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WOL~OSKOWSKI
To: John Wolowski, john_wolowski@email.msn.com,
who wrote:
...Could you do a quick & dirty study of my
name Woloskowski, My grandfather came from Stanislaw.
It is now called Ivano-Frankivsk...
The name is spelled Wol~oskowski in Polish, where l~
is the Polish l with a slash through it,
pronounced like our w, so that the name would
sound like "vo-wos-KOFF-skee." It comes from
the root wol~och, "Wallachian, a pastoral
ethnic group of Carpathia and Romania," according to
Polish name expert Kazimierz Rymut. The root wol~och-/wl~och-
actually meant "foreigner" originally, and the
modern Polish word for "Italian," Wl~och,
comes from this root (ultimately, so does the English
word "Welch," for that matter), but when used
in surnames the root usually refers to the Wallachians.
That may sound unlikely, but in medieval times that area
was sometimes under Polish rule or influence, and there
were some ties between Poles and Romanians, so it's
actually quite plausible.
Your particular surname's ending of -owski
suggests it began as a reference to a connection between
your family and a specific place, the name of which began
with Wol~och-, perhaps Wol~ochowo or Wol~ocho~w. Thus the
surname means "person from Wol~ochow[o]," which
further breaks down into "person from the places of
the Wallachians." Offhand I can't find any places
with names that fit, but the place in question is
probably now in Ukraine, and my sources for there are not
as good as for Poland proper.
Some of the names from the root wol~och are
fairly common, such as Wol~och (997 Poles by that name as
of 1990) and Wol~osz (1,651), but Wol~oskowski isn't one
of them -- as of 1990 there were only 16 Polish citizens
by that name. They lived in the provinces of Jelenia Gora
(5), Opole (1), Szczecin (2), Wroclaw (1), and Zielona
Gora (7). These are all in western Poland, and it's a
good bet few of them lived there before 1945 -- that's
when huge numbers of people were relocated from what had
been eastern Poland to the lands taken from Germany and
added to Poland's western borders... Unfortunately, I
have no data on name frequency and distribution in what
is now Ukraine, so the area around Ivano-Frankivsk
(formerly Stanisl~awo~w) wouldn't show up in the data I
have access to. (I should mention also that I have no
further details such as first names or addresses, and
don't know offhand how you could get them. I know that's
disappointing, but I figure I might as well tell folks
that up front).
PAWLIK
To: Kathleen Pawlik Gregoire, KGDUP@aol.com,
who wrote:
... I visited the PGSA web site and was reading
some of the surname information you have listed . I
would be interested in finding out the origin of my
surname Pawlik. Idid see Pawlak but do not think this
is the same. I would love to find out. I was told by
my father that my grandfather was wealthy in Poland
and that they came from kings and had servants
apparently in southern Poland. He also stated that
the name was shortened from Pawlikowski but this has
not been confirmed...
Pawlik means more or less the same as Pawlak -- both
come from the first name Pawel~ (Paul) and have
diminutive suffixes, so that they mean literally
"little Paul" and usually translate as
"son of Paul." Whether a name took the suffix -ak
or -ik seems to be insignificant -- in certain
regions people may have tended to add -ik rather
than -ak because they just liked the sound of it
better. I don't think you can read any great significance
into the difference unless you want to get into some very
detailed linguistic discussions.
Pawlik could be a shortened version of Pawlikowski,
but in general I doubt it, because the names mean
different things. Pawlik means "son of Paul,"
Pawlikowski means "person or family from the place
of Paul's son," i. e., "person from
Pawlikow" or perhaps "Pawlikowice." I
doubt Poles would shorten it, because to them there's
nothing long or difficult about saying Pawlikowski; and
if foreigners caused it to be changed, surely they'd
change it to something more German or English-sounding
than "Pawlik." However, there are always
exceptions to the general rules, so I can't say
definitely that the name wasn't shortened, only that I
doubt it.
All these names are quite common in Poland. As of 1990
there were 12,296 Pawlik's, 43,556 Pawlak's, and 7,070
Pawlikowski's. Since the names are so common, and
distributed widely all over the country, I don't really
have access to any specifics that would help with your
particular family; the most I can do is tell what a name
means, and indicate whether there's anything about it
that might make it easier to track down. These names are
so common that you have to figure there are many, many
different families bearing them, and I have no sources
that would shed light on any particular one. Only
detailed genealogical research will help with that.
KRAMARZ - KRAMASZ
To: Todd Kramasz, tkramasz@gizmoinc.com, who
wrote:
...I wish to find out the meaning of my surname.
It's K R A M A S Z. If possible, would someone be
able to determine the region(s) from which that name
originated in the old country?...
I'm glad to say I can give you a bit of info on this
name, although of course I can never give folks all the
info they'd like to have. In this case the name is
essentially the same as Polish Kramarz, which has the
same origin as the German name Kramer or Kra"mer;
they all mean a person who sold things at a small stall
or booth, for instance at fairs and markets. A kram
in Polish is a "stall" or a "booth,"
and a kramarz was one who kept such a stall.
Eventually the word's meaning was expanded a bit to
include anyone who kept a small shop dealing in
inexpensive or second-hand items. These people were often
Jewish, so we often see the name borne by Jews, but not
exclusively. It's kind of like Hoffman, both names
are especially common among Jews but were also borne by
Christians.
The difference between Kramarz and Kramasz is one of
spelling. In Polish rz usually sounds like the
"s" in "measure," and sz
sounds like the "sh" in "ship"; but
at the end of words the rz is
"devoiced," as linguists say, and sounds just
like the sz. So Kramarz and Kramasz were
pronounced exactly the same, and thus the name could be
spelled either way. However, most Poles knew the
"correct" form was Kramarz and spelled it that
way. Thus in 1990 there were 1,989 Polish citizens named
Kramarz and only 19 named Kramasz. So basically I'm
saying you want to keep your eye open for either spelling
-- you may well find documents where the name was spelled
Kramarz... I'm just guessing here, but it may be in the
past, when most Poles were farmers or peasants and had
little or no education, the spelling Kramasz was more
common, because that's what it sounded like; but in
recent decades, as more Poles learned to read and write,
more of them realized the "correct" spelling
was Kramarz, and that's why that spelling is prevalent
today. So your ancestors may have spelled it that way
when they emigrated, but since then that way of spelling
it has become less common in Poland.
