members of this family were predominantly owners of farms of all sizes, some undertook executive administration for the regional states including posts as privy councillors, judges, army reservists and regional politicians. In the 18th century, the rule of both Augustus the II and III led to external wars and internal chaos impacting on all but the largest magnates who further expanded their lands. As a consequence even the members of the Jankowski family as nobility with means 'middle szlachta' (termed szlachta zamozńa) would have struggled to maintain their lands. By the 19th century, things would get even worse as Poland had ceased to exist as an independent state and was under foreign occupation. The new administration was frequently harsh sometimes even repressive making the long established feudal agricultural economy even more difficult and even uneconomic. Furthermore, exploitation of the abundant natural resources, as a consequence of the industrial revolution spreading from the West, was hampered by an inefficient infrastructure. A small proportion of the Jankowski family moved west into continental Europe in the mid 19th century, predominantly France due to shared cultural, religious and military traditions. However, the majority of the poorer members of the Jankowski family emigrated predominantly to America via German and English ports. In the early 20th century the remaining progeny of this family with sufficient means diversified into the professions including civil and industrial engineering as well as the medical sciences. World War II In World War II, the members of this family suffered many military and ethnic-based casualties in the following incidents; the Polish Defensive War September – October 1939, Katyn massacre and the related Smolensk region massacres, Nazi concentration camps, Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles, Soviet Gulags and military deaths in resistance movements or as anti-Axis members of the British, Soviet or French armies. This led to a collapse of the kinship by 20–50% in several branches of the family while some became extinct altogether. Furthermore, the loss of the heart of the Jankowski h. Jastrzebiec lands in the Polish Eastern borderlands (Kresy), to the Soviet Union, led to a large proportion of the surviving Jankowski descendants relocating west into new Poland. However, a second wave of political emigration overseas also followed. This time, a sizable proportion went to the UK and its commonwealth, as many Poles including the Jankowski diaspora had fought with distinction in the II Corps (Poland) of the British Army