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| Joseph Frank Polasek is standing next to the motorcycle on the left. Picture taken before 1920 maybe in Granger, Texas. |
Hello and Welcome to the Polasek Family
Without further ado I am so excited to introduce to you the
Polasek side of the family! First,
though, go pour yourself a glass of liquid refreshment and assemble a tasty
snack before curling up in a comfortable chair to meet them…..Ok, ready? Great!
For years, I knew very little about the
Polasek side of the family. Even the
birth date and place of Grandfather Joe was in question for years due to faulty
memories of the direct family and official forms not filled out properly or
changed. After more “official” records became
readily available, I can state with a fair amount of certainty that Joseph
Frank Polasek was born on 10 April 1896 in Rockdale, Williamson,
Texas to Jan Polasek III and his wife Marie
Mares and died 2 July 1965 in Dallas, Dallas,
Texas.
With that finally settled, I eagerly turned
my attention to bigger fish: his
genealogy! As of this date in 2013, I
have “discovered” 34 direct surnames
so far! That’s right, “thirty-four”: 8 on his father’s Polasek line and 26 on
his mother’s Mares line.
Visits with Aunt Louise Polasek Kallus
Luckily for me, the Kubin/Kohn side
of the family had been researching and sharing family data for years. As a result, those lines have been filling in
nicely all this time. In direct
contrast, the Polasek side appeared almost dormant especially in regards to the
Williamson County, Texas branch.
My first sources of information had
been gathered from visits with my Grandfather’s only living sister at that time,
Louise Polasek Kallus, of Granger, Texas. She wrote down all that she could remember
about her family and even visited the
cemeteries with us to fill in more blanks.
After she died in 1993, so many of the stories sadly died with her. She knew her parents and grandparents had
immigrated from Jedli, Moravia but not the when, where, or
how….that would be mine for discovering!
Research from the Archives in Olomouc, Moravia, Czech Republic
My next real breakthrough occurred in
1994 when my cousin and his wife-to-be traveled to the town of Jedli,
Moravia, the
last known residence of the Polaseks in the old country. After several hours of research at the
regional archives located in Olomouc,
Moravia, they identified a great
number of family members in the old record books taking the genealogical lines
back several generations including many of their children and siblings as well. (Thanks so much!)
These same books/archives can now be viewed
for free online at www.familysearch.org. (Check them out for yourself sometime. Looking at registers over 500 years certainly
makes it seem like history and time just stand still!) Even though I cannot read the language, I was
still able to verify the names and dates
previously supplied by my cousin.
Amazing!
For the next ten years, no startling
revelations occurred sorry to say until the advent of www.ancestry.com and access to their
immigration databases and online family trees.
Finally in 2006, I found their
journey to the United States. Can you guess where they landed? Ellis Island! My heart skipped a beat when I verified that
data. I had finally found my Ellis Island immigrants!
(The details of their immigration will be fully discussed in my next
blog.)
In about 2010, I located several
family trees on www.ancestry.com taking
the Polasek/Mare lines in some cases all the way back to the 1500’s. (Of course, the data has not been officially
documented by me.) Just this past week, I starting connecting with others of the
Polasek line, some even located in the Czech Republic through www.myheritage.com. Through the comparison of several trees, the
names, dates, and places have now being double checked making me feel much
better about the data.
The Surnames from “A to L” on my Polasek Family Tree
The following chart lists the first half of the Czech surnames
from “A to L” on Joseph Frank Polasek’s family tree (and
mine!) It lists: each surname as the family uses it now in English or Czech;
the farthest ancestor traced back for that particular family at this time (GGPs
stands for Great-grandparents) and marriage date if known; paternal line
showing name, birth date, personal residence and occupation; maternal line
showing name, birth date, personal residence; meaning of name if found; and
finally, the known residences of each particular family group in the Czech
Republic.
|
|
Gen. Back and Year of Marriage
|
Paternal Line
|
Farthest
Maternal Line
|
Meaning of Name[i]
|
Our Family's Last Residence in the Mother Country
|
|
Anderle
(German, Slovenian,
Czech)
and
Rehsler
|
7th GGPs
|
Jan Anderle
(b. about 1620)
|
Marie Rehsler
(b. about 1620)
|
“Anderle: from a pet form
of German Andreas.”
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Beneš
(Czech and Slovak)
|
4th GGPs
|
Jakub Benes
(b. abt. 1710)
|
Johana (Unknown)
(b. abt. 1710)
|
“Czech form of Benedict. One
of the most common Czech family names, well established elsewhere in central Europe.”
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Cejnar
and
Dittrich
(German)
|
5th GGPs
|
Frantisek Cejnar
(b. abt. 1685)
|
Katerina
Dittrich
(b. abt. 1691)
|
“Dittrich: from the
Germanic personal name Tederich (Theudoricus), which is composed of the
elements theud ‘people’, ‘race’ + ric ‘power(ful)’, ‘rich’. Common throughout
central and eastern Europe, particularly in
the western Slavic countries.”
