Some Help Needed!

Ederson Pedroso dos Santos

Hi Everyone! I hope you and your families are well. If that is not the case, know that I pray for your and your family comfort. I just found out yesterday as I found my great-great-great-grandfather Marriage Certificate and discovered he and his wife is from Austria. This finished some legend on he being Polish, although we could not find any info or record stating that. His last name and his descendents (my grandma included) received his name (Jaquicheski), but this name does not exist, he was not Polish, in his record it states that at the moment they were married there was an interpreter. So I kind of destroyed my grandma side of the family believe, I just want to find more and give them a new horizon and discovery on some other part of our family who came from there. If you could help me rebuild that: My ancestors names were: Hypolit or Hypolito Zachreski/ Zakrenski in another document he signed with a "j" in the end. His wife was named Maria Garowink, his parents were: Ignacio Zachreski and Rosalia Zachreski.

So if you could help me with any direction, what to do to find something about how they came to Brazil. Unfortunately I could not find where he was born in Austria.

PS: Record 37 on the photo below.

Thank you.

Gail Swihart Watson

@Ederson Pedroso dos Santos I am no expert and eagerly await an expert answer to your question. However, I have dabbled in my brother-in-law's Polish ancestry and have discovered that boundaries changed dramatically during the 1800's. People in eastern Europe kept their ethnic identity regardless of the political lines, so I would not dispose of the family legend just yet. I actually have 2 brothers-in-law with eastern European ancestry and I have done a small amount of research. It has been sufficient, though, to make me understand that ethnicity and country are different and boundaries were incessantly changing. I would check out the boundaries of "Austria" at the time you are talking about, and see if the borders do not go into what is ethnically "Poland."

Julia Szent-Györgyi

"Austria" in the 1800s and early 1900s was often short for "Austria-Hungary", and could refer to nearly half the continent, including a large bit that is now Poland. (This part was known as Galicia.)

As Gail pointed out, political boundaries have changed drastically, and in any case, nationality has absolutely nothing to do with ethnicity. Ethnicity is a self-determined category related closely to language and less closely to religion and location. For most of our ancestors, we can only guess at what they considered themselves, based mostly on what languages were used in their communities.

The -ski ending on surnames is very typical of the Polish language, so while names are only very loosely connected to ethnicity (due to the ever-present possibility of mixed marriages), the presence of not one but two -ski names in your records is a strong indication that your ancestors were, indeed, Polish.

Ederson Pedroso dos Santos

Thank you @Julia Szent-Györgyi and @Gail S Watson this info is so useful. I am glad you shared that with me. Thank you so much.