Ron, The history of Europe is convoluted and confusing with nation's borders shifting and re-shifting. It would be difficult to provide a simple answer in one e-mail message but I will try to help with your question. Poland, once the largest country in Europe, became so weak and feeble that its adjacent neighbors began a 3-stage partitioning of the country that began in 1772 and ended in 1795. Poland as a nation disappeared from the maps of Europe for close to 150 years. However, culturally and spiritually and its language lived on. At the end of World War I, Poland regained its independence in 1918. Referring to the partitions, the western part of Poland was ceded to Prussia, the Eastern partition went to Russia and in the southern partition, the Kingdom of Galicia was created in 1773 to accommodate the territories ceded to Austria. Poles became Polish Prussians or Polish Russians or Galicians. Also, at the time of the partitions, 4/5th of the world Jewry was in Poland with the largest concentration in eastern Poland. As a result of these changing conditions, The Polish Jews (the Jewish population of the former Polish state) began to think of themselves not as Polish but 'Russian', 'Galician', or even 'German' Jews. The official language of Austria is German and Austrians are a mixing of many peoples including various Germanic groups. In 1938, German troops seized Austria and, although the Austrian leadership tried to keep Austria independent, the Nazis declared a union of Austria and Germany and sealed that country's fate during WWII. I think it is very likely that you have Polish roots. Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 10:06 PM Subject: [POLAND] A weird question >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 -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 565 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len