Genealogy (or What the Hell is Lettish??)

Matt’s family came from Russia. Or the Ukraine. Or maybe Poland. Possibly Kiev. They were Jewish. But maybe they weren’t. And they aren’t now. And no one knows when except for “the late 1800s,” except for what his grandfather said, and his grandfather lied like you and I breath (pretty regularly).

Recently, we watched a movie called “Everything is Illuminated.” If you only watch 5 movies this year, make this movie one of them. It is a story about a young American Jew who goes to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is guided by a Ukranian man about his age (“who’s English isn’t so primo”), that man’s grandfather, and the grandfather’s ‘officious seeing-eye bitch’ Sammy Davis Jr., Jr. It is not a holocaust movie. It is a drama, but it is also very funny in places as well as sad and poignant. It is very good, and of course the story in the end turns out to not be what the main character (played by Frodo Baggins) expected to find, but….everything becomes illuminated.

So, of course this got Matt talking about his family. I asked him if he wanted me to look into it, and he said sure.

I’m very lucky, my parents have traced a lot of my own family back into the 1500s and on my mom’s side even as far back as the 1300s. In Germany, no less!

I’ve truly never had much interest in genealogy per se and while I know it is all very interesting, a good hunt is really what I enjoy. I’m a researcher. It is what I do. I’m very good at it. I joined up temporarily with Ancestry.com and 3 hours, 4 censuses, 5 passenger lists later and I had some answers for Matt about his origins.

But I had a lot more questions. Not the least of which is why the native language on two of the censuses was listed as ‘Lettish.’ Remember, this was all hand-written and at first I thought it said ‘Yittish’ as in a incorrectly spelled Yiddish, with two Ts instead of Ds. But, no, it was definitely ‘Lettish.’ So I go looking for Lettish.

It is the language spoken by the Letts. Stupid! Of COURSE it is! Who the hell were the Letts?

Lithuanians. Isn’t that interesting? Lettish was spoken around the area of the Baltic including Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia, among others. So. There is Clue #1: Lettish. Thank you, Wikipedia.

I also found a passenger list (among several possible contenders) that had a hometown for GGGrandfather Leopold as ‘Suwalken, Russland.’ It was a German ship, and Suwalken translates to Suwalki, which is currently part of Poland (remember, a lot of these borders were fought over and changed often). It is smack dab on the Lithuanian border. Clue #2: Suwalki.

I go looking for Suwalki on a map. Interestingly, not 20 miles south of Suwalki is a town called Augustow. Matt’s GGrandfather’s name was August, and possibly the GGGGrandfather, too. Clue #3: Augustow.

Coincidence? Very possibly. It could mean nothing. All of these clues could be red herrings and mean absolutely nothing. But it is what I have to go on right now, so I’m using this as my current working theory.

Next was the fun part. A friend of mine just happened to call last night. She’s Polish. She and her husband and two boys applied to leave Poland after the wall came down in the late 80s or early 90s and they’ve been here ever since, more than 20 years. I mentioned all this to her and when I got to Suwalki she said that was the area where her mother was from. She spent all her summers there as a kid, it is the ‘lake district’ for Poland, big on tourism. Very beautiful, she said. She still has family there and offered to help out with translations and tracking information down, if we need help. I told her the last name variation, too, and she said it translates to ‘frost.’ She said that variation is absolutely not Lithuanian, it is Polish. So, that’s something, too.

We’re frosty!

There are a lot of loose ends, though. There is another August showing up with his family in a different town (Hoboken) from the one that Matt’s family was in (Piscataway). I thought it was an unconnected coincidence…until I found a connection in the GGGrandfather’s funeral book signatures, complete with ‘Hoboken’ beside it. Really bizarre. Could it be Leopold’s younger brother? The age difference is only 10 years, it couldn’t be another son. Maybe a cousin?

There is also a floral arrangement listed as being given by “The official family of Piscataway.” What the hell does that mean?? There have always been rumors of Russian Mafia in the family, could that be the ‘official family?’

We have no information on parents or siblings of GGGrandfather Leopold. Unless we can find something, that may be the end of the line. This is why I’m pursuing Suwalki.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to keep my Ancestry.com membership for at least a couple months. It isn’t cheap, I know a lot of people don’t join because of that but it is an incredibly good resource. If anyone wants me to look anything up, please email me and let me know detailed names and dates. I’d be happy to use my membership to help out.