Dear Sir,
I was glad to read your message, for I also belong to the Pukish (or - Pukesh) family. I come from West Ukraine, and in my father's native village almost every second person is a Pukish. Besides, my grandfather's brother, the late Mr. William (Vasyl) Pukish emigrated from what was then Poland in 1926 into Canada where he lived in Toronto, Ontario until his death in 1991 (he spelt his family name as "Pukesh", and as I have just learnt, that is the spelling commonly used in Canada, unlike in the US where our family is spelt with "i". The reason of this is that the Ukrainian unstressed vowel is pronounced as sth. between "i" and "e", and the conversion into the Latin ABC may have taken the both variants).
Presently, I live and work in Russia while my parents live
in Ukraine. My father comes from the village called Mostyshche (translated as the "Big Bridge", and etimologically that means a place where some bridge used to stay in the past, later ruined) near the city of Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk Province, West Ukraine. From that area,
about 1/3 population had left for the US, Canada, Argentina from the 1900's until World War II.
My father is Stefan Pukish, his father was Pavlo Pukish whose brother, Vasyl, left for Canada in 1926, as I have written above.
Their father (my great grandfather) was also named Stefan, and he is buried in our family village of Mostyshche. He passed away in 1947.
As most Ukrainian rural families of that time, my great granfather's family was rather big, and now its descendants are spread throughout the whole Ukraine, but also some relatives live in Kazakhstan.
I shall be glad to receive a message from Mr. Pukesh of Canada.
With warmest regards,
Volodymyr Pukish