Genealogy Chat

I have a marriage certificate which states the groom as Maximillian Lewandowski formerly Jozef Fraiwald - can anyone tell me why he would change his name and why his wife went under the former name of Fraiwald after they were married? He was born in 1918 (not known where but presume Germany/Poland) and married in 1953. When he died his name was Max Josef Fraiwald.

...no, sorry, but speculation can help... I assume most of your info is from the UK (i.e. he married here and died here?) Born about 1918 makes him about 18 in 1936 - presume that if he travelled after that date, he moved without any family I've heard that emigrating was relatively straightforward - if you could afford the transport costs - but most countries west of that area were reluctant to grant visas to immigrants (shades of Bulgaria/Romania today!) Some people came via contacts/specific schemes (eg the Kindertransport) - perhaps a clearly Polish name helped? He may have known a Polish friend with that name, and needed to be a relative to move? He could have been adopted - adopted parents often change the names... What can you do to narrow down the possibilities?

- might be worth posing the question on this site: polish.genealogyforum.eu (written in English) - and this site has a general outline of the way that polish surnames are formed freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com

Thank you Ivy for your reply - yes all the info has been found in the UK so far - this is not my relative but one I am researching for a friend so I know nothing about German/Polish immigration as all my lot come from Ireland! I will have a look on the sites recommended. Once again thank you. June

June as he was born at the end of the war maybe his parents were not married, his mother could have then married & he took his stepfathers name but legally he was still Fraiwald & that's the name he married under? Georgina.

Perhaps he was here as a POW or DP in WW2 and stayed? Jay

Here is one suggestion... Many Poles who fought for the Allies in WW2 changed their names (to the Polish equivalent of John Smith or Joe Bloggs) so that if they were captured, their families left behind in Poland would not be found and face repurcussions. Some years ago I worked with a girl whose father had done exactly that. When she returned from a visit to her father's family in Poland, she changed her surname from one Polish name to another....which of course made no sense to any of us!! She explained that she had changed her name back to the REAL family name, since she had found that the one she had been given at birth was only her father's assumed name, the Polish equivalent of Smith.

Thank you all for your replies - yes Karen your reply seems to make sense as he put his Father's name Josef Freiwald - Master Builder on his marriage certificate in 1953 so this was probably the family name and he had used the name Lewandowski name during WW2. Anyway thank you all. June