woo hoo! I found Vaslauti and Cernauti on a map and finally understand the confusion of whether mom’s ancestry is Romanian, Austrian or Ukrainian… it is all three and yet possibly all the same area. We knew the town on Mom’s dad’s birth certificate is Vaslauti, and the judicial or whatever town responsible for Vaslauti records etc is Cernauti and that both of these are/were in the area called Bukovina.
However, the birth certificate is a Romanian document, he naturalized from Austria and his parents, according to the naturalization certificate were citizens of Austria.
Well it turns out that Bukovina was a part of the Hapsburg Empire. Then a part of the Ottoman Empire. Then it was annexed in 1774 by the Austrian Empire, the area part of what was called Austro-Hungary. In 1918, Bukovina came under the rule of Romania. In 1940 it was annexed to the Soviet Union, and eventually, around 1944, it was divided with North Bukovina staying as a part of the Ukraine, and the Southern part returned to Romania.
Vaslauti and Cernauti are both in the Northern Half, so though it was a part of Austria and Romania, it is now in the Ukraine…
Bloody border changes!
I was also excited to find out that Cernauti is actually Chernivtsi – Cernauti being the Romanian spelling and Chernivtsi the Ukrainian spelling (also spelled as Czernowitz). I haven’t found out yet if Vaslauti has a Ukrainian spelling, but I assume so…
ok here are the maps- the first is of Bukovina from 1774-1910. Cernauti is the big pie called Czernowitz, then Vaslauti is north of it. if you can find the pie called Kotzman, Vaslauti is a bit north and to the right of it.
The next map shows where the north and south were divided
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Bucovina_division.svg
(I haven't learned the trick of how to make web images smaller or I would put the actual image in here...)
At anyrate. We are thinking we might try to do this trip again this Christmas... we shall see!
