Post WWII Germanic / Polish community in North/East Yorkshire?

[neelawson]

I was born September 1948 and my mother took my father's identity to her grave. I took a DNA test in the hope of finding out who he was. I matched with plenty of my mother's relatives but the bigger surprise was that I was half Polish (probably). The distant relatives I do have on my father's side have either Polish or German ancestry as the region he likely came from based on my DNA has historically been part of both countries (or Prussia) at one time or another. My mother lived in both Northallerton and Scarborough prior to my birth and her family members had farms in the area between both towns. Would there be any records of people with Polish/German origins living in that part of Yorkshire in 1947/8?

[jimbo50]

An internet search shows quite a few Polish Clubs in Yorkshire. They are social and church clubs. Often members will have had Polish parents. Maybe an exploratory phone call ?  I had quite a few Polish school friends in the 1950s, but that was in South London.

[StefanD99]

Good Morning, neelawson.
I, too, am the son of a Polish father, from a similar area of Poland, in my case Katowice. Fortunately my father lived here, in Britain, from 1945, for the rest of his life with my mother and his children.
Why your father did not stay with your mother we can only speculate, but two reasons come to mind.
The first being that he was forcibly repatriated.
The second being that the Red Cross had traced him, for his family in Europe, who your Father may well have thought were dead. The Red Cross may have records still.
If you have not already seen this thread, it may be of help.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=806804.9
If he came to Britain towards the end or at the end of the war, into an assimilation camp, I would have thought he would have moved on to live and work in the general community, perhaps on your family's farm, by the time he knew your mother.
He may have attended a local Catholic Church.
He may also have been here during WWII serving with the Armed Forces, for example the RAF.
With regard to your distant relatives your DNA has identified, FamilySearch has access to Church Records in Poland. However, they may not be complete, as I could not find the records of my family members that I know about.
There are also the commercial companies, such as is featured on ITV's Long Lost Families. I have no experience of these.

I wish you luck in your search.
Dzień dobry,
Stefan

[Gibel]

This article is about the many Polish Resettlement Camps in the U.K.in the later 1940s and 1950s. Perhaps one of these was near the area your family farmed.

https://www.polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk/camps2.htm

My first teaching post was in a Catholic primary school in a town that was near where there had been one of the camps. The Polish families were very keen on education. As children their education had been totally disrupted by war. I also had to get my tongue round some names that I found very difficult to pronounce!

[fiddlerslass]

Another possibility is he may have been a German POW who stayed on after the war. This may also explain the secrecy surrounding his identity. If his homeland became part of the Eastern bloc, or his family had perished, there was not such an incentive to return. There were lots of camps in Yorkshire, including one in Northallerton on the Stokesley road. Often prisoners did agricultural work and there was a demand for this post war too. Here is some interesting reading

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/interactive/yorkshire-prisoner-of-war-camps#main-page-section-0

As a point of interest, which site do you have your DNA on?  On my father's side I have German/Czech ancestry, with a hint of Silesian,  and have uploaded my DNA from Ancestry to Myheritage. I have a had a lot more European hits on the latter site, with higher cM s so more likely to be able to work out connections.
Good luck!