I don't see any signficant pattern to the name
distribution in Poland. People named Kramarz lived all
over the country, with the largest numbers in the
provinces of Bielsko-Biala (104), Katowice (187), Krakow
(351), Rzeszow (148), and Tarnow (128), and smaller
numbers in virtually every other province. This suggests
the name is more common in southcentral and southeastern
Poland. As for Kramasz, the 19 Poles by that name lived
in the provinces of Warsaw (5), Katowice (3), Kielce (1),
Legnica (1), Lodz (1), Opole (1), Torun (1), Wroclaw (5),
and Zielona Gora (1); there aren't really enough of them
to establish any kind of pattern (and unfortunately I
don't have access to any source of info that would give
their first names and addresses).
MATELA -
SL~OMCZYN~SKI
To: David Slomczynski
<boytrytis@peachnet.campus.mci.net>, who wrote:
...My name is David Slomczynski and I am
interested in researching my family history in
Poland. My grandfather Anton Slomczynski emmigrated
from Poland between 1900 - 1915. My grandfather had a
sister who still lived in Poland - her married name
was Pelagia Matela. Any information you can provide
would be most appreciated...
The name Sl~omczyn~ski (slash through the l,
accent over the n, so that it would be pronounced
something like "swom-CHEEN-skee") comes
ultimately from the Polish root sl~oma meaning
"straw," but this particular name probably
derives from a connection between the family and one of
several places named Sl~omczyn or Sl~omczyna, something
like that -- and those place names, in turn, derive from
the word for "straw." On my maps I see two
places that are decent candidates: Sl~omczyn in Radom
province, a little north of the town of Grojec, and
Sl~omczyn in Warsaw province, a few km. southeast of
Warsaw. There may have been more places with names that
could generate the surname Sl~omczyn~ski -- very few
Polish place names are unique, and often surnames
originated from a connection with very small places you
won't even find on a map -- but those two are pretty good
bets.
As of 1990 there were 1,480 Polish citizens named
Sl~omczyn~ski, living all over Poland, with some of the
larger numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (342),
Czestochowa (93), Katowice (89), Poznan (88), Radom
(117), and Skierniewice (82). The large numbers in Warsaw
and Radom provinces probably are connected with those two
places I mentioned; the others might be as well, or might
derive from other places with similar names that, as I
say, are too small to show up on my maps, or have
disappeared or changed names in the centuries since the
surname developed.
Matela is a name seen in Polish legal records as far
back as 1416. It most likely started out as a nickname
for someone whose "proper" name was Mateusz or
Maciej (Matthew, Matthias), somewhat the same as
we form "Eddy" from "Edward." So it
probably began as a name meaning something like
"Matt" in English, and then eventually stuck as
a surname. As of 1990 there were 951 Matela's in Poland,
with the largest numbers in the provinces of Warsaw (79),
Bialystok (64), Konin (75), and Poznan (332), and smaller
numbers in many other provinces. I can't say I see any
real pattern to that distribution, which is not
surprising -- by its very nature, the name could have
started almost anywhere there were Poles named Matthew or
Matthias. We wouldn't generally expect surnames formed
from nicknames formed from popular first names to show up
only in one limited area. Unfortunately, that makes our
genealogical research that much harder! (By the way, I
don't have access to any sources with first names or
addresses of any of those Sl~omczyn~ski's or Matela's,
I'm afraid what I've given you is what I have).
RA~PAL~A - REMPAL~A
- RE~PAL~A - ROMPAL~A
To: RRempala@aol.com, who wrote:
...I am just starting the process of
researching my family's name and history. I would
appreciate any help that you can offer. The family
name is Rempala. From what I know, we still have
relatives in Poland and there are at least 2 distinct
families here in the US. Both have their roots in the
Chicago and Northern Indiana areas...
According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut,
this name comes from the root ra~pac~, "to
insult." I'm using a~ to stand for the Polish
nasal vowel written as an a with a tail under it
and pronounced like "on" or, before a b
or p, like "om" -- this vowel often
alternates with the nasal e~ written as an e
with a tail under it and pronounced like "en"
or, in this case, "em." (The c~ stands
for the accented c, which sounds like our
"ch" in "cheetah" -- God, I wish our
computers could show the Polish characters properly, it
would make things so much easier). In other words, these
two vowels tend to switch often, and they are often
spelled the way they sound, so that we can see the same
name appear as Ra~pal~a (l~ = the Polish l
with a slash through it, pronounced like our w ),
but it can also appear as Rompal~a, Re~pal~a, and
Rempal~a. In every case it's still the same basic name,
but spelled differently (kind of like Hofman, Hofmann,
Hoffman, Hoffmann, etc.). I hope this isn't too
confusing -- if you work with Polish names a lot it gets
to where it seems obvious, but I imagine it's kind of odd
to someone who doesn't work with Polish much.
The suffix -al~a, when added to a verb root,
usually implies continual repetition of the action
denoted by the verb. So Re~pal~a or Rempal~a (both
pronounced like "rem-PAW-ah") would mean
"one who's always insulting people."
As of 1990 there were 218 Polish citizens named
Rempal~a, with by far the largest group living in the
province of Tarnow (in southeastern Poland) and just a
few living here and there in other provinces. There were
65 Poles who spelled the name Re~pal~a, which surprises
me, I would have expected more to spell it e~
rather than em. In that case, also, the vast
majority (50) lived in Tarnow province... Just for
comparison, there were 1,294 named Ra~pal~a (again,
Tarnow province, with 577, had the biggest number), and
only 54 named Rompal~a (Tarnow province had 12, the
largest single group).
I'm not exactly saying that you should regard all
these names as identical to yours, that's not quite
accurate. They all share the same linguistic derivation;
but over the course of time the spellings diverged, so
that different families used different spellings. It is
very possible that you might run into your name spelled
Re~pal~a -- since em and e~ sound so
similar, we often see the same name spelled either way.
It's somewhat less likely that you'll see your named
spelled Ra~pal~a or Rompal~a. But it is a good idea to
keep your eyes open for those spellings; I can't rule out
the chance that you may the name spelled that way in some
cases.
ZWOLIN~SKI
To: Deborah Zwolinski, StrumNgal@aol.com, who
wrote:
...I am just beginning my quest to research my
family history and was wondering if you could help
with the possible origin of my last name and the
proper spelling: Zwolinski...
