Surname Gazda? Olszak?

Question

Just would like some info on my surname..........I'm pretty sure it's Polish because all four of my grandparents came here from Poland.....anyone have any family records? Anything on the surname Olszak would be nice also.

Answer 1

Gazda (which commonly became "Gasta" or "Gęsta") was common in western Poland provinces of the area that used to be called "West Prussia" and Galicia. Olszak is very common in the corridor between Warsaw and Lublin. The original spelling was probably closer to Oleszak during the time that the Germans controlled the area because they had difficulty with three hard consonants together and they'd throw a vowel in the middle to make it easier to read.

If you have names on the immigrants, I'd be happy to look for their immigration paperwork and hometowns for you. I enjoy researching in the area and am pretty fluent in Polish and German.

Answer 2

Early Gazdas came from Poland, Hungary and Austria

Early Olszaks came from Poland and Germany.

Keep in mind, country borders were a bit fluid at that time.

Answer 3

My (frequent) advice here is that genealogy is tracing your ancestry, in terms of exact persons.  Surnames don't work.. because just as a person named Lee might be English or Chinese, the same is true for other names.

You are already aware that your four grandparents immigrated from Poland. If (like mine), they spoke Polish, then that is what they were..even if born there in the mid 1800s, when Poland (politically speaking,) did not exist.  At least one census record claims my grandfather was born in Germany.. which, at the time of his birth, was correct.

ESPECIALLY for Polish ancestry.. you need to determine the town/village of the birth, and (when possible), do the same with the prior generation. If you run them through ancestry.com, you often can find the exact immigration record; if they were naturalized, you may find the same info in that file.

Relying on the surname to find heritage/nationality can send you in circles.