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Stephen Popel or Popil or Popiel depending on the language when written, grew up in Chmiel/Khmil (Galacia). Nastina Najda/Naida/Neida grew up in neighboring Zatwarnica. Other surnames found in the family tree are Ilkow, Drab, Hudenycz, Kowal or Kowalow, Cyparow, and Wdowin.
The earliest record found is Stephen's 3rd Great Grandfather Kasimierz. He lived from 1744 to1834 and in his death record he was described as a sztachta ubogi (poor noble). Based on church and property records, he probably moved with his son or grandson and family to Chmiel in the 1800-1820 time frame, perhaps from Kielce or maybe the Sanok or Sambir areas where there were hundreds of Popel families.
At the time, the farming villages and surrounding area was considered an estate that was usually owned by a polish noble. The estate included all the property and serfs with serfs having limited rights to a homestead and assigned plots. They basically worked their assigned plots for the estate owner in return of a percentage of the harvest. Unlike the serfs, Szachtas were not a commodity owned by the estate and were free to move about the country. They worked their land and sometimes paid a tax to the estate. They would likely have been members of the social and politically significant Ukrainian petty noble community of the area. The Popel name does not show up in Chmiel property records which means they likely leased a homestead and land which is typical of most petty nobles. Church records consistently describe them as farmers, which means they worked their own leased land.
After Austria banished serfdom in 1850, being a poor szachta was of little benefit. Many Ukrainian petty nobles continued to be members of their social organization well into the 1900s, however. But, by 1870, our ancestor families seem to have blended into the village farming population. At least one of Stephen's grandfather's brothers became a priest. Priests were a noble class at the time, with some political influence.
The Najdas were serfs until the 1850 time frame, working their assigned parcels in return for a small portion of the harvest. Sometimes they worked directly for the land owner for meager wages. They purchased necessities from Jewish merchants. They could not escape serfdom by law and it was difficult for them to move around. As children grew to adults they split up the family's assigned plots, which lead to small farms made up of the scattered long parcel strips you see on maps.
When serfdom was abolished, they became basically peasant share croppers at the mercy of the Polish estate owners. They farmed their parcels, paid a portion of the harvest as a tax, sometimes worked for the estate owner, sold produce and purchased necessities from the Jewish merchants. Prior to the abolishment of serfdom, unassigned estate land was free range for cattle and the forests were open to harvest wood for heating and construction. When serfdom was abolished their life actually became more difficult because they now paid the estate to use the common areas and to obtain wood from the forests. Estates paid laborers maybe 25 cents a day.
The Hudenycz, Ilkow, Drab, Najda and other families were serfs and seem to be prominent farmers in the area. In small villages just about everyone were cousins at some level.
The Polish elite bought and sold estates often, it was a business. Some owned several villages and, like the owners of southern plantations in the US, some owners were more compassionate than others. Their mostly Jewish administrators were typically ruthless, however. We have no specific information about the Chmiel and Zatwarnica environment, except that they were poor. Most serfs and peasant farmers were poor, wealth being defined by how many days a week the family went hungry.
-Stephen-
Stephen was born in June 1889. His father was Michael Popel who was the son Adalbert and Anastasia (Kowalow). Some church records mention Anastasia Przenicka because Adalbert remarried after Anastasia (Kowalow) died and Przenicka was his wife at the time of Stephen's birth. Kowalow (AKA Kowal) is Stephen's biological grandmother. His mother was Catherinea Drab the daughter of Joannas and Euphrosinta (Hudanuez). Michael and Catherinea lived in church house number 25 at the time, along with Catherinea's parents. Most homes of that era housed multiple families. The Hudanuez boys owned several farm parcels and homesteads and it is likely the Popels leased from one of them. House 25 was a Hudanuez owned house.
Stephen emigrated to Elmora-Bakerton in the 1909 time frame. We found a birth record for one older brother, Joannas (John) and a census record for another older brother Charles. They did not speak english and census takers did not speak Ukrainian. Their names were often spelled phonetically, so you will find several variations. Popel sounds a lot like Pop and early census records listed them at Pop, later Popel.