That probably is the correct spelling -- as of 1990
there were 7,864 Polish citizens named Zwolin~ski (the n~
represents the n with an accent over it, so that
the name is pronounced something like
"zvo-LEEN-skee"). The largest numbers lived in
the provinces of Warsaw (1,127), Gdansk (331), Katowice
(396), Krakow (331), Skierniewice (458), and Wloclawek
(390), with smaller numbers in virtually every other
province. This suggests the name is fairly evenly
distributed all over Poland, there doesn't appear to be
any one place or region where the name is especially
common, although of course Warsaw province is clearly the
home to a pretty good concentration.
Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut says this name
can come from the verb root zwolic~, "to
permit, allow," or from place names such as Zwola.
As a rule, names ending in -in~ski do tend to come
from place names; your surname probably started out
referring to a connection between your family and a place
they lived in, worked at, traveled to, etc. Most often,
it would simply mean "person or family from Zwola,
Zwolin, etc." Unfortunately, there's more than one
place this name could refer to. There are at least 3
Zwola's in Poland, two in Siedlce province and one in
Tarnow province; and there may be more too small to show
up on my maps. There are also at least a couple of
villages named Zwolen; in a world where languages were
absolutely precise, you'd expect that name to yield
Zwolen~ski, not Zwolin~ski; but in the real world, where
languages and spelling sometimes get a little sloppy,
"Zwolin~ski" might also refer to a Zwolen as
well as a Zwola. So the surname doesn't give us enough
info to let us say "it means person from this place
right here and nowhere else." But if your research
establishes that your family came from a specific area,
and you find there is a place with a name beginning Zwol-
nearby, that is probably the one the surname originally
referred to.
SZCZYGIEL~
To: Joan Bamlett, Rodney_Steigel@bc.sympatico.ca,
who wrote:
...My name is Joan Bamlett and I live in Canada. I
recently learned that my great-grandfather came from
Wroclaw. I recently met a lady that came to Canada
from Poland about seven years ago. She put me onto
'Herbarz Polski'. This is the first time that I've
tried to find anything here. I would appreciate
anything that you can tell me about out paternal name
of Szczygiel...
I'm glad you established that the original form of the
name was Szczygiel -- if I had gone hunting for Steigel I
probably would have come up with wrong information, since
that is a perfectly good German name that can derive from
roots having nothing to do with Szczygiel. But given the
German-Polish connections in the Wroclaw area (as well as
many other parts of Poland), the change Szczygiel to
Steigel makes sense. So your having the right form saves
error and confusion.
Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut says this name
comes from the Polish word szczygiel~,
"goldfinch," a kind of bird; note that I'm
using l~ to stand for the Polish l with a
slash through it, which is pronounced like our w,
so that the name would sound something like
"shchig'-yeh" with a slight w-sound at
the end. There are many Polish surnames that come from
words for birds and other animals, and it can often be
quite difficult to imagine how they originated -- why
would your ancestor be named for a goldfinch? It could be
he lived in an area where these birds were particularly
common; or that people knew he had a special liking for
them, or liked to catch them and keep them as pets; or
that something about his manner reminded people of them.
I also see in my 8-volume Polish-language dictionary that
szczygiel~ was a term used jokingly for students
at certain provincial and county schools, called that
because they wore a uniform with a stiff red color and
and a red cap; so they looked a little like the birds in
question. That may or may not be relevant, but it seems
worth mentioning -- even if that isn't how the name
started in your family's particular case, it does shed
light on how such names came to be applied.
This name appears in Polish records as far back as
1499, so it's been around a long time! I didn't know
there were any noble families by this name, but the
Polish nobility isn't something I know a lot about.
Szczygiel~ is very common in Poland, as of 1990 there
were 10,245 Polish citizens by that name. They lived all
over the country, with especially large numbers in the
provinces of Warsaw (449), Bielsko-Biala (419),
Czestochowa (409), Katowice (1,760), Kielce (632), Krakow
(688), and Lublin (657) -- most of these are in
southcentral to southeastern Poland, so the name's
somewhat more common in that region (traditionally called
Malopol~ska or Little Poland, and from the late 1700's to
1918 it was part of the Austrian Empire, the western half
of the region called Galicia). This doesn't really narrow
the area of your search down much, but I thought it was
worth mentioning because you never know what detail might
prove helpful in research.
KONDYSAR
To: Ryan Johnson, rjjohnson@webtv.net, who
wrote:
...I am very new to geneology but I am trying
to research my family the Kondysar's from a town
called Rudnik n. Sanem. I am interested in that name,
and have been told it is a name of some signifigance,
and that it might actually be of Russian and or
Jewish descent...
Well, first I looked to see if I could get any hard
data on the name. A 10-volume set that lists all surnames
of Poles as of 1990, and gives a breakdown on what
provinces they lived in, shows Kondysar to be a very rare
name -- as of 1990 there were only 15 of them, 11 living
in Tarnobrzeg province, 4 in Wroclaw province.
"Rudnik nad Sanem" means "Rudnik on the
San River" (to distinguish it from other places
named Rudnik), and Rudnik nad Sanem is in Tarnobrzeg
province in southeastern Poland; so it appears we can say
there are still some 11 people with your name living in
or fairly near Rudnik, since Tarnobrzeg province isn't
all that big.
Unfortunately I don't have further details such as
first names and addresses; but perhaps you could get
those from a search of the Tarnobrzeg province phone
book. The Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast
probably has that directory, and it will look up such
data for a very moderate fee -- since you're only asking
about one name and have a very good idea where it's find,
I think it would be pretty cheap, maybe $10-20 at the
most. You might try writing the PGS-NE at 8 Lyle Rd., New
Britain CT 06053, and see if they can help you. Polish
phone directories are not nearly as comprehensive as
those in the U.S. -- phones in private homes are less
common there -- but you might get lucky and find a
Kondysar listed. If so, he/she is almost certainly a
relative!
The origin of the name is a puzzle. On the whole, I
doubt it's Jewish; but I think the reason you were told
that is that a book by Alexander Beider listing Russian
Jews' surnames mentions a Kundysh, saying it comes from a
Russian word for a kind of clothing, or from Yiddish kundes,
"wanton, wag." But no mention of Kondysar. And
if the family were Jewish, I would think chances are good
Beider would have mentioned the name; and I'm not
convinced the surname comes from either of those words
anyway.
