I wanted to know something about my ancestors who first settled in America. All my life I had a very cloudy picture of who they were.... I became determined to find "my roots."

Mikolaj Worotyla
(18 Dec.1869 - 04 Mar.1926)

Maria Senkow Worotyla
 (xx xxx 1878 - 24 Dec.1956)

What country did my grandparents come?...Did they come from Austria-Hungary, Galicia, Halychyna, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, or Russia?...Andy Warhol's parents came from the same area and when they asked him he said, "We came from nowhere."...

What did they call themselves?.... Were they Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, German, Russians, Rusnaks, Ruthenians, Russophiles, Lemkos, Little Russians, Slavs, Uniates, Carpatho-Rusyns, Gypsies, Carpathian Mountaineers, Carpathian Hillbillies, or were they just plain Hunkies?....

How did my grandparents and their parents live and work in their home country?... Were they lords, nobles, landowners or were they just peasants who did not own the land they lived on?...

Was their religion Russian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, Polish Orthodox, Byzantine Rite, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, Polish Independent, Ukrainian Independent? Some said my ancestors may have been Jewish....

What language did they speak? Was it Russian, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Pol-na-si-mu or a Lemko dialect of Russian/Polish/Slovak/Ukrainian?...

I so wanted to solve this complex genealogical puzzle: this is my attempt to know who they were, and eventually to know who I am....

If you are a Wartella and have relatives from Northeastern Pennsylvania this website will tell you about "your roots"., My grandparents names on my paternal side were Nicholas and Mary "Bobbie" Senko Wartella who lived in Edwardsville,Pennsylvania from the1890's through the 1950s. Northeastern Pennsylvania was the heart of the Antracite Coal Region.They had seven children: Stephen, Michael (my dad), Metro, Nicholas, John, Ann & Julia and owned seven properties.

This is getting ahead of their story.