From Curiosity To Passion

When I was born only my dad’s father was still alive. So I asked my parents to tell me about my grandparents who were gone already. I wanted to know how they looked, what they loved doing, and other interesting facts of their life. I so much missed not knowing them.

As I got older I herd a bit about people who where able to trace their genealogy. I thought of it as something I will never be able to do. Partly because in Soviet Union it was never encouraged, in fact it was discouraged by the way of archives being closed to the public, or very limited to what you can search for.

In the summer of 2017 out of curiosity I bought DNA kit from 23andme. After I got back my results I have not found any close matches. Only 3rd -5th cousins. The reason why I have gotten only distant cousins it is because people in Ukraine do not do DNA testing as much as in the USA and Canada.

By doing DNA testing I have not found close cousins but it pushed me toward documented genealogy.