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Does anyone know if this surname is Czech or Polack? No one in the family is really sure. Half of us consider ourselves "Polacks," and the other half call themselves "Bohunks." Please help.
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It's an Americanised spelling of the Polish surname Chełmiński (for someone from Chełmno, ultimately derived from the word for "helmet"). And also, "Polack" is an ethnic slur.
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The ancestry.com website explains this as a Polish surname from a German forename -
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact.aspx?fid=10&ln=Helminski
However a Polish surname website has no record of this as a surname in Poland, though its coverage of Polish surnames is comprehensive.
I've seen postings on the net arguing that this is an American makeover of the name Chelminski, which denotes someone from a town in Poland called Chelmno. The L in these two names (town and surname)is not as we would write them in English, same for the N in the surname. You would need to see them in a Polish language context to get the correct spellings. The initial Ch is pronounced like a harsh H, and that would explain the American version beginning with an H. One thing's for sure, it's Polish.
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact.aspx?fid=10&ln=Helminski
However a Polish surname website has no record of this as a surname in Poland, though its coverage of Polish surnames is comprehensive.
I've seen postings on the net arguing that this is an American makeover of the name Chelminski, which denotes someone from a town in Poland called Chelmno. The L in these two names (town and surname)is not as we would write them in English, same for the N in the surname. You would need to see them in a Polish language context to get the correct spellings. The initial Ch is pronounced like a harsh H, and that would explain the American version beginning with an H. One thing's for sure, it's Polish.
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My grandfather (born in Chicago in 1882) said that when his parent immigrated from Poland the year before he was born that our surname was Chelminski and Americanized to Helminski
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