Here's the link to Professor Kazimerz Rymut's 1990 Surname Database: http://www.herby.com.pl/ Debbie Debbie Greenlee wrote: . . . > Something else you can check is the 2002 edition of Professor Rymut's > data base, titled, "Dictionary of Surnames in Current Use in Poland at > the Beginning of the 21st Century". I think this is online but if not > you can buy it from the PGSA. OR you can check the 1990 edition which > is not as specific as the 2002 version. Also the 1990 edition, which > is online, is best viewed on Internet Explorer. Rymut died a few years > ago and I don't think the site has been upgraded to perform as well on > the newer browsers. > > So, what do you learn from using the above mentioned data bases? You > find out how many people with a particular surname lived in a > particular old wojewo~dztwo (1990 edition) or powiat (2002 edition). > If you have a common name forget the whole thing. However, if you have > an uncommon name then this database can be very helpful. > Example. I searched (1990 edition) on the name Tomalski and found > there were 774 people in Poland with that surname in 1990. In the old > woj. of Bydgoszcz there were 8. (I happen to know three of them and > those three don't know the other 5.) Of course, 774 is too large a > number to do anything with. But, if I knew that "my" Tomalskis lived > in the old woj. of Bial~ystok, then I might try going further with this. >

Hi, Debbie Greenlee wrote: > Here's the link to Professor Kazimerz Rymut's 1990 Surname Database: > > http://www.herby.com.pl/ That will get you there, and it's shorter and easier to remember than the direct link to that specific page. Some may find the the direct link helpful: http://www.herby.com.pl/indexslo.html Put the name you're looking for in the box near the top, under where it says "Prosze wprowadzic nazwisko," then click on "Szukaj." Note also that sometimes you get a better range of matches if you use the wild cards ? (for any one letter) or * (for any number of letters). That helps you get past the need for inputting Polish letters with diacritical marks, for instance. If you search for WISNIEWSKI, you'll be baffled because it brings up only 371 Poles by that name -- and here you thought it was a common name. But if you search for WI?NIEWSKI, you'll get the real story: 104,418 who spelled it with an accent over the first S. That's the standard spelling; WISNIEWSKI with plain S is comparatively rare. You can see how it makes a big difference! So any time you need to search and aren't sure about the exact spelling, or have trouble inputting the Polish characters, use those wild cards ? and * to save yourself trouble! Fred Hoffman