PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

Aquila — Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:25 pm

Author: Aquila

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:25 pm

I don't mind, I find it interesting. You're right, I made a mistake - I assumed the situation of all Poles was roughly the same across all three partitions. I have ancestors only in Russian and Austrian ones - and only few of them (from nobility) were literate.

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

dnowicki — Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:55 pm

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 8:55 pm

Aquila wrote:

Most people who were emigrating were completely illiterate...

Aquila,

I believe that for the sake of complete accuracy it is necessary to clarify what you wrote about the literacy of emigrants during the late XIX and early XX Centuries. Although it is true that most emigrants from Galicia and to a lesser extent those from the Kingdom of Poland aka the Russian Partition were illiterate, the same cannot be said of those from the German Partition (The Province of Posen/Prowincja Poznańska). Many entries for villages in the German Partition in the Słownik geograficzny list the number of literates and illiterates in the villages and the literacy rate in many of those villages exceeded fifty percent during the late XIX Century. My maternal and paternal ancestors immigrated from both the Russian and the German Partitions and most (all but my paternal grandmother) were literate before they left Europe.

I hope that you don’t mind the clarification.

Dave

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

Anonymous — Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:41 pm

Author: Anonymous

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:41 pm

MattiasT1565 wrote:

Thank you. It is very frustrating trying to track these down. The semi-literate census takers we had here...

Mattias,
the same spelling on his Draft Registration Card, including his own signature.
Gilberto

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

Aquila — Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:02 pm

Author: Aquila

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:02 pm

Most people who were emigrating were completely illiterate...

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

MattiasT1565 — Thu Jan 31, 2019 11:57 am

Author: MattiasT1565

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 11:57 am

Thank you. It is very frustrating trying to track these down. The semi-literate census takers we had here...

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

Aquila — Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:12 pm

Author: Aquila

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:12 pm

I tried to find any marriage certificate of Julia Król or Julia Lechówna (which may have ended up as "Lehown" in US documents) and any Jan, but haven't found anything.
Keep in mind that if the surname was written as it was heard by the US official - it may have originally begin with the letter "Ł" which sounds exactly as English "W". Polish "W" sounds like English "V".

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"

dnowicki — Wed Jan 30, 2019 7:45 pm

Author: dnowicki

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 7:45 pm

Magroski49 wrote:

MattiasT1565 wrote:

What might the original Polish surname be? One of my Great Grandfathers was named John Wasatonic (or Wasatonik or Wassatonic- depending upon the document.

He was born on Jan. 7 1885 and died Sept. 6 1934 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, USA.

His death certificate shows that his father was "Lukash Wasatonik" from Poland, mother was "Aggie" (no surname).
Our family has unsubstantiated info that the name was originally "Vasicionka" and they were from St. Petersburg, but I can find no info on this anywhere.

Mattias,

What does say the marriage record with Julia?
Have you find his Draft Card WWI and WWII?
Father's name is Łukasz, for sure; Aggie suggests Agnieszka.
In family search catalog I have found him in Censuses Records; one of them states he came in 1908. Through Philadelphia, Baltimore or New York? Have you already done a search there?

Also, it might be that what was read as a 't', is actually the polish letter (small and handwritten) 'ł'.

Gilberto

Hi Mattias,

To follow up on Gilberto’s suggestions...Since it appears that John was Roman Catholic (He is buried in a Catholic cemetery.) I would suggest as a strategy to try to locate baptismal records of his children born in PA. A Polish ethnic Catholic Parish in the vicinity of his residence in 1920 is St. Anthony’s in Cumbola. Cumbola is located near both New Philadelphia and Port Carbon. Since the parish priests were fluent in Polish the chances are good that the surname would have been entered with a Polish spelling.
Attached is a partial list of Polish parishes in PA. (A complete list of Polish ethnic parishes in the USA can be found in Going Home: A Guide to Polish-American Family History by Jonathan D. Shea) The only problem is that it seems that St. Anthony’s merged with another parish since the list was compiled. It would take some research on your part to find where St. Anthony’s sacramental records are housed. The website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia would probably be a good place to begin that search.

The marriage record for Sophia gives her mother’s maiden name as “Krull”, which is a probable English phonetic spelling of the Polish surname Król.

Aquila,

The documents can be viewed at https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?&count=20&offset=0&localeSubcountryName=Pennsylvania&query=%2Bgivenname%3Ajohn~%20%2Bsurname%3Awasatonic~%20%2Bspouse_givenname%3Ajulia~%20%2Brecord_country%3A%22United%20States%22%20%2Brecord_subcountry%3A%22United%20States%2CPennsylvania%22

The records available online in the USA were compiled by individuals who were not Polish and will be of no help to determine the actual surname.

Also, the Latin word used in records from Galicia is agricola, ae, m. farmer. The usual abbreviations are agr. or agric.

Dave

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

Aquila — Wed Jan 30, 2019 5:47 pm

Author: Aquila

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 5:47 pm

There are no people named "Wasatonik" in PL. I wonder how those US documents look like and how exactly they were gathering their info, I don't know why but when I saw "Aggie" (well... it may mean "Agnieszka", but it actually has no meaning in PL) my first thought was "agrie" - latin term for "farmer" used in XIXth century Austrian documents.
Can you upload those documents?

Re: Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"

Anonymous — Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:35 pm

Author: Anonymous

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:35 pm

MattiasT1565 wrote:

Original Polish name anglicized to "Wasatonic"?

MattiasT1565 — Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:51 pm

Author: MattiasT1565

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:51 pm

What might the original Polish surname be? One of my Great Grandfathers was named John Wasatonic (or Wasatonik or Wassatonic- depending upon the document.

He was born on Jan. 7 1885 and died Sept. 6 1934 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, USA.

His death certificate shows that his father was "Lukash Wasatonik" from Poland, mother was "Aggie" (no surname).
Our family has unsubstantiated info that the name was originally "Vasicionka" and they were from St. Petersburg, but I can find no info on this anywhere.