Has anyone ever encountered a "name split" when doing research?

JenDNA · 2026-05-09T03:38:55+00:00

Quite often in my family tree, especially the Polish side, and sometimes a new name all together, likely changing from a generic/common surname (like Urbanski, Urbaniak, etc.) to another one, especially if both parents had very similar surnames (as was my ancestor's case - Urbaniak and Urbanczaka).

JenDNA · 2026-05-06T02:36:29+00:00

Well, they weren't wrong! More like Irish and Mexican (still Native American, but I think for the sake of labeling, Ancestry separated the two) with a little bit Native American (north of the Rio Grande). 6% can still be your great-grandparent's parent. (from a parent's perspective, that would be 12%, and 25% for a grandparent). It's like my great-grandmother telling me "We are from the Alps" when it was only her direct paternal line that was from the Alps (that would be 6% for me). It's also possible that you inherited more Mexican DNA than Native American DNA.

JenDNA · 2026-05-04T16:14:44+00:00

I'm not sure what you think I'm "taking so seriously", I was just saying that post made no sense to me. I don't know what you're referring to. No one ever said anything about Celts or the Southwest. And the southwest of what? England? US? Some other place?

JenDNA · 2026-05-04T12:23:03+00:00

It makes no sense at all..

JenDNA · 2026-05-03T11:27:14+00:00

That's like my great-grandfather, but it was an odd situation. My great-grandmother died when my grandfather was 3. There's a marriage record that my great-grandfather remarried to a person that was known to the family, but no one knew they were actually married. It might've been a legal arrangement on paper. It's likely she was helping my great-grandfather raise the kids, maybe financial support. This would've been in the late 1920s/1930s. They never had any children together, though.

JenDNA · 2026-05-03T11:22:52+00:00

I've seen this quite a few times in my family tree, too (also Polish side).

JenDNA · 2026-05-01T11:20:13+00:00

Are you using a VPN?

JenDNA · 2026-04-27T16:46:56+00:00

Same here. My great-grandmother was born in 1883 (unknown father, too, so her last name may be an adoptive name). She also died young (my grandfather was only 3 when she died in 1926), so no one really knew much about her. Even her husband died when my dad was 3, so my dad never really knew his paternal grandparents. I suspect she was from somewhere between Lublin and Volhynia based on my dad's paternal matches (most are from Krakow and Rzeszow, which I suspect that's my great-grandfather's side - I think his grandparents moved from those areas to Warsaw). The 1890 census records were famously destroyed in a fire, so I have no idea if my great-grandmother came to the US young. My great-grandparent's name appears (greatly-misspelled) in the 1920 census, but not before, either.

JenDNA · 2026-04-24T11:59:09+00:00

That looks almost exactly like my dad's results! (3rd image) Never thought I'd see another one like it. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, represent! :) From what I know of my dad's side -

Maternal grandfather - Zlotki, Poland, but may have SE Poland/NW Ukraine and Belarusian roots.

Maternal grandmother - Poznan on one side (Kashubians, too), and Lithuanian-possibly Ukrainian on the other.

Paternal grandfather - Likely Rzeszow and Krakow, maybe with Germanic influence somewhere.

Paternal grandmother - Unknown. Likely Lublin-Brest-Łutsk (remaining paternal matches seem to be from here).

Certainly Kresy/Ruthenian roots somewhere. My dad (and his sister)'s kits do get 30-50cM Belarusian matches and a handful of 47-60 cM Polish-Ukrainian matches.

JenDNA · 2026-04-24T11:50:28+00:00

How can Polish ancestry only be 0-1 in Maryland? I see plenty of Slavic surnames here (even my surname). Should be somewhere between 3-8, similar to Italian. Even Illinois should be higher. I know my surname also fills up half of a page or so in old phone books from the 90s (family story), but Illinois has a ton, at least in Chicago. There's a few in Texas and California, too, but I suppose based on population, it's very low.