Since none of my sources mention this name, I went
looking through my 8-volume Polish-language dictionary to
see if there was any plausible root it might have come
from. I discovered there is a term kondys, a
variant of the word usually seen as kundel, which
is a kind of mongrel dog, often used by shepherds or
herdsmen; it can also be a kind of slang term for a
simpleton or good-for-nothing fellow. In the Slavic
languages the suffix -ar (in Polish -arz)
usually means much the same as -er in English, so
I tend to suspect that a Kondysar would be a
person who bred or used such dogs; that strikes me as a
bit more probable than the "simpleton"
connection. The name might be of Slovakian or Ukrainian
origin, in view of where Rudnik is located. That's even
more likely because those languages are more likely to
use -ar where a truly Polish form would be
something like Kondysarz. But down in southeastern
Poland you get a kind of linguistic mixing, so that a
person might well be a Polish citizen and yet bear a name
that shows traces of Ukrainian or Slovakian influence. I
think that may account for the -ar form (it's
interesting that there was no listing of anyone named
Kondysarz). This suggests the name is rare and might not
be originally Polish; but clearly there are a few folks
by that name living in southeastern Poland, and they're
probably related to you.
If you get in touch with them, they might be able to
shed more light on exactly what Kondysar means. My guess
is that it originally meant someone who bred or used
mutts to watch herds. But that is merely an educated
guess, and could prove completely wrong!
Anyway, that's the best I can offer you. I hope you
have some luck getting in contact with the Kondysar's
living near Rudnik -- if you do, I'd be quite interested
in hearing what they say about the name. And in any case,
I wish you the best of luck with your research!
HAJDUK
To: d-cooper@juno.com, who wrote:
...We spoke with you briefly, at the Polish
Genealogy Society of Texas meeting on Saturday, about
the meanings of names and from what region in Poland
a name may be from. We asked you about the name
Haiduk. What is the meaning of that name and what
region is known for that name being prominent? ...
Hajduk is the standard Polish spelling of this name,
though you might also see Chaiduk, Haiduk, Hayduk,
Hejduk, and Heyduk (because of phonetic similarities --
all those spellings are pronounced very similarly). As of
1990 there were 9,133 Poles by this name, so it is a
fairly common one. People by this name live in all the
provinces of Poland, with the largest numbers showing up
in the provinces of Warsaw (422), Katowice (1,659),
Kielce (579), Krakow (512), Opole (477), Przemysl (312)
and Tarnow (453). With the exception of Warsaw (which, as
the capital, tends to have large numbers of almost any
name you look up), those provinces are in the
southcentral and southeastern part of the country, the
region called Malopolska (Little Poland)... Names formed
from this root are also pretty common, including
Hayduczek (394), Hajdukiewicz (930, both of those mean
"son of a hajduk"), and Hejduk (1,121),
the same name with a vowel change. Hajduk sounds
like "HIGH-duke," Hejduk sounds like
"HAY-duke," and the switch between what we'd
call the long i sound of "aj" and the long a
sound of "ej" is very common.
The origin of the name is interesting. It comes from
Turkish hajdud, "brigand, ruffian,
highwayman," and came into Hungarian as hajdu"
(two dots over the u). It came into Polish meaning
"soldier in the Hungarian infantry, which existed in
Poland from the beginning to the middle of the 17th
century, and later served in campaigns of infantry
captains." Near the borders Slavs shared with Turks
it meant "fellow who waged war against the Turks on
his own account." After it became established in
Polish it also came to mean "robber, ruffian,
highwayman." It also came to be used to refer to
servants who dressed like Hajduks, in Hungarian clothing.
It has also been used as the name of a dance common among
the mountain folk of southeastern Poland, kind of like
the dance we've seen the Cossacks due, with a lot of
squatting and jumping.
So you see, the name can mean a lot of things in
Polish, most related one way or another to the original
Turkish term that came into Hungarian and thence into
Polish. It's common in Poland, and I imagine in most
cases the connection is with the Hungarian infantrymen --
but in some cases it might have come from the usage of
the word as "robber," or even occasionally from
the "servant dressed like a Hungarian"
connection.
ANDRYSIAK - HYSKA
To: William J Andershock, bandrshk@juno.com,
who wrote:
...Can you give me any information on the
surnames of Andrysiak and Hyska...
Well, let's take Andrysiak first. It comes from the
first name Andrzej (the Polish version of
"Andrew"), which over the centuries has
appeared in Polish in many forms. To one of those forms, Andrys,
the suffix -iak was added; it generally means
"son of," so Andrysiak means "Andrew's
son" (compare "Anderson" in English).
Surnames formed from popular first names are quite common
in Poland, so it's not surprising that this name is
reasonably common -- as of 1990 there were 1,793 Polish
citizens by that name. I don't see any particular pattern
to the distribution, which makes sense: this name could
get started anywhere they spoke Polish and had guys named
"Andrew" who had sons.
The change to Andershock was probably just due to
phonetics. Non-Poles found it hard to figure out how
Andrysiak was pronounced, so someone started using a
spelling that they could pronounce, one that still
sounded similar to the Polish original. Andrysiak sounds
kind of like "on-DRISH-ak," and if you said
that out loud to an English-speaking person it could
easily end up as "Andershock." This sort of
thing happened to Polish names all the time, it's not
unusual or surprising.
Hyska is a tough one. I find there is a rather
seldom-used word hyska that means "small
horse, pony, hobby-horse," and the name could come
from that. But it doesn't really sound like proper
Polish, and the name itself is a problem because there's
nothing it really matches up with well, and there about a
jillion things it might match up with if you factor in
spelling variations. All I can say is that as of 1990
there were 357 Poles named Hyski, of whom some surely
were females and therefore called Hyska (the suffix -ski
changes to -ska when referring to females).
The Hyski's were scattered all over Poland, with the
largest numbers living in the provinces of Gdansk (34),
Katowice (63), Legnica (30), and Wroclaw (35). That's not
a lot of info, I know, but my sources just don't have
much that gives clues about this name.
SERWACH - SERWACKI
To: bannisc@lansing.cc.mi.us, who wrote:
...My great-grandfather Kazimier Serwack was born
1888 in Warsaw, I'm looking for any information that
I can get, thanks...
