Chronology of Hricko Research

Over the last 2 months, I've had several phone conversations with members of the Hricko family. Since then, I've added around 100 new names to the Hricko branch. How did this all come to be? Here is a brief synopsis of how I obtained the information.

Back in March of 2006, I spoke with my grandmother Mary Baldine about the family and she gave me the name of her distant cousin Betty Senich (Hricko). So I called her and spoke with her at length. She gave me more Hricko names--her brothers, sisters and some of her cousins. Among those names was a gentleman by the name of Stephan Hricko who is also a cousin. He's 91 and lives in Los Angeles. After several phone conversations with Steve, I was able to add a whole slew of names along with some other bits of trivia. He then gave me the names of his cousins who live in upstate New York also names Hricko. After speaking with his cousin Bob Hricko, his sister Darlene and her daughter Katrina, the Hricko side of the tree is now about 80% complete.

During my last conversation with Stephan Hricko, he gave me the phone number of a potential cousin who is priest in San Diego. Hopefully, that will unearth more Hricko information.

Update since Christmas Party

For those of you who emailed or snail mailed information this past week, I thank you very much.

Now comes the difficult part of disseminating it. While I have a complete Balash Family Tree, more or less (80%), elements of the Hricko side still elude me probably due to distance of this branch relative to our position on the tree (the Balash branch).

Just to recap:

The Hricko branch began when the father of Peter Balash, Steve Balash, married Mary Hricko. She had four brothers (William, Louis, Aftonas and Wasyo) who all came to the US and started families. It is these families that I am attempting to contact, interview, gather information and ultimately fit these pieces to the puzzle.

So far, I have been successful in acquiring the names of the descendants for most of the brothers of Mary Hricko. Some of these names we already have on the current tree. (Uncle George and my grandmother sent me the up to date tree with that information.) However, most of these names as you will soon see in future updates are brand new to the tree. As of this writing, there are at least 80 new names.

This past week, I interviewed a Darlene Hricko from Elmira, New York who is a distant cousin. (Technically, she is my second cousin twice removed but I digress.) Anyway, she was helpful in filling some gaps although much work still needs to be done.

If you are wondering how to figure relationships, i.e. "second cousin twice removed, etc" then check out this website.

http://genealogy.about.com/library/nrelationshipchart.htm

Any information the HRICKO side or PETER BALASH'S brothers and sisters would be great!

Thanks,

Scott