Origin of the PASKALL family name
There have been a few different spellings of our family’s surname.
PASCAL – PASCALE – PASKAL - PASKALL
To begin with when our father was born on February 3, 1894 in Chornivka, Ukraine, the Ukraine was a stand alone country with its own records and archives. After World War l, for some reason the part of the Ukraine that our father was born in was allotted to Romania. It remained this way until 1946 when the area allotted to Romania was returned to the Ukraine. Shortly thereafter the whole Ukraine came under the rule of the USSR until 1991 when the country again achieved its independence. This information along with having a father who was the original “clam” and never told his offspring any information about his own family he left behind or what country he came from is what brought about the confusion about how our surname was originally spelt. I will try to explain now.
When Romania took over the part of Ukraine that our father was born in Chornivka, State of Chernivtsi, Romania in their wisdom made a lot of changes which affected the lives of the current and previous citizens. For our part of this piece of historical information the only thing that would have an effect was that the Romanian government decided that all records written prior to their take-over must be re-written with the Romanian alphabet. The records from Chornivka were translated to the Romanian alphabet in 1924 which caused many major spelling issues for surnames and given names of individuals. This item has had a profound effect on anyone who might wish to find any information about their family’s history. For some reason the people who emigrated from this area in the first half of the twentieth century did not want to name the Ukraine as their place of birth. Hence, I presume that would be why our father gave such places as Ruthenia, Austria, Nabet, Bukovinia, etc. as his place of birth when he filled out documents when he arrived on Canada’s shores.
Our surname in the Romanian alphabet would be spelt PASCAL, which is what we received in 1933 when our father's birth certificate was sent to Canada. This was done in 1933 when presumably our grandfather Hryhoriy Georgiovych PASKAL remarried for the second time to let his son know about the marriage. When I had the birth certificate translated, the translator told me that the wording did not seem correct for the written Romanian language. She said that the spelling (wording) was not consistent with what would normally come from Romania and that it was a possibility that is was two languages combined to state the facts required for the certificate.
Now that we have that said and done our surname was correctly spelled PASKAL in the Ukrainian language (Cyrillic Alphabet), period.
The village of Chornivka where father was born has a population (2002) of about 3,500 people. One of the most prominent family names in the village was PASKAL and still is today. There is a plaque honouring the PASKAL family members (8) lost in World War ll. The spelling on the plaque is PASKAL in the Ukrainian language.
The spelling of our now current surname PASKALL, one can only guess where the second “L” came from. Whether father added it or it was inadvertently added by some one else will probably never be known. He at least knew enough to spell it the Ukrainian way with a “K” instead of with a Romanian “C” with or without the second “L”. This in itself tells us that he had a minimal amount of education when he arrived here. We know that he had a rudimentary knowledge of the English language by the fact that when he filled out forms upon entering Canada in his own hand writing. This said, along with the fact that he arrived in Canada on March 12, 1912 and then turned up in Rocky Mountain House in 1916, as a section foreman for the Canadian Northern Railway. For a young farmers son of 18 to take on a totally different line of work and become a success at it must say something. The four years between 1912 and 1916 I have found absolutely nothing that would give us an idea what took place during those years. We received verbal information that he worked for the Canadian Northern Railway in the Crossfield and Calgary area during this time period. All I do know is that he somehow became proficient at his new chosen profession.
Our predecessors in the Ukraine seem to have been farmers (peasants) who worked on farms that they did not own. It seems that the whole village was owned by one family and all other residents of the village worked for them. I am not totally clear on this but I think it would probably be something like England with the lords and serfs arrangement. As far as I can determine the PASKAL family had no claim to fame so to speak of except that it was one of the most prolific family names in the village of Chornivka. It seems fair to say that father was trying to keep up the family tradition by raising the largest family in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada.
I have not found a reason why our father left the Ukraine other than the fact that the family lived in abject poverty with no foreseeable hope for anything better in the near future. Also at that point in time it is said that people were leaving Europe by the thousands looking for a better way of life (your grandfather Brockman) in North America. Why would a 17 or 18 year old take it upon himself to pack up what possessions he had, leave family and country is something that I just cannot fathom. If as stated above, the family was in poverty, how long did the family have to scrimp and save for their oldest son to make this journey to an unknown future? Consider the fact that he had to walk from the Ukraine to Germany (the closest seaport to North America) then purchase passage on a ship with enough left over to start surviving in his new country. We do know that he arrived in Canada on the ship SS Montreal on March 12, 1912.
In the archives in Chornivka it states in the family listing that Wasyliy Hryhorovych PASKAL son of Hryhoriy Georgiovych PASKAL immigrated to Canada. It is not noted whether this was added at a later date or was written when he left Chornivka. We now know that he was in contact with his family in the Ukraine after leaving. There is a Todoisy PASKAL (born 1912) and Ivan Illich DROZDOVYCH (still living) who remember reading letters from a Wasyliy PASKAL from Canada. Also the fact that his birth certificate issued in 1933 turned up in the family documents here in Canada. As far as I can remember there was no mention within the family about our father’s family in the Ukraine prior to his arrival in Canada. We all thought (at least I think that we all thought) that we were of Austrian or Romanian descent until this research was undertaken looking for our ancestors on fathers side.
If you did not pick up on the spelling of our grandfather and father’s name in the paragraph above, it is very simple. Father's name would be spelt Vasile with the Romanian alphabet but not with the Ukrainian alphabet. Therefore the proper Ukrainian spelling is WASYLIY HRYHOROVYCH PASKAL.
Continuing research:
The research for the Ukrainian side of the PASKAL family is not complete yet. The records for the village of Chornivka are now (August 2004) currently in the city of Chernivtsi archives for the state. We now have access to records that date back to 1840. We have so far taken all the information about the PASKAL family that was readily available from the archives. From what we found there appears to be some very obvious information that we did not locate. This means we will have to make another more meticulous search for information that seems to be missing. We have applied for and received a research time period for sometime in November 2004. Hopefully we can locate the missing information in November and possibly locate the archive books back to family members prior to 1840.
Origin of The PASKALL Family Name Written by Lloyd Paskall September 1, 2003