Ukraine 2013: Mapping the Journey

My daughter, Katherine, and I will be leaving in a few days for Ukraine. I will be suspending my Tombstone Tuesday and Treasure Chest Thursday blog posts until I get back (unless, of course I find something wonderful and have an overwhelming need to share under those themes immediately!).

In the meantime, here is a concept map of the planned trip. I say "concept" because while we will pretty much take these routes, there is flexibility built into the schedule and things may change.

Map constructed in Google Maps, 26 May 2013

Our journey will start in the Galicia section of Ukraine, part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. We will arrive in Lviv (A) about mid-day on 3 June. The next day we will head to Yaremche (B) with Alex Dunai (our genealogist, translator and guide) to take in Hutsel culture. I had hoped to hike Mt. Hoverla, the highest point (6762 feet) in Ukraine, but we've already had to change that plan due to a foot injury Katherine, my daughter, suffered yesterday. 

After at least looking at Mt. Hoverla we'll wend our way back to Lviv through the Carpathian Mountains. We will stop at Bolekhiv (C), the shtetl that Daniel Mendelsohn wrote about in his book The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. I am finally getting around to reading it. Alex Dunai is featured as Mendelsohn's Ukrainian genealogist.

My first family shtetl stop will be at Skole (D). Skole is the place where Jutte Ett Barath was born on 21 January 1894 and where, her mother (also mother of David Ett, and Sophie Ett Leiner, Sarah Ett Cohn, and Chaitze Ett Rappaport) Perl Wenkert Ett died on 18 August 1895.

We will then spend a couple of days seeing the sites of Lviv and working in the archives. Records will likely be in Polish script. I have been reviewing "Reading Polish Handwritten Records," a 3-part tutorial in the Learning Center on FamilySearch.org.

After Lviv, we will once again head south to continue treading the ground where my Wenkert and Liebross (maternal) relatives trod: Kolomyya (E), Chernivtsi (G) and Zalishchyky (F), Ustechko and Torskie. By the way, I have not been able to put Ustechko on the above map (I didn't even attempt mapping Torskie!). Each time I ask Google Maps to include Ustechko, Google places a dot north of Ternopil - way off from Ustechko's actual location just north of Zalishchyky. So, I had Google Maps place a dot near Chortkiv (H), which is a little north of Ustechko.

I am really looking forward to Kamyanets-Podilskyy (I). The photos I've seen indicate a picturesque location: a walled town with a castle. One of my floater "relatives," Samuel Myers (nee Zise Malzmann) lived in K-P before emigrating to the United States.

Visits to the archives in Khmelnitsky (J) and Zhytomir (O) will mark my entrance to the old Russian Empire and Volhynia Gubernia and my father's side of the family (Garber, Mazewitsky/Morris, Malzmann, and Kesselman). The Family History Library has been unable to film any records for Yurovshchina [once Labun (K) and Lubin], Gritsev (M) and Polonnoye (L). These towns, having been neither part of Poland nor the Austro-Hungarian Empire since about 1795 , have no records in the Warsaw archives (accessible to JRI-Poland). So, the best bet is checking the Ukrainian Archives. The records will likely be in Russian script. I'm working on understanding that, too.

I hope to not only find family records but to locate village records for Labun, Gritsev, Polonnoye and Baranovka that may be acquired, perhaps at a later date, for use by other Jewish researchers.

I'm trying not to be too excited about setting foot in Yurovshchina. I just don't know what to expect. But I will come prepared with early 20th Century maps for comparison sake and a photo the the bath house (pictured here) repaired with the American Joint Distribution Committee's help in 1923. I'd like to see if we can locate where it was located in the town. I want to know where the Jewish section was. I want to visit the cemetery - if there still is one. And I want to know where the Jewish people lived. 

I know that many Jewish people were slaughtered along with their Jewish neighbors from Polonnoye in a location near Polonnoye. I want to go there, too. 

I would like to visit Baranovka (N) so I can see the town where Feiga Grinfeld (Fannie Greenfield) was born. I've written so many posts about her, I've an investment (!). 

We'll end our trip with a few days in Kiev (P) and then fly home on 22 June. I hope to have my iPad and Dropbox folders filled with photos to share. If all goes well, I'll be able to blog a bit about my trip as it happens. If not, I'll be sure to post quite a bit when I return to the United States.

Visit your shtetl without leaving home: Google Street View of Hungary

Street View on Google Earth and Google Maps on streets in much of the  United States is wonderful, but it hasn't provided much for those of us interested in Eastern Europe. However, a couple of days ago, the Google Earth Blog noted that Street View has been added for Hungary and expanded for Romania and Poland. Now you may be able to walk some of the main streets of your ancestral community without ever leaving home.

For those who are not savvy on using the Google Maps or Google Earth applications, Street View may be accessed via the little yellow peg man on the upper left or right of your map image. If you don't see him on a map that may include Street View, zoom in until he appears. Place the cursor on him, click, hold and drag him over the map. Blue lines will appear on the map indicating streets where Street View is available. There is a short video tutorial on using Street View on the Google Earth Blog post.

I decided to look at the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. Starting in Google maps, I searched on the name, found the map, zoomed in and then dragged the little guy over the map. Voila! The images are from 2011.

Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest, Hungary 
(from GoogleMaps.com)

One may use the arrow keys on one's computer keyboard to move around on the street. Here's a shot looking in the other direction.

I decided to see what they might have in some more rural areas of Hungary. I headed east toward the border with Ukraine. This Street View in Opalyi, Szabolecs-Szatmar-Bereg County, Hungary was done in Dec 2011.

  
What I really like about this is that I can move down the street and the very next image shows a change of season (!): an image taken the following Spring. Sort of feels like The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy starts dreaming in Technicolor.

  
To close out of Street View and get back to your map, click on the small X in the upper right of the map or satellite photo.

Right now coverage in Street View of Ukraine and several other Eastern European countries is still, literally, spotty. In Google Maps search on a country. Try Ukraine. Drag peg man and hover him over the map. What you see are many little square spots and a few larger blobs on large cities. The square spots indicate locations of static photos in Panoramio. The blobs are places where Street View is active. This includes:
Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and parts of Chernivtsi and Khotyn. This is nice, but not as nice as what is currently possible for the main streets in more rural areas of Romania and Hungary.

I hope there will be expanded Street View soon in Ukraine. Then I can shtetl-shlep from the confines of my computer.

Have you been able to "walk" the streets of your village in Eastern Europe using Street View? Let me know with a comment below.