[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Introduction: Searching for info on surname FLATT from Marianowka

[Jerry Frank]

Others have already responded regarding family.  I would like to make one correction to your history lines.

The story of Catherine the Great and her invitation applies only to what are known as Volga River Germans who settled much further to the east in Russia.  She had nothing whatsoever to do with German settlement in the Volhynia / Kiev regions.  These Germans migrated there primarily due to the availability of land for farming, some at the invitation of Polish noblemen who had land holdings in the region.  The migration into Volhynia occurred many years after Catherine's death.


Jerry Frank


----- Original Message -----
From: Stacy Flatt <stacylm at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010 10:27 am
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Introduction: Searching for info on surname FLATT from Marianowka
To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org

> Hello,
> 
> My name is Stacy and I'm researching my father's family history,
> specifically the surname FLATT.  This is what I know from family
> stories:
> 
> Catherine the Great invited Germans to settled Russia, so my ancestors
> did.  They lived as farmers in an area not far from 
> Lviv.  It may have
> been Russia, Poland, Germany, or Ukraine, or any combination of those
> at the times my ancestors lived there.  Things got bad and 
> in the
> early 1900s, my great grandparents moved to the United States where
> the settled in the UP of Michigan, near other friends and family
> members.  They had many children, and the children grew up 
> speakingLow German as their first language.  They learned 
> English in school.
> They were Lutheran.
> 
> This is what I'm able to document:
> 
> Adolph and Lydia Flatt came to the US through Ellis Island in 1905.
> Their names are sometimes spelled Adolf and Flat.  They are 
> Flat on
> the Ellis Island site.  Their previous home is listed as 
> what I can
> best read as Marianowka Crest in Russia.  In the 1930 
> census records,
> their previous country is listed as Poland (NOT Russia, which
> indicates to me that their town was affected by the Poland/Russia
> border changes happening in the early half of the century).
> 
> There are no parents listed and though I can find other Flatts in
> other people's genealogies, I cannot connect them to these two since
> I'm missing so much information.  I want to try looking at 
> villagerecords for where they lived, but Marianowka Crest does 
> not seem to
> exist.
> 
> However, there is a Marjanowka Kreis Luck that I've seen reference
> too.  I wonder if this could be it?  It doesn't seem 
> far from Lviv,
> seems like it was a Lutheran community, and the Kreis could 
> sound like
> Crest.  It also looks like it could have been in Russia in 
> 1905 but
> Poland in 1930.  It is now in Ukraine.
> 
> My questions: Does this sound like a reasonable theory?  
> What does the
> Kreis Luck designate?  Where can I access records for 
> Marjanowka Kreis
> Luck?  Has anyone else done research on the FLATT surname 
> and what
> have you found?  Has anyone else researched the Russian 
> Germans in the
> Upper Peninsula of Michigan?  (FLATT, SEIB, MATSCHENSKI, SCHMIDT,
> etc?)
> 
> Thanks!
> Stacy
> 
> -- 
> http://www.mydnawasthere.com/
> 
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