Thank you Richard! The enlarged version of your shield made it all clear, but I’m afraid that now with all details so visible the nails look more like ... screws because of the hexagonal shape of their heads…??
Waldemar Łysiak is a fascinating persona ,brilliant narrator and unconventional thinker ,who miraculously survived long period of discrimination by the communist regime .So far , I know that he has a daughter and a son who two or three years ago published his first book .The story set in the Medieval times was an instant hit.
I don’t know how can I be helpful in your research since I don’t live in Poland, but feel free to ask any question and I’ll see how I can help you.
nice! 
Very nice work! Congratulations!
Thank you Denny and David.
Anna, point taken. Eighteenth century nails came in an astonishing variety of shapes and sizes and the heads were often slightly hexagonal or square shaped. I’m attaching a couple of images.
Thank you for your kind offer. I’ll be seeing my niece in person next month and will have a chat with her about family research. I’m wondering if Waldermar Lysiak may already have carried out some research since he is an historian. Do you by any chance know if his book has been translated into English?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_Łysiak
As you can see the list of his books is lengthy and amazingly ALL of them were very successful.The ‘pirated ‘copies were sold on the black market for horrendous sums and this only illustrates how popular he always was among readers .He used to slam political establishment without mercy and this is what made him so unpopular among publishers during the communist regime. Only in the end of 90s’ Łysiak was given a status of ’ a victim of political persecution ’ His first book was kept for 3 years and meticulously censored…although intelligent readers always had fun finding historical facts, details and anecdotes ‘smuggled’ under the eye of fooled censors .
Related or not , I’m sure your niece will be interested in family research.
As far as I know ,only one book ‘Szachista’ (‘The Chess Player ‘was translated to Spanish.The book is about a plot to kill Napoleon Bonaparte.
http://www.paperbaskswap.com/El-Jugador-Ajedrez-Waldemar-Lysiak/book/8420654310/
I’m sure that he is aware of his family background ,however it was never publicized in any form or at least I don’t know anything about it.