A Blog of Ukrainian Genealogy
Perhaps the most basic problem in dealing with pre-World War I records from Mosty Wielkie concerns language. I have a basic high school familiarity with Latin, but I don’t read, writie, or speak any Slavic language. Most of my Ukrainian ancestors spoke and wrote (if literate) Ukrainian, but they also had some familiarity with Polish, Yidish, and German (the latter language required in schools, or so my grandfather used to say). Names written in Ukrainian were written in the Cyrillic
Ukrainian genealogical research lacks the huge resources that compliment using the vital records of many other places, especially New England or Québec. For those areas there are published indexes, compilations and abstracts, and many published family records to help the researcher. Alas, not so with the Ukraine! Bear in mind that Ukrainian genealogy didn’t even exist 30 years ago. For anyone with Ukrainian ancestors there are some tools that you should become familiar. Above all, there’s one indispensable guide, John
Mosty Wielkie was located in the old Polish province of Galacia, that became part of Austria-Hungary after the First Partition of Poland in 1772. In 1785 the Imperial government in Vienna ordered that copies of all parish registers of births, marriages, and deaths be sent to the archives in Lemburg (now Lviv). Most of the city’s residents were ethnically Ukrainian, although there were significant numbers of Polish and Jewish inhabitants as well. At that time Mosty Wielkie had two churches
Half of my ancestry runs through a single Ukrainian community. Both of my father’s parents were born in the municipality now known as Velyki Mosty (Великі Мо́сти). Presently part of the Ukraine, before the Second World War it was within Poland and known as Mosty Wielkie, and earlier, along with the rest of Galicia it was a component of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. My grandfather, Dmytro Karpowich, was born in Mosty Wielkie, November 7, 1890, the youngest son of Ivan Karpowich (1847-?)