We left Hubici and headed to the villages of my maternal grandparents, deep into the heart of Boyko land. The gentle hills of Hubici turned into real mountains. It's beautiful here. Slav and I visited the district archives in Stary Sambir and found the birth records of a certain Fed Komarnicki, possibly my maternal grandfather, a coal miner in central PA, who died in the 1918 Flu Epidemic. I have very little information about this man but what I have doesn't quite jive with these records. However, he is the only Theodor (Fedor) Kormarnicki to be found in all the shipping documents I've searched. The priest introduced us to a certain Mr. Komarnicki who resembles an unidentified man in a group photo we think might include our grandfather so who knows? The villages here are poorer than Hubici and the people seem less interested in visitors.
We go on to Matkov, possibly the origin of my grandmother's name, Matkowski, then to Wysocko, the village on her shipping records. Unfortunately, there are several towns with that name and I leave unsure of which village is hers. I'm content to see the general area in which my ancestors lived for thousands of years. It probably hasn't changed much since my grandmother's departure in 1913.
My last task is to take photos of a town called Mokhnate, the ancestral village of someone I met on the Internet. The church here is very pretty. All the villages we explored were along the same road, one after the other. A local store we went to gave an interesting insight into life here. It was extremely small and had very few supplies, unlike American convenience stores. Since the residents raise their own cows and chickens and make their own bread, etc. we could only find snacks, tobacco, alchohol and things they did not grow themselves.
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