German Ancestors from Eastern Europe

I have known many people, who have grandparents parents and great-grandparents who emmigrated to North America from Eastern Europe in the late 1800's and early 1900's , and as one 3rd cousin put it , "Seem to have forgotten where they came from when the moment they got off the ship". Many of these immigrants remained so closed mouthed about their origins that it gave way to the notion that there must have been something so terrible about their pasts that word could not be uttered about it. As this was the case with one of my sets of great -grandparents , it has been an absolute miracle that I have been able to trace my maternal family line as far back as 1733 !
Just by "googling" one particular surname led me to a fellow who I discover later to be a 6th cousin. This gentleman has actually travelled back to what is now part of the Ukraine at least half a dozen times, and has obtained the birth, death and marriage records for the ENTIRE VILLAGE where my grandmother was born !
These records span over 100 years !
I recommend to anyone searching for ancestors from the Austrio-Hungarian Empire to check out the Eastern European Genealogical Society on the web if they have the same kind of challenges that I had in this area of family research.

The Magic of Your Name

When Mike and I were choosing names for our first child together, I had a leaning toward the name Luke for a boy.But Mike felt very strongly about the name Matthew and although it was not a name in either one of our families I deferred to my husband on the name Matthew. We got our boy and as he grew from baby to toddler I found myself calling him "Matts" "Mattsy" or "Matty" most of the time.
When I started researching my mother's ancestors a few years ago I little to go on as she and her family were pretty tight lipped on my grandmother's background. Grandma's family immigrated from the Austio-Hungarian Empire to Winnipeg in 1906, and it was assumed that they were Polish. I have since learned that they were actually German colonists to the area around Lv'v (which is now in the Ukraine) . When I was able to access the birth , death and marriage records of their little colony of Muenchenthal , I was amazed to find that I have a great -great-great grandfather who was named Matthius, as well as his son Matthius, my great-great grandfather ! His son Johan-my grandmother's father -also named one of his sons Mathius. My mother had told me her uncle's name was "Max".However I found out recently from one of my mother's cousins that his mother called him "Mutsy". Huh ? But of course ! With her German accent, "Mutsy" translated to "Mattsy", the same nickname I had bestowed on my own son !
I'm grateful that I didn't force the issue with my husband and demand my choice of name for our son. I never knew my great grandmother, and have only one picture of her taken when she was elderly. But I feel close to her in a "magical" way when I think of her calling her "Mutsy" to come to the table for dinner !