still piecing it together

Hello all! After an absence of quite a few months, I finally have a moment to do a little more genealogy. I also am excited to say I'm attending a conference this week that includes several seminars on Galicia, the area where my grandparents are from. I'm learning quite a bit.

Thanks to the help of Matthew Bielawa, who runs the Genealogy of Eastern Galicia site, I was able to look at a Galician gazetteer that contained some stats about Lodyna, grandma's village. It looks like it used to have about 700 people. And then I was also able to use Steve Morse's one step website to search others who came from Lodyna--and it turns out that at least several of them (so far from what I've seen) came to Johnstown.

So in some ways, the mystery grows, and in others, I feel like I'm learning much more about the history and culture of this interesting place. I'm grateful for the help of others, and I look forward to sharing more with you about the Yacynychs (and others) as I find it!

p.s.

I'm sorry this blog's been a little inactive...I went back to grad school, so I haven't had as much time to work on genealogy. I know I'll pick it up again soon, though, I promise!

My grandparents

I'm so pleased that I was finally able to scan the picture I have my grandparents (the only one around, as far as I know) and post it here. If anyone recognizes them or has a story to tell, please do?

I definitely think my aunts all looked like my grandma. As for my grandpa, I think my dad and I have his eyes.

They look so serious, don't they? I know just from anecdotes that their lives were pretty hard, so it's no wonder. Still wish I could have known them!

Merry Christmas

Got a beautiful Christmas card from my cousin Arlene, reminding me of the holiday. If you celebrate this one as your official day, Kristos Razdayetsya! :)

For those of you who might be curious about all the alternate spellings of a surname, and how those folks can be related, you might like this article. It does a nice job of explaining how close doesn't just count in horseshoes.

Enjoy!