My research about the Szypulski family shows the following information. Because this continues to be a work in progress, I apologize in advance for any errors. The lands mentioned here, formerly in Mazovia [Mazowsze], are now in the Warmia-Mazury [Warmińsko-Mazurskie] province of Poland.
The name "Szypulski" is fairly uncommon in Poland, so everyone with that name is probably distantly related.
According to William Hoffman's book "Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings" the root of the name is: "szypuła - stalk, stem (part of a flower)..." Be careful when using Google Translate; "Szypułki" and "Szypulski" are often translated as "stems" or "peduncle."
The people who came to be called Szypulski were the noble owners of the land named Szypułki. The land is in the Janowiec Kościelny parish and town [gmina]. As with other land-owning families of that era in Poland, the family name is an adjective derived from the name of the land. The Janowiec Kościelny web site is:
http://wrota.warmia.mazury.pl/janowiec_koscielny_gmina_wiejs...My grandfather was baptized in the Janowiec Kościelny church. We have a photocopy of his baptismal citation. He was born in Smolany-Żardawy, another village within the town of Janowiec Kościelny.
The nearest small city is Nidzica (formerly German Prussian Neidenburg). The mayor of Nidzica is Dariusz Szypulski.
The Szypułki land had two tiny villages: Szypułki-Zagórze (Szypulki-Highlands) and Szypułki-Zaskórki. I'm still researching the meaning of "Zaskórki ."
Google Street View recorded the paved roads in that area in the summer of 2013. Unfortunately Szypułki-Zagórze and Szypułki-Zaskórki are on dirt roads and were not recorded.
It appears that most of the buildings in Szypułki-Zagórze were leveled in the Communist era, but a house remains. According to the editor of the gmina Janowiec Kościelny web site (link above), the house may have been built in the 1800s. Szypułki-Zagórze is sometimes referred to as just "Szypułki," so it may be the older village. It's closer to the church. It is on a pond that, I think, is one of the largest bodies of water in the Janowiec Kościelny town.
The Janowiec Kościelny web site's picture gallery shows Spring-time [Wiosna] photos of the pond at Szypułki-Zagórze. The eighth picture (from the top, left) shows a small island, and through the island's trees you can barely see the white house:
http://wrota.warmia.mazury.pl/janowiec_koscielny_gmina_wiejs...Scroll down for the "Wiosna" pictures.
Attached at the very bottom of this Ancestry.com message is a small picture of one side of the house at Szypułki-Zagórze.
The other village, Szypułki-Zaskórki, has a Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szypu%C5%82ki-Zask%C3%B3rkiThe Janowiec-Kościelny parish (St. John the Baptist) and the neighboring parish in Janowo (St. John/St. Roch) are together an area called Poboże (Piety). A very high proportion of Roman Catholic nobility historically lived in this area, which was originally on the Prussian border. A old trade route ran through this area on its way from the Moravian Gap (in the mountains on the southern Polish border with the Czech Republic) to the old Hanseatic League town of Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea. One Polish writer suggested that the people in this area probably made a lot of money from smuggling.
A woman named Scholastyka Szczepkowska wrote a short history of the area (in Polish) on the Poboże web site and it mentions the Szypulski family and their two villages:
http://poboze.pl/pl/o-poborzu/scholastyka-szczepkowska-nie-r...Google Translate does a moderate job of translating this story into English. In part of her article she writes about the battles in the 1400s with the Teutonic Knights and she mentions the families in the area including the Szypulskis ( in Polish "the Szypulskis" = Szypulscy). She mentions the existence of the two Szypułki villages during those battles. So, the Szypulski family was probably living in that area for at least the past 600 years. The Szypulskis were probably among the first families to settle that area in the 1300s
The reference book "Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich" (Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Bordering Slavic Lands) was last published at the end of the 1800s and early 1900s. It lists the two Szypułki villages in Volume 12 [Tom XII], on page [strona] 125. The last four words of the description are "Mieszka tu drobna szlachta" (In this place are minor nobility).
http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/Tom_XII/You have to enter "125" in the box next to the word "strona," (replace "info") and then hit the little arrow to get to the correct page.
The Szypulski family, and others, were excommunicated in 1493 for vandalizing the parish church and cemetery. This may have been due to a dispute about who was going to run the parish when a new pastor was appointed by the bishop. Earlier a Szypulski was the pastor of the parish. Nicholas and Andrew, from Szypułki-Zagórze, were fined and later allowed back into the Church when the fine was paid. The Historical Institute of the Polish National Academy of Sciences has a web page which shows a record of the fine, and it says that the Szypulskis were part of the noble clan named Trzaska ["z rodu Trzasków"].
http://www.slownik.ihpan.edu.pl/search.php?id=15092The founder of the Trzaska clan was a young warrior named Bolesław who, in battle, defended the life of the first Polish King (who also was named Bolesław - "the First", "the Brave", "the Great") around the year 1000. In the battle the warrior broke two swords -- first his own and then the king's sword. For saving his life, the king thanked Boleslaw by granting him land and a noble title. His (and our) coat of arms is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trzaska_coat_of_armsThe Trzaska clan is a very old Polish noble clan. The English Wikipedia Trzaska page lists the Szypulski family name, and the Polish Wikipedia Trzaska page also lists it.
Sometimes I have seen the coat of arms modified from the two broken swords into two crosses, one above and below the crescent moon. In old images of the Trzaska coat of arms, the two broken swords may have looked like crosses. The modified form is shown in this video of a jousting match from the 600th anniversary (in 2010) of the Battle of Grunwald:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOghMOr2048Andrzej Popławski, who posted the video, is part of the Trzaska clan. Another of his videos is more cinematic. The video promotes his vocation as a medieval re-enactor. The link to that video is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtfrJcsWMt4In one or more of the comments following his videos, he is asked why his shield has crosses instead of broken swords.
If you have any comments or corrections, please respond to this posting.
-- John