A Speculative Popp Family Tree

 I have spent decades deciphering how my late father's paternal Popp family is related to both those Popps we "knew" were cousins, and those cousins who appeared when he graciously consented to have his DNA tested and uploaded to as many genealogy sites as possible. 

Andrew Popp, my father, was a first generation American, born to immigrants from the Carpathian Mountains in what was Hungary when his parents were born. It's a remote spot, ruled by more nations and monarchs than I can calculate. He identified as Carpatho-Rusyn but thought his father might have been at least part Hungarian. One day I may get into the differences between citizenship and ethnicity, but for my purposes here it's enough to point out that my father's own DNA ethnicity results show most of his paternal ancestry from what is now the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. 

His father, Stephen Popp, was born Stefan Pap, a grandson of another Stefan Pap, in the village of Berezna, Maramaros County, Hungary (today it is known as Berezovo, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine). He maintained contact with three men he considered cousins in the United States - Frank Popp and John Popp, both born in Kovesliget, Maramaros, Hungary (now Drahovo, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine) and sons of men bearing the same names; and Joe Popp, who was also born in Berezna and a grandson of a Ferenc/Frank Pap. We knew that John and my grandfather were related through John's mother, Ilka Papp, but not what the relationship was. Our attempts at formulating a family tree were complicated by the fact that none of our furthest "known" ancestors shared the same name and we had limited access to any records. 

After DNA testing became available lots more "American" cousins appeared, but few had any information on where their families had originated. I eventually gained access to church records from Berezna and Kovesliget which helped. Some. But what really helped was newer genetic genealogy tools that allowed me to use DNA match data from the web of matches and from multiple testing companies. Using frameworks developed on DNA Painter I was able to finally construct a very speculative tree on BanyanDNA that does fit within all the information provided by 15 matches on my father's paternal side. 

I pieced together screenshots of the tree and the calculation results. The purple boxes represent people who did DNA testing at Ancestry, My Heritage or 23andMe. The purple lines are connections that we have either documented or have personal knowledge of from our parents or grandparents. The yellow lines are speculative relationships. The cluster of yellow lines in the center of the tree are believed to be descended from a child Stephen Popp had before he emigrated to the United States. We were told the child existed, but nothing more. Not even the gender. 

The work is complicated by the fact that there are multiple cousin marriages and marriages to Tegzes (my grandfather's mother) and Stoyka/Stoykos (his grandmother). What little information I have on the European matches we believe descended from my father's unknown half-sibling strongly suggests at least two of them also have Tegze ancestry apart from what they inherited from Stephen Popp. 

Speculative Popp Family Tree from BanyanDNA. Best viewed on other tab. 

Descendents of Frank and Joe Popp have tested. Their results support Frank and Joe's closer connection to one another but also support a slightly more distant relationship to Stephen's family. No known descendants of John Popp have tested. 

DNA testing suggested two possible siblings to Stephen's father Ivan. Documentation from Berezna church records confirmed that the Maria Papp who married Pete Stoyka was a sibling and supported the theory that there was a brother Nicholas whose great-grandchildren showed up as strong matches. I found it especially moving in light of current events in Ukraine that testing is allowing those separated around the world to reconnect. Testers live in Cyprus, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Ukraine, Slovakia, and the United States. 

BanyanDNA validation calcuation. 

 

This is by no means a definitive tree. Several of the matches are well outside normal ranges, though if there are additional Tegze relatives that would explain much of the variance. I hope to follow up with all the testers and get further information, if available. But it is the first time I've come up with anything that seems remotely possible given the DNA tests. Pretty exciting after decades of work. 

Perekstas in America - Conclusions

Years ago - long before the internet or digitized records - my Aunt Rose would look through the phone book wherever she traveled in the US. If she found a Popp (her maiden name) or a Pereksta (her mother's maiden name) she would call them, introduce herself and ask if they might be related. She had no luck with Popps. It's a pretty common name. But Pereksta? There aren't many and she managed to collect information on many of the Perekstas in the US. Which she passed on to me. Along with a LOT of photographs, notes, papers of all kinds. And cookware. 

Siblings Sue Pereksta Bolas, Mary Pereksta Zelenyak, John Pereksta, and Anna Pereksta Popp taken in Dec 1948. 

About the name. It's a very rare name. Very. I can count those in the US with the surname and all of those living in Europe have roots in far northeastern Slovakia where my Pereksta grandmother was born. Years ago, Rose was told that it was a surname that was made up and that our Perekstas were Jewish. DNA confirms the Jewish Ancestry. The name itself translates to "bridge" or "crossed over". Apparently a pretty recent ancestor (c. 1800) converted and adopted a new surname. Whether by choice or not is an open question. 

I started truly working on our family history over 40 years ago. Still in the age of letters and phone calls. Through Rose, I connected with my known cousin George Pereksta in New Jersey who was also trying to figure out the relationships of the Perekstas in the US. And with Chuck Pereksta in Ohio. There are a lot of Perekstas in Ohio and New Jersey. And not many any place else. At least that was the case when we were all exchanging letters. 

