to Manitoba, didn't like the
> >>cold, so they moved on to Berrien County. Again, the move to North
> >>America was motivated first by the eroding freedoms (for example the
> >>enforcement of using Russian in the schools instead of German,
> >>inability of the Germans to own their land, and conscription into the
> >>Russian army) and secondly the opportunities in North America. They
> >>were drawn to the prairies of both Canada and the States by cheap
> >>homestead land. I'm not sure what specifically brought them to Berrien
> >>County.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
> >>FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ger-Poland-Volhynia Mailing List hosted by
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> > Mailing list info at http://www.sggee.org/listserv
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
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>End of Ger-Poland-Volhynia Digest, Vol 35, Issue 24
>***************************************************
>
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