This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: JacobHaLevi Surnames: Wisniewski, Trok, Trock Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.wisniewski/191.2.1.1.1.1.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: My mother is Jewish, and her grandparent's came straight over from eastern Poland and Lithuania, so I have a particular interest in researching Jewish ancestry on my father's side, plus I am only a few classes away from my Master's in Judaic Studies and Hebrew, where I particularly study Ashkenazi Jewry. Two of my father's family names, Uzarski and my surname, Kubasiak, I have done genetic dna testing and found Ashkenazi markers, and on both of the tests it came out showing significant amounts of Ashkenazi Levite markers, even though they too, had "Catholic" records in Prussia. An actually, the Uzarski test matched my mother's brother's test, Reda, as sharing a common grandfather within the last 500-1000 years ago, and I know THAT side was Jewish. I have exchanged emails with Hoffman, and I'm sorry to say, but he's wrong about the Jews coming from the west. When they did multiply amounts of genetic dna testing on the Jews particularly, they found that the vast majority of ! Ashkenazi Jewry emigrated from the east to the west. They came from the land of the Khazars, which was in southern Russia between the Black and Caspian Sea. A guy Arthur Koestler did very research in his book, "The Thirteenth Tribe", which talks all about it. The vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews today share the same haplogroups with the people's today that are indigenous to the Caucasus. Hoffman can give his "cherry tree" definition all he wants to the name Wisniewski, but in reality it most likely originated from an area in Belarus called Vishnevo, close to Minsk, that was close to being 100% Jewish, it was basically a Jewish community, so I can guarantee that if we had a male Wisniewski that would be willing to do the test then there would be a significant amount of Ashkenazi markers that would show up. Here are two websites where you can read about Vishnevo: http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/vishnevo/vishnevo.html and http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/vishnevo/vis! hnevo.html So yes, I think it is very possible that your family name Jacek or Jacki is Jewish. I, too, am actually familiar with Gorzyce, since my ggg grandparent's Kubasiak married in Gorzyce in 1867. Kubasiak was one of the tests I had done showing Ashkenazi Levite lineage. The name actually originated more from Slovakia/Galicia, where a massive amount of Jews had lived, and translated, it means, "son of Kuba (or Jacob)." Their names were Michael Kubasiak and Josefa Lewandowski. His parent's names were Simon Kubasiak and Catherine Pawlowicz. Her parent's names were Andrew Lewandowski and Salomea Kruszka, and many other of their children's spouses also had very Jewish names. So you can't get much more Jewish than that! Jews started emigrating into Poland and Germany starting in the 1300's and reaching it's zenith in 1790's when Catherine the so called Great forced all the Jews out of Russia into the Pale of Settlement. Life in the Pale was very hard, and already by the late 1! 700 to early 1800's Jews were emigrating in mass numbers to the west, to Prussia, Germany, and eventually the US to seek a better economic life. The areas of Galicia, Russia Poland, and Lithuania had the highest concentration of Jews than any area of the world. Unfortuneatly, most Jews in the Pale identified themselves more as being Jewish culturally than religiously, much like a Catholic that only attends mass on Easter and Christmas, and so after they had emigrated into the west and the Catholic and Lutheran churches made it very hard on Jews that didn't "register" with them, then that's when most of them began the assimilation process. Afterall, it was much easier to give up one's cultural identification than it would be for a person to give up their religious convictions. And the churches also held Jewish and civil records for the State in Prussia and Germany. So for a little bit of "freedom" and "equality", most Jews registered a marriage and baptism in one of the! local churches. This all began in the early 1700's in Germany by a J ew named Moses Mendelssohn, who began the "Haskala" movement. It called for Jewish assimilation into either the Polish or German culture, and in most cases, conversion. And this movement spread in Germany/Prussia like a wildfire. Between 1800-1810 alone, 10% of all German Jews converted. Here is a couple sites on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskalah, and http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Haskalah.html. I was quite shocked when I discovered all this, and excuse my resentment, but the "lies" the Catholic church has told us all these generations about these Jewish "converts," who weren't really converts, they simply just registered. Yes I do recognize those books. There is also another very good dictionary on German Jewish names that a guy named Lars Menk has researched and you can find him on this website: http://www.avotaynu.com/books/Menk.htm. In his list are found these names: Trittinger . Trockenbrod . Trockenbrodt . Trommler . van der Wall . von der Wall . Wallace . Wallach . Wallau . Wallauer . Brisk . Briske . Brisker . Britenstool . de Brito . Brito . Brittenstool . Brittfeld . de Britto . . Just . Justin . Jütel . Laubheimer . Lauchheimer . Laudenbacher . . Roth . Rothbauer . Rothahn . Rothan . Rothauer . Rothaus . Rothausen . Rothbart . Rothbarth . Rothberg . Rothe . . Wischnewski . Wischniewski . Wischnitz . Wise . Wisebart . Wiseman . Wisloch . Wislocher . Wismuth . Wisniewski . Wisniewsky . Wisnitzer . Wispach . Wissbach . Wissbader . Wissbrun . Wissenau . Wisslar . Wissler . Wissner . Wiszniewski . Wisznitz . I do know that Wirsitz had a significant Jewish community and there's sti! ll a standing synagogue there to this day. Some of the other names listed on that census sheet: Job is definitely Jewish, Britt is a Hebrew word meaning "to cut", and it is a word we used for the term, "covenant." When 8 day old boys recieve circumcision it is called a "Brit Milah," or in Yiddish it's called a "brisk" or "bris." Bobkiewitz I know is Jewish, whether it was Bobkiewitz or Bobkiewicz. Jews used the ending -wicz even more than -ski. Part of "Braseder's" name is the Hebrew word we use, "seder", which is what we call our Passover dinner, and it also comes from the Hebrew word, "siddur", which means, "order." The Siddur is what we call our prayer book. "Order of Service." And Salomea Bobkiewitz, Salomea is just a feminine form of "Solomon", or "Shalom." This was definitely a Jewish neighborhood, even if they were "Catholic Jews." After 4 or 5 generations of going through the Catholic motions the Jewish memories and traditions slowly start to filter out. Sad but true. That's enough for now lol, let me know your thoughts. Shalom, ~Jacob Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.