We are now well into September and the weekend has rolled around, which means it’s time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

It didn’t take me even a moment to think about this challenge:

1)  Which of your ancestors lived a life of hardship or sadness?  Who had few possessions or resources, involved in violence or war, lived through a famine,  or suffered forced immigration?  

The answer to this one is my paternal great grandparents and all the Rusyn ancestors who came before.

Stephen and Maria (Kacsenyak) Kucharik/Sabo and Michael and Anna (Murcko) Scerbak are my immigrant ancestors on my father’s side of the family.

Both came to America for a better life and the chance to earn enough money to improve the quality of their lives. Michael and Anna ultimately decided to return home to Udol, Slovakia while the Kuchariks never returned to Europe after they left Okruzna, Slovakia. Both villages are in the Presov region.

Life for Carpatho-Rusyns was very difficult. For generations born even into the 20th century, poverty was an accepted part of life. There was no opportunity for education because there were no schools in the villages. The only jobs were shepherding, struggling as farmers cultivating extremely poor soil and perhaps carpentry. The peasants worked for the local noble family and, with little access to money, goods and services were bartered for payment. There was no land ownership or house ownership until the turn of the 20th century. A family was considered lucky to own a cow and some chickens. Extended families lived in huts with dirt floors and animals were kept in a space under the hut, built into the hillside.

Alcoholism among the men was extremely high.

Those who permanently left for America had better lives, although the men and women worked very long hours for low pay in menial jobs in the factories, the mines or, for the women, taking in laundry and providing child care. However, the second generation, who were the first American born children, were able to move up into the middle class during the 20th century.

Those Rusyns who came just to make money, with the intent of returning home, did return to a slightly better life. American dollars enabled the returnees to purchase a small plot of their own land in the village.

This is what my great grandfather, Michael Scerbak, did. However, the money didn’t last forever and Nana said her father returned to the U.S. at least twice after the family left in October 1898. I’ve documented one visit to New Jersey in 1912. American dollars were still needed to maintain the family’s slightly better village life.

Think about the life of serfs in the Middle Ages that we learned about in school. Rusyns were serfs with no rights until the middle of the 1800s and, even when laws changed slightly around 1850, day-to-day village life didn’t really changed.

The Industrial Revolution that was happening all around them in the 1800s did nothing to improve their lives UNLESS they went to the United States to work. I’ve been told that my grandmother’s village still didn’t have electricity until the 1960s!!!

Until the opportunity to emigrate presented itself, survival for my paternal ancestors was foremost on their minds. My paternal great grandparents were the first ever of my Rusyn line to have the opportunity to improve their lives.

Thank you, Randy, for this week’s challenge.