KarenJones
Joined: 24 May 2019
Replies: 31
Location: Alaska, United StatesBack to top |
Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2025 4:22 pm
Post subject: Surname Variant Help to Understand
TARGET ANCESTOR: Franz PAUL Skrzÿpek
It has taken me quite a few years to find the actual place where my GGF was born, and now I finally have what I believe to 99.9% is his birth information. I am sure that the naming variants caused much of the barrier to finding his real given/surname and birth village.
The first few records I found early on were the Hamburg passenger record with the name of John Skroszepecki and the other record was his Declaration of Intention for Naturalization in Minnesota, USA as Paul Skripecski. On the Hamburg record it is clear the names were written by someone other than target ancestor. But, on the Naturalization record, he wrote his name and I have attached that .jpg. He also requested a name change through the Naturalization process as SKRYPEK and not SKRZYPEK. There are additional name variants including Jan Paul and also on the Geneteka birth record of his daughter, the name is Anna Skrzypecka born in Zyrardow, Mazowieckie, Poland. The first two children born in the US had another strange variant of this name.
Most of my research in Prussia and Poland was looking for the surname of Skrzypecki, which I thought was legitimate. And also, the given name was Jan Paul or Paul. I NEVER looked for a Franz Paul Skrzÿpek. I finally had a breakthrough first finding a brother and niece and then I broke the brick wall.
Now, I hope you experts can help me understand WHY my GGF would write his surname as Skrzypecki and his given name (mostly) as Paul or Jan Paul instead of Franz Paul. When I initally believe his surname as Skrzypecki, I could understand how people would write those incorrectly. But that does not explain why the name Skrzypecki is Skrzypek.
Can anyone clue me in as to the 3 name variants: Skrzypecki, Skripecski and Skrzypek. Then on top of it, he requested his name change on the Naturalization record as Skrypek, and that is the family surname today. He never used the name Franz on any document that I have found. This has been a frustration and very long process of finally finding his documents in then Prussia (now Poland). Just as an FYI to anyone else who might be interested, he was born in Friedersdorf, Kreis Neustadt, Provinz Schlesien, Preußen. Today that place is called Biedrzychowice, Opole, Poland.
P.S. He was not a twin. His occupation was a Stone Mason and he could read and write according to census records.
Thanks for any answers. Karen Jones
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1533
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Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 5:38 am
Post subject:
Hi Karen,
You have an interesting question, as always! I need to give it a bit of thought and then I will get back to you. I would like to ask, however, on the birth record that you found for "Franz Paul Skrzÿpek," whether or not the name Paul is underlined. Also, I find it quite odd to see two dots above the letter "y" in his name. That makes no sense for a German or a Polish name. Is it possible for you to post an image of this?
I would encourage you to read about the concept of a "Rufname" in German genealogy. It may answer your question about why the name Franz shows up on his birth record and then was never used again by him, if Paul was his "call name" and Franz was not.
Best regards,
Sophia
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KarenJones
Joined: 24 May 2019
Replies: 31
Location: Alaska, United StatesBack to top |
Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2025 10:53 am
Post subject:
Answering questions from Sophia:
1. No, there is no underline for Paul. I have snipped a portion of the record and see attached. I cannot link the record because it is a locked record from Family Search and I only have the .jpg record.
2. Yes, I have see the two marks over the name on the Delmenhorst records for his siblings and parents, but NOT on the records in Friedersdorf (Biedrzychowice). I have snipped out a part of a record and you can see Paul's father Karl and his father Ferdinand's names on the record with the marks. So, that is confusing to me why on some records we see the dots and not on others.
Here is the other thing...on the Minnesota (MN) Naturalization Record, it seems very clear the birth YEAR was possibly written in later. Look at the writing. What is unusual about this is that Paul has 29 June 1864? It is NOT POSSIBLE for Paul to have been born in 1864. His brother Johann was born 7 Feb 1864 and died before the following Johann was born 27 Sep 1866 and he later died in Delmenhorst, Germany in 1942.
So, as I said before, I definitely want to believe that the FRANZ PAUL is my Paul. I don't know, maybe I have to go through that book for any gaps to see if there is another child that was born exactly on 29 Jun. That seems a bit unlikely.
Finally, I know that I am connected to this family and not just my DIRECT line. I found two DNA connections through the direct line of Paul's sibling. Also, on Paul and his wife Agnes' marriage record, Paul has the same parents names as all of the other siblings.
Any other wisdom you might offer would be appreciated. Maybe I am making too much of this. I am not sure.
