Sean: What Piotr has posted above is quite true. Pilecki is an old Polish/Slavic name going back to the middle ages. There are at least 3---some say 4 branches of the family that are known to have had coats of arms in either Poland or Lithuania. If you know anything about Polish history, you know that the country was gradually eliminated from the map of Europe beginning in the late 1700s. It was divided between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. It is quite possible that your family could have come from old Prussia and been Polish or Lithuanian originally. Polish names do not ususally end in "y" but spelling changes are not at all unusual either.
|