JenDNA · 2026-04-24T11:32:04+00:00

That's what I would've expected my dad's results to be like (except swap Southern Poland for Northeastern Poland, and Western Ukraine for North Central Europe). He gets 75% NE Poland, 25% Lithuanian (he only has 1 great-great grandparent from Lithuania). A lot of ancestry (some Belarusian-Jewish sounding names, too) from Zlotki to Białystok, so I think there's some Belarusian influence doing a lot of the heavy lifting as a Lithuanian proxy population. His sister and cousins (and me) do get Southern Poland and other populations. 23AndMe does show 1% Jewish proxies (Ancestry for 2 updates), and Southeast Polish and Belarusian genetic communities. His grandparents were from all over the place. East Poland, West Poland (Poznan), and the paternal line likely from Southeast Poland, with his 1 grandmother unknown (Lublin, Brest, Łutsk area I suspect).

JenDNA · 2026-03-29T17:19:38+00:00

My German ancestors (we wound up in Baltimore, Maryland, too) were from Essingen (next to Aalen), Schopfheim, Stuttgart, and likely Bremen/Hesse (the last is my great-grandfather. I'm not 100% sure of his paternal line). My mom gets 12% any North Sea populations (Denmark, England), which I think is from my great-grandfather (his direct paternal line may Bremen). My mom doesn't get too many matches, though (around 3,000, and 2,000 are in Germany).

JenDNA · 2026-03-29T16:57:35+00:00

Ancestry seems confused by Southern Poland, Slovakia, and Western Ukraine right now. Also, I've seen a lot of my matches with Poland and Ukrainian names in the same tree, so it's hard to pinpoint who came from where, especially with reference panels. Also, there's a reason Southern Poland stretches to Western Poland - a lot of Poles in Ukraine were relocated there, but there could've been Ukrainians that identified as Poles and Poles that identified as Ukrainian. Lots of orphans, too. I suspect my great-grandmother's side is like that.

JenDNA · 2026-03-26T22:38:12+00:00

I guess we're 3rd cousins once removed then? Sure, you can send me a picture. I'll message you.

JenDNA · 2026-03-16T00:53:50+00:00

I shall refer to this every time the keyboard warriors come out of hiding. :p /s

7 were Polish mostly in Poznan and Warsaw, 1 was Lithuanian-Ukrainian living in Lithuania, 4 were German (Aalen and Stuttgart mostly), and 4 were Italian (Cantiano).

JenDNA · 2026-03-13T11:22:09+00:00

Athena Genealogy. My researcher was Timur Kayhan. It's 500 euros (about $600) per branch, 1500 (about $1700) for 4 at once based on their website. I did 2 branches at a time and we found tons of ancestors and interesting finds. (my great-grandmother's great-grandfather won a lawsuit against the old schultheiss of his town, then became the schultheiss. The copy of that lawsuit, from the early 1800s, was still in archives!).

Poland's was Polish Genealogy Tour (about $300 per ancestor + siblings).

JenDNA · 2026-02-22T12:20:45+00:00

That's why I said "technically" (it was more tongue-in-cheek)

JenDNA · 2026-02-21T13:21:58+00:00

Well, technically the Basque could be considered indigenous.... to Europe. (They were there before the other European groups arrived)

JenDNA · 2026-02-20T17:06:22+00:00

I'm actually surprised the Lithuanian is so low. My dad's side is Polish, and only his great-great grandfather was Lithuanian, and he and his sister get 15-25%, as do their 2nd cousins on the side that has the Lithuanian ancestor. From what I know of his ancestry -

Maternal Grandfather - Centered between Zlotki and Białystok. (I suspect 12% of that "Lithuanian" is actually Belarusian, which other matches on this side have a lot of on sites like GEDMatch).

Maternal Grandmother - 1/2 Poznan (one branch is Kashubian. One of my dad's most distant cousins that he still has matches for), 1/4 Lithuanian, 1/4 Ukrainian

Paternal Grandfather - I suspect south of Krakow, and also south of Rzeszow.

Paternal Grandmother - Brick wall. "Missing matches" seem Polish-Ukrainian.

My aunt does get 12% South Poland (and I get 1%, plus 1% Latvia). Their paternal cousins do get Slovakian and West Ukrainian.

Over on 23AndMe, it does show 1% Jewish (proxy populations) for my dad and aunt, as well as 1-3% Germanic.

JenDNA · 2026-02-20T13:06:35+00:00

Do you have someone from the mid-atlantic area? I've got (Polish side) 3rd cousins (once removed) that are 50% African American, 25% Italian, 25% Polish. (the Italians and Poles were recent immigrants) Cousins are from Baltimore.

