Posts Tagged ‘Lesko district’
I had already updated about locating my grandfather’s death record and confirming his date of death and the fact that he passed away while my father was an infant. What that research uncovered was that records from my father’s village are extremely limited, both church and civil records.
My Great Grandmother
The church death record listed my great grandfather’s name as Wasyl (Basilius, in Latin) and my great grandmother’s name as Anna. However, I know my great grandfather’s surname was Iwaniw as was my great grandmother’s married surname. But I don’t know what her birth name was. It’s not referenced on the death record. So, now I have to determine the best method to find my great grandmother’s birth name and details. Without actual records I’ll have to estimate dates and events and search from there. More or less trial and error. Were they married in Lutowiska? Or did they move from another location? If I can find their marriage record it will give a wealth of information.
My Grandmother
My grandmother’s name that I have is Matrona Smolii/Smoliw. There are 2 different spellings because my father used both spelling on different documents. His displace person registration record lists his mother’s name as Matrona Smolii. He lists her name as Matrona Smoliw on his SS-5 (Social Security application) and this spelling is used on his death certificate. I’m also search the different genealogy web sites (Ancestry, Family Search, and My Heritage) for a Matrona Smolii/Smoliw and have cone up empty. To me this means that there is no one else researching the Smolii/Smoliw family line.
So, to this end I’m going to be searching out the marriage record/certificate for my grandparents. This should give me information of my grandmother and, hopefully, both of my great grandparents. I was also thinking about finding my grandfather’s birth record/certificate but this would only give me information pertaining to him and I believe the records are limited in date range. But this will be alternative research path.
Tags: anna iwaniw, Austro-Hungarian, birth record, Family history, Galicia, grandmother, great grandmother, Iwaniw, iwaniw family research, iwanov, Lesko district, Lutowiska, marriage, marriage record, matrona, Poland, Slovakia, smolii, smolii family, smoliw, smoliw family
Posted in In Search of..., Mystery |
Previously, I wrote that I was looking for confirmation on the death of my grandfather, Michael Iwaniw. I was told and it was repeated to me that he had passed away shortly after the birth of my father. During my research I had come across another Michael Iwaniw that was close to the same age as my grandfather (born in the 1880’s) and was born in the Village of Lutowiska but was married to someone who was not my grandmother. Armed with this bit of information I began to formulate different possible scenarios. One scenario was that my grandfather divorced my grandmother and married someone else and started another family. But I had no documentation to prove this or disprove it.
So, finally, after exhausting all other research avenues with no results, I turned to the online Ukrainian/Galician community on Facebook. I realized that I was going to have to hire a researcher in Ukraine and/or Poland to search out actual documents pertaining to my grandfather. But which documents to search for? When I contacted the 2-3 researchers regarding locating record documents on my relatives, I come to find out that the amount of hardcopy documents are extremely limited. The one researcher in Ukraine informed me that the only records available in L’viv archives for the village of Lutowiska, Lesko district were the church records pertaining to the death records from 1918 to 1944. That pretty much determined which record was going to be searched for. My grandfather’s death record.
Where to start? The only place that could be started from. The information that was I told was that my grandfather died when my father was just a baby. My father was born in 1918 and that is the year that the church records start. So, I had the researcher start at 1918 to search for my grandfather’s record of death. If the record was found in 1918-1919 then it would confirm that my grandfather passed away when my father was a baby. If not, then other documents would be needed to be located and proved that the story that my grandfather passed away when my father was a baby would have been false.
You may be wondering what the final outcome was. The Ukrainian researcher was able to locate my grandfather’s record of death. The date of death in the church record was 29 January 1919 and the cause was inflammation of the intestines. He was 36 years old when he passed away. This puts his birth year at 1883. My grandfather passed away when my father was just 2 months short of his first birthday.
The record also stated that my great grandfather was named Wasyl and my great grandmother’s name was Anna. Unfortunately, her maiden name is not list in the record. If anyine that is reading this blog is located in or near the village of Lutowiska, Lesko district, Poland I’d appreciate it if you would be so kind as to snap a picture of my grandfather’s headstone in the Greek-Catholic cemetery there and email it to me.
The research service I used for my Ukrainian records search was Dorosh Heritage Tours and Ancestry Research (http://www.DoroshHeritageTours.com) and you can contact Andriy Dorosh via email at andriy@Doroshheritagetours.com.
Tags: church records, death record, Family research, family tree, grandfather, Iwaniw, iwaniw family history, iwaniw family research, January 29 1919, Lesko district, Lutowiska, michael iwaniw, Ukrainian, updates
Posted in Update |
