Surname Saturday - Calling all Zembkos

Franciszek Zembko (1933)

Czekam aby połączyć się z członków rodziny Zembko na całym świecie. Proszę o kontakt, jeśli są związane z rodziną Zembko z Polski.

Proszę napisz do mnie klikając na ten link.

Tłumaczenie na język polski poniżej

My wife's father's family is named Zembko. The Zembko surname is very rare in Poland and the United States.  I can't be sure of the accuracy, but I found a website which claimed that you could type in a Polish surname and it will provide you areas on a map of Poland where that surname is present. According to this website, there are less than 100 people in all of Poland with the last name of Zembko. It shows the majority of Zembkos in Poland live in the area near Bialystok.

In the United States, I am aware of only two families with the Zembko surname. One originated from Zembkos who settled in New Britain, Connecticut (I have not been in contact with them) and the Zembko family who settled in Nassau County (Long Island), New York. It is almost certain that these two families are related, but I am not aware of anyone successfully linking them.

The patriarch of the Nassau County NY Zembkos is Franciszek "Frank" Zembko. My research suggests (but is not certain) that Franciszek Zembko was probably born is a small town named Złotoria, Poland, near Bialystok, between 1882-1885. At that time, this region of Poland was under Russian control and the Russians made it difficult for the Polish people. One family story which has been handed down indicates that Franciszek's parents (names unknown), were thrown down a well by Russians as a way of intimidating the local townspeople.


Frank arrived at Ellis Island in April 1901, the passenger list record indicates he was coming to live with his brother-in-law in Mineola, NY, but I am unable to decipher the name on the record.  I have included a reproduction.  Any ideas?  Something...Gonsb or Gonsbly...really no idea.

Franciszek found work as a gardener on one of the many multi-million dollar luxury estates in Locust Valley, NY. He lived in Glen Cove, NY which was very close to where he found employment.

In 1906, he married Bronislawa "Bessie" Bartosiewicz at St Hedwig Polish Roman Catholic Church in Floral Park, NY.  They had 7children: Benjamin, Jean, Chester, Walter, Regina, Henry, Thaddeus. All born in Glen Cove and Locust Valley, NY.

Frank Zembko died in 1935.

I am not aware of any communication between the family and any relatives back in Poland, but there was probably some correspondance.

If you have a connection to the Zembko family from Poland and now live in the United States, Poland or anywhere else in the world, please contact me.  I would love to hear what you know about the family history and where you are now. If I get enough interest, maybe I can create a global website for the Zembko family.

You can email me by clicking here. 


In Polish:

Mojej żony ojca rodzina nazywa Zembko. Nazwisko Zembko jest bardzo rzadkie w Polsce i Stanach Zjednoczonych. I nie możemy być pewni dokładności, ale znalazłem stronę internetową, która twierdziła, że ​​można wpisać polskiego nazwiska i będzie dostarczać Wam obszary na mapie Polski, gdzie, że nazwisko jest obecna. Według tej strony, jest mniej niż 100 osób w całej Polsce z nazwiskiem Zembko. To pokazuje, że większość Zembkos w Polsce mieszkają w okolicy, nieopodal Białegostoku.

W Stanach Zjednoczonych, zdaję sobie sprawę z zaledwie dwóch rodzin z nazwiskiem Zembko. Jeden pochodzi z Zembkos którzy osiedlili się w New Britain, Connecticut (nie byłem w kontakcie z nich) i rodziny Zembko którzy osiedlili się w Nassau County (Long Island), New York. Jest niemal pewne, że te dwie rodziny są ze sobą powiązane, ale nie jestem świadomy ktoś z powodzeniem łącząc je.

