What Country are You From?

We often tend to think of countries, their names, and their borders being historically the same as they are today. But this simplistic view ignores all the changes that have taken place over time. So, if you ask someone from the United States, “where are you from?” unless you are a Native American we expect an answer like, “My ancestors came from Germany”, or perhaps to get a list of several countries where the person’s ancestors are from.

If you were to ask that of a recent immigrant, they might have a simple answer, since they just arrived here from “country X”. But if that person came here a few decades ago and the country borders have since changed, what should their answer be? Let me look at a few examples to show some of the complications that might be involved.

Cincush Family

One branch of my wife’s family came to the United States in the early 1860s. The city that they left in Europe was Posen (*1). At the time that the left, this city was in Poland and this was reflected the first time that the family answered to the US Census taker in 1870.

[Cincush 1870]

In 1871, the many various principalities, etc. that had German-speaking individuals had been gathered into a single entity that took the name of one of the largest principality, Prussia. Poland not longer existed as a separate entity and the census taker would not have accepted that as an acceptable answer. Thus, on the 1880 census form, the response to the census taker recorded “Prussia’.

[Cincush 1880]

By 1900, that part of Europe had become known as Germany. So, in that census the Cincush family answered accordingly.

[Cincush 1900]

The town that the family had migrated from had not moved. But the borders of the countries around it had continue to change and so the family could not give the name of the country from which they had come, but instead had to give the name of the country that included that place at the time the census was taken.

Wengryn Family

While the above changes between Poland and Germany were taking place between the German speaking peoples along the Baltic, a notable exception to the German-speaking consolidation was taking place along the southern border of Poland and into Austria. There, the country of Galicia had existed for several hundred years and they found themselves in a similar turmoil of splitting and recombining countries (*2). I won’t try to replicate the complicated history here, but you can read it for yourself if you are interested.

Members of the Wengryn family had migrated out of the area along with thousands of their compatriots due to the high levels of poverty that had spread to that area in the early 1880s. They arrived in New York City in 1904. Their reporting to various government officials had a similar change of notation as the years went by.

In 1922, on a naturalization application, the original place listed on the form was Petrowa [Petrova] Poland, but the Poland was subsequently crossed out by the officials and written was Galicia Ukraina.  

[Wengryn Naturalization]

Eight years later, in the 1930 census, this would be recorded as Poland, but with their spoken language listed as Ukrainian.

[Wengryn 1930]

In 1940, with the changes that had taken place in the region, their country of origin was listed as Austria.

[Wengryn 1940]

But in 1949, on a death certificate, the family noted a place of birth as Poland once again.

[Wengryn death]

So, where did the family come from? It depends not on who you ask, but WHEN you ask.

This is why I find the intersection of genealogy, geography, and history so interesting. You cannot study your ancestors just by listing a bunch of facts, You need to know not only who the people are, but where they were, and when. Only then can you understand what may at first seem to be a bunch of confusing and contradictory facts?

Notes:

*1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Posen

*2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Galicia_(Eastern_Europe)