Re: Wasyl Wermie and wife Nastia Shpack
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In reply to:
Wasyl Wermie and wife Nastia Shpack
Colleen Dalton 9/23/10
24 Sept. 2010
Given that your great-grandfather was Greek Catholic, there's a good chance that he was Ukrainian.The Poles were usually Roman Catholic.
Galicia was a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, consisting of land taken from the Kingdom of Poland during the partitions of the late 1700's.Prussia and Russia also took territory.The two dominant ethnic groups were Polish and Ukrainian.The province reverted to Poland after WWI, so before the war people were considered to be Austrian, but after the war they frequently would list themselves as Polish, since they carried Polish documents.The area was again split at the beginning of WWII.
Roughly the western third of Galicia is now part of present day southern Poland and the eastern two-thirds are in Ukraine.But while under Austrian rule, the area was open to homesteading and there was a German minority, most of whom left at the beginning of WWII, and a substantial Jewish presence.
As is usual in this sort of thing, to do any research it will be necessary for you to determine what village your great-grandfather lived in before he emigrated to Canada.You might find the name of the village on the Hamburg manifest, or you may be able to track it down through Canadian sources, such as land grant or naturalization records.
Dave