I'm afraid what I have may not be a lot of practical
help to you, although it may be nice to know what the
name means. It comes from the first name Serwacy (pronounced
"ser-VOT-see"), not an extremely common first
name in Poland but not all that rare either, especially a
few centuries ago, when surnames were being formed. It
comes from Latin "Servatius," from the word servatus,
"saved." Several surnames were formed from this
first name, including Serwach and Serwacki. I can't tell
for sure which of these two is relevant here --
"Serwack" may be a misspelling of
"Serwach," or a variant form of it, but it
might also be Serwacki with the ending -i inadvertently
dropped. Either way, though, both names would have
derived from the first name, probably as a sort of verbal
shorthand for "the kin of Serwacy, Serwacy's
offspring."
As of 1990 there were 583 Polish citizens named
Serwach, with the largest numbers living in the provinces
of Warsaw (79), Lodz (95), and Plock (149), and smaller
numbers scattered in other provinces. There were 171
Poles named Serwacki, with the largest numbers living in
the provinces of Warsaw (20), Lublin (33), Pila (23), and
Tarnobrzeg (36). The most common surname from this root
is Serwa, borne by 1,087 Poles in 1990.
BANAS
To: Gregg Banas, gcbanas@hotmail.com, who
wrote:
...I have recently begun trying to trace my roots
back to Poland. In doing some research, I came across
your page on Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites. My last
name is Banas and I would love to know everything I
can about it. I realize you only do meanings, but if
you could lead me somewhere else, I would deeply
appreciate it...
In Polish this name can be spelled either Banas or
Banas~ (s~ stands for the s with an accent
over it, pronounced like a soft, hissing "sh").
The spelling Banas~ is more common -- as of 1990 there
were 11,828 Poles by that name, as opposed to 286 who
spelled it Banas (without the accent). The Poles named
Banas~ lived all over the country, with especially large
numbers in the provinces of Bielsko-Biala (504), Katowice
(1,430), Kielce (1,165), Krakow (955), Przemysl (522),
Tarnow (782), and Wroclaw (527). All those provinces are
in southcentral to southeastern Poland, in the areas
historically called "Silesia" and
"Mal~opolska" (Little Poland). However, the
name is common all over the country, those are just the
areas where it tends to show up the most.
This name originated as a kind of nickname for someone
named Benedykt (Benedict). Although Benedykt is
the standard form of that first name in modern Polish,
some centuries ago (back when surnames were being formed)
there were other forms widely used, including Banadyk.
Poles liked to form new names or nicknames by taking the
first few sounds of popular first names, dropping the
rest, and adding suffixes (somewhat as we formed
"Eddy" from "Edward" and
"Teddy" from "Theodore"). So they
took the Bana- from Banadyk, added an -s~,
and that give the name Banas~ -- a lot like our
nicknames "Ben" or "Bennie." Later,
as surnames became established, a family might have
gotten this name because some particularly prominent
member had this name, so that it meant, in effect,
"Ben's kin."
Surnames deriving from nicknames for popular first
names generally are quite common in Poland, and this is
no exception, as the figures above prove.
GA~DEK - GONDEK -
PAZ~DZIORA - ZWORSKI
To: Noel Gondek, noel@computeractive.com, who
wrote:
...I was hoping that you could help me with three
Polish names that I am having a very difficult time
finding information on: Gondek, Pazdziora, Zworski...
Well, I can offer at least a little information on
them. It may not be as much as you'd hoped for -- the
nature of surname research makes it difficult to provide
really detailed information on names without equally
detailed research into the history of the individual
family that goes by them. But my sources do provide some
insights.
Gondek is a spelling variant of Ga~dek, where I'm
using a~ to represent the Polish nasal vowel
written as an a with a tail under it and
pronounced much like on (especially as in French bon).
Since the a~ sounds so much like on, it is
very common to see names written either way; so Ga~dek
and Gondek are two ways of spelling the same name, with
Ga~dek being the more "Polish" way to spell it.
According to Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut in his
book Nazwiska Polakow [The Surnames of Poles],
Ga~dek appears in Polish legal records as far back as
1415, and derives from the term ga~dek,
"player, home-bred musician." So this name was
applied to somebody who played an instrument without any
formal training.
As of 1990 there were 3,499 Polish citizens named
Ga~dek; they lived all over Poland, with the largest
numbers in the provinces of: Katowice 378, Kielce 406,
Krakow 767, and Tarnow 596. Thus the name is most common
in southcentral and southeastern Poland. As for the
spelling Gondek, it was borne by 3,042 Poles, with the
largest numbers in the provinces of: Bydgoszcz 202,
Katowice 320, Krakow 263, and Tarnow 466 -- a similar
distribution.
According to Rymut, Paz~dziora (z~ = z
with an accent over it, sounding like a soft, hissing
"zh") comes from the root paz~dzierz,
"harl of flax, awns." It might be a reference
to a person's hair, which looked like a bunch of flax, or
perhaps it referred to some other characteristic of a
person -- surnames often developed from nicknames, and it
can be very hard to deduce what nicknames originally
referred to. As of 1990 there were 590 Poles named
Paz~dziora, with the largest numbers living in the
provinces of Bielsko-Biala (248), Katowice (78), Krakow
(30), and Wroclaw (29) -- again, in the southcentral part
of Poland.
Zworski is far less common -- as of 1990 there were
only 64 Poles with this name, living in the following
provinces: Warsaw (15), Jelenia Gora (12), Krakow (12),
Legnica (4), Olsztyn (9), Opole (1), Pila (4), and
Wroclaw (7). (Unfortunately I have no access to any
further details, such as first names or addresses). None
of my sources give any clue what this name might come
from, and I find no place it might refer to --
theoretically Zworski could mean "person or family
from Zwor or Zwora." There is a term zwora
meaning "something that closes or holds two things
shut, dowel, cramp (in building)," so that might be
the origin of the name. Perhaps it applied to a person
who made or used such objects. But there is also a rather
rare word, zwo~r, which means "a dry gully in
the Carpathians, between mountains close together, which
points to a breach of rivers." That's what the
dictionary says, I'm assuming it means a narrow opening
between mountains caused by erosion. In any case,
geographical features such as this often were the source
of surnames, which suggests the family involved lived in
or near such a place. If that is the root of this
surname, it suggests the family lived in southcentral or
southeastern Poland, in the Carpathian Mountains.
