Welcome to my ‘80s flashback—and part of my family history!

 My paternal grandparents on July 22, 1989 (on the secular calendar) at my parents’ wedding. 

Technically, I was born on January 23, 1989, as the secular calendar (in the case, the Later Julian Calendar with a little shift by twelve days) used to begin the year in March, and I was born early (I was due on April 22, 1990). I was born on 25 Tevet 5749 (Rabbinic Calendar 26 Tevet 5750). Even by the time that I was old enough to remember him and in his final years, my grandfather (ע״ה) had not really changed significantly. PS Somehow, he was a distant cousin to my grandmother (My dad has mutual DNA matches on both sides, which is common for Ashkenazi and Sefardi Jews)—no wonder that my cousin Greg looks like Mickey Haslin (ז״ל) as well as my grandfather!

Grandma’s paternal grandmother (a daughter of Miriam/Mária Hajzlinszka Uscsanska) had ancestors with connections to the Frankist movement (including Franek/Franik Béla and Eva Pailrová Jassová), and other ancestors of hers ended up in what was then Upper Hungary in other ways. As for Pop-Pop, his maternal grandparents were Michael/Mihály Nagy Trudnyak and Chanah/Anna Munková Trudnyak (originally “Trudnyakov”, later “Trudnak”). Michael Trudnyak was born the “illegitimate” Nagy Mihály, by the way, because his parents refused to marry in a Catholic church (as so-called “Christians” took enough away from them). Michael’s son John first married Valeria Lillian “Lillie” (née Nechama “Nellie”) Czarnecki, by the way; and he as a widower remarried his widowed in-law sister, Anna Mikita Czarnecki (the widow of Yosef/Joseph Czarnecki, a son of Efrayim “Felix” and Yosefa/Josephine “Veronica” Supronowicz Czerniecki)…

As aforementioned, welcome to my ‘80s flashback—and part of my family history! PS Béla left the clue in his surname, and Ya’akov/Jakub Frank’s own daughter forcibly had her name changed to “Ewa” by her father (Why I was not tipped off earlier about a Jewish “Eva” from a kehillah in Ukraine being connected to Frankism stumps me). The Frankist movement was widespread in what are now Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia, and vicinities. After the Frankist movement failed, many Frankists became Anusim (with some remaining Catholic like Jakub Frank was), and many moved to or remained in places where they could be relatively out of the way of Anti-Frankist retaliation as well as Antisemitism.