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1533
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2025 6:09 am
Post subject:
Hi Karen,
I spent some time thinking about your fluid surname. It happens that way sometimes, and we may not ever really know why our ancestors went the route they did through various iterations of their names. What I try to do is to distinguish between what a family called themselves (which can change over time) and which variants of the name are clerical errors. The situations where I am most suspicious of an error are these: the way a name appears in a census record or on a ship manifest, or how it shows up in any index that is derived from someone reading a handwritten record. With what you wrote in your first post on this thread, where you are giving the most weight to a document where Paul wrote his name himself, I think you have a similar view of the situation. I will add that if you go back in time to a period in your family research to where there are no documents written by your ancestors, you don't really know what they called themselves, you only know what the record-maker heard and wrote. I don't have to reach back very many generations to have people whose only trace of existence is a birth record, a marriage record, and a death record in the church book. I believe that some names morphed in that system, with or without the family agreeing to it or even knowing about it until they needed a certificate for some official reason.
So, back to your family name. The word skrzypce means violin in Polish. A violinist is a skrzypek. Skrzypek is a Polish surname, and in the world of Polish surnames, the ending -cki means "of" or "belonging to" so you also have the Polish surname Skrzypecki which is far less common than Skrzypek. I am relying on the herby.com website that utilizes data from the Polish census of 1998, where there were 8887 people using the name Skrzypek and 281 using Skrzypecki. When Paul used the spelling Skripecski, it is my opinion that this latter name is what he had in mind. Using Polish spelling, there are no names that begin with Skrip.... and there are no names that end in ....cski. Skripecski is his way of capturing the sound of his own name. It comes close to Skrzypeczki (which I am not finding as a surname that anyone used) which I would take to be a diminutive of Skrzypce, that is to say, a variation that indicates that something is small, young and/or very dear to the person who is speaking. If I no longer wanted to be thought of as a dear, sweet little violin, I too might make the official change from Skrzypeczki to Skrzypek, but I have no way of knowing if that was in Paul's mind. I simply offer this up as something for you to think about.
Going back to the spelling Skrzÿpek, I wonder if you might post a query on the German records translation thread. I am unfamiliar with having an umlaut over the letter y but my expectations of how German words are spelled is entirely formed from the way German is used today. Michael, who answers questions on that thread, knows much more about how things might have appeared in years prior to spelling reforms. If it isn't a y with an umlaut, then it is a pair of letters, ij giving the appearance of y umlaut.
Good luck sorting it all out. I think you did tremendous work tracing back through this maze of names to find a birth record for Paul. I agree with you that the year of birth (1864) on Paul's naturalization petition was added in later. I would say it was written by the same person who wrote the rest of what is written on that page, just in a heavier ink. I am basing this on the way the number 4 was written, there in the year of birth but also 3 lines lower down on the page.
Best regards,
Sophia
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KarenJones
Joined: 24 May 2019
Replies: 31
Location: Alaska, United StatesBack to top |
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2025 8:21 am
Post subject: SOLVED
Thank you for the time you spent considering the options. The polish name variant responses make sense to me based upon the facts of what you said, and also trying to go to the mind of the person/immigrant. I am going to follow up on the dots over the Y, as you said, but I was confused by this because this would not be found in the polish names. I am satisfied that since some of my ancestors later moved to Delmenhorst, Germany and their records showed up with the marks over the Y that this was a common for the German records. But, I am still going to follow up on it, just for my own knowledge. If I had never seen the name Jan on 3 records for my GGF, I would not ever give the name Franz Paul another thought. But Jan...hmmm. It is absolutely impossible that his name was Johann/Jan because there were already two siblings with that name; the first died and I have records on the second. So, that is a mystery. Next time I go to LDS Family History Center, I will go to that baptism book and see if there are any "gaps" between siblings, but...another 29 Jun birth seems statistically impossible. After that, I am putting this rest once and for all. I have DNA proof to MANY Skrzypeks who are very close relatives and who I grew up with. I might just be "beating a dead horse". I guess it took me so long to finally find marriage and birth records, that I just want to dot all the i's and cross the t's. I'm not going to beat myself up anymore, and I can't go to the mind of my GGF's decisions. Thanks for all the thought you put into this. Karen 
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SophiaPO Top Contributor
Joined: 05 Oct 2014
Replies: 1533
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Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2025 8:39 am
Post subject:
Karen, one more thought for you. Take a look at the family tree that includes Johann Sebastian Bach. Check out how many families had multiple sons named Johann, without the name being used as a replacement for a child who died. This takes me back to my earlier point of the Rufname / "call name" idea. Follow this link and scroll down to the diagram:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_family
Best,
Sophia
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KarenJones
Joined: 24 May 2019
Replies: 31
Location: Alaska, United StatesBack to top |
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2025 8:43 am
Post subject:
I will also look at that link. Thank you, as always.
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