As I was sorting through my DNA matches I repeatedly found a match to my mom, her sister, me, my daughter, her 4 kids, and my second cousin.. so I thought I should check her pedigree names. I found a matching name. It was Gralla!
Years ago I researched this family name all over Poland and mine were from Silesia. There were groupings of the name south of Warsaw of three family groups of this name. A Catholic group, Lutheran group and Jewish group. We met a wonderful family there in Kadzidlo, Poland in 1992. Below is a picture of them.
They were so wonderful. And my then 12 year old daughter connected to their daughter. We studied the records of their parish but found no connection. The records did not go too far back in time. We went home knowing we had made wonderful friends but would “never” find the records to connect. They shared the history of their family, that they were from Grale, Poland just a few miles away. The town was named after their ancestral family. They even explained all about the coming of the first "Gralla" to that place. There were still 10 families with the name there in Grale. Today I found this DNA match with a family of the right name from the little town of Kadzidlo where this nice family lived. We are related!!! It wasn’t what I was looking for today but it was a super gift thanks to DNA!
This is the family's father, who passed away not long after our visit. He is showing my mother their green houses and vegetables. They even gave us vegies to take along.
We walked into the village and they pointed out a house where long time ago lived a Jewish Gralla family.
The kids connected, played games and had fun.
Jamie showing her piano skills.
On the banks of the Narew River. This part of Poland is not where my known ancestors were from, so it is so exciting that we found out that somehow back there in time, our ancestors were related. DNA did it again! There is really something to this!
