Russian surname.. need help translating Gotowaska?

Question:

Russian surname.. need help translating Gotowaska?

An old document from a Great grandfather was born in Russia. Writes his name as Gotowaska in english script. I can't find any surnames like that. Any help out there finding what his name might be in Russian? Trying to do some more tracing back...

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: If it was written in English script, then it's prone to translation errors. The first hint of that is that the name ends with -ska. That notes that it's a female's name. -ski would be a male's name with the same Gotowa in front of it. It's also possible that his English handwriting left something to be desired. Check the census records from the era and see if he declared that he could read and write in English. That would help put things in perspective.

You're likely looking at someone from somewhere between Warsaw, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus. You don't give any details on him so it's hard to look him up. But if you're searching, I'd go for the common spelling Gotowski and type it into the Ellisisland.org search engine. It comes up with 10 direct hits. Then you can play with the alternative spellings and see if you can find him.
http://www.ellisisland.org/search/matchm...

BTW, the Gotowski name comes up with 10 hits. Gotowska comes up with 2 hits..both women and both "Russian Pole" or "Austrian Pole". Back in the 1800s Poland was partitioned and the former Congress of Poland area to the east of Warsaw and into Lithuania all came under the direct control of Russia. Because the US immigration forms required the immigrant to declare their nationality and not their direct place of origin, they were called "Russian" in most records because Russia owned the land. But we would still call them Polish or Lithuanian. So when you look at these records, keep that in mind so that you don't limit yourself.