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"True, European Jewish immigrants did have to render their names into Latin or Cyrillic letters to create passports, and yes, passports were sometimes forged—but those forgeries or name changes would have been generated by the immigrants themselves. It is also true that many immigrants chose new names for themselves in America, whether for expediency or to avoid discrimination. But that was after they left Ellis Island. I am not revealing state secrets here, or arcane information. Any school child who has been on a field trip to Ellis Island knows all this. But why use facts when rumors will do?"
Yep. My paternal granddad's paternal family did this. "Czerniezka"? Who checked; and, by the way, who questioned when Alexandria "Czerniezka" listed "Katarzyna [?] Czerniezka", to whom she was not talking, as her nearest relative from whence she came (and never mind that they weren't talking after the former had become a Anusit)? (By the way, they were both Danilowiczes somehow. "Katarzyna" certainly was, as she was born a Danilowiczówna.) And on other records..."Czarnecki", "Chernetski", "Czarniecki", "Czerniecki" (the original one, apparently), "Charnetski". Something should've caught on; and, blessedly, it somehow never did (and, by the way, Great-Granddad "spoke perfect English"; and English was neither his nor his extremely-literate parents' native language, and his dad particularly knew how to get around the system. His mom was a little more honest. Still, Great-Granddad was one of those who was marked by "inaccuracies [which] were grounds for deporting improperly documented or unqualified people back to Europe". How Ellis Island, the Luzerne County Courts, etc. never caught on, I can only guess.
As for "facts when rumors will do" on the flip side: one of our surnames is "Foc(z)ko" or "seal". Whether it's a deliberate pun on "Siegel" (and I'll bet that it is), I can only guess. But my cousin (since we were Anusim who fled Poland after the Non-Anusi branch bid us farewell) gets so mad when I point out that "Focko" and "Foczko" are rare, in mainly Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary (and became "Fosko" in many cases in the U.S.); is "Focko" and "Foczko" ("Fo-ts-ko") in Polish, Slovakian (with the non-accented "c"), and Hungarian; and both the Polish and Hungarian use the word "foka" (with the only difference being the Hungarian having the "ó"), and Slovakian doesn't have that word. Also, we immigrated to Upper Hungary, the more-tolerant of the two Hungarys (not Lower Hungary), where we could pass and have Slovakized our name if we so chose (We didn't.).
He loves to continue to buy the family tripe, which includes all this randomness/coincidences/conveniently leaving out geographical proximity and other relevant factors (e.g., that István Foczko's wife, Jána Hanzóková Foczková, was never noted to be of "hanzók"/Hanseatic descent [and if she was, that would've come out; as one of our ways of passing was to try to link ourselves to gentile notables if we could]; that her mother was a Lázárová, and that her only daughter, Julianna Foczková, was deliberately proposed to by a Levite whose parental grandparents had to be "felmentették" ["acquitted"] to marry). In doing so, he also (whether or not he realizes that he) dumbs us down quite a bit (e.g., as if Anusim weren't smart enough to seek each other out?).
By the way, he didn't mind using my granddad's old Stefan Czarniecki canard on me. He lost, though: ours was "Czerniecki" (apparently. It could've been "Zernetzky", too. Who knows? It was an Anusi marriage done at Maćkowa Ruda, far from Krasne and Lipsk, and far from the eyes and ears of rabbis who'd've never allowed a Catholic marriage even for "Antoni" and "Katarzyna" to gain freedom from serfdom). We were never near the Anti-Semite Stefan Czarniecki (We are related to Kirk Douglas, though. I don't know the connection; yet, there you go: "Danilovich" wasn't just a patronymic after all, and the Daniloviches are responsible for producing an Exodus denier who raped Natalie Wood. We're also responsible for producing Jack Czarnecki, who hurt a lot of people—including by hiding his Jewishness and trying to connect us to Stefan Czarniecki.
(Concerning that [i.e., Kirk Douglas, my granddad's self hating, and whatever else that is bad that I didn't know until I began doing the family research] , I was like Darby Conley after he got his cat—"sorry and ignorant.")
Yep. My paternal granddad's paternal family did this. "Czerniezka"? Who checked; and, by the way, who questioned when Alexandria "Czerniezka" listed "Katarzyna [?] Czerniezka", to whom she was not talking, as her nearest relative from whence she came (and never mind that they weren't talking after the former had become a Anusit)? (By the way, they were both Danilowiczes somehow. "Katarzyna" certainly was, as she was born a Danilowiczówna.) And on other records..."Czarnecki", "Chernetski", "Czarniecki", "Czerniecki" (the original one, apparently), "Charnetski". Something should've caught on; and, blessedly, it somehow never did (and, by the way, Great-Granddad "spoke perfect English"; and English was neither his nor his extremely-literate parents' native language, and his dad particularly knew how to get around the system. His mom was a little more honest. Still, Great-Granddad was one of those who was marked by "inaccuracies [which] were grounds for deporting improperly documented or unqualified people back to Europe". How Ellis Island, the Luzerne County Courts, etc. never caught on, I can only guess.
As for "facts when rumors will do" on the flip side: one of our surnames is "Foc(z)ko" or "seal". Whether it's a deliberate pun on "Siegel" (and I'll bet that it is), I can only guess. But my cousin (since we were Anusim who fled Poland after the Non-Anusi branch bid us farewell) gets so mad when I point out that "Focko" and "Foczko" are rare, in mainly Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary (and became "Fosko" in many cases in the U.S.); is "Focko" and "Foczko" ("Fo-ts-ko") in Polish, Slovakian (with the non-accented "c"), and Hungarian; and both the Polish and Hungarian use the word "foka" (with the only difference being the Hungarian having the "ó"), and Slovakian doesn't have that word. Also, we immigrated to Upper Hungary, the more-tolerant of the two Hungarys (not Lower Hungary), where we could pass and have Slovakized our name if we so chose (We didn't.).
He loves to continue to buy the family tripe, which includes all this randomness/coincidences/conveniently leaving out geographical proximity and other relevant factors (e.g., that István Foczko's wife, Jána Hanzóková Foczková, was never noted to be of "hanzók"/Hanseatic descent [and if she was, that would've come out; as one of our ways of passing was to try to link ourselves to gentile notables if we could]; that her mother was a Lázárová, and that her only daughter, Julianna Foczková, was deliberately proposed to by a Levite whose parental grandparents had to be "felmentették" ["acquitted"] to marry). In doing so, he also (whether or not he realizes that he) dumbs us down quite a bit (e.g., as if Anusim weren't smart enough to seek each other out?).
By the way, he didn't mind using my granddad's old Stefan Czarniecki canard on me. He lost, though: ours was "Czerniecki" (apparently. It could've been "Zernetzky", too. Who knows? It was an Anusi marriage done at Maćkowa Ruda, far from Krasne and Lipsk, and far from the eyes and ears of rabbis who'd've never allowed a Catholic marriage even for "Antoni" and "Katarzyna" to gain freedom from serfdom). We were never near the Anti-Semite Stefan Czarniecki (We are related to Kirk Douglas, though. I don't know the connection; yet, there you go: "Danilovich" wasn't just a patronymic after all, and the Daniloviches are responsible for producing an Exodus denier who raped Natalie Wood. We're also responsible for producing Jack Czarnecki, who hurt a lot of people—including by hiding his Jewishness and trying to connect us to Stefan Czarniecki.
(Concerning that [i.e., Kirk Douglas, my granddad's self hating, and whatever else that is bad that I didn't know until I began doing the family research] , I was like Darby Conley after he got his cat—"sorry and ignorant.")
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