The Poles add endings sort of at will to last names….so the root of the name is LASEK….but at some point the peasants wanted to sound more noble, so they added the “ski” like the rich folks, making it now Lasecki.

Another ending is indicated with Josephine Garbaczyk’s name spelled as Garbacz on her wedding cert. It would translate sort of Josephine of Garbacz.

I puzzled when I found a couple of women with the last name of Dychowa in the records…..were these women related to our Michalina Dych, I wondered. Looking into it further (and the book, GOING HOME , A Guide to Polish American Family History Research by Jonathan Shea was very helpful and I highly recommend it) I found that the “owa” was often added by the priest recording the event to indicate that the woman was married.

To further complicate matters, a priest might record the name one way….and a different person who was copying the records or adding them into another level such as a civil administrator or a diocese level priest rather than a parish priest….might use a different ending!

Hope this helps…or just makes you more confused…well so much of the research is a sort of instinct that develops after many hours of staring at the records. In order to distill the true nectar, we try to find further documentation from other sources, confirming the correct person and relationship.