At first glance, determining the ethnicity of Louis Billick (Lukas Bilyk) appears to be a messy endeavor. Early twentieth-century records reflect the chaotic geopolitical milieu of Central Europe at that time. Modern-day Poland and Ukraine and Hungary did not exist as political entities: these ethnic peoples were bound by the borders of Russia and Austria-Hungary.
The S.S. Amerika Arriving Passenger List
The existing documentary records for Louis Billick offer other hints of his origin.
We assume that the Arriving Passenger list for April 1, 1906, that references Lukas Bilyk is our Louis Billick. He was born in 1878, is married and headed for McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He is listed as a citizen of Austria, of the Ruthenian race with his last place of residence in a quite indecipherable scribble that appears to be something like “Torczany,” a decidedly Galician-like place name. Louis is said to be meeting a “Mikolaj Makuch” in the U.S., a common Ukrainian first and last name combination, especially in the Lviv Oblast district.
Surnames
As discussed earlier, Louis’s surname, “Bilyk,” is certainly Ukrainian. Tekla’s “Holowka” (or Holoka; Ukrainian “Голока / Голука / Голоха”) surname was very common among Galician-Ukrainian populations of the Zolochiv region and is frequently found today in ethnic communities in the U.S. and Canada. Equally relevant here is the fact that a number of “Holowka” emigres listed in other Arriving Passenger Lists around 1905-1910, record their ethnicity as “Ruthenian”; with a few reporting their birthplace as “Galizia.”
Other Document Hints
Here are the subsequent documents that provide a birthplace/country of origin and native language:
| Document | Fact |
| 1910 Census | Birthplace: “Aus Slovak”
Native language: “Slovak” |
| 1920 Census | Birthplace: “Slavonia Native Language: “Russia” [sic] |
| 1930 Census | Birthplace: “Poland” Native Language: “Ukranian” [sic] |
| 1940 Census | Birthplace: “Poland” |
| 1950 Census | Birthplace: “Poland” |
| Anna Billick’s 1907 birth certificate | Anna’s birthplace: “Austria” |
| Anna Billick’s 1907 birth certificate issued in 1944 | Anna’s birthplace: “Zloczew, Poland.” |
| Louis Billick’s WWI draft registration form | Citizen of: “Poland” |
| Louis Billick’s WWII draft registration form | Birthplace: “Pomeran, Gallicia, Austria” |
| Michael Billick’s WWII draft registration form | Michael’s birthplace: “Pomorin, Austria” |
Złoczew, Poland and Pomerania
What to make of Anna’s 1944-issued birth certificate indicating Louis was born in Złoczew, Poland? Why not just accept this at face value? The answer has to do with the changing boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after 1918 and the emergence of Poland and Ukraine as separate nations. The region of Galicia, homeland of the Bilyk clan, became part of the nation of Poland from 1918 to 1939, and Zolochiv became Złoczów, Poland. Thus, many documents from this period refer to families from the region as Austrian, Polish, or Ruthenian. In any case, they were ethnically Ukrainian and spoke Ukrainian. The Soviet Union took over Eastern Poland in 1939-41 so some documentation refers to Zolochiv residents as Russian. Of course, there followed a Nazi occupation and another era of Soviet control before Zolochiv finally became part of modern-day Ukraine.
Other factors point to a Galician-Ruthenian origin. The “Bilyk” surname is extremely common in the Zolochiv region. The Strawberry Street neighborhood in McKeesport was an overwhelmingly Galician/Ukrainian. Many documents refer to Zolochiv immigrants as being of from “Galicia, Austria.” The Bilyk’s 1906 arrival date corresponds to the peak year of Galician immigration. Scattered references to “Poland” arise due to the post-WWI border fluctuation: Zolochiv was, in fact, part of Poland and clerks tended to write “Poland” for any one from the region. Many immigrants themselves indicated “Poland” as their place or origin rather than try to explain “Galicia.”