Slowly we figured out how Chuck's Ohio Perekstas connected with our New Jersey Perekstas. DNA testing confirmed our belief that the Ohio patriarch - George Pereksta (1875-1938) and my great-grandfather Ivan Pereksta (1857-1933) were nephew and uncle. 

Eventually digitized records confirmed our stories. And expanded our knowledge. And left us with a few stray Perekstas that didn't fit into either family. I was flabbergasted to discover that my Baba was not the only Anna Pereksta in Binghamton, New York. I called Rose - my source and sounding board for all things Rusyn - and she blithely said, "Oh yeah. That was the tall Anna Pereksta. Mom was short Anna Pereksta." True. She was VERY short. But I'd have been interested in knowing about the other before I dug through hundreds of records! 

Tall Anna Pereksta turned out to be from a nearby village, Starina. She had two brothers in the US and may well be related, but so far, we don't know how. Certainly, her life and my grandmother's life intersected often here in the US. They were members of the same church and shared many cousins. 

There were other "stray" Perekstas showing up in various records, but the two I was most curious about were Mike Pereksta (the dead miner that Rose remembered hearing about as a child) and Frank Pereksta who lived in New Jersey. 

Mike's parents and birthplace remain a mystery. 

Frank was absolutely NOT my grandmother's brother, but she knew him and had a photograph of his first wife in her photo album. He was born in Prislop, the same village my family and the Ohio Perekstas came from. But he died when Rose and my father were babies and there was no further communication with the family. Chuck Pereksta remembered a story that his father, George had a brother in New Jersey, but nothing more. And no one from that family appears to have done DNA testing. 

Recently I've pushed back into research, trying to define and source what I know about my Rusyn immigrants. DNA and the internet have been heaven sent. I've put together a family tree on Ancestry about the Perekstas called Perekstas in America. I've come up with enough information that, even without DNA testing, I am assigning Frank to the Ohio Pereksta clan. I had the picture of Frank's wife with Rose's note on the back that this was Julie Pereksta in New Jersey. I found an immigration record for a Julie Pereksta traveling to her husband, Ferenc (Hungarian for Frank) and naming her father-in-law, Gyorgy Pereksta, in Priszlop as her nearest relative in Europe.* Prislop/Priszlop was a small village of only a few hundred people. And George or Gyorgy Pereksta was a known figure there. He was the father of the Ohio George Pereksta and the documented brother of my great-grandfather, Ivan Pereksta. I reached out today to Chuck's brother (Chuck and George have both passed away) who is one of our treasured DNA matches. He and I both recall Chuck speaking of his grandfather having a brother in New Jersey. Frank fits perfectly. 

That's what passes for meeting the Genetic Proof Standard with my Rusyns. Decades of communication on both sides of the Atlantic. A photograph. A few records here that refer back to family in Europe. Even fewer records there, but enough to confirm the relationships. Still hoping for a DNA match to Frank's family, but they've been hard to connect with. 

I'm working on the strays. I would bet almost anything that the Starina Perekstas turn out to be related to our Prislop Perekstas. Not sure what to make of the other outliers, but I'll document what I know. And move on. 

* "New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957," database with images, Ancestry (https://ancestry.com/search/collections/7488/ : 6 Dec 2025), search terms" "Tulia Pareksta" Birth Date "1886" arrival date "1907". 

Uncle Earl Left His Mark

One of the things I love most about blogging is connecting with others who are interested in the people and places I write about. Ten years ago I posted about my Williams great-grandparents' home in Johnson City, Tennessee. The present owners of the house found the post and we exchanged information and photos. It gave me great joy to think the house was in the hands of a family that loved it.

411 W. Maple, c. 1911

Last week I got a new email from them, sharing a recent find. With their permission I am posting it here. While working on a shared wall between the kitchen and dining room they found a penciled signature reading "Earl W". The rest of the name was painted over, but there is no doubt my great-uncle Earl Williams (1892-1915) left his name there. According to their research, the house had extensive work done in 1907, about the time my family moved there. Earl would have been 15, old enough to share in the work with his father, older brother, and uncle. 

Uncle Earl's pencil signature on a door casing, found in 2021. 

I teared up when I saw this, and am most grateful to the lovely caretakers of this old house for recording and sharing it. The house looks better than ever today.

The house on Maple Street today. 

 

So Glad They Got Married

Carolyn Sawyer and Andrew Popp, 4 September 1954

Today would have been my parent's 67th wedding anniversary. I've never done a blog post about their wedding. Not even a photograph. It's time. 

They were married at her parents home by her parents' Baptist minister in a civil ceremony attended by her family and friends. More on that. Following the wedding they spent a very quiet honeymoon at Myrtle Beach recovering. There was never a photo of their wedding anywhere in their home. The one wedding album was tucked away in a bookshelf. The day was acknowledged as we got older, but never celebrated in any big way. It was a private time and memory for them, though as we grew older they spoke of it in response to our questions. They remained married until my mother's death in 1999. It was, most days, a good marriage, with sacrifices on both sides. But they had enormous love, devotion and respect for one another. Theirs was the model I have used for my own 42 years of marriage. 

