rmartin
1 Apr 2010
Genealogy / No idea of grandparents history before they left Horyniec, Poland [5]
Thank you so much for your interruptions.
I am looking for a better or closer spelling of the surnames from the baptismal records and then I will truly start looking to find out if there are any other living relatives which I can connect with. One day soon I plan on visiting Horyniec and would really like to know if at all possible where my grandparents really started out from. And at the outside of all that if I could understand why my father (a very God fearing man) needed to share with us this secret he kept for 78 years (I explain this further down this post).
I mention in my first post I am, at this, time in a place of knowing that I could very likely be the last of the males in my line. Not really sure how to feel about that. It is like knowing you are about to become extinct, there is an end of the line.
The family name that we grew up with has now passed away with our Brother five years ago as I took my Grandfathers first name over 30 years ago for then internal family reasons. My oldest brother (16 years my senior) dropped the family name and went by his middle name as a surname.
My Father was the first born with two sisters and just before he passed away he said he had a confession to make. So we were all ears and he started to share that all these year we had been told that our heritage was Ukrainian but it was in fact Polish. No other explanations or details and passed away shortly there after.
So this has left in me, the youngest of six at age 51 current day (three of each and our mid brother passed five years ago) really wondering what happened. Why did they not want us to know about other relatives or anything about our roots or where they came from?
In finding just resently what I believe to be the boat my grandparents traveled to Canada on, there was a younger sister to my Grandmother also registered. We knew nothing of a great aunt on my grandmothers side that traveled with them. And two years later what looks to me as another great aunt (younger sister still to grandmother) arrived in the US. Also found in the US around about the same time frame as my grandparent travels what appears to be an older brother or cousin to my grandfather.
You mentioned that possibly money was tight as a reason for their departure from Galicia but the Canadian document showed that both my grandparents entered Canada with a pocket full of money. And I am sure the travel from Horyniec to Hamberg had to cost not including the fares (at least three as my great aunt cold have been traveling with her mate also) to travel across the pond and then travel by train 1200 plus miles into the middle of Canada, register for a section of land (homesteading cost 25.00 for 100 acres), clear the land, build a home, and do all this with a my father on the way as he was born the year after they landed. So I do not really see money being to big of an issue.
So... as for most on this quest, we all seek to find something about where we came from and I want to learn all that I can. So I can share with the family.
Any suggestions or guidance would be so welcomed. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your interruptions.
I am looking for a better or closer spelling of the surnames from the baptismal records and then I will truly start looking to find out if there are any other living relatives which I can connect with. One day soon I plan on visiting Horyniec and would really like to know if at all possible where my grandparents really started out from. And at the outside of all that if I could understand why my father (a very God fearing man) needed to share with us this secret he kept for 78 years (I explain this further down this post).
I mention in my first post I am, at this, time in a place of knowing that I could very likely be the last of the males in my line. Not really sure how to feel about that. It is like knowing you are about to become extinct, there is an end of the line.
The family name that we grew up with has now passed away with our Brother five years ago as I took my Grandfathers first name over 30 years ago for then internal family reasons. My oldest brother (16 years my senior) dropped the family name and went by his middle name as a surname.
My Father was the first born with two sisters and just before he passed away he said he had a confession to make. So we were all ears and he started to share that all these year we had been told that our heritage was Ukrainian but it was in fact Polish. No other explanations or details and passed away shortly there after.
So this has left in me, the youngest of six at age 51 current day (three of each and our mid brother passed five years ago) really wondering what happened. Why did they not want us to know about other relatives or anything about our roots or where they came from?
In finding just resently what I believe to be the boat my grandparents traveled to Canada on, there was a younger sister to my Grandmother also registered. We knew nothing of a great aunt on my grandmothers side that traveled with them. And two years later what looks to me as another great aunt (younger sister still to grandmother) arrived in the US. Also found in the US around about the same time frame as my grandparent travels what appears to be an older brother or cousin to my grandfather.
You mentioned that possibly money was tight as a reason for their departure from Galicia but the Canadian document showed that both my grandparents entered Canada with a pocket full of money. And I am sure the travel from Horyniec to Hamberg had to cost not including the fares (at least three as my great aunt cold have been traveling with her mate also) to travel across the pond and then travel by train 1200 plus miles into the middle of Canada, register for a section of land (homesteading cost 25.00 for 100 acres), clear the land, build a home, and do all this with a my father on the way as he was born the year after they landed. So I do not really see money being to big of an issue.
So... as for most on this quest, we all seek to find something about where we came from and I want to learn all that I can. So I can share with the family.
Any suggestions or guidance would be so welcomed. Thank you.