Are there any tips as to how to find relatives who changed names upon arrival, i.e. Kwiatkowski to Flowers! We have reached a "dead end".
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My grandfather changed the family name from Kwiatkowski to Blume after arriving in Canada early 20th century.
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My great grandfather changed his last name from Kwiatkowski to Kwaitt. According to my grandmother it was because he wanted to be "more American"
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We seem to have identified a pattern here. I didn't know that my mother was born a Kwiatkowski, because I had only heard the family name as Blume. When my aunt told me this, she was in her 80s and the only surviving sibling. She then gave me the Familien Stammbuch, showing that her father, my maternal grandfather, was born in NeuFarrenwasser, Danzig (today, Gdansk). March 2012 is the 100th anniversary of my mother's family's arrival in Canada. My grandfather, Franz August Heinrich Kiwiatkowski, arrived in Montreal in March 1912. My mother and her siblings arrived with my grandmother in October 1912, when the landed at the dock in Montreal. We'll have to celebrate this, do0n't you think?
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My family shortened the name to Kosky. I believe Kwiatkowski translates to something like 'house of flowers' so it's likely that some changed it to something similar to Flowers.
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When my GGGG Grandfather arrived in North Carolina in the 1830's (an exile from the failed November Uprising against Russia) he changed his name to Rosemond. When he wrote a short autobiography in the late 1860's he mentioned that his mother died shortly before he left home for the final time and he planted roses on her grave.
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This name in Lithuania is Kvietkauskas . The Polsh and Lithuanian beginnings of the name means flowers. My family in Lithuania used that spelling. I know someone who researched his family history and both the Polish and Lithuanian names were used in his family tree. It has also been spelled Kvetkus in Lithuania. It is odd that a father would have been Kwiatkowski in Lithuania and his son Kietkauskas . It was not just at Ellis Islad that the names were changed. The name could also be spelled Kwitkowski, Kvetkauskas (auskas often the ending when the name derived from the the Polish ski.
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I found the following legal name changes in the records online at Opole Archiwum primarily GDANSK: Albert Kwiatkowski and frau -New German name=Kwistner Erich Kwiatkowski and family -New German name=Bluetner Franz Kwiatkowski -New German name=Kries Ignatz Kwiatkowski and frau-New German name=kwiering Joseph Kwiatkowski-New German name=Kwade Kurt Kwiatkowski-New German name=Bluetner Leo Kwiatkowski, Joachim Kwiatkowski, Aleksander Kwiatkowski-New German name=Siemers Paul Kwiatkowski-New German name=Blum William Kwiatkowski-New German name=Koerner
I am looking for descendants of Ludwig Louis Kwiatkowski from Patschkau, Silesia, Prussia. He was a barber there. I do not know if any of the children migrated elsewhere or not. Patricia Baron
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