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| 1852 Austrian map for Siemuszowa, Galicia |
Dobra, Sanok, Lesko, Krosno,
Nowy Sacz. These are all places that I had never seen until the last few years,
but they captured my imagination a long time ago. My paternal grandparents,
Mike Gburyk and Julia Czerepaniak, were born and married in the small village
of Siemuszowa just north of Sanok in southeast Poland. They came to America
shortly before World War I and eventually settled in Coal Country in Eastern
Pennsylvania near Minersville in the 1920's.
Mike's death from injuries
sustained in a coal mine accident in 1924 and Julia's reluctance to share much
with her children about their past in Sanok region, left me with a real hunger
to find out more about our family history. Unlike doing genealogical research
in English for other U.S. national/ethnic groups like the Poles, Germans,
Italians or the Irish, the path of Lemko and Ukrainian genealogy is definitely
not well trodden. But the sources do exist both in the U.S. and in Poland and
Ukraine and the effort is definitely worth it.
My work began informally in
the 1970's with questioning close relatives about what they knew of our family
past and started in earnest in the early 1990's with regular trips to the
Family History Centers of the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints) in New Jersey. My success
fully bloomed with the availability of the Internet in the late 1990's, which
has proven to be an invaluable resource for anyone intent on filling out the
branches on their family tree and understanding the circumstances of their
lives in Eastern Europe.
First: Know Your Lemko And Ukrainian History
So where do you start? If you
are of Lemko or Ukrainian descent and don't know anything about their complex history
in southeast Poland, or you want to pass on your heritage to your children and
grandchildren who were born in the U.S., your first stop should be a trip to
the public library to get a good book or two that can fill in the details. You
should know right up front that historically there have been competing claims
to the land of Lemkivshchyna. Both the Poles and the Russians have struggled
over it. The Ukrainians consider it the western-most part of their own
ethnographic territory. It was part of Galicia in Austria and later located in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The locals at various times have called themselves
Rusyns, Lemkos, Rusnaks, Carpatho-Rusyns and Ukrainians. The early 20th century
Ellis Island U.S. immigration records refer to arrivals from this region as
"Ruthenians", which is what they and many others who lived in the
province of Galicia in Austria-Hungary were called. Lemkos have been coming to
the U.S. as early as the 1870's and they have left their mark on many of the
old industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest as well as in the coal
patches of Pennsylvania and the mining towns of Minnesota. Today their
descendants can be found throughout the U.S.
Several good sources for
historical detail on Lemkivshchyna include: "God's Playground: A History
of Poland, Volume I," by Norman Davies; "The Reconstruction of
Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999," by Timothy
Snyder; "The Lemkos of Poland," edited by Paul Best and Jaroslaw
Moklak; and, "Ukraine: A History," by Orest Subtelny. On the
Internet, clicking around in http://www.lemko.org, offers a wealth of information not only about Lemko
history, religion, politics and culture, and points to various sources for
further genealogical digging. For information on the various waves of Ukrainian
immigration in the U.S. including the Lemkos, you should read "The
Ukrainian Americans: Roots and Aspirations," by Myron Kuropas.
Where to Begin Your Search?
The most important initial
source for tracing your own family history is your close relatives. Parents,
grandparents, aunts and uncles can each have a piece or two of your genealogy
puzzle. It is useful to do personal interviews with each of them and then enter
the information in a PC genealogy software program like Family Tree Maker. This
enables you to develop a permanent record of all your digging stored in one
single database on a PC. And, don't forget to periodically back up your family
file onto an external hard drive or a thumb disk just in case you have an
internal hard drive failure at some point! Going through official family records is also very
important. Birth, death and marriage records as well as applications for
citizenship, deeds, mortgages and military records all contain important facts
about family history. If possible, scan these documents into a PC and store
them on a CD-ROM for the reference of future generations as well as for easy
distribution to the rest of your family.
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| Civil records book Siemuszowa 1777-1784 |
How Far Back Can You Go?
Despite the ravages of World
War II and the tragedy of Operation Vistula (Akcja Wisla) (1947) which
violently tore most Lemkos away from their ancestral homeland in southeast
Poland, a wealth of records still exist that document the history of individual
families at least back to the 18th century. In 1993, Ivan Krasovsky published a
book (in Ukrainian), "Surnames of Galician Lemkos in the 18th
Century" that lists the names of Lemko families appearing in the first
Austrian Census (Cadastre) of 1785-1788 taken after the partition of Poland
when Galicia was transferred to Austria. The introduction to this key work (in
English) can be found on the here.
A dictionary (in English,
Polish and Ukrainian) listing all Lemko names covered in Krasovsky's book with
their corresponding village names appears here.
Alternatively, if you
already know the current Polish name for the village of the ancestor whom you
are researching, you can go here.
This interactive, alphabetic
list of Lemko village names can be searched to yield a list of all the Lemko
family names in your ancestral village at the end of the 18th century. Click on
the reference number link to the left of your village on this page and you will
find the names of the families listed in the Josephine (i.e., during the reign
of Emperor Joseph II) Austrian Census as well as facts about the number of
Greek Catholics living there in the 19th and 20th centuries.