Patriarcha Nassau County NY Zembkos jest Franciszek "Frank" Zembko. Moje badania wskazują (ale nie jest pewne), że Franciszek Zembko urodził się prawdopodobnie to małe miasteczko o nazwie Złotoria, Polska, niedaleko Białegostoku, pomiędzy 1882-1885. W tym czasie ten region Polski był pod kontrolą Rosji i Rosjan utrudnia Polacy. Jedna rodzina opowieść, która była przekazywana wskazuje, że Franciszka rodzice (imiona nieznane), zostały rzucone w dół studni przez Rosjan jako sposób zastraszenia lokalnego 
Frank przybył na Ellis Island w kwietniu 1901 roku, zapis listy pasażerów wynika, że ​​zbliża się żyć ze swoim bratem-in-law w Mineola, Nowy Jork, ale nie jestem w stanie rozszyfrować nazwy na płycie. Mam włączone reprodukcję. Jakieś pomysły?
Franciszek znalazł pracę jako ogrodnik w jednej z wielu luksusowych posiadłości milionerów w Locust Valley, Nowy Jork. Żył w Glen Cove, Nowy Jork, który był bardzo blisko miejsca, gdzie znalazł zatrudnienie.
W 1906 roku ożenił się Bronisławy "Bessie" Bartosiewicza na św Jadwigi Polskiego Rzymsko-Katolickiego Kościoła w Floral Park, NY. Mieli X7children: Benjamin, Jean, Chester, Walter, Regina, Henryk, Tadeusz. Wszystko urodził się w Glen Cove i Locust Valley, Nowy Jork.

Frank Zembko zmarł w 1935 roku.

Nie znam żadnej komunikacji między rodziną i wszelkich krewnych z powrotem w Polsce, ale nie było prawdopodobnie niektóre komunikacji.

Jeśli masz połączenie z rodziny Zembko z Polski, a obecnie mieszkają w Stanach Zjednoczonych, Polsce czy 
gdziekolwiek indziej na świecie, proszę o kontakt. Chciałbym usłyszeć, co wiesz o historii rodziny i gdzie jesteś teraz.

Jeśli dostanę tyle zainteresowanie, może uda mi się stworzyć globalną stronę internetową dla rodziny Zembko.

Translation Tuesday: A Russian Internal Passport - but Who's

In a long forgotten box of family pictures, my father-in-law pulled out an official looking document.  Right away it looked like it was likely a passport.  However, there was no picture.  My father-in-law's family was originally from the part of Poland which was controlled by Russia until the end of the World War I.


I performed a Google search and found out it was actually an Internal Passport of the Russian Empire.  So one question solved.  However, it was still unclear, who the passport belonged to or anything about what it said.  My guess is that this may have belonged to Casimir Krupa or his wife Michelina Ladakaus.  I have been successful in translating official documents in Latin and Polish, but the Cyrillic writing of this internal passport was essentially unreadable to me.


I am hopeful that a member of the genealogy blogging community with an knowledge of Russian would be interested in helping me translate this Russian Internal Passport.


I would greatly appreciate any that could help with a translation of these few pages of the passport.


Please help!!!

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!!

*****Update:  Sept 4, 2011*************

I am very grateful for the assistance I received on translating the Internal Russian Passport that I have been researching.  Thanks to Greta Kohl for giving of her time and talent to translating the key information from this document for me.  I am sure it will lead to some additional avenues of research and more family discoveries.

With Greta's assistance, I learned that I was incorrect in who I believed this internal passport might belong to. Since it was found with a number of pictures belonging to the Krupa (Cooper) branch of my father-in-law's family, I assumed that it could belong to Casimir Krupa or his wife, Michelina Ladakaus.  

I was way off.  

The passport belonged to Bronislawa "Bessie" Bartosiewicz.  She was my father-in-law's father's mother.  She arrived in the United States in 1904.

Here are the key points revealed by the translation:

The passport was issued in 1904 (making it likely she needed the internal passport to travel to the port she would depart from for the U.S.)

1.  Bronislava Yuzefovna Bartosievicz (This is the Russian spelling for Bronislawa).  The most important piece of information from this is "Yuzefovna" is the Russian way of saying, "daughter of Yuzef" or "Jozef".  We didn't know what Bronislawa's father's name, so this is a great piece of information!

