Absolutely, positively Madej and Mathea are not the same names! Not even remotely close other than both start with letter 'M'! Also, in the contemporary Polish, there is no feminine version of the name Madej. In the old days (like 70+ years ago), a wife of Madej would be sometimes called Madejowa, and a daugther Madejówna, but basically the name in the official records would be Madej for male or female. Just a quick lesson in Polish male/female last names. Only the names that end with - ski/ska & -cki/cka have both male/female forms. All the others even if they end with a vowel, like Maciejko, Noga, do not have male/female ending. If you folow that simple rule in 99% of cases you will be correct. Ella > -----Original Message----- > From: polandbordersurnames-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:polandbordersurnames-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Laila > Cichos > Sent: November-13-07 3:57 AM > To: polandbordersurnames@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [PBS] Madej surname > > Hello Valerie. > > I have a ancestor who was listed as Mathea in Germany . I wonder if it > is a > female variation of Madej or is that thought too far out? > > Best wishes > > Laila > >

In one of my records I have female version of a surname that does not follow the rule below: Male---Slawik, Female---Slawikin charles singmore <singmore@gmail.com> wrote: Absolutely, positively Madej and Mathea are not the same names! Not even remotely close other than both start with letter 'M'! Also, in the contemporary Polish, there is no feminine version of the name Madej. In the old days (like 70+ years ago), a wife of Madej would be sometimes called Madejowa, and a daugther Madejówna, but basically the name in the official records would be Madej for male or female. Just a quick lesson in Polish male/female last names. Only the names that end with - ski/ska & -cki/cka have both male/female forms. All the others even if they end with a vowel, like Maciejko, Noga, do not have male/female ending. If you folow that simple rule in 99% of cases you will be correct. Ella > -----Original Message----- > From: polandbordersurnames-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:polandbordersurnames-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Laila > Cichos > Sent: November-13-07 3:57 AM > To: polandbordersurnames@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [PBS] Madej surname > > Hello Valerie. > > I have a ancestor who was listed as Mathea in Germany . I wonder if it > is a > female variation of Madej or is that thought too far out? > > Best wishes > > Laila > > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to POLANDBORDERSURNAMES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi, Ella <singmore@gmail.com> wrote: > Absolutely, positively Madej and Mathea are not > the same names! > Not even remotely close other than both start > with letter 'M'! True. MATHEA comes from the Biblical given name we know as Matthias; MADEJ comes from the Latin given name more familiar to us as Amadeus. Ella also wrote: > Also, in the contemporary Polish, there is no > feminine version of > the name Madej. In the old days (like 70+ years > ago), a wife of > Madej would be sometimes called Madejowa, and a > daugther > Madejówna, but basically the name in the > official > records would be Madej for male or female. All true -- but remember, genealogists usually are dealing with records more than 70 years old. So it depends on the time frame. If you're dealing with comparatively recent records, MADEJ is the standard form in all cases. In older records, you will often see MADEJOWA for Mrs. Madej and MADEJÓWNA for Miss Madej. Also, Charles wrote: > In one of my records I have female version of a > surname that does not follow the rule below: > > Male---Slawik, Female---Slawikin That's almost certainly a German form. Germans used to add -in or -inn to the end of surnames to indicate a female. I'm guessing this form SLAWIKIN shows up in a record from the German partition. I should add that we do see the ending -INA used in feminine forms of Polish surnames, in older records, when added to a surname derived from a noun ending in -a. So in older records "Mrs. Zaremba" will often appear as ZAREMBINA, and "Miss Zaremba" will often be ZAREMBIANKA; "Mrs. Zmuda" may appear as ZMUDZINA, and "Miss Zmuda" as ZMUDZIANKA. I almost hate to mention this, because it's archaic and it complicates things. But I've run into it too often in records to ignore it. For that matter, in some areas you'll also see "Miss Kowalska" appear as KOWALSZCZANKA -- the endings -anka and -onka were used to create forms for unmarried females, and sometimes these were even added to names ending in -ski, -cki-, and -zki, with modification of the consonants before the ending (for instance, -sk- to -szcz-). This is a dialect feature, not seen in standard Polish; but in some areas you'll run into -anka's and -onka's all over the place, especially in northeastern and southeastern Poland. So when dealing with older records, you sometimes have to be prepared to recognize archaic and dialect forms of surnames. Things are simpler if you have only modern documents to deal with. In modern Poland there are even a fair number of females who choose to go by masculine forms of names ending in -ski, -cki, and -zki! This is a phenomenon encountered mostly in the cities, and so far I get the impression it's not going to catch on -- I don't think the feminine forms ending in -ska, -cka, and -zka are going to die out. But the 2002 PESEL data used in Prof. Rymut's CD version of the _Dictionary of Surnames in Current Use in Poland at the Beginning of the 21st Century_ clearly shows that, in the cities at least, there are some who reject all gender differentiation in surname forms. It used to be you could tell people "The wife or daughter of a man named KOWALSKI will always go by KOWALSKA." It ain't necessarily true any more.... Fred Hoffman Author, _Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings_ www.fredhoff.com