a passing

Steve let me know that Michael Davich, my Great Uncle Jacob's grandson, passed away on December 24th.

Reading the obituary, and all the comments people made on the website about him, made me sad that I never got to know him. He sounds like he was a really great man, and will be missed by many people.

memory

Happy holidays to all of you--family and friends! (Of course, technically on the Orthodox calendar, it's not Christmas yet. That's January 7th.) That was always one of my favorite things growing up...getting to celebrate two Christmases, and stretching the holiday season out further. (OK, I admit, I loved the food, too! My mom got me some nut roll, and I bought some poppyseed to try my hand at making those foldover cookies.)

It was so good to be home this year. I feel like my genealogy research has made the celebrations richer and deeper. I got to stop at my grandparents' graves in the St. Petka cemetery, and finally found out the meaning of the inscription on their tombstone: "Vicnaja Pamjat" (it means "Eternal Memory").

I thought that was particularly fitting and speaks to why I'm doing the research. I've had some people say "why are you concerned with people who are dead and gone, you should pay more attention to life here and now". I disagree. I feel life is a balance of living in the present and reflecting on the past. I've been shaped by all the relatives who've gone before me. Their choices, their drive to come to a new country and face poverty, culture shock and hardship to make a good life for themselves and their family, stand as an example to me and have helped me be where I am today. To me, it's important to remember them and the sacrifices they made, the joys they had, their experiences...to tell their story. I hope that doing this in just a small part can help them to be remembered.

I was fortunate this time around to find some more information in obituaries and Johnstown city directories. I feel a little bit closer to unraveling the mystery of the various Yacynych families. I discovered that my Great Uncle Jacob and his wife lived several blocks away from George and Anna (Meketa) Yacynch. These are two of the lines I haven't been able to tie together, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that the Yacynychs came from Lodyna and lived so close together. If anyone can help make the connections, I would greatly appreciate it!

I also had a chance to visit Christ the Saviour, the church where my Aunt Irene and Uncle Steve attended for many years. It's a beautiful Orthodox church, and we sang a Christmas carol (in Rusyn? Ukrainian? not sure yet) that made me reflect on the holiday and family. I love the area I come from and that they're keeping old traditions alive. I hope it continues.

More soon. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and those you love!

Questions

I received the marriage licenses. They raise more questions than they answer. I've sent off some emails to family members with my findings to see what their thoughts are. When I have a good interpretation of it all, I'll report back!

expanding the fold

In researching these marriage licenses (that search from last post led me on quite a hunt), I've now found the Yacynych name, in Cambria County, spelled Yacenich, Yacinitch, Yacynicz, and Yacenicz. (With a possible Yasnich and Yacenic to add, too, but I can't say for sure about those yet.) These are all either confirmed family members or people in Johnstown who now spell their last name Yacynych, so this is kind of fascinating. The mystery deepens...

(And I'm ordering all these marriage licenses from the prothonotary at $1 a pop--quite a bargain--so I should have more info soon!)

backwards, or forward?

Still working on things. I'll make a little progress, then hit another brick wall, have to change direction and try another tack. I hear that's how the family history researching goes, though...

I went to my local Family History Center and requested the metrical books from the Orthodox church in Lodyna. They basically have recorded all the marriages, baptisms and deaths in the church (from what I understand.) Of course, the records are all in Latin, so that might be a little challenging! Though I'm on a listserv of really helpful genealogists working in this particular area, so I'll have some assistance, thankfully.

Today I've been wondering about my grandmother's parents. I know that she had a brother (Jacob, father and grandfather of some of you that read this blog.) From her marriage license, I know that her parents were named Stefan and Nostovia. Their last name is listed on the certificate as Yacenicz. (Yet another spelling.) Was this just a clerk spelling it how he thought it sounded? (I think mostly likely, because that surname doesn't come up anywhere else when I do a google search, but research will tell more, I hope.) Here's a link if you'd like to take a look at some of the info for yourself.

People on my listserv say that most likely my grandmother's name was Malanka. It was a saint's name (aren't mostly all good Eastern Orthodox kids from a certain time named after saints?), and she even has her own festival.

pause

Hello all--just a note to say I'm sorry I haven't posted here recently. Life and work have been busy, and I also had a bunch of discoveries from my mom's line of the family that have kept me hopping. So I had to put my research down for a little bit.

But I will be back, though! And thanks to my two cousins, Steve and Bob, who have sent me additional information and kept me thinking and excited about this project.

More soon.

Tonight I was talking to my dad for a bit, trying to get him to rack his brain for stories. (And seeing if he could remember anything more about my grandparents or things he'd even heard anecdotally.) He reminded me that my Uncle Steve went to St. John the Baptist (in Conemaugh, PA), and that reminded me that I really need to call there and to Christ the Saviour to see if they have any records. Still trying to connect all the Yacynychs! (Fortunately, Johnstown isn't that big, so if you're Rusyn and Orthodox, there were only but so many places you were going.)

Speaking of being Rusyn, the Pittsburgh City Paper has a great article about Carpatho-Rusyns in it this week. I highly recommend reading it to get a crash course in our heritage.

Next up--getting the film from LDS that has the records from the family parish on it, to see if I can find my grandmother and Great-Uncle Jacob's parents. Here's hoping.

grandma with her family

I mentioned earlier in the blog that Ellis Island had transcribed my grandmother's name as "Facynych". (Which is actually the reason I didn't find her records for a long time.)

