AMREINKR@aol.com wrote: >I am having a problem discovering the origin of my great- >grandfather, Joseph Kwiatkowski. He was born in Germany on February >24, 1867 and supposedly immigrated to the US on January 13, 1892. I >have his Naturalization Papers and they state that he was born in a >town named Blato or Bilato, Germany. > >For two years I have searched for this town and have come to the >conclusion that the spelling on his Naturalization papers was a >phonetic spelling by the interviewer. There are many sound-alikes >in both Germany and Poland, but I have no idea which would be the >correct town. Kwiatkowski is definitively a Polish name, but I suppose you already know that. During the time your grandfather was born, a part of poland was under the German occupation. And my bet is, that the city he was born in was on the territory of Poland. There is no such word as 'Blato' or 'Bilato' in Polish. Also no places by that name, what you already know :) But what if the 'a' letter was in fact an 'o'? This would make 'Bloto' and this sounds like the polish word 'B³oto' (means 'mud' :) and there are two towns by that name in Poland. One is visible here: http://www.pilot.pl/index.php3?Z_CITY_NAME=b%B3oto&form_t=1&lang=pl the other at the lat 51.05, long 20.82. Hope this helps somehow... -- Michael Paluchowski http://www.nethut.pl/gen/ researching: P*a*l*u*c*h*o*w*s*k*i, R*o*m*a*n*o*w*s*k*i, P*u*d*l*o*w*s*k*i, W*e*c*l*a*w*o*w*i*c*z Michael Paluchowski <paluchowski@nospam.post.pl>