Is Mietkiewicz a Jewish name?

Question

How can I find my relatives in Poland?

Answer 1

Judaism is a religion, not a region where one is a native of.

Answer 2

As noted in your other question, you get the immigration paperwork on your grandfather, mother and her siblings from the Australian Archives. It will tell you where they were born.

Then you contact the International Red Cross Displaced Persons program through you local Red Cross Office and find out if they have information on other members of the family.

Once you know the hometown of your mother and grandparents, then find a Catholic priest or nun who is from Poland, and there are many in the Jesuit order if you're at a loss where to start, and ask if they can help you make contact with your Polish relatives.

I'm not sure why you think Mietkiewicz is a Jewish name. If your mother was Jewish, then she was Jewish. That doesn't mean her name was particularly Jewish. As also shown in the other answer, every record I can find on people with that name shows they were Catholic. But it was very possible for a Catholic man named Mietkiewicz to marry a Jewish woman named Goldman and their offspring would be Jewish. The name didn't change, just the religious preferences of some people with that name changed.

If you think they were Jewish just because they were displaced, the reality is also different. After the war, and especially when the Russians were setting up shop in Poland, everyone who could get out did get out. Religion had nothing to do with it. If they were in concentration camps and lived to tell about it, they were more likely to be Christians than Jews. Remember that Catholics/Christians were also sent to the camps for helping Jews. No one was immune to torture.

Answer 3

I can't speak for anyone else but all the Mietkiewicz's that I am related to are Jewish. "Mietkiewicz" may not be a traditional Jewish name (like Cohen or Levine). But in the same vein, I’ve also met a Jewish "Smith" or two over the years.

I have found an excellent resource to be Jewishgen database which has helped me find the names of many Mietkiewicz's who lived near my family's hometown of Czestochowa. Go to http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Poland/ (may require free registration). Type in Mietkiewicz and hit “search”. When you get your results, look in the "Piotrkow Gubernia" section. You'll see the names of many Mietkiewicz's - a handful of whose families survived the Holocaust. Most did not.

I am not aware of any Jewish Mietkiewicz's still living in Poland. But you never know.

Answer 4

The spelling is definitely Polish but I doubt if it is a "Jewish Surname".

What you have is a fixed surname derived from patronymics. Patronymics is the form of name where it is someone son of someone else.

The "wicz" is the Polish "son of" - as is "witz". So the surname actually means "son of Mietki". Mietki would be a FIRST NAME.

But it isn't as easy as it looks. The region you are talking about was at times under Russian, Lithuanian, Polish and even for a time, Germanic rule. EACH had their own form of "son of" and surnames could often change based on the powers that be. During Russian rule, the name would be Mietkievich (vich being Russian "son of") or if under Lithuanian rule, it could be Mietkis or Mietkiescu or many other forms. Also realize that "V" and "W" are almost completely interchangeable in all as none use the arabic alphabet.

Many jews did take this form of surname when they were forced to adopt fixed surnames in the 1800s. For example, the Jewish name would have been maybe Itsak ben Ibrahim (Isaac son of Abraham). When this Itsak was forced by the government to adopt a fixed surname, it was common for jews to take the local form that meant the same thing as their actual name. Thus Isaac could have become Abramovich, Abramowitz, Abramowicz, Abramescu, etc. all of which means "son of Abraham" as did his "former" jewish name. Because of high Eastern European Jewish immigration, that's why you see a large number of Jewish families with the "wicz, witz, vech, vitch" endings. A lot of non-jewish families in those regions (even more than Jewish of course) had those forms of surnames, but there wasn't as large of emmigration as there was with Jewish populations.

Why I don't think it is Jewish is that if this was a Jewish conversion from patronymics to fixed surname, then "Mietki" would have to be a Jewish name. Even taking into account spelling differences, I cannot come up with a traditional Hebrew name that would fit "Mietki", so that's why I would suspect that this is actually a Polish person not of Jewish lineage.

But realize that the form of surname changed all the time depending on the powers that be. You can find one person under many different forms. To complicate matters, when immigration to the US occurred, an immigrant often picked their "favorite" spelling, not necessarily the spelling last used in the homeland. A person may be Mietkievich (Russian spelling) in the homeland, but also may not have been too fond of Russian rule...so upon immigration, he picked to him the more favorable Mietkiewicz (Polish spelling) so as to distance himself from Russia. What fun huh?

Answer 5

Ancestry.com lists two Mietkiewicz families living in Ohio in 1920, but it doesn't give their country of origin. However a quick google search of the Mietkiewicz surname turns up a Toronto-based Internet producer, Mark Mietkiewicz, who writes on Jewish topics, for instance, "Peak at lavish 'Bash' Mitzvahs". If Mr. Mietkiewicz's numerous articles are any indication, Mietkiewicz is a name used by Jews. Thus, you might want to turn to a genealogical web site that specializes in Jewish family history:

http://www.jewishgen.org

http://www.pitt.edu/~meisel/jewish

Answer 6

i dont think so he is n about ur relative u've to get his/her address then u can find him/her