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WAROWY

Although it has been known for several years that the wife of Anonina Warowy, wife of Wasyl Demchuk of Sifton, Manitoba, was a daughter of Martin and Mariya (____) Warowy, it was not until the 2010 discovery by Borislaw Bilash II that Antonina had a brother, that enough was known to warrant beginning a page on this family.

Peter Waroway, with wife Warwara, came from Cyhany to the Dauphin area in 1897, and acquired a homestead close to where Atonina (Warowy) Demchuk and her husband would settle the following year.[1] Their son, Stefan, lived even closer to the Demchuks, their properties being separated diagonally by only one section of land.[2] However, no connection with the present family has been established.

A related file on the present website is our Ancestor table of the children of Leo James Lubiniecki and Alma Cecilia Reagan.

Thanks are due to the following persons for assistance with these notes:

  • Larry Hrehirchuk, of Winnipeg, who has supplied much material from his extensive files on the Demchuk family, including a copy of Demetrius P. Demchuk’s typescript Demchuk history
  • The brothers Chris and Mike Bostwick (not related to the Demchuks), who kindly provided copies of the baptismal records of Kateryna and Mariya Demchuk
  • Borislaw Bilash II (a descendant of Peter Waroway and his wife Warwara, aforesaid), formerly of Winnipeg, now of New Jersey, for bringing to our attention the passenger list which records the family of Maria (____) Warowy, sister-in-law of Antonina Warowy.
  • Diana Kuzyk, who descends from a possibly related Warowy family which also came from Cyhany.

1. Martin Warowy, of Cyhany or Tsyhany (now Rudka), in the district of Borshchiv, oblast of Ternopil’, and province of Galicia, Austria (formerly part of Ukraine), alive in 1865. He m. probably by 1845, Mariya ____. Their names are given in the baptismal records of their grandaughters, Kateryna (1889) and Mariya (1892), daughters of Wasyl Demchuk and Antonina Waroway.

  1. 2____ Warowy, probably older than his sister Antonina as his wife was some 20 years older than Antonina.
  2. Antonina Warowy (or Waroway), b. at Cyhany about 1866,[3] d. 5 Oct. 1963 at Dauphin, stated in her death notice to have been “in her 95th year” (literally, aged 94 years),[4] and on her tombstone to have “lived 95 years,” and buried in the new section of St. Josaphat’s Cemetery (not beside her husband, where there was apparently no room remaining). She m. before 1884 in Austria (the marriage year of 1892 given in her death notice being wildly incorrect), Wasyl (“William”) Demzuk or Demchuk,[5] son of Fedor and Mariya Demchuk, who was b. in Dec. 1856 (per the 1911 census) or in 1857 (according to his tombstone and his nephew D.P. Demchuk)[6] or 1 Aug. 1860 (according to the 1901 census) at Cyhany, in the Borshchiv district, Galicia province, Austria (formerly part of Ukraine), d. 7 March 1934 at the General Hospital, Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada,[7] allegedly aged “77 yrs.,”[8] and buried in St. Josaphat’s Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery, Sifton.[9] They brought their family to Canada in 1898 on the Christiania, arriving at Halifax on 12 July 1898. On 26 Aug. following, as “Wasyl Demtchuk, farmer” he successfully applied for a patent to the southeast quarter of section 30, township 27, range 20 West of the Principal Meridian, at Valley River, near Sifton, Manitoba. He was naturalized on 31 March 1902.[10] They are mentioned by her husband’s nephew, Demetrius P. Demchuk, as follows: “Wasil Demchuk married Antonia Warowy in Tzihani. Antonia was born in the same village on ____ and died October 5th, 1968 [sic, at least in typewritten copy; should be 1963].”[11] For further details see DEMCHUK.

2. ____ Warowy, d. by 1904 when his wife is called a widow. He m. Maria ____, b. 1845-46 (aged 58 in 1904), alive in 1904. The widowed Maria Warowy, with her sons Peter and Fedor, departed from Hamburg on the S.S. Blücher on 13 April 1904, arriving on 24 April at New York. The entry gives the family’s nationality as Austrian and “race” as Polish, last residence as Cygany, and final destination as Winnipeg, Manitoba, with a note that they were going to join her “brother of [sic] law Wasyl Demczuk [of] Winnipeg.”[12] A Mary Warowy is found in the household of her son Peter at Winnipeg in the 1911 census (see below), but her stated age of 85 years and year of birth of 1826 are a very poor match for the present woman (although this would be extremely improbable, making her 53 years older than her son). Known issue:

