Quote:
Originally Posted by profholt82
Perhaps he's Hungarian on his mother's side.
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Yeah, quite possibly, but what seems more likely to me is a similar misapprehension in other immigrant families from eastern Europe. At the end of the 19th century, a lot of small countries were subsumed under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and their citizens, regardless of actual ethnicity, were all lumped together as "Austro-Hungarians." As a kid, I had the false notion that my grandfather was "Hungarian," and it wasn't until well into adulthood that I learned from research he was a Ukrainian speaking Rusyn from another part of the "Empire." "Hrabosky" is from an eastern slavic root word, "hrab-," meaning "brave" or "related to brave," whereas the Hungarian language is Finno-Ugric and not slavic. I apologize for the pedantry and would not have hijacked the thread if June were not now over.