KROMREI - KRUMREY
To: Sherry Siezega, SSiez28689@aol.com, who
wrote:
...A few weeks ago, I asked you about the name
Kromimceir, which you stated was probably incorrect,
or else the name has "petered" out. I have
found out, after checking many resources, that the
name was incorrect. I have just found out and
verified that my great grandmother's last name was
Kromrei. In her lifetime, she lived in Sonnenborn,
Germany....but that area is now known as Slonecznik,
Poland. Do you know how this name is pronounced? And
also, can you give me any insight, towards the name?
...
The name Kromrei would be pronounced something like
"CHROME-ray" by Poles, by Germans more like
"CHROME-rye." It's normal for the German
combination ei to be pronounced "ay" by
Poles and like "eye" by Germans; the Polish
pronunciation is probably based on the fact that in some
dialects Germans pronounce it like "ay" and
those dialects are the ones Poles had the most contact
with, even if the "standard" German
pronunciation was different.
It's pretty likely this name is German in origin; the
few Polish words and names with the root Kromr-
were borrowed from German anyway. There seem to me two
possible roots. The surname might come from Kramer/Kromer,
which was an occupational term, meaning a person who kept
a small stall at markets or a small shop, in either case
selling inexpensive items. In Polish this term became
Kramarz, in German it normally shows up as Kramer or
Kra"mer, but it can sometimes appear with o
instead of a. It is a fairly common name in those
forms.
The other likely root -- and this strikes me as the
better candidate -- is the German surname Krummrey, which
German expert Hans Bahlow says comes from the Middle High
German roots kru"mm, "bend in the
road," + rein, "ridge, bank or border of
a field." Krummrey is noted as a place name
mentioned in records, designating a field and meaning
probably something like "place by where the ridge or
road curves."
The reason I think this latter is a bit more likely is
because I looked up info on the plausible forms of this
name as borne by Poles in 1990, and came up with the
following data (showing how many Poles had that name and
what provinces they lived in):
KROMRAJ: 36; Bielsko-Biala 7, Bydgoszcz 1, Gdansk 1,
Gorzow 4, Krakow 4, Legnica 2, Sieradz 3, Szczecin 5,
Walbrzych 5, Wroclaw 4
KROMREI: 9; Katowice 1, Olsztyn 8
KROMREJ: 3; Olstzyn 3
KRUMRAJ: 22; Bydgoszcz 16, Pila 6
KRUMREI: 6; Gdansk 1, Olsztyn 3, Suwalki 2
KRUMREJ: 19; Elblag 1, Katowice 1, Olsztyn 2, Torun 15
KRUMREY: 33; Warsaw 1, Bydgoszcz 5, Elblag 6, Leszno
3, Pila 13, Poznan 5
While the only real pattern we can see is that this
name tends to show up in areas with lots of Germans, it
also seems pretty likely from this data that these are
all variants of the same name, and o and u
switch pretty easily. From a linguistic point of view
this is plausible. Note that these forms of the name
often show up in what is now Olsztyn province, and that's
important because that's where you should be looking. It
may be that some regional pronunciation quirk made
Olsztyn one of the places where the vowel was more often u
than o.
There are two villages called Sl~onecznik, both in
what used to be East Prussia and now is the province of
Olsztyn (German name Allenstein) in northern Poland. One
was called Sonnenberg by the Germans, near Szczytno, but
that's not the one you want. You want the one the Germans
called Sonneborn, about 7-8 km. south of the town of
Mora~g (a~ = the Polish nasal vowel written as an a
with a tail under it and pronounced much like on).
In Polish the root sl~once means "sun,"
just like Sonne in German, so it's not odd the two
villages have similar names in both languages. Your
Sl~onecznik had its own Catholic parish church, which may
be where your family's records were kept if they were
Catholic; if they were Protestant (and many in the area
were), it appears the records would have been kept either
in Sl~onecznik/Sonnenborn or in nearby Mora~g (German
name Mohrungen).
So I think the name is German, the most common form of
it is Krummrey in German, but the other forms shown above
are all legitimate, and they all started out as a name
for a place. There are not a lot of Poles these days with
any of the forms of the name, but there are a few, and it
appears some of them still live in Olsztyn province --
possibly still quite near Sl~onecznik near Mora~g.
DUSHENSKI -
DUSZYN~SKI - OLSZEWSKI - SCHELL - SZEL
To: tgradtke@iswi.net, who wrote:
...I have been searching my father's family.
Currently the name is spelled Schell. In older
records I have found the family name spelled Szel and
Szell. My grandmother's family also came from Poland.
The family name was Olsheski also spelled Olshewska.
My grandmother's grandmother's maiden name was
Dushenski also spelled Duskenski. The Schell's came
for Posen area; a town call Tokorowo which no longer
exist. My grandmother's family came to Wisconsin a
long time ago and no one remembers were from Poland
they were from. If you can help me--God Bless...
Szel and Szell are just Polish phonetic spellings of
German Schell -- the sound we spell "sh" is
spelled sch in German and sz in Polish. In
any case, the origin of the surname is German, from a
root meaning "loud, noisy person," according to
German name expert Hans Bahlow. As of 1990 there were
only 38 Poles with that name, most living in the
provinces of Koszalin (9), Wroclaw (11), and Zielona Gora
(8) -- not surprisingly, these are in the areas of
western Poland that used to be ruled by Germany. However
the name Szela (from the same root and meaning the same
thing) is much more common, there were 930 Polish
citizens named Szela as of 1990, living all over the
country, with largest numbers in the provinces of Gdansk
(131), Rzeszow (359), and Tarnow (101).
Olszewski is the standard Polish spelling of
"Olsheski" -- again, that latter spelling makes
sense as a phonetic spelling in English of what the
Polish name sounded like. Olszewski means "person
from Olszewo" (or several other place names
beginning with the root Olszew- or Olsz-);
those places take their names from the root olsza,
"alder tree," so you could interpret the
surname as meaning "peole from the place of the
alder tree." Unfortunately there's about a jillion
villages in Poland named Olszewo, so God only knows which
particular one your family was named for. As of 1990
there were 44,638 Poles named Olszewski, living all over
the country.
With the other name it's hard to tell whether it would
originally have been Duszenski or Duskenski or what --
neither is a common name. But it might be a variant of
Duszyn~ski, a name borne by 6,436 Poles as of 1990. Most
names beginning with Dusz- come from dusza,
"soul," especially the diminutive duszka,
literally "little soul" but used as a term of
affectionate, sort of like "my sweet." Without
firmer data on the original form of the name, I can't say
too much more, but maybe this is enough to be some help
to you.
