Reprinted From "SEARCHERS" (No. 2 - December 1989) - A Newsletter for Members and Subscribers of the Polish Genealogical Society of New York

It has been said that as many as one-third of all Americans have Polish blood, but how to prove it? Occasionally, however, genealogical research can uncover the Polish link for some of whom we least expect it. Would you believe -- George Washington?

Yes, it is true. We start from Washington's great-grandfather, Col.John Washington, who emigrated from England in 1656, then trace his ancestry back several European countries until finally we reach Poland's first royal dynasty, the Piasts. Here is the way of it.

Boleslaw I Chrobry (the Brave), who reigned in Poland from 995 to 1025, was the real creator of the Polish state. He campaigned in East and West, capturing Kiev, and was Poland's first crowned king. He also won an independent metropolitan see at Gniezno for the Catholic Church in Poland, and fostered the mission among the heathen by St. Wojciech and St. Bruno.

In Poland, however, kings with several sons would divide their kingdoms up into dukedoms, one for each son, thus endangering the unity of the nation. After Boleslaw's death Poland alternated between periods of unity, spells of disintegration, and spasms of civil war. In 1138 Wladyslaw II, Chrobry's great-great-great-grandson, already Duke of Silesia, succeeded to the title of Grand Duke of Poland, with his capital in Krakow. But the extra title gave him no real control over the dukedoms ruled by his brothers. When the new Grand Duke attempted to convert this honorary title into real power, he lost the ensuing struggle and in 1146 was driven out of Poland entirely. From that time forth he was known as Wladyslaw the Exile, but apparently his title still had currency in the royal marriage market. In the course of his travels he was able to marry his daughter, Richilde, to Alfonso VII, King of Castile and Leon in Spain.

A daughter of this match, Sancha of Castile, married another Spanish king, Alfonso II of Aragon, who also ruled Provence in southern France. With the next generation one of their sons became Count of Provence, virtually independent of Aragon after 1196. Winston Churchill tells us that the culture of medieval Provence, the home of troubadours and the creed of chivalry, fascinated Henry III of England. He developed a love for extravagant splendor, and preferred the brilliant adventures of Poitou and Provence to [win] his own morose barons. In 1236 he married Eleanor of Provence, daughter of the count, and thus brought Polish blood into the ancestry of all subsequent English kings.

The new queen brought with her a host of poverty-stricken French relatives, hungry for English lands and offices. The marriage was not at all popular in England, but it also produced one of England's greatest kings, Edward I, the "English Justinian", the law-giver, conqueror of Scotland and Wales, firm and wise administrator who restored peace and harmony to a strife-torn nation.

Among the English nobility titles and lands were regularly entailed on the eldest son, leaving little for other children. Daughters must marry where they could. This, in 1558, we find Margaret Butler, ten generations down from Edward I, marrying Lawrence Washington, a country gentleman, of Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire.

(Sulgrave Manor was a former priory, "dissolved" i.e. confiscated, by Henry VIII during the Reformation and purchased in 1539 by the grandfather of this Lawrence Washington. In recent years Sulgrave has been restored and has become a mecca for American tourists, although it actually stayed in the hands of the Washington family only about 120 years.)

A son, also named Lawrence, an Oxford graduate, became Rector of Purleigh in Essex, but he was on the royalist side during the Civil War and was ejected from his living by the Puritan Parliament on the accusation (probably trumped-up) of being a "common frequenter of ale-houses", where he "dayly tipped..." The result was that England unwittingly made yet another great contribution to America, as the Washington family, led by Colonel John Washington, in 1656, found a new home in friendly Virginia, a favorite refuge for royalist exiles.

{The "SEARCHERS" staff of the Polish Genealogical Society of Western New York would like to express our appreciation to Kirkley S. Coulter, author of "George Washington's Family Tree", and Wanda Cytowski, Editor of Polish Weekly STRAZ of Scranton, Pennsylvania for allowing us to reprint the article in our newsletter, so it can be shared by our members, subscribers, and other societies.}