Identity of Great-Great Grandfather

[Elle]

Hi,

My maternal great-grandfather was born in Galicia, Poland in 1870. His mother (my great-great grandmother) was unwed at the time of his birth. She lived in Luslawice (near Krakow) and we, his descendants, have been told that she worked on a grand esate as a servant.

My great grandfather had always been told that he could "hold his head up high" because he was of noble birth. I've been told that the Lanckoronski family lived in a manor house in Luslawice, and that there's a good possibility that my great-great grandmother worked for them.

Is there any way we can find out exactly who my great grandfather's father might've been? Does anyone know if there was any other noble family living in the Luslawice area at the time of my great-grandfather's birth? Whether his father was a servant or an aristocrat, we'd like to put to rest this story for once and for all.

Thanks

[rucksack]

^ I'd like to make a gentle suggestion.

Please, do not make your entire posting in bold type.

It is very difficult to read that way.

[darroll]

Hi,

My maternal great-grandfather was born in Galicia, Poland in 1870. His mother (my great-great grandmother) was unwed at the time of his birth. She lived in Luslawice (near Krakow) and we, his descendants, have been told that she worked on a grand esate as a servant.

My great grandfather had always been told that he could "hold his head up high" because he was of noble birth. I've been told that the Lanckoronski family lived in a manor house in Luslawice, and that there's a good possibility that my great-great grandmother worked for them.

Is there any way we can find out exactly who my great grandfather's father might've been? Does anyone know if there was any other noble family living in the Luslawice area at the time of my great-grandfather's birth? Whether his father was a servant or an aristocrat, we'd like to put to rest this story for once and for all.

Thanks

I would use the National Geographic.
They can tell you where you are from.

[vinnie]

Hi Elle,

You and I are in the same situation, but yours goes back one generation further. Did either your gggm or your ggf emigrate to the U.S.? I ask because sometimes you can find unexpected information on government documents. For example, my ggm apparently wrote the name of the man she believed to be her birth father on her U.S. Social Security application; we were quite surprised as we knew the family who had informally adopted her, and this wasn't it. If neither one of your ancestors didn't emigrate, there's still the possibility of such information being found on govt/church/synagogue docs in Poland, if they weren't destroyed in the wars.

To test your family story genetically, the best you could do would be the following: if your ggf has a living direct male descendant, you would need to find a living direct male descendant from the family you think your ggf was related to, and have both men test 67 yDNA markers and their haplogroups. If they are related, they would belong to the exact same haplogroup, and have a very close match on the 67 markers (perhaps a distance of 2-3 marker values at most). This still wouldn't be complete proof that a male of that family was directly responsible for your ggf's birth, but it would show that both living men likely share a common male ancestor within the relatively recent historical past. Combining the DNA evidence with whatever paper evidence you have would be the best.

Vinnie

[MMaddi]

You would have to have a direct paternal line descendant of your great-grandfather test his y chromosome and also test a direct paternal line descendant of the Lanckoronski who was from the manor house in Luslawice do the same.

This would mean testing the son or paternal grandson of one of the sons of your great-grandfather. As for the Lanckoronski line, you're going to have to recruit someone in that line to test, making sure he has a good documented paper trail to the Lanckoronski from Luslawice.

If you have candidates from both these lines, you can start out by testing 12 markers to see if they are a close or exact match. If they do match closely or exactly, then upgrade both to 37 markers to see how closely they match at the higher level. Or you can start out both at 37 markers or your great-grandfather's line at 37 and the Lanckoronski line at 12 markers.

If the match isn't close at the 12 marker level, you have results for your great-grandfather's line waiting for a close match at some point in the future. Also, you can look for other potential noble lines from Luslawice to recruit to test.

[lgmayka]

Whether his father was a servant or an aristocrat, we'd like to put to rest this story for once and for all.

If you can find a patrilineal descendant of your great-grandfather, I encourage you to get him tested (through the Polish Project, of course) across the full 67 markers. Even if you can't immediately find a corresponding Lanckoroński with which to compare, you may see near-matches that will give you a new clue.