Welcome to the Pokrant.com website!
This website has been setup and maintained by a few Pokrants living in Canada, mostly in Manitoba. See the Pokrant family tree for a better idea of who we are.
We originally created this website to advertise a family reunion but since then it seems to have attracted the attention of Pokrants from around the world. So we have decided to keep the website up and running for the sake of Pokrants everywhere.
Please leave your messages or questions in the comments section.
The Pokrant Family History
By Ewald Wuschke
The Pokrant (also Pokrandt, Pokrand and Bokrandt) family was living in Poznan and West Prussia for some time. They possibly were part of the German settlement that the Teutonic Knights established in West Prussia in the 1300s and 1400s. There are several place names along the Warthe River named Pokrandt. They spoke a “low” German language called Kashubish Platt. The term “Kashub” referred to the Province of Neumark which the State of Brandenburg established in 1405.
The Neumark was established on the territory where the Slavic Kashub had been living up until this time. These Slavic Kashubians who did not assimilate (and the majority did not) with the German settlers moved into northern West Prussia which was called Pommerellen after 1450 when the Polish state took this land from the Teutonic Knights. According to the surnames of the Kashubs in Pomerellen and the Germans in the Neumark there seems to have been an interchange, the Germans moving from territory then controlled by Poland to German territory and the Slavic Kashubians moving from territory then controlled by Germany to territory that the Poles had seized from the German Teutonic Knights.
So far, our records show four Pokrant families had settled in Poland. One family was living in the Wladyslawow parish, and another eventually settled in Brzeziny parish. A third Pokrant branch settled in the Rypin district where a Johan Pokrant and a Gottlieb Pokrant were teachers in the village of Jeziorki.