| | From the Polish Genealogical Society of America - 17 March 2002
Dear Janice
If my knowledge of Polish names is a guide, this name is not Polish, according to the best data available there were no Polish citizens with any name beginning with Mazas except for 7 named MAZASZ living somewhere in Opole province and 4 named MAZAS living somewhere in Lublin province. Actually at first I thought the name might be a varient of a Lithuanian name ending in -aitis, which means 'son of' .Unfortunately a look at the 2 volume Dictionary of Lithuanian surnames shows no name beginning with Mazas.
Of course names from Eastern Europe were often mangled badly past all recognition during the course of resettling in new countries. There's no guarantee the original name was anything like MAZASITISZ. Still if that's all you have to work with, you will have to look for clues where you can. In general it's a mistake to concentrate on a surname and try to figure anything from it. Usually it's more productive to dig and dig furiously for documents dealing with your particular ancestors, Of course, it may be that this name is very rare, so if you DO find anything on it this information will help you a lot.
I hope these comments have helped a little and wish you the best of luck with your research
William F Hoffman
.............................................................................................................................
Perhaps the name was taken from Masuria the English name for the area called Mazury in Polish. The area used to be a part of Prussia and of the administrative region of East Prussia.
Morris Powell (Mazasitisz] was from Prussia according to the New York Census. Polish settlers were called Mazurs, in the 15th Century the original Prussian population were exterminated and the Prussian language suffered a decline. The name Masuria began to be used officially after administrative reforms after 1818.
Mazasitisz - perhaps 'son of' the area?
Powell - means 'servant of' or 'son of' |