KRUPIN~SKI -
SOBCZAK - WARSIN~SKI
To: Mary J. Morris, morrismj@msn.com, who
wrote:
...looking for name info on Krupinski, Sobczak,
Warsinski (perhaps Warzinski)...
Krupin~ski (n~ stands for the n with an
accent over it) means "person from Krupin" or
Krupno or several other possibilities. Since there are
several villages in Poland with names that could generate
this surname, there's no way to say which particular one
your family was associated with. But if your research
leads you to a specific area where your family lived, and
you find a place with a name beginning with Krup-
nearby, chances are quite good that's the place your
family was named for -- perhaps because they once lived
there, or had worked there, etc... The basic root is krupa,
"groats" (a kind of cereal); perhaps these
places got their names because of some association with
groats, and your ancestors probably took their surnames
from the place names, so that Krupin~ski means
"person from the place of the groats."
Krupin~ski is a pretty common name, as of 1990 there were
7,986 Poles named Krupin~ski, living all over the
country.
Warsin~ski is the same sort of name, originally
meaning "person from __" where you fill in the
blank with any village name beginning with Wars-,
e. g., Warsin (also called Warszyn), Lesno
parish, Bydgoszcz province. A family that came from
Warsin, worked at, or even once owned it (if they were
noble) could end up with the surname Warsin~ski. As of
1990 there were 640 Poles by this name, with the largest
numbers living in the provinces of Bydgoszcz (185) and
Gdansk (141) in northcentral Poland.
Sobczak is easy. -czak is a suffix meaning
"son of," and Sob- is a short form of
several different first names, including Sebastian
but also ancient pagan names such as Sobiesl~aw.
So given that Sob is a nickname for someone with one of
those first names beginning with Sob-, Sobczak would mean
"Sob's son." Such names formed from popular
first names tend to be quite common, and Sobczak is -- as
of 1990 there were 27,613 Poles by that name, living all
over the country.
RYS~
To: Mj0520@aol.com, who wrote:
...What can you tell me about this surname, its
origins and meanings? For the most part it is Rys,
but have seen Ryz also.
Polish surname expert Kazimierz Rymut says there are
three possible roots this name could derive from. One is rysa,
"dash, crack"; another is rys~_,
"lynx"; the third is as a short form or
nickname of Ryszard (= Richard). It's tough to say
which one is relevant to a particular family without
detailed research, but I'd think the nickname for Ryszard
or the term for lynx would prove applicable in most
cases. As of 1990 there were only 251 Poles named Rys but
5,587 named Rys~ (i. e., with the accent over the s,
giving it a kind of soft "sh" sound). That
makes me think the link to the word for "lynx"
is what most Rys's got their names from. (Other names
like Ryszka or Ryszko might be more likely
to come from Ryszard).
KORYTKOWSKI
To: Rick Cory, RCory45@aol.com, who wrote:
...My father and most of his siblings changed
their family name from Korytkowski to Cory in the
late 1940's. Since none of the survivng members of
his immediate family will discuss anything to do with
our heritage, I am quite curious to know more about
the family background. I have heard, but not
confirmed, that we are actually Russian, not Polish,
but that is a very artificial distinction in my
opinion, since political boundaries have moved so
frequently, especially in eastern Europe...
I'm glad you understand about the variability of
political boundaries -- sometimes I tell people their
names come from a Ukrainian root and they say "That
can't be, we're Polish." But a little knowledge of
the region's history helps a lot!
Korytkowski is a Polish spelling of the name, but we
can't be positive it is Polish. The basic root of the
name is koryto, "trough," and that root
exists in Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and probably other
Slavic languages. The structure of the name -- root koryt
+ diminutive suffix -k- + possessive suffix -ow-
+ adjectival suffix -ski -- is such that it could
have developed in any of the languages mentioned. If it
were Russian or Ukrainian, but the family lived in Poland
for a while or began their trip to America from Poland,
the name's spelling might well have been Polonized
slightly -- so it may have started out as Russian
(spelled in Cyrillic, looking like KOPbITKOBCKNN) but
when the family encountered the need to fill out
documents in the Roman alphabet, the spelling used was
Polish... Personally I think the name probably is Polish,
but I just wanted to show that we can't assume that
without proof; it is possible the name could have
originated in Russia or Ukraine and only later picked up
a Polish-looking spelling.
As I said, the basic root of the name is koryto,
a trough, especially for watering cattle. But usually
names ending in -owski developed from the names of
places, and in this instance we'd expect the surname to
mean "person or family from Korytkow or
Korytkowo," some place with a name beginning
Korytk-. There are several villages in Poland that
qualify, including Kortyko~w (the o~ stands for
the Polish owith an accent over it) in Radom
province and Korytko~w Duzy and Korytko~w Maly, both in
Zamosc province. All three of these places are in
southeastern Poland, not too far from the border with
Ukraine. There may be more places with names that qualify
as possible sources for this surname, including places
too small to show up on my maps, and places outside
Poland, for which I don't have maps quite as detailed.
But again, while we can't rule out non-Polish origin,
Korytkowski certainly makes perfect sense as a Polish
surname originally indicating a connection of some sort
between a family and a place named Korytko~w or
Korytkowo.
As of 1990 there were 1,599 Polish citizens named
Korytkowski. There were some by that name living in
virtually every province, but the provinces with the
largest numbers were Warsaw (168), Lomza (410), and Plock
(111). So while the name is found all over Poland, it is
particularly common in an area of central to northeastern
Poland (locate Warsaw, Lomza, and Plock on a map and
you'll see what I'm talking about).
POS~PIECH - ZDEB
To: Eleonora Paton, paton@tig.com.au, who
wrote:
...I would like to know about the origin and
meaning of Zdeb. My grandfather was born in the town
Malogosht, district Injeov. Could you also please
give me some information about the surname Pospiech.
The surname Zdeb comes from the term zdeb,
which means "wildcat, bold cat," and in a more
figurative sense "gloomy or selfish fellow."
