My Grandfather "Pysta"

My father's father died in 1948 when Daddy was 19 years old. He was known in the United States as Stephen Popp. His background was confusing to me. He was well educated. Spoke Hungarian, a Ruthenian/Rusyn dialect, some Italian, and English. He may have spoken Romanian, as well. His mother's family were Greek Catholic priests, and he was raised in a primarily Rusyn village. Because of his religion and the village he was from, I decided he was likely an ethnic Carpatho-Rusyn. 

But. Always buts. Lots of things didn't fit. The family were landowners and wealthy by Carpathian standards. His surname and his mother's were common Hungarian surnames. He and several brothers had government positions. They were sent away to school. His father's family had migrated to the Carpathian region from Romania sometime in the early 19th century when the Hungarian government was trying to send Hungarians to settle in the borderlands. None of these are common to Carpatho-Rusyns.

My father's DNA tests suggested a lot of Balkan ancestry. Also known as Romanian or Hungarian. A puzzle that I let sit. For decades.

My inheritance from that side of the family included boxes and boxes of photographs, letters, notebooks, address books, my grandmother's needlework, candles, icons, and a packet of letters my aunt handed to me stressing that these were important. They were from a brother in Europe, concerning land my grandfather had left in his brother's charge. And she shared a whispered story that my grandfather had also left a child in Europe. He hadn't married there. But he had a mistress and a child. He never told his wife or children, but another brother living nearby knew and they spoke of it some. Usually in Hungarian so their wives wouldn't understand, but my great-uncle's wife heard enough to let my grandmother know what they were discussing. My grandmother was a great one for keeping secrets. Fortunately, she shared them with her daughter before she died. Including the fact that her husband had a pressed flower in his prayer book that had been there since before they were married.

I scanned the letters and documents she gave me, made a couple attempts at having them translated, but no one locally could read the handwritten early 20th c. Hungarian. So they sat. 

The AI translation of telegram yesterday naming my grandfather as Pysta was my first attempt in decades to examine the papers. AI made the difference. Today I uploaded 18 years of letters and legal documents. Gem (my nickname for Gemini) proved worthy of the name, revealing the story we never knew. Gem titled the timeline "The Two Lives of István Pap". Slightly dramatic, but not wrong.  

The first dated document according to Gem was a 6 November 1920 Certified Public Notary Deed (Hiteles kiadvány) recording a land sale of 10 acres in Satu Mare, Romania from brother János Papp to his brother István Papp for the sum of 5,000 crowns (Hungarian currency). I am going to have to go over the rest of the documents carefully to determine how much of this transaction actually happened, for what my grandfather was doing was leaving assets in charge of his brother to provide for his son, living in Ukraine. A son his brother called "a kis Pista" or little Pista, likely named Stefan or István as his father was. This all becomes clear in the later letters and documents. 

On the back page is a handwritten accounting of items my grandfather Pysta left with his brother. It appears they were sold, yielding almost 4,000 lei. Gem translated it thus:

"There is a fascinating informal addendum written in a different hand, dated November 7, 1920 (the day after the notary meeting). It looks like a receipt for "moving costs" or a final settlement of accounts between them.

It lists items and their value in Lei (the Romanian currency):

• 3,000 lei cash (készpénz)

• 450 lei for a pair of shoes (pár czipő)

• 250 lei for boots and trousers (csizma nadrág)

• 200 lei for a fur coat/sheepskin cloak (bunda)

• 27 lei for house money (ház pénz)

• 16 lei for an advertisement (hirdetés)

• 1,050 Hungarian Crowns were also exchanged.

• Total: 3,943 lei"

Again, I need to go over this more carefully to figure out if these were funds my grandfather took and used to travel to the United States or funds left with his brother for support of the child. 

To say that I am a fan of using AI in family history research would be an understatement. 

Digging in with Artificial Intelligence

 I've begun using Artificial Intelligence to transcribe and translate written records in my research. It is still slow, but far better and more accurate than my own attempts at working with 19th c. church books written in Church Slavonic, Rusyn and Hungarian. 

Today I took a telegram my grandfather kept addressed to his brother and asked Gemini (Google's AI tool) to translate the Hungarian for me. 

This is what I received. 