Mother and Daddy met in Washington, DC after college. Both worked at the Navy Department, though that's not how they met. Both finished school and very deliberately chose to NOT return to the towns and families they'd grown up with. Both loved those families fiercely. 

Dad's best friend was dating Mother's roommate and suggested they meet. His motives weren't pure. Mother never left the apartment and he was hoping for time alone with his girlfriend (later wife). So Dad phoned her, they chatted and he asked her out for a beer. She declined, but graciously enough that he called back. And back. And back. Same story. Finally he asked Ted who asked Margaret who asked Mother why she wouldn't go out with him if she was willing to spend hours on the phone. She answered, "I don't drink beer." Dad called and invited her for coffee. She accepted. The rest is history. 

They were from wildly different backgrounds, but met a need in each other beyond their obvious attraction and love. Daddy, child of Eastern European Catholic immigrants, wanted an "American" wife as he assimilated into mainstream culture. Mother, rejecting the bigotry and narrow parochialism of her very southern, pre-civil rights childhood, wanted someone "other". Neither family was thrilled, but my father's family very quickly recognized and accepted the relationship. 

Not so my mother's. At least not her mother. Mother had moved back to Tennessee for graduate school. She was teaching and weighing two different proposals. She loved both men. Deeply. We spoke of those days of decision many times as I got older. She was very, very clear about her decision and her reasoning. And that it was the most difficult decision of her life. 

Once made, she turned to planning the wedding. Whatever subtle opposition her mother had expressed to her daughter marrying a Catholic first generation American was made clear. No member or friend of my father's family was invited, other than Ted, the best man. My grandmother never mailed those invitations. She cancelled florists and musicians. She launched a full out campaign to derail the wedding. My mother was heartsick, ill, but determined. Daddy finally showed up, uninvited and unwelcome, and announced that if they could not be married at home as Mother wished, then they would be married in his Byzantine Catholic Church in Binghamton, NY. His mother was fully capable and willing to put on the wedding and his priest had already consented. At that point my grandfather, utterly uninvolved by choice, finally spoke up and ordered my grandmother to cease her sabotage efforts and put together the wedding their daughter wanted. More or less. It did not include Daddy's immigrant family. The two families met for the first time at my sister's wedding, decades later. 

The effects of this were long-lasting. My father spent very little time visiting my mother's parents. The excuse was always he was working, but the truth told later to us as adults, was that it was easier for Mother to be there with us and without him. She still adored her family, they adored her, and by extension, us. He did make it clear that Grandmother was to stop cross-examining us about church and faith or he would stop our visits. Never Mother's. He knew how deeply hurt she was, but also knew how much she needed her family. And so we grew up. 

My sister and I had truly beautiful weddings. Joy-filled, and far more lavish than either of us wanted. Those wedding mattered as much to our parents as they did to us. They believed one of the most important things they could do as parents was to support and celebrate our choices. 

As for our family, we are today a very tightknit cohort of cousins, children of the three daughters Sawyer. Those sisters were a force - due in strong part to their mother. They were devoted to each other. Again, due to their parents. My father, particularly, expressed his admiration for all of them. He was careful to make clear that love and devotion could and should survive hurt and pain. It's a model to live by that I have difficulty following, but aspire to.  

Furnished for Burial Purposes

Receipt, dated March 18, 1893

"March 18, 1893

Received from Wm Sawyers Guardian

Lanie Sawyers 65/100 Dollars

in full for goods furnished for burial purposes

$0.65        Maloney Bros"

This receipt was one of many my great-grandfather Gee Sawyer kept tucked away in a trunk at his farmhouse in Warrensburg, TN. It answers a question I had for many years about one of his nieces, Delaney Sawyer. 

Delaney Sawyer was born about 1878 to Gee's brother Jake Sawyer and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Fox. She appears with them on the 1880 census, living across the Nolichucky River in Cocke County with one younger sister. There are no further public records for her. She is not recorded in any local cemetery. No marriage records have been found. There were notes in Gee's chest indicating his older brother William had taken guardianship of Jake's children after Sarah died in 1884.

William, who never married, served as the head of the family once his father died. In 1880 his widowed and paralyzed mother was living with him, as was a widowed sister and her children, and Gee, his youngest brother. 

This receipt from Maloney Brothers (one of two stores in Warrensburg) confirms William's guardianship of Delaney and tells me she died in March, 1893. Her mother and Sawyer grandparents were buried at Josephs Chapel in Cocke County so she may have been buried there. With whatever was needed for burial purposes. 

Sources: 

Sawyer Family Papers.  Privately held by Susan Popp Clark . 2000.

 1880 U.S. census, Cocke, Tennessee, pop. sch., Chuckey Knobs, p. 360B, ED 61, dwelling 204, family 213, Delaney Sawyers; NARA film T9, roll 1248.

1880 U.S. census, Greene, Tennessee, pop. sch., District 4, p. 65C, ED 046, dwelling 162, family 162, William Sawyers: NARA film T9, roll 1258.