My maternal grandfather was Aron Eliyahu Wysoker, but he was born in Wysokie Litovsk in 1891.  I've always understood that families never took the surname of the town in which they lived.  His father was HaRav Yakov Meir HaKohen and his mother was Bryna.  According to family lore, his father was the official Rabbi of Wysokie Litovsk in the late 1800s.  My grandfather served in either Pilsudski's Legion or in the Russian army in 1918-1919. He was not an officer.  Because his two siblings who came to the US in 1920-1921, one male and one unmarried female, also bore the surname Wysoker, it seems unlikely that he changed his surname to try to hide the fact that he was Jewish.  So I am trying to figure out the inconsistency between the general rule and the surname.

 

Phil

 

Philip Freidenreich

JewishGen Researcher #1797

pfreidenreich@...

Yardley, PA

 

Researching WYSOKER, FRAJDENRAJCH, HOROWICZ (from Mieleyczyce)