Polish/austrian immigrants

[KerryEL]

i have immigrant relatives, came to london 1895 who we always thought were polish, now after getting copies of bankruptcy records of Barnett Kosky, we find he is noted as an Austrian Jew...  What do we believe and where do we start to trace them??

[Berlin-Bob]

What do we believe ...?

Both !!!


My Grandfather was jewish, born in Poland, but .......

different parts of Poland belonged to Austria, Russia, Germany, and even at times, to Poland.

So my grandfather was born in Poland, but in a part that belonged to the Austrian Empire, so he was an austrian jew, born in Poland !!

Bob

ps

Welcome to RootsChat

[Berlin-Bob]

Do you know where in Poland he came from ??

[KerryEL]

We think it was from the Slask area of Poland.... thanks for your info, it clears up a lot of confusion we have had today since getting the records x

[Berlin-Bob]

Yes, that would fit.

Slask is in South East Poland (map here). 
http://www.europeinns.com/poland/slask/

My G-Grandfather lived in Katowice, Slask (Kattowitz was the austrian/german name)

Any closer details ?? (you will need this to be able to write to the relevant town hall)

Another possibility is to follow the jewish aspect and try www.jewish.gen
Lots of pages with all kinds of data, and if you register (free) you can search for and enter your KOSKY name in the FamilyFinders section.

Be prepared for variant spellings: KOSKI, KOSKIE, and with a W - KOWSKY, KOWSKI, KOWSKIE, etc


Bob

[KerryEL]

No closer details known, all is a bit vague..
We have come up against spelling variations as you said, my gt gt grandfather was registered Kosky at birth, later spelt it Koski, his brother was registered Koski and my mum remembers writing to her nan using Koskie!!
what do you mean about writing to the relevant town hall??

[Berlin-Bob]

There is very little online data for Poland (or most other european countries) so to get further back, you have to order certificates from the registry office or some other official place, which I summarised as "town hall"


I just looked in the Naturalisation records in Kew - various KOSKY but no Barnett.
Did any of the family get naturalised ??  that might also be a source of data.

Bob

[KerryEL]

Ok, thanks for that Bob, will try and look into it further.

The strange thing we have found is 2 entries to Births in 1896, one of Barnett Kosky and one of Yetta Kosky both list together one after the other, yetta Kosky was formerly Yetta Kliman, though they never as far as we know married, she took his surname.  I know it could be just a coinsidence, but seems strange that they are listed their, together, the 2 people who have been a bit illusive to us.