Unfortunately, many of our relatives who could have shared a wealth of information,  stories, etc are gone and many "pearls" of information gone with them.  Someday your  children or great grandchildren might want to know about your past. Don't miss the  opportunity to pass along your heritage.  My grandmother traveled over 1000 miles  from Ukraine to Germany in 1910 to take a 2 week ship ride to New York to take  another 700 mile journey to Cleveland and wait for her husband to make the same  journey 2 years later.  What motivated them to endure this? These people had great  strength and character that we can take great pride and strength in ourselves. All of  us are richer for what they did.

My heritage leads back to what is today Ukraine, the birthplace of all four of my grandparents who were from a small village called Velyka Sushytsia on the western side of that country (see map below).Their names were Nick Kaczmarik (changed to Cotsman), Mary Czape, Alex Kapral,and Rose Fornal and all four settled into the Cleveland, Ohio area after immigrating in the early 1900's.

Let's try that last paragraph in Ukrainian:
 Моя спадщини веде назад до того, що сьогодні Україні, на батьківщині всіх чотирьох моїх дідусі та бабусі, які з невеликому селі Велика Cyщиця на західній стороні цієї країни (див. карту нижче). Їх імена були Ніка Качмарик  (змінено на КаЦMeH)), Марія ЦАП, Олексій Капралb, і Роуз ФОРНАЛЬ , і всі четверо оселилися в Клівленді, штат Огайо області після імміграції на початку 1900-их.

   



This site contains a wealth of family information, including photos, old home movies  and, of course, the family tree. Here is an old home movie clip of our family from the 1950's.   There are more old movies in the
 people/stories tab above.


  
        Cotsman Home Movies                         


Announcements/Latest Information/Help Needed
Look here for new information about the site and family announcements...  

Please send me photos of your family for the photo tree

Please tell your family about this site and have them send me their e-mail
addresses so they can be included

I have viewed church records from my grandparents village in Ukraine and have seen the
Kaczmaryk, Kapral, Fornal, and Czape (it's written as Cap) names as far back as 1700.  There 
are over 700 documents with their names on them.  I will start posting them shortly.
Click here to see an example of one. Look for the Fornal and Cap names.


Your Help is Needed!!  Please add/update any information 
pertaining to your family, alive or deceased!!

Things You Can Do on this Site

First of all privacy...
The public is only allowed to see this page. A password is required to see/change any 
of the other pages/content.  Access and passwords will only be given to family 
members or trusted friends of the family by invitation.  Let me know of anyone you 
think should have access to the site.  Once you enter your password you can select 
the edit tab above and you are on your way to adding information.

Update Family Info...
You are allowed to add/edit any information for your immediate family including 
adding people, notes, dates, etc. You can also add email, phone, and address 
information if you are comfortable with doing so. To start, go to the tree tab above, 
drop down to family, and then enter the name of the person you would like to edit in 
the drop down area. Please note the site uses maiden names for the women.

Click on this icon next to the persons name to update family 
information. If you don't see this icon click on the edit tab at the top. 

Print Family Tree...
You can print various reports and tree information in different configurations.  Just 
go the to tree tab above and drop down to reports or printable.

Upload Photos to this site...
This site is not intended to be a storage area for personal photos, but rather a 
place to consolidate and share old family photos and current photo's that are 
significant, like family gatherings or special occasions.  It would be really great if 
everyone would go through their drawers and albums for old photos. Also please upload 
current photos of you and your family if you would like to use it for the family tree 
(see the headshots above left). I will crop it for you if you send me a full photo. 
 
There are 2 ways for you to upload photos to this site. You can click the photos tab
above, then click the upload button, and follow the instructions. Once loaded you will
be presented with an edit window where you can add information and select the people in
the photo.  

You can also email your photos to "cotsman-5689@tribalpages.com" as attachments and
they will automatically be loaded into an email album on this site (total size of
attachments must be less than 7 MB). 
 
I can also add links to your photos that are on another site.  Click here, to let me know

Download Photos from this site to your computer... 
To download a photo from this site, right click on it and select "save picture as..". 
Keep in mind that it will save the size of the photo selected. Keep enlarging a photo
to its largest size before downloading to get the highest resolution.

Identify Unknown People ...
Go to the photos tab above and look for the "Who are these people" album.  Open it and 
see if you can identify people in the photo. Enter a comment at the bottom of the 
photo if you know some of the people or have a comment.

Write Stories ...
Unfortunately, you cannot go to the stories page and write your own story. However, 
if you have a story or some information you think would be valuable, send it to me 
and I will post it. 

Please send me comments or suggestions on how to make this site better.  It is a 
work in progress.  Send a suggestion  Enjoy! Dave