When I went back and looked at the original manifest (and with the other information I had), I knew it was "Yacynych". So I wrote to Ellis Island and let them know, and they made the correction. Now when her last name is searched, she comes up with the rest of her family.

It made me happy to know that know any future generations of researchers of our name will be able to find her.

Also, a big thanks to my cousin Steve, who sent me an amazing picture of my Great-Aunt Catherine and her eight kids. If I get permission, I'll be posting it here to show you all!

let's learn rusyn, lesson 1

I've been reading lots of books about Carpatho-Rusyn history (one of the benefits of working in the historical society!) and a fun one that I discovered is "Let's Speak Rusyn", by Paul Magocsi. (Rusyn is very similar in some ways to Polish, Russian and Ukrainian (of course), but it's considered its own dialect.)

I thought you might enjoy learing a few of the basic phonetic phrases. (You can brush up to talk to our relatives on your next trip overseas!)

Sorry I don't know how to make the accents on an English keyboard, but even if you give it your best attempt, that's probably close enough.

Good morning - Dobre rano
Welcome - Vitajte
How are you? - Jak sja mate? (My aunt Irene taught her bird to say this!)
Fine, thank you - Djakuju, dobri.
So-so - Tak vsylijak
What's new? - Sto novoho?
Goodbye - Z Bohom

on the hunt

Searching for your family tree really is like being a detective. (In fact, there's one genealogist whose company is called just that..."Ancestor Detective".)

You piece together all the findings, and you never know where you might randomly get a lead.

This weekend was pretty exciting--got to talk to a (I think) cousin in Ohio for a good long while, heard from another cousin in California, and then this morning, found three more obituaries of Yaynychs in the Johnstown Tribune that I'd missed last time through because I didn't know about alternate spelling.

I want to start scanning and posting pictures soon, too. Please feel free to send me any anecdotes, pictures, or info that you'd like me to put up (you can email me at Joyce_Homan@hotmail.com) and I'll be sure to add it!

location, location

My immediate family on my dad's side pretty much all live in Cambria County (in Western, PA.) My investigations, though, have led me to family in Ohio, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Florida, and Arizona. (It seems like one cousin may have even gotten married in Las Vegas!)

I found something weird at the National Archives today, though. I was trying to find my (I think) Great Aunt Rosalie and Great Uncle Jacob's naturalization petitions. No luck with that, but then I searched randomly on Footnote and found this:

Auto Shears 16 Fenceposts

Johnstown, PA - An automobile driven by George Gritzer sideswiped a truck, and sheared off 16 fenceposts and seven small trees. But Gritzer and his companion, Mike Yacynch, escaped without a scratch.

Huh.

The weirdest thing of all? This was in the Hutchinson News Herald, of Menno, South Dakota, May 27, 1937.

I also don't know who Mike Yacynych was. My dad wasn't born then, and he's the only Mike so far in our family that I know.

Strange.

Anybody else have a clue?

my parents and grandparents

As I mentioned in the previous post, wanting to know more about my grandparents was what really started this whole process for me.

I have one sibling, a sister, Nancy. I don't have any children, and my sister has one daughter, Erica, who's 14. My father's name is Mike Homan, and my mother's name is Charlotte Homan.

My father had six brothers and sisters, all of whom unfortunately have passed away now. They were:

John
Mary (Goy)
Irene (Sroka)
Steve
Harry
Anna (Mirabile)

Their parents (my grandparents) were Harry and Mildred Homan. At least, that's what everyone called them by, to my knowledge. But on their Ellis Island passenger records, it reads:

Hrycko Humen, arrived 4/15/09 (age 17)
Nalauka Facynycz, arrived 2/16/12 (age 17)

I'm still learning about name changes and translation of Eastern European names to more Americanized versions, so I don't quite yet know how their names made it from one to the other. Any insight is appreciated!

More soon.

roots

My name is Joyce Homan, and I've started this blog to trace my family tree, specifically my grandmother's line, the Yacynychs.

I've done this research in bits and pieces, like most family historians do, I guess. I knew from a fairly young age that my father's parents died when he was five. And that (I thought), my grandmother was Ukrainian and my grandfather was Austrian. But other than that, they were always sort of mythical figures to me, and I didn't know much else about them.

My father had several sisters, who raised him like he was their own. One in particular, my Aunt Irene, was very dear to me, and very influential in my growing up. She died when I was 18, but I feel so fortunate that I got to know her as long as I did.

I always also felt extremely tied to my Ukranian heritage (I think a large part of that was growing up around lots of ethnic traditions and food, like having a second Christmas, lots of ethnic food like pierogies, nut roll and pigs in the blanket, psanky art, etc.) and eventually, I decided I wanted to find out more about who my father's family was.

I started by asking my dad stories. (Unfortunately, I didn't really start this process until all his other siblings had died.) He would tell me things, here and there. He continues to remember and share stories every time we talk, and I hope to record some of those here.

From there, I started doing some online research, and discovered about researching through the census. And that moment was when I started to get a clearer picture of who my family really was.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to posting my findings so perhaps you might know more about your family as well. If you're a Yacynych, I hope you'll share your own memories and knowledge here so we can all learn from them. And if you're not a Yacynych, and just an interested reader, I hope you'll explore your own family history and share it with the ones you love--I think you'll find you'll get hooked on the process!