-Anastazya-
Anastazya Najda (also known as Anastasia, Nastina, and Nancy) was born in Zatwarnica house 5 in April 1894 (1) and came to the US in April 1914 to marry Stephen. She was named after an older sister that passed away. Zatwarnica is a larger village neighboring Chmiel to the west. There was a waterfall and a couple mills there at the time along with farms. Her father signed for her to marry as she was under age at the time (20). They applied for the marriage license April 21 and were married May 2, 1914. Her father was Iwan Najda (or Naida or Neida) and her mother was Paulene Ilkow. In US records, Paulene's first name is often abbreviated as Pol and last name written as Eurka (the phonetic of Ilkow). We've found records for four sisters, Anna, Maria, Catherinas and Anastasia. According to mining accident records, Iwan was working in the Lancashire No 14 coal mine when he broke his leg. After it healed, he went back to the old country.
-Immigration-
From Paul Magocsi's book Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America
"... the lack of available land in the European homeland, caused in part by population increases and in part by the continual subdivision of landholdings and inefficient agricultural practices, that forced the Rusyns to live in severe poverty. These conditions, sometimes combined with the threat of being drafted into the military, prompted many to emigrate.
The immediate stimulus to leave may have been provided by letters from neighbors and relatives who were already in America earning dollars, or from steamship agents who sometimes toured European villages acting as middlemen for American factory owners looking for cheap labor. Not surprisingly, it was young males, single or recently married, who made up almost three-quarters of the Carpatho-Rusyn emigrants before World War I. The desire to earn funds with which to buy land, to prepare for marriage, or to support a young family and perhaps to pay off a mortgage, prompted what seemed at times to be a large scale flight to America—an America that was still believed to be a land of milk and honey where the streets were ostensibly paved with gold."
Stephen and Nancy appear to be the youngest siblings of parents that were the youngest siblings of large families. That, economically, put them at great disadvantage. Property and leases were inherited and divided between male siblings. Over the years, farms became smaller and smaller and less capable of supporting a family. The oldest siblings seem to have greater authority in an area that is short on farmland as they negotiated land use. So by 1910 there was probably no way for them to make a living in the old country.
The steamship companies, as agents/middlemen for the coal companies, roamed the farm fields of the San River valley in 1909 and convinced Stephen and perhaps 100 others to immigrate to the Bakerton-Barnesboro-Dixonville-Clymer areas. By 1914 most of the young single men had left the San valley for the US or Canada. Many women immigrated in the hopes of finding a husband. At that time, people from a town or area tended to migrate to the same area of the US and organize into social support groups centered around a church. Nancy knew some of the Dwernik families that immigrated to Dixonville. Stephen's first cousin and neighbor immigrated to Monessen and Nancy's cousin to Spangler. Being a younger, if not the youngest, sibling combined with the lack of farmable land, it was not viable for Stephen to return to the old country. So he made his home in the US.
We don't know what commitment Stephen had to the coal company. But US life was a great improvement over the old country, even considering that the American streets were actually paved with coal, not gold.
-WWI and more recent-
After Stephen and Nancy immigrated, the Chmiel and Zatwarnica area was embroiled in various ethnic conflicts, civil wars, and world wars. The country borders were fluid. Town name spellings vary depending on the language spoken at the time the maps were drawn. Chmiel is the Polish spelling that can be found on current maps. Kmil is Ukrainian. As far as I can tell the Chmiel population was displaced, probably to the Odesa region, and the area bulldozed and burned. Only the St. Nicholas church survived as it was used as a warehouse. The Chmiel area returned to Poland in 1951 as part of the so-called border equations - without residents. Zatwarnica had a similar fate, being completely destroyed and left without residents. Where the families were relocated is unknown, some disperse to Ukraine early, northwest Poland later. During the turmoil, many church and town records were destroyed. Today the area has a thriving tourist industry with artist colonies, some logging, and farming.
-Documents-
The documentation section includes copies of records that were researched to put together the story. Records are spotty with many time frames missing. Much detective work and educated guesses are necessary to piece things together. The family tree is based on freely available raw and indexed information along with property and church records that researchers were hired to obtain. They found that the records are in such bad shape that more and costly research will not likely reveal useful information. At this point we will take a wait and see approach, keeping an eye on the various databases for new records that may help fill in gap
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Footnotes:
(1) We have not found Nancy's birth record. The passenger ship manifest and marriage license place her birth in April 1894. Her obituary indicates November. Birthdays were not important to people of that era. Some made them up.