Ashley and the rest of you wonderful folks, thank you so much for your wonderful suggestions! The week of September 12th the husband and kids will be out of town so I'll be able to aggressively pursue this and see if any headway can be made. Having the common name "Smith" AND "Johnson" in my lineage, I'm looking forward to a different sort of a challenge (in a weird sort of way ;-). I'll be sure to contact Frank and stay on this list as well. Again, thank you! Melissa -----Original Message----- From: ashley tiwara [mailto:grubisic@netwurx.net] Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 5:59 PM To: GenWisconsin-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [GenWisc] Patrenets or similar sounding last name Melissa, and anyone else having problems with Eastern European origins, Frank, the listowner at Croatia - L at Rootsweb, is an amazing help on Eastern Europe. I asked him to take a look at your problem and he does have some suggestions, as well as what he considers likely alternative spellings. Perhaps if you took a look at these spellings one at a time? In less than a month you could get thru the list he gives, one spelling per day. Have you tried the Morse site for simplified searching at Ellis Island? I've had some very good help at the LDS FamilySearch site. If you can find the naturalization papers, often either at the local court house or the historical society, they almost always give a town name and then Shtetl Seek at FEEFS finds the town for you, with a map too. I've copied Frank's letter below. Hoping it will help, Ashley ***************************from Frank at Croatia - L, Rootsweb Patrenets was probably not the correct Slavic surname spelling. Some possibilities and not neccesarily the correct ethnicity : Petronetz Petrenitz Pechanetz Petrovets Petraneck Petronitz Petronek Potronitz Petranech Petravits Petronak Padrenik Petrenick Petrenik Petrinek Petrovits Petrunek Pitranek Potronak Putrovetz Example of 'mangled' names: surname spelled "Sinkovits" had emigrated to US. It was actually spelled SCHINKOWITSCH in the 'old country' which was a German name. In Hungarian and Slavic languages the letter c is pron. ts. While in German letter c is pron. tz,z. German letter "sch" pron. sh Polish letter "sz" pron. sh. Slavic letter "s^" pron. sh. In Hungarian and Slavic language the letter w is used only in foreign words. In Polish the letter w is pron. v and in German the letter w is pron. v, while the letter v is pron. f,v. When you get into Russian Cyrillic alphabet spelling of names becomes even more complex. Do you use Adobe Reader program so you can read PDF format files ? Wiliam F. Hoffman wrote an interesting article "Mutilation: the Fate of Eastern European Names in America " (PDF). He stated that "It's a miracle that any names are right !" Especially Polish or Russian surnames. The main cause of name distortion is the imprecision inherent in trying to represent spoken sounds in writing. From the late 1700s until the end of WW I, Poland did not exist as a country. It was divided among the Russian, German (Prussian), and Austrian Empires. These divisions were known as Partitions. There was Austrian-Poland, German-Poland, and Russian-Poland. Were the surnames ever naturalized after emigration to America ? Naturalization papers would list village/town of origin, date of arrival, and name of ship. How were these surnames spelled in US Federal Censuses 1910/1920 ? What language(s) did surname bearers speak ? The surname plus given (first) names might be a clue as to their nationality? [Perhaps check with a university language department?] [Examples -- all of these nations and ethnicities can be further researched at FEEFS] How are you ? English Wie geht es Ihnen ? German Hogy Van ? Hungarian Ako sa más^ ? Slovak Jak se máte ? Czech Jak sie masz ? Polish Kaip gyvenate ? Lithuanian Kà jums klàjas ? Latvian Kuidas käsi käib ? Estonian Kako ste ? Croatian Kako se imate ? Slovene K A K O C T E ? Serbian/Bulgarian (Cyrillic) (k ah k o s t eh) K A K /| E J| A' ? Russian (Cyrillic) (k ah k d ye l a) R K C || P A B |/| ? Ukrainian (Cyrillic) (yah k s p r á v ee ) Frank ----- Original Message ----- From: Melissa Stever To: GenWisconsin-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 1:18 PM Subject: [GenWisc] Patrenets or similar sounding last name I am doing some research for my uncle. He is hitting the proverbial brick wall. His family came from Russia/Poland around the turn of the century and settled in Wisconsin. I can locate parts of the family in the 1910, 1920 census (grandfather Frank in Hansen, Wood, WI, DOB 1867) under various spellings. While he has had limited success tracking down those who migrated to, and were subsequently born in, the US, he cannot trace his family "back across the Atlantic" to Poland/Russia/Germany. This is due in part to all the changes in the borders, but also because of the (incorrect) spelling of last name. I'm sure the good folks in charge of admitting foreigners into the US did their best considering the language barriers, there is not a single "Patrenets" in or around Poland. Most census takers subsequently misspelled the name as well. I would appreciate corresponding with anyone who may have any information regarding the family and/or alternate spellings of the name. Melissa ==== GenWisconsin Mailing List ==== Mailing list moderator: Brenda K. Wolfgram Moore email: kingsley@aol.com