Names such as this generally got started as nicknames,
designating a person who had some apparent connection
with a wildcat -- perhaps he ran into one once, or
perhaps he hunted them, or trapped them. And of course
the name could also stick because of some perceived
similarity in character -- a person who reminded folks of
a wildcat might end up being called "Zdeb." It
is a moderately common name, as of 1990 there were 1,742
Poles named Zdeb. They lived all over the country, with
particularly large numbers in the provinces of: Katowice
(125), Kielce (254), Krakow (163), Lublin (202), and
Tarnow (227), thus in southcentral to southeastern
Poland.
Pos~piech (the s~ stands for the accented S,
pronounced like a soft "sh") is even more
common, as of 1990 there were 3,877 Poles by that name.
The name is found all over Poland, with particularly
large numbers of Pos~piech's living in the following
provinces: Czestochowa (544), Kalisz (231), Katowice
(1,149), and Opole (322); looking on a map, we see that
the name is most common in southcentral Poland. It comes
from the term pos~piech, "hasty
activity," which in older Polish also meant
"success." So depending on how far back the
name goes, it might have been applied as meaning
"successful person," or "one who is active
and in a hurry" (you can see how the two are
somewhat linked semantically, a person who's always busy
and does things quickly could well come to be
successful).
I am somewhat concerned about your statement that your
grandfather came from "Malogosht, district
Injeov." Those names have clearly been distorted,
and if you don't have the correct forms you'll have a
devil of a time finding them. It seems likely to me
you're talking about Mal~ogoszcz (l~ = the Polish l
with a slash through it, pronounced like our w),
in Kielce province, a few km. southwest of the city of
Kielce. If I'm not mistaken, it used to be in Je~drzejo~w
district (e~ = Polish nasal en sound
written as an e with a tail under it; o~ =
the accented o). In terms of where your names show
up geographically, this makes fairly good sense, so I
think that's probably right. At least, that's where I'd
start looking.
CZESZYK
To: Mrs. Chris (Ceszyk) Eckhardt, Jimeckh@aol.com, who
wrote:
...My paternal grandparents settled in Cicero,
IL in 1913. My father spelled our surname Ceszyk,
however, I believe Czeszyk , which was on his
Catholic baptismal record, is probably the original
Polish spelling. My grandfather's Social Security
application form states Wszana, Dolna, Poland as the
place of birth, but I've not been able to find such
anywhere to this point in time (though I suspect
possibly a little east of Krakow). If you can come up
with anything on Czeszyk, I'd really appreciate
knowing...
Czeszyk seems very plausible; in theory Cieszyk is
also a possibility, but Czeszyk seems more likely. This
name is thought to derive in most cases from nicknames of
popular first names beginning with Cze-,
especially Czesl~aw (the l~ is meant to
represent the Polish l with a slash through it,
pronounced like our w); Czesl~aw is by far
the most popular first name beginning that way, so in
most cases names with Cze- will prove to be
nicknames of Czesl~aw... Poles liked to take
popular first names, keep the first couple of sounds,
drop the rest, then add suffixes (kind of the same way we
made "Eddy" out of "Edward"); so we
see nicknames such as Czesz from Czesl~aw.
Then a suffix such as -yk could be added to make
Czeszyk. What it means is basically "son of
Czesl~aw."
In theory it's also possible such a name could come
from the root Czech, "Czech, Bohemian"; if so,
it would mean "son of the Czech." Most Polish
surname experts apparently don't think that's what it
means in most cases, but it is at least possible, so I
thought I'd mention it.
Czeszyk is not an extremely common name in Poland, as
of 1990 there were 244 Poles by that name. The largest
numbers lived in the provinces of Kalisz (56), Katowice
(3), Krakow (11), Poznan (37), Przemysl (50), and
Szczecin (10). From the nature of this name it's not one
you'd expect to be limited to any one area -- the first
name Czesl~aw is used all over Poland, so surnames
meaning "son of Czesl~aw" could probably
develop all over as well.
As for your grandfather's birthplace, I wonder if
there might have been confusion and it should be Mszana
Dolna, a decent-sized town in Nowy Sacz province,
southeast of Krakow? I can't find any place-name
beginning Wszan-, but Mszana Dolna sounds like it might
fit, and it's not too hard to imagine an M being mistaken
for a W, the way Poles write. There is a Mszana Dolna
(Lower Mszana) and a Mszana Gorna (Upper Mszana); Mszana
Dolna is roughly halfway between Krakow and Nowy Targ. If
that is the right place, I think you shouldn't have too
much trouble finding it on a map somewhere.
WARKA - WOJNO
To: Ed Wyno, ZENZENEZ@aol.com, who wrote:
...grandfather Constatine Wojno/born in Poland
Russia/grandmother/Mary Warka/born in Austria,thats
all i know,our name is now wyno,of all things,dont
really know when it was changed. grandparents married
in Connecticut, This will be a hard one,thanks for
anything,if not,i totally understand...
I'll give you what I can, but I'm afraid it won't be
much help. What might be a good idea is to consider
joining the Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast,
8 Lyle Rd., New Britain CT 06053. They have a lot of
leads on research involving folks in Connecticut and
Pennsylvania, and the parts of Poland those people
usually immigrated from -- most folks in the Northeast
did come from the Russian and Austrian partitions. I
think dues are $15 a year, and I think chances are decent
you'll get some useful help.
Now, as to your names. On Warka I can't help much at
all. As of 1990 there was no one in Poland with that name
-- not too surprising, since you said your grandmother
was born in Austria, which may mean in Austria itself or
in the parts of Poland and Ukraine under Austrian rule
from 1772-1918. In either case, the name might not show
up in Poland by its modern borders. The name appears to
come from a root warcz- or wark- meaning
"growl, snarl"; but if the family came from the
Austrian partition, it's also possible the name came from
Ukr. Varka, a short form or nickname of
"Barbara." There is a town Warka in what is now
Radom province (which was in the Austrian partition),
this might be relevant. Other than that, my sources don't
give anything.
Wojno (pronounced VOY-no, rhyming with "boy
go") comes from a root meaning "war,
struggle," probably a name for a person who was a
good warrior or soldier. As of 1990 there were 1,542
Poles named Wojno, living all over the country, with the
largest numbers in the provinces of: Warsaw (273),
Bialystok (190), and Lomza (491). All these were in the
part of Poland ruled by Russia after the partitions, so
that fits in with your info.
I know this isn't much help, but maybe it'll be a
little use. And I really do think the PGS of the
Northeast might be worth checking it; I've seen them give
people some really good help. Good luck with your
research!
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