Iwona's Sources - Places & Surnames

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Introduction

This list of surnames comes from different areas of 19th Century Poland.  In reality, Poland did not exist during this period, having been partitioned by Austria, Russia and Prussia at the end of the 18th Century. Records during this period were registered as either Austria (Galicia), Russia or Prussia.  Poland did not regain its independence until after World War I in 1918.

By listing surnames by the three partitions makes it easier to determine what general area of Poland your ancestors immigrated from since that was how they were listed in passenger records country of origin. This also makes it easier to determine the area of origin since the same surnames and place names appear throughout all regions of Poland.

Lithuania - which belonged to the Russian partition - was listed separately because of its strong autonomy, own language and nationality.

If you find your ancestor's surname under the Russian column, do not assume they were Russian.  Over the centuries, people from many countries lived in Poland, mainly Germans, Austrians, Russians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Jews,

The names use equivalent Roman letters without the Polish diacritical marks because some software programs do not decode them correctly and provide odd characters instead of the correct letter.

Map of Partitions of Poland : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Partitions_of_Poland.png

Region
Surnames
Towns
Galicia 10,421 334
Lithuania 2,909 209
Polish Kingdom 450 8
Polish Kingdom 1620-1630 244 1
Polish Kingdom 1710-1744 337 20
Polish Kingdom 1750-1780 Nobles 40 1
Prussia 8,096 213
Russia 16,437 469
Russia/Lithuania 650 3
Warsaw 272 19
Total 39,856 1,252

The listed surnames come partly from entire parishes and partly from specific places.  Sometimes several villages compromise one parish so in that case the surname would be listed  not by the town, but by the parish.

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Last Updated on August 31, 2010