Ron, In addition to Marie's excellent wiki link may I also suggest you take a look here: http://www.polishroots.org/genpoland/polhistory.htm This is a presentation that I find simple yet accurate and informative. And I'm sure you will soon find the history of the region fascinating. Hope to hear of your progress discovering ancestors and their origins. Do you know the town or village from which ancestors came? If not make sure you scour the American Church records for all of your direct ancestors and their siblings, as well as other available records. Surnames alone make for an almost impossible search. Kind regards, Bronwyn. On 5/17/08, rgdtad05@aol.com <rgdtad05@aol.com> wrote: > > I was never really quite good at American History, in fact I failed it > miserably and had to repeat it in Summer school. Well anyways enough of > that. I was wondering, with what I been learning of my polish ancestors, > some came from Austria, now I always assumed Austria meant German, not > Polish. Now I have read recently that the Nazi's invaded Austria making it > part of Germany. Now most of my ancestors that came from Austria came before > the 1900's or before 1911. So what basically my question is, do I have > Polish roots, or German roots, or Austrian? I know like I said its weird, > but its making me confused. If someone could explain I would really > appreciate it. > > Ron >