You think? That, chaver (o mishpacha) sheli, takes a no brainer (If this is Kevin, I know that you know that. Don't try to fool me.). By the way (and I have nothing to hide), this is going to (G-d willing) be on Wikipedia (and maybe Kevin will learn something here that I just figured out a while back. By the way, a handy tool is EasyBib.):
Surname Etymology and History[edit]
"Foczko" is an Ashkenazi Jewish Levitical surname that comes from the Polish and Hungarian words for "seal"[1][2]. Whether it was a Polish pun on Siegel is unclear.[3] Among its variants are "Focko", "Fosko", and possibly "Faczko"[4]. Conversely, among surnames that are confused for variants of it are "Fosco"[5][6], "Focsko"[7][8][9], and "Fecko" or "Feczko"[10]. Because of the confusion of "Focsko" for "Foczko", to note that "Focko" and "Foczko" stayed unchanged in both spelling and pronounciation in Poland and vicinity (e.g., Belarus), Slovakia (both when it was a part of Hungary and after it declared independence), and Hungary is important.
In Hebrew, the Foc(z)ko surname is "פוצקו" or "פוצכו" ("Fotzko").
Family History[edit]
There are two distinct branches. The first branch is from Warszawa, Lódż, and Radom, Poland. The second branch is from cities such as Gelnica, Zlatá Idka, and Košice, Slovakia; and Diósgyőr and Miskolc, Hungary[11].
The second branch first appeared in Slovakia (then a part of Hungary) in 1720[12] and 1730[13] While this branch became Anusim and emigrated from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (and why they did so remains unclear), the first branch remained openly Jewish and within Poland and vicinity[14][15].
Notable descendants of the Foczko Family include the late Staff Sergeant Carl S. Rusnak of the United States Army Corps of Engineers[16], whose mother was Juia Fosko Rusnak (née Juliana Foczková)[17][18].
Religion[edit]
The religions of the Foczko Family range from Normative Judaism to Christianity, to "other religions".[19] Some of the descendants of the Anusi branches are even reluctant to identify as Ethnic Jews because of their religious affiliations and family history[20], notwihstanding the following:
"[T]he term anusim is applied not only to the forced converts themselves, but also to their descendants who clandestinely cherished their Jewish faith, attempting to observe at least vestiges of the *halakhah, and loyalty to their Jewish identity. Both the elements of compulsion and free will enter the psychological motivation of the forced convert. The concept denoted by the term anusim, therefore, is fluid, bordering on that applying to apostates and even to *Marranos; it has been the subject of much discussion."[21]
References[edit]
- ^ The Polish word is "foczka", and the Hungarian word is "fóka".
- ^ [1]PolishForums.com
- ^ [2]"Seal"
- ^ "Re: Surname "Faczko"" Message to [a descendant of Julia Fosko Rusnak (née Juliana Foczková)]. Mar.-Apr. 2016. E-mail. The email partially reads, "As I said earlier seems to me that the difference of one letter is quite normal. So "Faczko" would be a variant of "Foczko". But I'm not the specialist. When the surname is more difficult and not popular become the bigger opportunity of changing. All my grandfather's brother and sisters had different surname even thought all of them had the same parents."
- ^ [3]Which comes from "Fusco".
- ^ http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=ROOT_CATEGORY&rank=1&new=1&so=3&MSAV=0&msT=1&gss=ms_r_f-2_s&gsln=Fosko&msrpn1__ftp=Tennessee+Valley&msrpn__ftp=Kentucky&msypn__ftp=Italy&msypn=5118&msypn_PInfo=3-%7C0%7C1652381%7C0%7C5118%7C0%7C0%7C0%7C0%7C0%7C0%7C&uidh=ie4>The Tennessee and Kentucky "Fosko" Family were originally surnamed "Fusco" and from Italy.
Also See[edit]
Update: I forgot to put the stats in (Stupid me, guys!)