Likewise, the references to Pomerania (“Pomeran,” and “Pomorin”) are at first blush perplexing. Located along the shores of the Baltic Sea at the northern edges of modern-day Germany and Poland, this is quite distant from the locales suggested elsewhere. There is no geographical overlap between the region of “Galicia” and Pomerania. Most simply, though, “Pomorin” was a very common phonetic American mis‑recording of Pomorzany (Поморяни) a small village some ten miles from Zolochiv. Immigrants cited it because it was the nearest post office, the area’s administrative center and location of parish offices.
Who Are “Ruthenians”?
The “Ruthenian” designation is of particular interest. Exactly what “Slovak,” “Austrian,” “Polish,’” “German,” etc., meant in the decades immediately prior to WWI was in great flux, especially on documents authored by immigration agents who may have had limited fluency with the languages and accents of the arrivees.
The term “Rus” (Latin Rutheni, Greek Rhos) was used as far back as the 9th century to refer to the peoples of the medieval state of Kylvan Rus in the area of modern Kviv, ancestors of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian populations. They spoke Old East Slavic, precursor of Ukrainian. This meant that “anyone writing about the Ukrainian past today must use two or even more terms to define the ancestors of modern Ukrainians” [1] Indeed, Mykhailo Hrushevsky’s definitive history of Ukraine is titled History of Ukraine-Rusʹ (published in ten volumes between 1895 and 1933).
“Ruthenia” was not a formal nation but a region occupied by the Rusyn people along the borderland of Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Thus a person of Ruthenian ethnicity might have been a citizen of any of these modern nations and they or the processing agents could have indicated their origins based on one of these ill-defined geo-political labels. Although not so well-known today, “Ruthenian” and “Rusyn” were commonly-used, established ethnic designations at the turn of the century, referencing peoples of the territory of what is today Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and eastern Slovakia. The phonetic similarity between “Rusyn” and “Russian” could well explain the occasional appearance of “Russian” in documents referring to the Bilyk’s native language or country of origin.
The terms “Ruthenia and Ruthenians are often used during the times of the Austrian Empire (and in modern writings about the Austrian Empire) to mean Ukraine and Ukrainians found within the empire (specifically in its province of Galicia). You’ll often see the terms Ruthenia and Ruthenians to mean what we now know as Ukraine and Ukrainians in popular genealogical resources such as Naturalization Papers, Immigration records, Passenger Lists, and Census returns.” [From: http://halgal.com/ruthenian.html]
Ruthenian Catholic immigrants formed a large group in the environs of Pittsburgh, with over 200,000 immigrants moving to the United States between 1870 and the outbreak of WWI. A large number eventually congregated around two distinct sub-groups: one for those originating from Galicia (in modern-day Ukraine) with its See in Philadelphia, and the other for those who were from the Carpathian Mountain region (in modern-day Ukraine and Slovakia), as well as those from Hungary and Croatia. In time, the two groups would come to be known as Ukrainian Greek Catholics and Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics, respectively” [Wikipedia]. This second group eventually established its seat in the St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cathedral in a Pittsburgh suburb, the same church where Anna Billick was baptized in 1907, then called St. John the Baptist Little Russian Church.
After moving to Ohio, Tekla Billick and her daughters often attended services at Saint Michael Ukranian Greek Catholic Church in Rossford Ohio. Rossford was a typical mid-west melting pot city, especially for Ukranian immigrants who settled there attracted by plentiful laborer jobs at the Ford and Libbey Owens Glass Company factories.
What/Where is “Galicia”?
The term “Galicia” only appears once or twice in the Billick family documents but it’s an intriguing tidbit in the context of other location, ethnic and language references.
Galicia as a geopolitical entity was created in 1772 with the establishment of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Habsburg Monarchy’s (later the Austrian Empire’s) easternmost crownland. The capital of the province was Lemberg (today Lviv). A century and a half later, in 1918, Galicia was wiped from the world’s maps, with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (cited from Forgotten Galicia – Remnants of the past found in Lviv, Galicia & the former Austrian Empire; accessed 1-June 1, 2026).
