“Preserve your
memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.” – Louisa
May Alcott.”
If you go to the Ancestry.com home page and
look on the right-hand side under ‘Products and
Services’, you will see a link which says, ‘Travel
to Your Ancestral Homeland’. Many people do not know that through the
Ancestry ProGenealogists website, there are guided ancestry tours available.
Right now destinations include Ireland, Italy and Germany. You can travel with
a professional genealogist to the land of your ancestors! There are also ‘ancestral
home visit’ tours available, which is a tour that you may work
with a genealogist to personalize. Ancestry also has genealogy cruises
available where you may participate in discussions and workshops with Ancestry’s genealogists
and learn more about research. I think this is a fantastic idea!
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| A small church near the entrance of Tustan |
In June, I went on a study abroad trip to
Ukraine. I was very much looking forward to this trip because I have spent a
lot of time and put a lot of work into researching my Ukrainian ancestors; so I
was very excited to be able to step foot onto the land that they called home. During
the trip we stayed in the city of Lviv, which is about an hour north of the
villages where my 2nd great-grandparents were from. Their villages
are called Bronystya and Dolishnii Luzhok. During our time there, we were able
to see a lot of incredible sights and do many things. We went to an opera, saw
many beautiful churches, viewed battlefield ruins, went to a castle, and walked
through picturesque gardens, to name a few.
However, my favorite day was our second day
there. We started the day early at 8:30 and left to go to Tustan, a medieval
cliff-side fortress located in the Ukrainian Carpathians. The drive there took
about two hours. It was a pretty drive with many quaint villages along the way.
Somewhere into the drive, I spotted a sign pointing to the city of Drohobych,
which was 22 kilometers away. I was very excited to see this because Drohobych
is not far from the towns of my ancestors. We continued the drive and made it
to Tustan. We toured the museum there and did a long hike up to the fortress.
At the top, the views were incredible. We spent some time up there and then
hiked back down, when it started to rain. At the bottom of the fortress were
vendors who were preparing lunch for tourists. We sat down at the picnic table
and took cover under the tents. We had a delicious lunch prepared by one of the
vendors: pork with potato and onion kebabs, mushroom soup, and bread. A
delicious meal, especially for a rainy day. We made the drive back and
concluded our day.
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| The view at the top of the fortress |
Fast-forward to when I got back: I received a
birth record for my 2nd great-grandmother, Anna Fedczak, who was
from the town of Dolishnii Luzhok. The birth record was in Latin. I could make
out her name and the date, but I did not have the complete record translated
until a couple of days ago. I posted the record to the Genealogy Translations
Facebook group and someone was able to transcribe it.
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| A shrine to Mary at the end of our hike |
Here is
the transcription:
“Born and baptized 22 Aug 1889, in house
#107. ANNA, Catholic, female, legitimate. FATHER: Onuphrius Hirczak, son of
Onuphrius and Anna Kryskow, farmers in Boryslav. MOTHER: Theodosia, daughter of
Lucas Seniawski and Maria Hurij. GODPARENTS: Stephanus Petruk and Maria, wife
of Michaelis Hirczak.”
I was grateful to have this record because previously, I had not known
the names of Anna’s grandparents or her godparents. However,
one thing in the record stood out to me: Her paternal grandparents, Onuphrius
and Anna were farmers in the town of Boryslav. I had never heard of this town
before so I looked it up on Google maps. First, I looked to see how far it was
in relation to the village where Anna was born, Dolishnii Luzhok. It was about
thirty minutes away. Then, I looked to see how far Boryslav was from the places
I had visited in Ukraine: Lviv and Tustan.
I was surprised to see that the town of Boryslav is extremely close to
the Fortress of Tustan – only 40 minutes away! While I was in
Tustan, I was basically in the backyard of my ancestors and I didn’t even know it :)
I thought it was more than a coincidence that our day trip to Tustan
and the Ukrainian countryside was my favorite day, and as it turns out my
family is from that exact area! It’s no wonder
I felt so comfortable and at home that day in Tustan – it’s in my blood! This felt
like a little bit of genealogy serendipity.
My trip to Ukraine was a great experience and it was rewarding to see the
country that my ancestors resided in. I
hope to go back someday. I also hope to continue traveling and visit some of my
other ancestral homelands (Scotland, Ireland, and Germany are on the list!).
I have always valued travel very much. However, now that I have been
to one of the places where my ancestors lived, I value travel even more. I
would recommend to anyone who is interested in travel and genealogy, to try to
visit the lands of their ancestors. You
never know - you could feel right at home!
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