Polish Ancestry Brick Walls: Anyone working on surnames KURDYLA, WALCZAK, LORENC??

Question

Hi,

First time asking the G2G forum for anything.  Therefore, I'm not sure where to start or how much to get into here. Nevertheless, here it goes.

I am looking at a major brick wall for my polish ancestral tree branches.  My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was KURDYLA.  Our ancestors hail from Jasliska, Poland.  This was part of Galicia, Austria (pre-WW1).  I also have some known half-relatives (from my 2^nd great-grandmother’s second marriage) with surnames ORLINSKI and LORENC (and beyond).  I have some DNA matches via Ancestry website that have the surname WALCZAK. 

Most of the DNA matches I’ve reached out to so far, don’t have trees built out far enough back, or at all.  Some, have not responded to me at this time.  I am doing my best to find any KURDYLA (for example), to note and see if I can follow the sources etc., and find connections and leads that way.  So far, I just have many piles of folks who have same/similar surnames, but have not been able to find our common ancestors yet.

Anyway, I am just hoping to connect with some folks who might also be searching these surnames, in hopes that we can find a common thread, and hopefully that helps unlock some leaves and branches for my personal tree.

If anyone out there has researched these surnames, or if they sound familiar, or any insights or advice, I would be happy to hear it.  I try to poke around on G2G, especially for Polish related topics, but have not found a great source that leads to new clues/insights.

I appreciate any and all help y’all might have.  Thank you so much for getting this far!

Sincerely,

Caroline

p.s. here is my Great-Great-Grandfather, Casper, so you might have some context to a few profiles I have on wikitree.

Answer 1

I'm not sure whether this is going to help you much, but I took a look at the digitized offerings of the Polish archives (at http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl), and they do have a burial register for the Roman Catholic parish of Jaśliska for 1854 to 1907 (unfortunately no baptismal register). The headings are in Latin, so not too difficult to figure out.

Flipping through it, I found the death on 1 November 1903 of a Marianna Kurdyła, born 7 [?] December 1883 to Joannis [probably Jan in Polish] Kurdyła and Theresia nee Gasiorek. This family lived at house nr. 48 in Jaśliska (see https://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/60/1135/0/-/1/skan/full/q34RHSP9cXhXWZp1b3SABA, left-hand side, third from the bottom). Might Jan and Theresia also be the parents of your Casper born in 1881?

Answer 2

If you click on Find (upper right of this page) and go down that menu, you can enter the Kurdyla surname where there is one individual to contact, Walczak surname has 76 potential contacts and Lorenc surname has 85 contacts. They all could potentially be a resource for your genealogy quest.

Comments

Thanks Frank.  I'll start pursuing some folks connected to those names.  I was hoping I might be able to inspire some folks to find me, this way I'm not contacting over 100 people, with no leads to go on as far as how we might be connected.

Kurdyla, I think I'm the only person who's made some profiles for that surname.  There is one other in the search list, but the profile appears to need adoption.

Thanks for your input.  I'll start digging into those potential contacts.

Answer 3

I have Lorenc, Lorenz and Lorence as well as Walczak in my family tree. Also from Galicia. I am new to this and trying to source out my stuff, but my family tree (from passed down data and ancestry) is on ancestry... just not all sourced.

I didn't see a Casper though

Comments

Will you send me a private message with a link to your ancestry tree?  I'm curious and would love to take a look.  Maybe we connect somewhere... ?! :)

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absolutely! let me... figure out how. lol

Answer 4

There are a few ways I was able to break down my Polish brick walls:

The most IMPORTANT aspect of my DNA matches was not their surname, but geographical location.  This is sort of a different way of grouping your matches while sorting them out.  You may find that your ancestors were only in Jaliska for a short time.  As with my Polish side, only in Cieplice for 2 generations.  When I sorted my matches I noticed one location that stood out: Wola Zarczycka.  This was on my Piechowska side.

I created a One Name Study on my surname Saczawa.  I researched all individuals with this surname who lived in Subcarpathian province of Poland.  To my absolute excitement I was contacted by a genealogy enthusiast living in Poland with this surname as well.  He gave me the ultimate gift by finding the marriage record of my great-great grands in Wola Zarczycka, and then taking them back a few more generations, finding that my Saczawa originated  from his city of Kamien.

Expand your DNA search.  Myheritage tends to be the preferred choice of testing among those in Eastern Europe (I'm not sure if this is correct, but it was explained to me it was one of the few that supported various languages ... hence it's popularity.)  You can upload your DNA results in there FOR FREE, view your matches and their trees for free as well.

On the Galicia page (free space page) I have many links for you to look through.  When you view the Polish archive records, it's important to map out all the churches in the surrounding area, and run the names of those church locales in your search.

If you need more help in this area, please feel free to email me. :)

Comments

I also have relatives in Walzak, Walchuk and Lorenz (GGM), all from Galicia. Some migrated to Canada others to US Philly area. If you could send me your tree I will check to see if we are related. I have two contacts in each country. Hope to see it.

Lindsay