If your relative is not listed
on this site, it is still possible that they lived in your ancestral village in
1785. A copy (on microfilm) of the Austrian Josephine Cadastre for your village
can be obtained directly from the Central State Archives in Lviv, Ukraine. The
process can take several months (when I obtained my copy in the late 1990’s it
cost about $US50). It is
definitely worth the effort since you will get a copy of an original historical
document that details both the individual family and economic history of your
village in the 18th century. Here
is the contact information for the Lviv Archive.
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| 1785 Austrian Cadastre for Siemuszowa |
Working with the Polish Archives and the LDS
Despite the widespread
destruction and chaos of World War II, the Polish archives are remarkably
intact and accessible. You can search individual villages here in the data base
of the Polish State Archives.
This will help you know
whether your records are in Sanok or Przemysl. Once you know this, then e-mail the appropriate archive
directly in English. They will let
you know how much your search will cost.
Contact information for the
Przemysl archive is here.
The Przemysl archive can be
an important first step since copies of many of the Greek-Catholic metryky
books that document the births, marriages and deaths in Lemko villages are now
stored there as well as deportation records for Akcja Wisla. The archives in Sanok can also be
another important source for your search.
The cost of researching
these parish registers greatly depends on how much information about your
particular ancestor you can provide.
It should be noted that the
LDS Church has actually microfilmed some of these Greek-Catholic Lemko metryky
books in whole or in part. Records contained in them do not go back farther
than 1750 and, in many cases, only go back to the early 1800's and are no more
current than 1860 or 1870. You should enter your specific village(s) here to
find out what is available through the LDS.
If you are lucky enough to
have your village parish register already on microfilm, you can obtain a copy
on loan for a very small fee ($7 for a one-month rental) from the main LDS
archive in Salt Lake City to read at your local LDS Family History Center. The
location of these reading rooms throughout the world is available here:
https://familysearch.org/locations/centerlocator
Locating Relatives Lost during World War II
The ethnic cleansing that
took place in southeast Poland during and after World War II determined that
most Lemkos could no longer live in their ancestral homeland. As a result of
Operation Vistula (Akcja Wisla) (1947) and the so-called "voluntary"
deportations of Lemkos that took place before it, you might not know where the
descendants of your family live today. Lemkos and Ukrainians were sent East
into Ukraine and North and West in Poland and forcibly resettled in various
places near Olzstyn, Szczecin, Gorzow Wielkopolski, etc. If you have any
information at all about a lost relative (date of birth, married name, last
place of residence, etc.) and would like to try to reconnect, please refer to
the web site of The International Tracing Service and the ICRC (International
Committee of the Red Cross) located here.
Once you document your
ancestors and compile the available information on a PC program such as Family
Tree Maker, you can then print out a very detailed family tree in a
professional way. Try to limit the size of these documents to two foot by two
foot or a maximum of three foot by three foot in size so that they are still
easily portable and printable. It does take some editing to get your family
tree in good shape for printing, but it is well worth the time spent.
Professional desktop printing services like those at Fedex-Kinko’s or Staples
will produce a good copy from an electronic file for about $6-$8, or slightly
more if you want it laminated and depending on the size. The end result of your
efforts is a beautiful document that shows in a visual way the history of your
family.
Even if you don't print out
a family tree, you can put important documents, your family tree and perhaps a
short narrative about your family history on CD-ROM.
CD-ROM is a very efficient
and inexpensive way to distribute the fruits of your genealogical digging.
Also, you might want to consider setting up a small family Web site yourself
both as a way of disseminating your information globally and to develop contact
with distant relatives with whom there has been no contact for many years.
Another possibility is self-publishing services to produce a hard copy book.
Self-publishing services are now available that will take your MS Word and PDF
files and produce a book for you in hard or soft cover. Consult your local
phone directory for such services near you.
The Fruits of Your Labor
Documenting the history of
your Lemko or Ukrainian family in Poland takes a lot of time and patience and
you might hit a few dead ends along the way. Persevere and you will be amazed
at how much information exists on our your ancestors. And today, with the help
of the Internet and other organizations like the archives in Poland and Ukraine,
the LDS and the ICRC, it is easier than ever to achieve success. If you need
specific help along the way to get around a dead end, please feel free to
contact me at: Michael.Bury@verizon.net. Happy
digging!
Copyright (c) 2013 by Michael J. Buryk. All Rights Reserved
An excellent and comprehensive guide. Thanks. My ancestors are also Lemko, from Mecina Wielka, started in Mahanoy City and then settled in Olyphant PA.
ReplyDeleteThank you. This is some good advice. I have already begun researching my relatives from Wola Nizna and Polany Surowiczne.
ReplyDeleteWoli Niżnej (Wola Niżna) i Polan Surowicznych (Polany Surowiczne)
Delete