Polish abbreviations

Dear Justin,

It stands for personal (family) coat of arms

Kind regards

Your distant cousin Jan

Thanks!

Could it be "herb wlasny"?

To be exact is "herbu własnego" (herb własny is family coat of arms, herbu własnego - "of" family coat of arms). :)

It's the case I'd like to address in some time, there are numerous profiles/surnames with "h...", however to be exact, coat of arms were not an official part of a surname. Since some time I don't add coat of arms surname to the names, as part of standardization of names.

@Justin Swanström. Hej Swanström, Polish nobility have another system with their Coat of Arms, when the rest of the world. There might be up to 220 families sharing the same CoA without having the same sure name or being related. You need to know what CoA a family has, or you get lost. All Polish CoA bear a name. (i.e. h. Polkozic = ex: CoA by the name of Half goat).
Then, after the fall of communism, it became popular to add the name of the CoA after your surname with a "-" in between. Since it is rather rare with individual family CoA in Poland families with their own CoA (not shared with others) are by this "h. wl." expression stated that it is unique.
Polish Nobility is much larger then the Swedish one. There are some 30 - 40.000 nobel families living in Poland today. There were never a central "House of Lords or Nobility" as the Swedish "Riddarhuset", keeping them all up to date by family. Each and one family kept their family tradition by hart. The reason to this was the common belief that nobel families are not as breeding horses, and you do not follow it up with a official pedigree table. This is personal, and belongs only to the family itself. That is why it is so difficult to do any family related research today on any Polish ancestors. Names of Polish CoA can be found on Wikipedia. Family names attached to one and each of them can be found there to, but it is not guaranteed it is complete.
This since you do not know how many no longer exists, and therefor no one has made a note what CoA his family once possessed.
During the historical times some 30.000 Polish nobel families were whipped out by wars.
There was also a tradition to add a Sufix to the nobility name (as i.e. "af" and "von"), and by this declare it being of nobel descent, and it was "-ski". This degenerated over the years, and it is no longer a guarantee of nobility.
Surnames also change Sufix in the Polish language grama, depending upon if it is a male or a female (male = -ski, female =-ska). Also it might change if some belonging is being discussed and to whom it might belong. Complicated stuff, for those not familiar with it.
When you have grown some gray hair over these issues, then you will know you have penetrated these problems half way, when you are almost giving up, it is when you are closest to find out whatever you are looking for! Hope any of this might be some information. Good Luck to you, and don't give up!!! We never do.

Hubert, thanks for the good explanation. This is easier to understand than what I found on Google.

Karol, I found some profiles on Geni with h. wl. as part of the surname, so I used it when I added new profiles. Should I stop doing that? Use only the surname?

Well, I can only speak for myself but I believe it's a good idea (I think it would be good someday to only write Polish family names without coat of arms, if only for statistical and cosmetic reasons) as it can create confusion.

There is a big Polish nobility genealogy site, www.wielcy.pl, where names are written with "h...", and I believe we at Geni adopted this method while using data from that site. For me it's not too correct, as coat of arms isn't, at least in vast majority of cases, an integral part of the surname.

Thanks, Karol. I'm very new to Polish genealogy. There's a lot to learn!

Thank you all. I am learning Polish genealogy too. This information is helpful.

Dear Justin,
The explanation given by Hubert is quite accurate. Yet the better Polish armorial is considered to be (nowadays) the Tadeusz Gajl’ armorial. You may consult it for free (and in an easy way) at http://gajl.wielcy.pl/herby_main.php?lang=en
If you find “h. wl.” That means that the name of the coat-of-arms is the same of the family name. For example, Mr. Gajl is himself “h. wl.”…just by chance (he would be “Tadeusz Gajl of Gajl coat-of-arms” – yet I believe he signed “Tadeusz Gail” only).
Usually you will find (if that person actually uses his coat-of-arms) somebody named in two possible ways. Let’s say… “Aleksander Slepowron-Wroblewski” or “Aleksander Wroblewski h. Slepowron”. Old Polish Nobility belonged to a kind of Clan. To be proper a Heraldic Clan or Aristocratic Clan (hundreds of families not necessary related and having different family names shared the same indistinct coat-of-arms). Later foreigners, already nobles, Germanics, Hungarians, etc. come to live in Poland-Lithuania becoming Polish Nobles too yet keeping theirs (unique and) original coat-of-arms. Those were the first to be “h. wl”.
Take care,
Gustavo

Thanks. I knew about herbs / clans, but just in general. I could understand a name like Wroblewski h. Slepowron, but when I saw Breza h. wl. I didn't know how to read it. Now, I've crossed the threshold to be a Beginner ;)

It also can be explained in a way - Breza h. wł. is nothing else but Breza h. Breza. Because Breza has two meanings in this example, one - a name of the family, and the second - the coat of arms of the family, which happens to bear the same name. Other examples would be Plater h. wł. (their coat of arms is Plater), Sołtyk h. wł. etc. I think the rule is, that the particular family is the only family with the specific coat of arms.

