If my ancestor came from what used to be Poland, but is now Ukraine, than am I of Ukrainian or Polish descent?

Question

If my ancestor came from what used to be Poland, but is now Ukraine, than am I of Ukrainian or Polish descent?

Answer 1

I'd use Ukrainian descent, it would make things clearer to people, and the people you are most closely related to in the world now refer to themselves as Ukrainian.

Answer 2

It would have to be what your particular ancestors were which would require further research.  There is been so many border changes in Eastern Europe it is can be hard to pin people down.  Actually, your ancestor just might be a mixture of Polish and Ukrainian.

Answer 3

IMO it depends on your ancestor's nationality and genealogy, not on the country he/she lived in. Remember that it was before the II World War and at that time there were different nationalities living in Eastern parts of Poland, which are today part of Ukraine. There were people of Ukrainian roots, a lot of purely Polish people, a lot of Russians as well, quite a lot of Jews...

Additionally in such  multicultural environment there were of course mixed marriages of all kinds, so you could also be for example partly Polish, partly Ukraininan etc.

If I were you I would dig deeper in your family old papers and documents, maybe talk to some older people from your family and find out what your family roots were.

By the way, if you gave us your (or your ancestor's) family name, maybe we could recognize whether it sounds Polish, Ukraininan, Russian, Jewish or whatever. It may not be obvious, but it's worth to give it a try.

Answer 4

Well, if it was Poland back then when they came from there, then I'd say your Polish.

Answer 5

Ukrainian was the ethnicity, regardless of whose name was on the map. Poland officially disappeared from the map for almost 140 years, but its people were still ethnic Poles. The same is true for the parts of the Ukraine that have been on a map that's changed its name 5 times...but they never lost their Ukrainian ethnicity nor their Orthodox religion.

Answer 6

Poland, officially the Republic of Poland , is STILL a country in its own right.  . Poland is BORDERED  by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north.

    The total area of Poland is 312,679 km² (120,728 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and 9th in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38.5 million people, which makes it the 33rd most populous country in the world.

IMPORTANT DATES:

966 A.D.--becomes a STATE on the adoption of Christianity and covered territory similar to that of present-day Poland. The adoption of Christianity in Poland is seen by many Poles, regardless of their religious affiliation, as one of the most significant national historical events; the new religion was used to unify the tribes in the region.

1025--became a kingdom

1569-- it cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by uniting to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; collapsed in 1795, and its territory was partitioned among Prussia, Russia, and Austria.

1918--Poland regained its independence after World War 1 but lost it again in World War II, occupied by n**i Germany and the Soviet Union.

1989--Communist rule was overthrown and Poland became what is constitutionally known as the "Third Polish Republic"

1 May 2004--became a member of the European Union (or EU)

The Demographics section says: "Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania are NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES of Poland." So, if your ancestors came from Poland, you would be considered of Polish descent.

(see longer article at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland.

Ukraine borders Russia to the east, Belarus to the north, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine)

Answer 7

well, it depends of what tribe your ancestors associated with.  Heck, they could have been Mongols.  

Like, if you were born in Prague in 1960 you would be a Czech, even though technicaly you would have been born in Czeckoslovakia.   But a "slovak" would say they are Slovakian, not Czechoslovakian.

So, you'll have to get your family to answer your question.

Answer 8

It depends if they were Polish or Ukrainian.

Lots of families lived in what used to be Poland before the war and now it is Ukraine, but they consider themselves Polish. Your family name should be an important factor here (and not necessarily "ski" makes your name Polish.

I was said the "icz" (like Milewicz) ending suggest a Polish name "located" in Ukraine or Lithuania.

Answer 9

My father was born in what used to be Poland (after that it was the Soviet Union, the n**i-occupied territory, the Soviet Union again, and independent Ukraine). But I would never consider myself Ukrainian by any measure. The fact that many of my ancestors were massacred by the Ukrainians in Volhynia in 1943 might have something to do with it.

If your parents spoke Polish and were of Polish nationality and ethnicity (and considered themselves Polish)  then you are of Polish descent.