By the end of the 19th century, Galicia was occupied by both Polish and Ukranian people. It was eventually “restored to Poland but was later divided between Poland and the Soviet Union” [Britannica]. Although an ethnic morass, the population of Galicia was dominated by Poles (mostly in West Galicia, today near Poland and Hungary) and Ruthenians (in East Galicia, nowadays Russia and Ukraine). Writing in 1919, one historian remarked, “The Ruthenians of eastern Galicia have commonly been classed as Poles, but there is a great difference between the two nationalities as if they were living on different hemispheres” (Falk 1919, p. 326). This end-of-the-century ethnic medley helps explain, I think, the apparent miscellany of names assigned to the Billick family’s place of origin.
The migration patterns from Galicia are also germane here. More than 50% of Austria-Hungary immigrants for 1901-1910, were from the province of Galicia (nearly half a million); 1905 being one of the peak years (Praszałowicz 2003, p. 73). Louis landed in New York in 1906.
The Billick’s Were Probably Ruthenian/Ukrainian
This long thread of connections from Louis Billick’s Ellis Island arrival document, the various birthplace and native language assignment, and the family’s association with the Ukranian churches in McKeesport and Toledo, are strongly suggestive of their Ukranian ethnicity. The “Bilyk” surname by itself, is telling evidence of the family’s Ukrainian origins (see the earlier commentary on Louis’s surname).
Beyond the documentary evidence, there’s another compelling indication of that Ukranian heritage: in Tekla Billick’s kitchen. Growing up, I had no idea that foods like “kapusta” (cabbage soup), “borscht” (beet soup), “paska” (Easter bread), “pierogies,” “holubsti” (stuffed cabbage roles), “deruny” (a kind of potato pancake), were traditional Ukranian dishes. I recall that at least one of these was nearly always on grandma’s stovetop, especially the kapusta, beet soup and pierogies.
What DNA Says
I’ve done the 23 And Me DNA analysis and it confirms the Ukrainian origins suggested by traditional genealogical investigations. The results say I’m 68% of “eastern European” heritage: a little vague given the geo-political morass of the late 19th century. The accompanying maps, show the most likely DNA matches in areas of modern-day Eastern Poland and Western Ukraine, especially the region of Lviv-Oblast on the Western-most edge of Ukraine. Interestingly, in light of the details noted above, Wikipedia states that the city of Lviv “was founded by Daniel of Galicia, the King of Ruthenia.” Note that the above-discussed Zolochiv is located in the very center of the Ukrainian Province of Lviv Oblast.
Thus, DNA evidence, anthroponomy (i.e., surnames), culinary traditions, and documentary records converge in supporting the Billick’s Ukrainian origins. For completeness, it’s worth remembering that there’s a scintilla of Ukrainian DNA way back in the (maternal) Jackson line via Henri Capet’s (1008-1060) wife, Anna Yaroslavna (1036-1075), native of Kiev (described in “French Connections” section of “Part One: In the Beginning“).
[BACK to CONTENTS] [↑ TOP of page]
Notes
[1] Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (New York: Penguin Books Limited, 2015). Audio book edition.
References
“Eastern European Immigration.” In Encyclopedia.com.
Falk, B. (1919). “Ruthenians Versus Poles in Galicia.” Current History (1916-1940), 9(2), 326–329. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45328695
“Galicia (Eastern Europe).” In Wikipedia.com.
“Galicia, Historical Region Eastern Europe.” Britannica.
Pekacz, Jolanta T. “Galicia, Revolution.” In Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions.
“Pomerania.” In Wikipedia.com.
Praszałowicz, D. (2003). “Overseas Migration from Partitioned Poland: Poznania and Eastern Galicia as Case Studies.” Polish American Studies, 60(2), 59–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20148670
Procko, B. P. (1975). “The Establishment of the Ruthenian Church in the United States, 1884-1907.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, 42(2), 136–154. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27772270
“Ruthenia.” In Wikipedia.com.
“Ruthenians.” In Wikipedia.com.
“Ukrainian Ohioans.” In Ohio History Central.
“An Understanding of the Terms ‘Ruthenia’ and ‘Ruthenians’.” In Genealogy of Halychyna/Eastern Galicia.
{last updated: 5-June-2026}