2.  Rank:  Peasant

3.  Date of Birth:  January 1885

4.  Religion:  Roman Catholic

5.  Permanent Residence:  Village of Jankowo, #15 at Street (undecipherable) Gmina Serock, Łomżyńska gubernia  (This could be of critical importance.  Now we know that she lived in Jankowo, Poland.  I will look up the appropriate church records and see if we can find her and her father listed in this town in Poland.)

6.  Married or Single:  Single

If we are ever to make that family ancestry tour to Poland, then knowing this information will come in handy.

********Update:  Sept 7, 2011*******

Greta posted on her blog what she learned from helping me translate this internal Russian passport.  Here is a link to her blog post.

What I Learned Wednesday: What’s a Gmina Doing in an Uyezd, and Other Bits

Greta, thanks again for your help!!

Mystery Monday - Austrian? Polish? Russian? Ukrainian? Something else?

Ethnicity.  We often take great pride in the mother country of our ancestors.  One of the interesting things about genealogy research is you can uncover that some family history which is has been passed down is untrue or riddled with mistakes.


This is a story of one of those instances that makes you to rethink your family origins.


I had always been told that my maternal grandmother's family came to the US from Russia.  The family name was Gula and it sounded like it could be Russian to me, so I never had any reason to question it.


The Research


My great-grandfather, George Gula, lived in Scottdale, PA for most of his life. He passes away on May 21, 1967.  George died before I was born and evidently my mother and his daughter believed that he had been born in part of Russia.


The first records I reviewed to find out his origins were the 1930 US Census. The census records indicated that he was born in Austria.


Austria? No one had ever said anything about Austria. In addition, the census records indicated that the language spoken at home was Russian and that he was born abt 1889. Also, it stated that he arrived in 1906.


Lots of great data.


Next, I uncovered a copy of George's obituary. See post June 21,2011. This, too, stated he was born in Austria, but the obituary gave the name of the town of his birth, Wolowitz. Great! His hometown! Perfect! This should be easy. However, there isn't a Wolowitz, Austria.


I was aware that country borders in Europe moved around a lot over the last few hundred years, but i didn't know of any period where Russia was a part of Austria.


I expected that if I could get a copy of George's naturalization records, that may help be a key piece of the puzzle to his origins. I requested copy of George Gula's naturalization records from Westmoreland County, PA   The naturalization records revealed that he was born on March 12, 1889 in the town Wolowiec, Austria. The slight change in spelling of the name of the town made a big difference. Even more importantly, the naturalization records revealed that George arrived at NYC on the ship the Oldenburg on November 21, 1906.


Next, I went to the Ellis Island Immigration records looking for the original passenger list records. This was a jackpot of information. First, I found that George's birth name was "Jewka" Gula and that he was from Austrian Galicia (a region that included part of Poland). Second, it gave his race as "Ruthenian". This was a new one to me and I thought that this might have been an error or another way of referring to Russian ethnicity.

Google search of Wolowiec and Austria Galicia revealed that Wolowiec was no longer part of Austria, but was in extreme southern Poland in the Carpathian Mountains.  Here is a picture of the Byzantine Catholic church which still stands in Wolowiec, Poland.


Does this mean I was Polish?  But what was this "Ruthenian" people? Was that a clue?


I checked "Ruthenian" and found a Wikipedia entry which stated that essentially Ruthenians were Eastern European Slavic peoples specifically Lithuanian, Ukrainian or Belarussians. When I did some additional searches on Wolowiec and on Ruthenian...I eventually found a great website called the Carpatho-rusyn knowledge base. On this website, I discovered that the Greek or Byzantine Catholic residents of Wolowiec were part of an ethnic group called Carpathian Rusyns or just Rusyns. It is interesting to note the Ukraine does not recognize this group and believes they are Ukrainians and not a separate sub-group.


Some famous Rusyns include:  Andy Warhol (famous painter), Robert Urich (actor), and Tom Ridge (former Governor of Pennsylvania).


But, in the end, I found out my Great-grandfather was born in modern day Poland and that he was ethnically a Ukrainian/Rusyn...not Russian.


It is amazing how a few weeks of research can result in having you rethink everything you thought you knew about your family origins.