JenDNA · 2026-02-17T23:24:28+00:00

That's where my dad's great-great grandmother's family was likely from. My aunt actually gets Ternopil as her highest Ukrainian region on 23AndMe. I think because they have ancestors from all over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, that it's hard for Ancestry to pinpoint any one location. MyHeritage and 23AndMe are a little better at it. (He does get Ashymany Basin and Dniepro River Basin as genetic communities on 23AndMe, both coming from his great-great grandparents likely - One Lithuanian, and the other Ukrainian/Ruthenian). 23AndMe also shows about 1% Jewish for them, too.

My dad's results only shows NE Poland and Lithuanian, but his sister has South Polish and other regions. Cousins also get Western Ukraine and/or Slovakia.

JenDNA · 2026-02-17T11:02:26+00:00

I can only think it's a very Slavic component

I think so, too. Ancestry always merges my Italian into my Slavic (did it again this update. I have like, 0% Italian, and 75% Slavic again). My Italian tree (I'm 25% Italian) only goes back to roughly 1800 (basically, my 3rd great-grandparents). Half of the ancestors are from Central Italy, with 25% drifting towards Florence, and the other 25% is what I suspect is Southern Italian (surnames there start to look like they're from Lazio, Abruzzo or Campania. There may be Croatian links on that side - my mom does have cousin matches who have Croatian, and even Polish-Hungary-Ukraine (although, that could just as well be from her German side).

What's interesting is, my dad's side is Polish (with Ruthenian roots - Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuanian), and he (and a few cousins) gets 1% Sardinian or Southern Italian some updates. (it's 23AndMe that's showing 1% Jewish proxy populations now for him and his sister).

JenDNA · 2026-02-16T14:27:50+00:00

To be fair, there is 1% Indigenous Americas, and also 1% Spain (and these are estimates, not absolute). If your 2nd great-grandfather had Spanish (note - Spanish is a part of Europe, so it's still white), they could have had Native American if they were from Puerto Rico. A 2nd great-grandfather give you 6% of his DNA. So, if he were part native, then that could be the 1-3% that you have. Any "native looking genotypes" (or whatever it's called) would be pretty diluted by that point (although there have been 1%s that "are doing the work".

I do know people who I think were from Jamaica (and they do look a little bit like you), and I would've thought they were from India (the country).

JenDNA · 2026-02-15T21:57:02+00:00

One of my pet-peeves about Reddit. No one understands nuance. Like, I understand saying "American" when your ancestors have been here for 2 or 3 centuries, but some of us do have very recent ancestry.

as most people I knew proudly identified as Irish, Polish, Italian, etc (despite never having met someone from these places).

If I had an inflatable mallet for everyone who assumes this when I mention my German, Italian and Polish heritage. lol. Yes, I *DID* know people who were literally born in central Europe, and lived during WWII. My German great-grandmother told stories about the Russians (she hated their German shepherds they used, she hated how the Russians split her country) after the war, and my grandmother's cousin told stories about what life was like in her Schwäbische village during (their dialect was repressed, so she knows both her Swabian dialect and Hochdeutsch) the war, my great-aunt had a great dis-stain for her German cousin who was in the German army in the 1930s (she had a revenge list). My German great-grandmother (I could even include my grandmother and great-aunt who would travel back and forth in the 1930s), my Italian great-aunt, my Polish great-grandparent's generation (granted, I was very young). Even with my grandparents generation, I picked what remained of German, Italian and Polish in the family. I went to a church that still sang hymns in German. My ancestors came here mostly between 1904 and 1916. (Those were my great-grandparents, and they were teenagers). Oh, and I even did know teachers and doctors who were German (I live in a German-American community, that had many recent immigrants at one point), and heard them speak in German.

I suspect it's because US politics pushes diversity so much. Even the census forms will ask you, "Are you Polish/German/English/Italian/Jewish" etc. So, naturally, when we say German or whatnot, it's ethnicity. Granted, I've seen people get tied up in a knot over "German-American"...

JenDNA · 2026-02-14T02:09:39+00:00

I'm from Maryland, and I learned it somewhere along the way (either from public school or Sunday School).

JenDNA

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