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Transcription of the Hungarian Text

Recipient: Pap Janos, posta ellenőr, Satmar 1. postahivatal

Message: feierevarmat 472:-18:-21:-10-! Legyen szombaton délután három órakor owarynat a határon = pysta =

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English Translation

Recipient: János Pap, postal inspector, Satmar 1st post office

Message: [Coded numbers/Reference] Be at Óvári at the border on Saturday at three o’clock in the afternoon. = Pista =

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Key Details & Context

• János Pap: The recipient’s name. "Pap" is a common Hungarian surname, and "János" is John.

• Posta ellenőr: This indicates his profession—a postal inspector or controller.

• Satmar (Szatmár): Now known as Satu Mare.

• Óváry / Óvári: This likely refers to Óvári (now Oar, Romania), a village located right on the Hungarian-Romanian border near Satu Mare.

• Pysta (Pista): This is a common Hungarian nickname for István (Stephen). The spelling "Pysta" is an older or more phonetic variation of "Pista."

• The Numbers: The string of numbers (472:-18:-21:-10) is likely a telegram reference code, time stamp, or a specific postal tracking sequence rather than part of the conversational message.

The message is a simple coordination of a meeting time and place, specifically choosing a location right at the border.

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I was most pleased with this. It is the first time I learned that my grandfather used the nickname Pysta with his family. I never heard him referred to as anyone other than Daddy. The border meeting seemed dramatic, so I commented that I wondered what they were up to. Gemini had lots to say. 

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If your grandfather was Pista (István) and the recipient was János Pap, you’ve likely found a record of two relatives coordinating a discreet meeting. In the context of the early 20th century in this region, a meeting "at the border" (a határon) was rarely just for a casual coffee.

Here is the likely historical backdrop for what they were "up to":

1. Navigating the "Trianon" Reality

The telegram likely dates to the period after the Treaty of Trianon (1920). Overnight, the region around Satmar (Satu Mare) was transferred from Hungary to Romania. This drew a hard international border through communities that had been unified for centuries.

• Óvári (now Oar, Romania) is a village that sits literally feet from the Hungarian border.

• Meeting "at the border" at a specific time (3:00 PM Saturday) suggests they were meeting at a point where they could talk or exchange items without necessarily going through formal, and often difficult, border checkpoints.

2. The "Postal Inspector" Advantage

János Pap’s job title, Posta ellenőr (Postal Inspector), is a crucial detail.

• As an inspector, he had significant authority over how mail and packages moved.

• In a time of heavy censorship and high border tariffs, having a relative who was a high-ranking postal official was a massive asset. He would know exactly when and where the "eyes" of the state were looking.

3. Possible Motivations

Given the family connection and the cryptic nature of a telegram (which was expensive and often monitored), they were likely doing one of the following:

• Family Logistics: Exchanging family news, money, or goods that were difficult to send across the new international border due to high taxes or Romanian-Hungarian tensions.

• Business or "Shadow" Mail: Your grandfather might have been using János’s position to bypass official mail channels to ensure a letter or package reached its destination without being opened by government censors.

• Legal/Travel Planning: If one relative stayed on the Hungarian side and the other on the Romanian side, meetings at the border were the only way to maintain family ties without the expense and scrutiny of formal travel visas.

Pista (your grandfather) was the one setting the terms, and János was the one with the official "insider" status at the post office. It's a classic example of family members working together to navigate the complicated geopolitics of the era!

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I am a history major, pretty well-informed as far as border changes in Europe following World War I but I never made the connection that Satu-Mare, where my great-uncle lived became part of Romania then while across the river Transcarpathia became part of Czechoslovakia. This began to be far more interesting than let's meet for beer at the border. A border that did not exist before the Treaty of Trianon.

My grandfather left Europe in 1920, sailing from Cherbourg on December 20th. We were told he left because there was a conflict with someone. That he may have killed someone while serving as a Gendars or Hungarian State Police Officer. That the family might seek revenge. That was a story none of the cousins we met in Ukraine or Slovakia knew. This telegram and the context Gemini provided suggest there might have been more involved in his decision.

More to follow. It gets better. 

40th Wedding Anniversary

 

Bob and Iva Williams Sawyer 40th Anniversary

My grandparents were married 1 October 1925 in Portland, Oregon far from their families in East Tennessee. Forty years later their children threw them a party in Morristown, Tennessee where they spent most of their lives. Their children, grandchildren, Granddaddy's sisters and brothers, a couple cousins, and a few close friends attended. All but one of the adults in the picture has passed away. We children are now standing. 

