Heroes, Heritage, and History

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Finding Polish names
Some of the Polish names in this database were (in Poland), Nędza. Frączek, and Słomiany
ę and ą are nasalized vowels, like ã in Portuguese, or the o in French non
So when they came to the U.S., some clerks wrote what they heard — Nendza, Fronczek
while others wrote what they saw, i.e., Nedza, Fraczek
The ł in Słomiany is a bit more interesting, It sounds more like an English w
but it looks like an l (L), which is what generally ended up being used in America.
But a century later, when numerous people were trying to make indexes
to the records at Ellis Island, some of them (unlike the clerks back then) had neither
knowledge of Polish, nor the experience of having spoken to hundreds of Poles,
nor the arriving immigrant to pronounce it for them.
So when they came to a handwritten Słomiany, they wrote what they thought they saw: Stomiany.
Since I had only seen it as Slomianna (and Slonins, go figure!), I could never
have thought to look for a T. If I had heard it pronounced “Swomiany”
I might have known what letter it was, but in print, it doesn’t look like a T.
Also, in Polish, nouns—including names—have both gender and case. If a man’s
name is Słomiany. his daughters would be named Słomiana. But a clerk who
did not know that, and had processed dozens of males by that name, might
(as one did with Wiktorya) write a female’s name the same way.

Section 31, Lot 31