JewishGen website's Jewish Records Indexing lists a branch of the Wacholder family in Konin, a town due west of Kolo. An historical narrative describes Jews settling in Kolo ca. 500 or so years ago, coming with German settlers. From the abundance of Jewish surnames of Germanic origin, an assumption can be made that our Wacholder (and others) ancestors also were of German origin. Does anyone have insights into this?
Also, I have been told "Wacholder" has 2 possible meanings. One, in German, it reers to Junniper, and a "Wacholder" is a distiller of Gin.Two, it means "Holder of the Watch", which I take to mean a professional watchman (policeman?) or fire-spotter.My Maternal Grandmother, Sarah Rauch Strikowski(Kosky in USA) said the Wacholders were wealthy and made loans, being the bankers of Kolo.
Mike Keats (mkeats17@verizon.net)