Seated in chairs Conway Sawyer, Iva Williams Sawyer, Bob Sawyer, Emma Sawyer, Winston Sawyer. Standing from left to right Flavia Sawyer, friend, Bob Sawyer Jr., Carolyn Popp, Janis Green, friend, Andy Popp, Connie Haun, Burr Haun, Selma Sawyer, Clevel Luttrell, Joanne Bryan, Mary Kathryn McKenzie, Charlie Green, Mr. Rogers. Standing behind on the right are some cousins, in-laws and friends. 

A Speculative Popp Family Tree

 I have spent decades deciphering how my late father's paternal Popp family is related to both those Popps we "knew" were cousins, and those cousins who appeared when he graciously consented to have his DNA tested and uploaded to as many genealogy sites as possible. 

Andrew Popp, my father, was a first generation American, born to immigrants from the Carpathian Mountains in what was Hungary when his parents were born. It's a remote spot, ruled by more nations and monarchs than I can calculate. He identified as Carpatho-Rusyn but thought his father might have been at least part Hungarian. One day I may get into the differences between citizenship and ethnicity, but for my purposes here it's enough to point out that my father's own DNA ethnicity results show most of his paternal ancestry from what is now the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. 

His father, Stephen Popp, was born Stefan Pap, a grandson of another Stefan Pap, in the village of Berezna, Maramaros County, Hungary (today it is known as Berezovo, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine). He maintained contact with three men he considered cousins in the United States - Frank Popp and John Popp, both born in Kovesliget, Maramaros, Hungary (now Drahovo, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine) and sons of men bearing the same names; and Joe Popp, who was also born in Berezna and a grandson of a Ferenc/Frank Pap. We knew that John and my grandfather were related through John's mother, Ilka Papp, but not what the relationship was. Our attempts at formulating a family tree were complicated by the fact that none of our furthest "known" ancestors shared the same name and we had limited access to any records. 

After DNA testing became available lots more "American" cousins appeared, but few had any information on where their families had originated. I eventually gained access to church records from Berezna and Kovesliget which helped. Some. But what really helped was newer genetic genealogy tools that allowed me to use DNA match data from the web of matches and from multiple testing companies. Using frameworks developed on DNA Painter I was able to finally construct a very speculative tree on BanyanDNA that does fit within all the information provided by 15 matches on my father's paternal side. 

I pieced together screenshots of the tree and the calculation results. The purple boxes represent people who did DNA testing at Ancestry, My Heritage or 23andMe. The purple lines are connections that we have either documented or have personal knowledge of from our parents or grandparents. The yellow lines are speculative relationships. The cluster of yellow lines in the center of the tree are believed to be descended from a child Stephen Popp had before he emigrated to the United States. We were told the child existed, but nothing more. Not even the gender. 

The work is complicated by the fact that there are multiple cousin marriages and marriages to Tegzes (my grandfather's mother) and Stoyka/Stoykos (his grandmother). What little information I have on the European matches we believe descended from my father's unknown half-sibling strongly suggests at least two of them also have Tegze ancestry apart from what they inherited from Stephen Popp. 

Speculative Popp Family Tree from BanyanDNA. Best viewed on other tab. 

Descendents of Frank and Joe Popp have tested. Their results support Frank and Joe's closer connection to one another but also support a slightly more distant relationship to Stephen's family. No known descendants of John Popp have tested. 

DNA testing suggested two possible siblings to Stephen's father Ivan. Documentation from Berezna church records confirmed that the Maria Papp who married Pete Stoyka was a sibling and supported the theory that there was a brother Nicholas whose great-grandchildren showed up as strong matches. I found it especially moving in light of current events in Ukraine that testing is allowing those separated around the world to reconnect. Testers live in Cyprus, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Ukraine, Slovakia, and the United States. 

BanyanDNA validation calcuation. 

 

This is by no means a definitive tree. Several of the matches are well outside normal ranges, though if there are additional Tegze relatives that would explain much of the variance. I hope to follow up with all the testers and get further information, if available. But it is the first time I've come up with anything that seems remotely possible given the DNA tests. Pretty exciting after decades of work. 

Perekstas in America - Conclusions

Years ago - long before the internet or digitized records - my Aunt Rose would look through the phone book wherever she traveled in the US. If she found a Popp (her maiden name) or a Pereksta (her mother's maiden name) she would call them, introduce herself and ask if they might be related. She had no luck with Popps. It's a pretty common name. But Pereksta? There aren't many and she managed to collect information on many of the Perekstas in the US. Which she passed on to me. Along with a LOT of photographs, notes, papers of all kinds. And cookware. 

