My name is Dmytro Dupelicz - Kalanchuk - Lobanov - Hrynkiewicz - Semeniak - Moiseyev - Figura - Mulik - Zielinski - Kuzma - Borminsky - Pasternak - Teodorowski - Morda - Verbicki. I am a descendant of fifteen documented families, so I guess I have a right to each one's last name.
I attribute my interest in genealogy to two people. Long time ago, when I still lived in Ukraine, my uncle Octavy, who was researching his family tree, got me interested in our common branch. That interest even caused me to interview my grandma about her life and her parents, but at the tender age of 18, I soon found many other things to occupy my mind with. Then, a couple of years later, I received an e-mail from a man named Ted Miller. He was a genealogist from Indiana, researching a branch of his family tree that originated from Ukraine. In his letter, Ted asked me for assistance in finding living descendants of the family of his grandfather, who had moved to the US at the beginning of the 20th century. It took me a while to fulfil his request, but when I finally went to the village Ted mentioned, I did find over 70 of his relatives. To document the relationship, I then went to archives, and eventually visited that village two more times. The favor I did to Ted paid tenfold when he ended up willing to sign a financial affidavit for me when I needed a sponsor to get a visa to the US. Thus, genealogy unexpectedly turned my life in a completely new direction.
As I was helping Ted, the interest in my own family tree was revived. However, the fact that I was now living in the US, halfway across the globe from Ukraine, didn't help it. Only after another three and a half years, when I came home for a visit, was I able to start my research. In the course of it, I interviewed my father; several days later, he was no longer. By his sudden death, the realization of an urgent need to preserve the family history hit me so hard that I dedicated almost all of my free time in the next year and a half exploring my roots. I spent countless hours on the phone, talking with close and distant aunts, uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles in Ukraine and Russia, most of who I had never seen before, inquiring them about names, dates, places, and anecdotes. For the money I spent on phone bills during that period, I could have bought a private island. Finally, I flew to Ukraine on a trip specially dedicated to genealogy research. I visited a dozen cities and villages, met tons of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and spent days on end in archives.
During my research, I uncovered some curious information of personal interest to me. I found a second cousin of mine to be an owner of a hotel on Mallorca island, my high school English teacher to be my relative by marriage, and a girl I once hit on to be my distant niece. Not to mention numerous related families scattered all over the world from Siberia to Argentina.
Currently, my family tree counts about 600 people. It documents four generations in all directions, and is as deep as seven generations in some. My goal is to research and document five generations in all directions. I treat it as a lifelong project.
I found Microsoft Visio to provide the most convenient way of graphic representation of genealogical ramifications. Alongside with my research, I designed a much more visual and pretty style of family tree graph than anything I've seen so far. Hopefully, one day it will be available either as a shareware or as a part of an existing genealogical software package.
As I was doing my research and uncovering yet new families to which I have ties, it became clear to me that it is only a matter of time before I find myself connected to every last person on Earth. To a genealogist, "the whole world is one family" is not a commonplace phrase, but a literal fact.
