Russian Polish Ancestor - Birth Location

[Ruskie]

Hello Jozef. May I ask you a question please? 

With Polish surnames are you able to identify a region that people with that surname are likely to have come from?

(This can be done to some extent with English surnames - you can sometimes get a very rough idea where a family originates based on their surname because they are often regional.)

Duneane, have you looked for records of naturalisation (if these exist). Was his wife Polish too?

You can find out by name someone came from in the region only on the basis of databases.

Thank you Jozef. 

I don’t want to take over Duneane’s thread, so is it OK if I contact you via PM with a couple of questions about availability of Polish records?

[Jozef]

Ok, no problem.
Greetings
Jozef

[Jozef]

It seems to me that these two names will be: Zych and Wysocki. However, it will be difficult anyway. We miss details such as the region. The term Russian Poland fits half of the territory of Poland. It might be difficult.

[Duneane]

It seems to me that these two names will be: Zych and Wysocki. However, it will be difficult anyway. We miss details such as the region. The term Russian Poland fits half of the territory of Poland. It might be difficult.

Jozef - I now have the 1921 census return and they both state their birthplace as ‘Poland, Grodna’.
I think it’s a small village between Kolo and Kłodawa…

[ajm314159]

There is also a rare Polish surname Zaik or Zajk which occurs about 1000 times in the https://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/ databases (BMD). 

No Stanisław in 1880-1890, though.

I also checked Zaich, of which there are also several hundred, including one, Stanisław Zaich, but b. 1887 and in Miechów (małopolskie), so no go.

I think "Grodna" could mean Grodno, which was in "Russian Poland" from 1795 until 1915, and is a large city.  Unfortunately the above database only has very little data, if any, from territories now in Belarus.

[Jozef]

Koło or Kłodawa are towns in central Poland. Grodno used to be a city in eastern Poland, now it is in Belarus. The term Grodno could cover the area of the entire county.

[shellyesq]

My husband has some ancestors who were from Grodno, but they always referred to it as Russia.  I haven't made much progress on that branch, but jewishgen.org does have some databases that cover that area.  This gives some information about that region -  https://www.jewishgen.org/Belarus/regions/grodno/index.html