The Results Are In

 A few months ago, over six months to be sure, I finally did and submitted my DNA test kit to Ancestry.

As it turns out, I am most definitely Polish and Ukrainian by a large percentage. With some other smaller percentages in other Eastern European groups.  And 1-2% in Jewish Ancestry on my mother's side, which was rather a surprise. I really thought if there was any, it would have been on my father's.

I can't determine at this time just where exactly in my mother's tree this would come from. 

I have found/connected with a couple of 2nd-3rd cousins on Ancestry. One in particular has helped me uncover the names of my Great-Great-Grandparents. But now we've both hit a brick wall to go beyond that.

I am still hitting brick wall after brick wall with my father's side.

How I wish I took notes back when my paternal grandmother was alive. A name with a photo was about all I did. And now I wish I could ask her so many questions. I always that I would have time for that. Seventeen years later, I know now how wrong I was.

I have one remain aunt, my mother's youngest sister, but we pretty much have the same information. So I can't ask her for anything I don't already know. 

I really thought, after all these years, that searching for your ancestors in another country would be easier by now. With all the technology we have these days.

I thought that doing the DNA kit would give me more answers, instead it just gave me more questions.

Brick Walls Galore

 I haven't had much to update because of the infamous brick walls.
And because I lost access to my blog when I upgraded my computer.  
I was having a hard time getting logged in.  But I'm back!

I have had a little bit of luck this week with Ancestry's free immigration records week.

While I have been on Ancestry, I finally got around to inputting everyone I have identified 
thus far into my family tree on there.  That includes aunts and uncles by marriage and all the
children that I know of.  There are some I can't include yet because I don't know their names.

Now, I will have to do the same for Family Search and My Heritage.
I never did get around to finish all my entries to either of those.
But I've gotten the itch to start digging again so here I am.

One of the most frustrating things for me is that I have no one left on my father's side
to ask questions. No one to ask that was there with him to help me identify photos. No
one to help me identify names and places.

I think it's down to just me trying to sort it all out on my paternal side.  And there is much
to discover.

Starting Fresh, Hopefully

Life has a way of tossing road blocks that distract you from the task at hand.  Not that all of them are bad, like holidays and babies being born.

Finally getting around to putting things into Family Search.  I am finding it difficult though to navigate the tree and branches once data is put in.  Such hoops to jump through just to find a person.  I am so very disenchanted with Ancestry.  I cannot afford a membership with them.  But to not allow you to view a public tree is utterly ridiculous! 

My hunt to find a website with easier to navigate tree will continue.  Along with my need to organize my personal binder of information and notes that I have no clue anymore what some of them are about.

Looking forward to seeing where my adventure in shaking my tree will lead to so long as I can stay on top of it.

Starting Over Yet Again

My endeavor to start over again last year didn't quite get the kick off I had hoped for.  Life and other things took priority.


The last few days I have been going through my binder of assorted information.  For 10+ years of searching, I have a lot of useless and unnecessary information and paper.  I also have either lost or misplaced some of what I did find over the years.   I'm finding some websites no longer work or that I ended up printing pages that were irrelevant to my research.


Looking over what I do have, I have more information on my father's side as far as names go.  I also have the stories my grandmother told me tucked in my head.  I am planning to get those written down to the best my memory can recall.  On my mother's side I have names as far back to only my great grandparents. 


I am considering a couple of sites to post up my family tree to see if I can make any connections with others.  I have attempted to do this before, but some are so complicated I end up getting frustrated and give up.  Hoping sometime this year to do the DNA testing to see what turns up too. 


Earlier this year, I reconnected with a cousin I haven't spoken to in over 30 years.  It has been fun catching up and discovering things about each other.  She has shed some insight into our grandfather.  He passed before I was born, so it is interesting hearing about him from a grandchild's perspective.


Here's to hoping that this year I can break through some of the brick walls I've been facing for the last several years.

Getting Ready To Start Again

I didn't realize it has been almost two years since I've posted here until today.
(Edit: I has been over 4 years since I've posted!  But almost 2 years since I last checked the blog.  Either way, it's been too long.)


Life happened, I moved 2200 miles across the country, my research stuff has been in a box since just before the move three years ago.  Then I forgot my password and had to get that sorted out.  Now I'm back...woohoo!


I'm hoping to dust everything off, reorganize the notes and documents I have, and start digging into my roots again.  I honestly don't know where to start.  I am actually thinking about starting from square one again.  There's so many new sites and now with Facebook groups and such maybe searching will be easier.


The only downside is I don't have money to invest into searching and for online memberships.  But I won't let that stop me from trying.


The question is which side do I start on?

Surname: ANDRUSZKOW

To the best of my knowledge, my surname is Ukrainian.

• My father's name was Richard.
  
• He is the son of John ANDRUSZKOW and Helen LATA.
• John had a brother named William. They were both killed during World War II.
• They were the sons of Timothy ANDRUSZKOW and Anna KUBLOWSKI.

My father was born in Zyrawa, POLAND. His father was born in Stryj. Both are now part of the UKRAINE. I do not know anything about Timothy, Anna, or William.

From what I understand, getting information from the UKRAINE is difficult at best. I don't even know where to start.

My grandfather was killed by a sniper bullet. His body was never returned to my grandmother for burial and they wouldn't allow her to claim his body or see it. She was never given any sort of compensation by the Army or anyone. So she was left a young widow with 2 small boys to raise. Her youngest child a girl, Diane, died just a couple of months before John was killed.

After losing her husband, a few months later she lost her home to the German Army. They decided they wanted to use the house and told her and my great-grandparents they had to leave. To this day, we do not know what ever happened to the house. It is something I would love to try and find out one day.

Meanings

I posted a query yesterday to the Polish Forums regarding the meanings of the surnames I am actively researching. Here's the response:

ŁATA: patch
PESTA: multiple possible sources: pesta (agumentative for fruit pit or stone; normal form pestka); pest or pęst (archaic term for a flower bud); peste (Italian for plague); Pest (one of the two cities forming Budapest)
PODHAJSKI: Ukrainian influenced pronunciation of Podgajski (someone living at the edge of the grove); Podchajski is a misspelling
ANDRUSZKOW: probably of Russian origin derived from Andrei (Andrew); Ukrainian would be Андрушків (Andruszkiw). In Poland both the Andruszków and Andruszkow spelling is used.

I must say that I find it unusual that it states Podchajski as a misspelling. Not what I was expecting. Nor was I expecting it to be potentially of Russian origin, though with the location of where my relatives came from being near the Russian border it does make some sense. The same with Pesta, I was not expecting it to be connected to Hungary. One look up I did a few years ago indicated it had Bohemian roots. Or is that one and the same?