52 Ancestors 2025: Water - A Salute to Polonia

 

So far, this blog has focused largely on ancestors who came to the thirteen colonies or early United States from northwest Europe—Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. But another part of our family came from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Many of the earlier immigrants were refugees fleeing persecution for their Reformed Protestant faith; for Poles, however, the story was one of political subjugation and national loss.

After the successive partitions of Poland by Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, the nation itself disappeared from the map, and its people were reduced to second-class status. Many Poles—and Jews confined to the Pale of Settlement—sought better lives in the New World. Alongside southern Europeans such as Italians and Greeks, they formed part of the great migration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This post tells the story of four Polish families who became part of our own ancestry, along with a brief look at the history that shaped them.

Our first immigrant is Wincenty Dzailakiewicz, who lived in Russian Poland. Born around 1883 (according to census records), he was living in Kleczew when he left Poland. Family lore says he had an interest in both music and his faith and was studying in seminary in 1904. When the Russo-Japanese War erupted that year, he faced conscription into the Russian Imperial Army—an unthinkable prospect for a patriotic Pole. With help from an uncle, he escaped through Hamburg, booking passage on the SS Phönicia of the Hamburg-American Line and departing on 26 October 1904, arriving in New York City on 10 November 1904. Once in America, he continued to serve the Roman Catholic Church as an organist in Brooklyn, Connecticut, and Long Island.

Wincenty (anglicized as Vincent) married Zophia “Sophia” Wysocka, born around 1888 in Russian Poland. She emigrated in 1904 as well. Family stories say her family was relatively well-off but deeply patriotic, and that she and her siblings—Anton (Anthony) and Katarzyna (Catherine, or “Bubbles”)—all came to America. Unfortunately, no passenger list has yet been found to confirm their journey.

Another branch of the family remains partly mysterious. Zygmont Szymanski was born on 23 September 1886 in Tykocin, in Russian Poland, and was living in Łomża before emigrating. His naturalization record provides one clue, but his arrival is puzzling. He stated that he came to New York on 29 May 1900 aboard the Granada, yet no such voyage appears in any shipping records—certainly not one arriving from Europe. In the 1930 census, he gave an arrival year of 1908, but no record supports that, either. Since his Declaration of Intention was filed on 3 February 1908, and these were typically submitted about two years after arrival, it’s likely he came to America around 1905 or 1906.

We have more solid evidence for his wife, Suzanna Sarnacka. She sailed from Rotterdam aboard the SS Rotterdam (of the Holland America Line) on 23 July 1910, arriving in New York on 1 August 1910 at age 17. She was detained for two days—likely because immigration officials worried she might become a public charge—but was released to a family in Schenectady, New York. About three years later, she married Zygmont.

These Polish immigrants, like so many others, built new lives while preserving their culture and faith. During the First World War, the Polish lands became a battleground between the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires, but from the wreckage, Poland regained its independence. Tragically, World War II brought renewed devastation—the German and Soviet invasions, and the murder of around three million Polish Jews during the Holocaust. Afterward came decades of Soviet domination, until the rise of the Solidarity movement helped Poland reclaim its freedom.

For generations, the Polish-American community has celebrated its heritage while contributing to the cultural and civic fabric of the United States. For my family’s Polish ancestors—Vincent and Sophia Dzailakiewicz, Zygmont and Suzanna Szymanski—crossing the water to America meant not just escape, but opportunity, freedom, and hope.