Dear K. Wodyński (on hiatus)
By the way, did you know we are related? (Yet very far related…?)
So, nice to meet you!
By chance, are you a Wodyński “of Kościesza, Prawdzic or Szeliga coat-of-arms?
…Just for curiosity.
Get the regards from your “very far related cousin”, Gustavo

Hello Gustavo,

Yes, that's true - but we can be related more closely, it's yet to be determined. :)) Some of my ancestors are also from Polish nobility, but I don't have too much information about them by now.

As for Wodyński family, I grew up with a family legend that we are from Wodyński's of Kościesza coat of arms, but according to my research it is very, very unlikely. My farthest male ancestor Sebastian Wodyński (c. 1706 - 1791) was a... butcher in a small village in southern Poland, far away from the family nest of Wodyński h. Kościesza... :)

Hi everybody,

I have been unable to find the meaning of "p. w m." like in this 1906 Galicia Industry Directory
http://genealogyindexer.org/frame/d170/210/d
help would be greatly appreciated.

Peter Ebner

I guess it means "powiat w mieście" in other words that the city mentioned was capital of a powiat (county) .
But it looks like the abbreviation is not described in the book. And its not something common.
On some pages you can find text like "Olchowice (p. Sanok)" it means that Olchowice is part of a county with its capital/office in Sanok
piotr

@Gustavo Szwedowski
Sthlm, 26/2 2018

To each and one doing any research in Polish Nobel families, and using Tadeusz Gajl’s "HERBY SZLACHECKIE" Wydanie(edition) 1, published in 2006
I have one sample too, and I have found missing Polish families in it. It is a great work, no doubt about that, but it still has some missing parts.
I have reported it to Mr Gaji.

Content of his CoA book:
3.000 illustrated CoA
19.000 family names
32.000 family clans

I can only recall now these families:
Ehrenfelt, Nr 1762 at Riddarhuset, Stockholm. Ennobled 19/3 1720.
Polish family name: Dubowski (hr. Brodzic). Probably from Paliche, Poland
They got a new CoA in Sweden, as to Swedish tradition.

and

von Ehrenheim, Nr 324, Ennobled 20/5 1705, Baroned 1/3 1805, and then 2/6 1828. The same here, new own Swedish CoA.
Can no longer recall where from they were.

Dear Justin,

I would say that this is not fully correct to say (as Gustavo stated) that:

...h.wl. ” means that the name of the coat-of-arms is the same of the family name. For example, Mr. Gajl is himself “h. wl.”…just by chance (he would be “Tadeusz Gajl of Gajl coat-of-arms” ...

This is NOT a case: Gajl will be Gajl of his own coa and NOT "Gajl of Gajl coa". There is NOT such coat of arm "Gajl".

h.wl. (herbu wlasnego) - i.e. of own coat of arms means (as it is stated in the Polish heraldy) that the ONLY ONE family uses such coa. And nothing more.

1. It is not a rule that such coa will / may have the same name as the family name,
i.e. it CAN be but it is not a case for the most families
2. In general, such coa (own coa) is specified for families of NON-POLISH origin
(e.g. old Russian, Lithuanian, German, Tartarian etc. adopted in the Polish heraldry).
3. The OWN coa is also typical for families of not-noble origin (i.e. for families which are not classified as always noble) and which have been awarded by the king e.g. peasants, rich city inhabitants, Jews etc.
4. Some families with the "modified" original coa may be listed as having "OWN coa".
5. A branch of family awarded with the higher aristocratic title (counts, barons etc) might modified his original coa and then they may be listed as having OWN coa.

Justin,
At at the end - answering your question: to add or not to add "OWN coa" to the family name:
OWN coa - it is heraldic information and NOT a part of the family name.
Some famous families have been recognized as having the coa called exactly as their family name (e.g. Plater of coa Plater as Karol mentioned) but for the most families OWN coa it is information only that they use untypical coa. Since it is certainly not correct to list e.g.: Gajl of coa Gajl.

So better to keep such information as an appendix and not as a part of the family name.

Best regards
Wojciech Kauczynski

Thanks, Wojciech.

I am looking for any information about Guillaume, Maria, Frantz Windish-Graetz, born on November 19, 1950 in Nairobi, Kenya.

This was very helpful information about herb wlasny. I've recently found that my Załęski
ancestor had that designation and I know nothing about it. Can anyone suggest how and where I can find more information about this? I.e., is it listed anywhere the individual names of the family or the area. I believe it might be Załęze in Mlawa but would like to see it confirmed.

Thank you,
Michelle

Anyone feel free to join the new project i created called "Trybus family in poland". It is for Trybus family history and helping other people figure out their Trybus ancestry. Feel free to join, work on other people's trees, add documents, add pictures, ask questions, provide info and videos, and work on your own trees.

Please Join!

Michael