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Deutsch
(German)
|
3rd GGPs
|
Josef Deutsch
(b. about 1750)
lived in Děkanát Zábřeh, Mähren, Czech Republic
|
|
“From an ethnic name given
in areas of mixed population to inhabitants speaking German rather than a
Slavic language, from German “Deutsch,” also for one who had migrated from a
German-speaking area to another part of Europe.”
|
Děkanát Zábřeh, Mähren,
Czech Republic
|
|
Dolsky
(Czech)
|
3rd GGPs
|
Anton Dolsky
lived in
Horní Studénky.
|
|
|
Horní Studénky, Mähren,
Czech Republic
|
|
Dušek
(Czech)
|
4th GGPs
|
Vaclav Cejnar
(b. abt. 1721)
|
Katherine Dusek
(b. 24 April 1725 –
d. 24 December 1779)
Lived in Cermna.
|
“From a pet form of the Old
Czech personal name “Duchoslav,” composed of the elements duch ‘spirit’ +
slav ‘glory’.”
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Flasser
and
Kubin or Kuba
|
2nd GGPs
|
Jan Flasser
(b. abt. 1756)
Lived in Zborov in house
#19.
|
Marina Kubin
(b. abt. 1756
d. 26 Jan 1827)
Lived in Zborov.
|
“Kuba: Dutch, Polish,
Czech, Slovak, and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from Kuba, a pet form of the personal
name “Jakub”/Jacob.”
|
Zborov, Mähren,
Czech Republic
|
|
Haney
(English
Scottish,
Irish)
and
Janša
(Slovenian)
|
8th GGPs
|
Unknown Jansa
(b. abt. 1550 –
d. abt. 1613)
|
Anna Mae Haney
(b. abt. 1552)
|
“Haney: from ‘McHaney”, Americanized
spelling of Norwegian “Hanøy”, a habitational name from any of four
farmsteads so named, from Old Norse haðna ‘young nanny-goat’ or hani ‘cock’
(probably indicating a crag or mountain resembling a cock’s comb in shape) +
øy ‘island’.
“Jansa: from a derivative
of the personal name Janž, an old spelling of Janez, Slovenian form of John.”
|
Bystrec,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Hejl
(Czech)
|
9th GGPs
|
Jiri Heylek Hejl
(b. abt. 1550)
|
|
“from ‘Hejl, hýl” for a’
bullfinch’, a nickname either for someone with a red nose or for a greenhorn.”
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Hylka
|
5th GGPs
|
Nikodem Jansa
(b. 1658 –
d. 14 May 1721) in Cermna.
|
Zuzana Hylka
(b. abt. 1662 –
d. 22 August 1732) in Cermna.
|
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Janeš
(Czech
English)
|
6th GGPs
|
Filip Paukert
(b. abt. 1670)
|
Anna Janes
(b. abt. 1670)
|
“From a pet form of the
personal name Jan” meaning John.
|
Libchavy, Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Kroboth
(German)
|
2nd GGPs
|
Wenzl Kroboth
(b. 1747 -
d. 28 March 1813)
lived in house #12 In
Pisarov.
|
Barbara Dolsky
(b. abt. 1750)
in Horní Studénky.
|
“From an ethnic name for a
Croat, from an altered form of Slavic Hrvat (see Horvath).”
|
Pisarov and
Horní Studénky, Mähren,
Czech Republic
|
|
Kupka
(German
Slovak)
and
Lamach
|
7th GGPs
|
Jakub Kupka
(b. abt. 1640)
|
Marie Lamach
(b. 1645 –
d. 1675)
|
“Kupka: Polish, Ukrainian,
Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic), and German (of Slavic origin): nickname from
Polish and Ukrainian “kupka” ‘small heap’, a diminutive of “kupa” ‘pile’.”
|
Cermna,
East Bohemia, Czech Republic
|
|
Lesikar
(Czech)
|
7th GGPs
|
Martin Lesikar
(b. about 1620)
|
Eva ?
(b. about 1620)
|
Apparently Czech:
unexplained.
|
Bohemia, Czech
Republic
|
That concludes the first half of the Polasek
family surnames. Great information, right? I also
have been able to locate the meanings of more names which have been quite fun
and enlightening as well.
My Most Exciting Surname Find
The most exciting find you ask? Well for me the surname “Haney.” Over all
these years, I would remind my little Czech
mom, especially on St. Patrick’s Day and
while attending all my Irish dance performances and competitions, the
old adage that “Everyone has an Irish grandma and can claim Irish heritage if
you go back far enough!” So you can
understand my surprise and happiness when I saw the name of her 9th
great-grandmother “Anna Mae Haney.” You can imagine the elation filled my mom’s
face when I broke the news to her. (No wonder she could makes such excellent
Corned Beef!)
Well, the next blog will continue
with the Polasek family tree looking at the surnames starting with M through V
and the details of their immigration through Ellis Island. Watch for it.
Until then. Sharon.
[i] All
definitions were found on the “Meaning
of surname” database from www.ancetry.com, Sept 2013.
