This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Zielinski, Nastozyn, Stakolosa, Slywka, Miziorko, Misiorka
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DQYBAIB/132.1.1
Message Board Post:
Then you are no doubt related to me. Are you John Richard?
The Stakolosa family that I know of has been put together based on a few e-mails from an
in-law and a letter from another. You're the first to ever approach me, regarding the
family, who is evidently a cousin. :) And by that, I mean "kin."
Ditto with the Nastozyn side.
At any rate, I only know of Paul (Pavalo), Peter, and Anastasia (who married a Mastoler).
Peter never married.
Pavalo was married to Yrena (Helen) Slywka - you'll see that named spelled various
ways. Helen was the sister of Kate, my great-grandmother.
Helen's kids, as I know it, were Mary, Anna, John, Olga, Mike, and Steve. I don't
have a lot of info but from what I gather, you guys are about the only people in the
country with that surname.
My great-grandmother and grandaunt used to go up to Vassar and the area back in the
20's or 30's and visit. Mike Nastozyn said my great-grandfather had a store or
something and Kate would bring up candy as a gift, and the kids were crazy for it.
My grandaunt, Mary, kept track of, and in touch with, everybody on both sides, Zielinski
and Slywka. But the family is otherwise pretty spread out and really not in touch with
one another at all.
I've pieced this stuff together with great difficulty. It sometimes took a year to
get a reply by mail or a lot of talking to convince somebody of who I was if over the
phone. I even wrote one Stakolosa on e-mail who was overseas (the orient, I think), but
never heard back.
I'm familiar with Caro. Helen was a member of the Ukrainian-American Club of Caro.
At any rate, the people who might know the most are your uncles/aunts or cousins in the
Vassar area. I did, as I mention, get one letter, but I always feel I'm, I don't
know, intruding, I guess, whenever I contact them. I got Helen's obituary on my own
by contacting the library up there.
Paul and Helen are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Vassar.
They married overseas, so I'm pretty sure this whole gang knew one another before they
came over. The area was called Austro-Hungary at the time and the province or what I
guess was a "state equivalent" was Galicia. From what I gather, their area was
what is now western Ukraine.
Take care, cuz!
Jimmy Zee
..Drop me a line sometime...