  1. Peter Warowy, b. 1877-78 (aged 26 in 1904). In the 1904 passenger list he is called a labourer. A mere two months after his arrival, Peter Warowy, aged 25 years, unmarried, of Austro-Hungarian nationality but Polish ethnicity — who is recorded as having arrived 28 (sic) April 1904 on the S.S. “Blucher” and so is certainly the same man — crossed from Canada into Black Rock, New York, on 30 June 1904, declaring his destination as New York [City?].[13] However, we have not found him in any U.S. census records. Instead, a Peter Waroway, with wife Jennie (??) and two sons, is found at 753 Scotland Street in the 1911 census of Winnipeg, and his stated birthdate of July 1879, place of birth of Poland, and year of immigration of 1905 all in pretty good agreement with the passenger list, although the mother Mary Warowy found with him is said to have been born in 1826.[14]
  2. Fedor Warowy, b. 1879-80 (aged 24 in 1904). In the 1904 passenger list he is called a labourer.

Notes

1. Vladimir J. Kaye, Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography [vol. 1] — Pioneer Settlers of Manitoba, 1891-1900 (Toronto, 1975), 1:108-9.
2. See the map in Ewanchuk, Pioneer Settlers: Ukrainians in the Dauphin Area, 1896-1926, p. 95.
3. Her birthdate is given as 4 July 1865 in 1901 census but as Oct. 1866 in the 1911 census, and her age is given as 39 (implying a birthdate of 1866-67) in the 1906 census.
4. Death notice, Dauphin Herald, 16 Oct. 1963, p. 3, col. 4. Kaye (1:18), whose arithmetic is often not very exact, alludes to this death notice but cites the date incorrectly, and uses it as his source for a calculated birthdate for her and two different ages at death, all of which are wrong. Her age was understated in her death notice by several years if the birthdate reported for her in the 1901 census is correct.
5. Kaye, Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography, 1:18-19. Kaye’s undocumented birthdate of 1859 for Wasyl Demchuk is not supported by the latter’s tombstone.
6. His age is given as 49 years in the 1906 census, supporting a birthdate of 1856-57.
7. Death notice, Dauphin Herald and Press, 15 March 1934, p. 5, col. 5.
8. Although this suggests a birthdate of ca. 1856-57, which is serious disagreement with his birthdate as reported in the 1900 census.
9. Elsie Lesyk, Sifton Then and Now, p. 315.
10. According to Kaye.
11. Demetrius P. Demchuk, The Demchuk Family (1778-1910), typescript, from a copy kindly supplied by Larry Hrehirchuk. An edition of these notes by the present compiler is available online at http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/people/Dobson/genealogy/documents/ Demchuk_history_edited.pdf [PDF].
12. Ellis Island Passenger Arrival Records, ship manifest of the S.S. Blücher, 13 April 1904, p. 43, available online at http://www.ellisisland.org/search/shipManifest.asp?MID=18241281620182875168&pID=102518020063. We are deeply grateful to Borislaw Bilash II for bringing this item to our attention, as the field of the record which mentions the name of Wasyl Demczuk is not indexed and it is unlikely we would ever have found it ourselves. This record has been published in Diane Semanske & Barbara Odette, “Passenger Ship Arrivals,” Pathways and Passages: Official Publication of the Polish of the Polish Genealogical Society of Connecticut/Polish Genealogical Society of the Northeast, 12(1) (Fall 1995): 15-16, at p. 15 (not personally seen).
13. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S., 1895-1956, online database at Ancestry.com.
14. 1911 Census of Canada, Manitoba, City of Winnipeg, Enumeration District 14, p. 44. The entry reads: 
name     relationship cond. age  birthdate  birthpl. immig.  occupation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Waroway     head    M  32  July 1879  Poland   1905  general merchant
Jennie* Waroway   wife    M  20   May 1881  Poland   1905  [illegible]
Tadeusz* Waroway  son     S   5  Jan. 1906  Manitoba
Boleslaw Waroway  son     S   2 March 1909  Manitoba
Mary Waroway      mother  W  85  ---- 1826  Poland   1905
-----
Entire family Polish in ethnicity, Canadian in nationality,
Catholic in religion
* reading uncertain

From the Genealogy Page of John Blythe Dobson
URL = cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/people/Dobson/genealogy/ff/Warowy.cfm
This page first appeared 5 April 2010
Last revised 4 May 2011