Siblings Sue Pereksta Bolas, Mary Pereksta Zelenyak, John Pereksta, and Anna Pereksta Popp taken in Dec 1948. 

About the name. It's a very rare name. Very. I can count those in the US with the surname and all of those living in Europe have roots in far northeastern Slovakia where my Pereksta grandmother was born. Years ago, Rose was told that it was a surname that was made up and that our Perekstas were Jewish. DNA confirms the Jewish Ancestry. The name itself translates to "bridge" or "crossed over". Apparently a pretty recent ancestor (c. 1800) converted and adopted a new surname. Whether by choice or not is an open question. 

I started truly working on our family history over 40 years ago. Still in the age of letters and phone calls. Through Rose, I connected with my known cousin George Pereksta in New Jersey who was also trying to figure out the relationships of the Perekstas in the US. And with Chuck Pereksta in Ohio. There are a lot of Perekstas in Ohio and New Jersey. And not many any place else. At least that was the case when we were all exchanging letters. 

Slowly we figured out how Chuck's Ohio Perekstas connected with our New Jersey Perekstas. DNA testing confirmed our belief that the Ohio patriarch - George Pereksta (1875-1938) and my great-grandfather Ivan Pereksta (1857-1933) were nephew and uncle. 

Eventually digitized records confirmed our stories. And expanded our knowledge. And left us with a few stray Perekstas that didn't fit into either family. I was flabbergasted to discover that my Baba was not the only Anna Pereksta in Binghamton, New York. I called Rose - my source and sounding board for all things Rusyn - and she blithely said, "Oh yeah. That was the tall Anna Pereksta. Mom was short Anna Pereksta." True. She was VERY short. But I'd have been interested in knowing about the other before I dug through hundreds of records! 

Tall Anna Pereksta turned out to be from a nearby village, Starina. She had two brothers in the US and may well be related, but so far, we don't know how. Certainly, her life and my grandmother's life intersected often here in the US. They were members of the same church and shared many cousins. 

There were other "stray" Perekstas showing up in various records, but the two I was most curious about were Mike Pereksta (the dead miner that Rose remembered hearing about as a child) and Frank Pereksta who lived in New Jersey. 

Mike's parents and birthplace remain a mystery. 

Frank was absolutely NOT my grandmother's brother, but she knew him and had a photograph of his first wife in her photo album. He was born in Prislop, the same village my family and the Ohio Perekstas came from. But he died when Rose and my father were babies and there was no further communication with the family. Chuck Pereksta remembered a story that his father, George had a brother in New Jersey, but nothing more. And no one from that family appears to have done DNA testing. 

Recently I've pushed back into research, trying to define and source what I know about my Rusyn immigrants. DNA and the internet have been heaven sent. I've put together a family tree on Ancestry about the Perekstas called Perekstas in America. I've come up with enough information that, even without DNA testing, I am assigning Frank to the Ohio Pereksta clan. I had the picture of Frank's wife with Rose's note on the back that this was Julie Pereksta in New Jersey. I found an immigration record for a Julie Pereksta traveling to her husband, Ferenc (Hungarian for Frank) and naming her father-in-law, Gyorgy Pereksta, in Priszlop as her nearest relative in Europe.* Prislop/Priszlop was a small village of only a few hundred people. And George or Gyorgy Pereksta was a known figure there. He was the father of the Ohio George Pereksta and the documented brother of my great-grandfather, Ivan Pereksta. I reached out today to Chuck's brother (Chuck and George have both passed away) who is one of our treasured DNA matches. He and I both recall Chuck speaking of his grandfather having a brother in New Jersey. Frank fits perfectly. 

That's what passes for meeting the Genetic Proof Standard with my Rusyns. Decades of communication on both sides of the Atlantic. A photograph. A few records here that refer back to family in Europe. Even fewer records there, but enough to confirm the relationships. Still hoping for a DNA match to Frank's family, but they've been hard to connect with. 

I'm working on the strays. I would bet almost anything that the Starina Perekstas turn out to be related to our Prislop Perekstas. Not sure what to make of the other outliers, but I'll document what I know. And move on. 

* "New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957," database with images, Ancestry (https://ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/ : 6 Dec 2025), search terms" "Tulia Pareksta" Birth Date "1886" arrival date "1907".