Greetings from the Skumanich Family!
This is the official history and genealogy pages for the Skumanich family and their descendants.
Also included here is
information for the other families represented by almost 50 surnames (listed at bottom of this page) who are descendants and
relations to the Skumaniches. (If
you
got to this page by searching on another surname, it is because that
family is most likely a member of the Skumanich tree. See Surnames at the bottom of this webpage.)
FAMILY TREES IN THE DATA BASE
Berdy family, Bilo family, Dacko family, Jacos (Yacos) family, Sokolik family, Skrip family, Skumanich family, Sura family, Zbur family
The Skumaniches and their descendants and many of their in-laws are of Carpatho-Rusyn ethnic origin.
There
are several alternate spellings of the Skumanich surname that
include: Skamanich, Skumanick, Skumanic and Skumanik.
The surname itself means something like
"person
from/of Kuman." In the Slavic language, S’ is
a preposition,
Kuman is the name of a Turkic tribe, and the “ich” is a
diminuitive suffix used as a patronymic. Diminuitives
convey endearment or intimacy or smallness. Patronymics
generally mean "son of". Whether or not Skumaniches are
direct descendants of
the Kuman tribe or just came from a region that was called Kumania,
they exhibit certain physical
traits that are considered Asiatic. One is the shape of the front
incisor teeth. Asiatic incisors are very concave or cupped. There are
also aspects to the irises of the eye that show up in some descendants
that are considered Asiatic.
Marco Polo mentions the Kumans in his published travels and
if you look at historical atlases you can find them listed on the maps as on
the north side of the
Danube
at the mouth of
the river, as well as further to the east (see the history discussion
linked below). There is also a region in Hungary called Little
Kumania. It is believed that the people from the areas near the Black
Sea
were
driven out of the valley bottoms into Hungary and the Carpathian
Mountains by subsequent
Mongol incursions. Kumans intermarried with the local populations. They
also provided military assistance to the Principality of Galicia and
made their way up into that region as well. Here
is a more complete discussion of the
history.
There is an
Epic Poem called The Tale of
Igor's Campaign that
mentions the Cumans who were also known as the Polovtsians or Polovetsians.
Immigration: Historically the
Skumaniches were landowners in the village of Pcoline, present day
Slovakia. They married people from other villages in the
area. These will be described at a later date. Many of
them immigrated to the US, Canada,
and Argentina. Today, Skumaniches can still be found in Slovakia:
in Humenne, Snina, Pcoline and Cukalovse.
In the field of astro-physics is the Skumanich Law.
It is a law that describes a certain behavior of stars and was named
after Andrew Skumanich, its discoverer. The son of Rusyn immigrants,
Dr. Skumanich did not speak English when he started grade school.
But a passion for learning carried him through to an advanced degree in
physics from Princeton University and a career as a scientist studying
the sun and stars like the sun.
Shelby Skumanich, an artist, has a website where you can see her work,
here.

Copyright
2006, N. Skumanich
Some favorite LINKS
This site is managed by Nonna Skumanich and will
continue to be revised and updated. Be sure to check back for new
information. If you would like to
access the
member’s only pages (includes family trees and detailed family history) please send me an
email -- NonnaSku at gmail
dot com -- with some information about
you and your interest in the Skumanich family genealogy.
Please Sign My Guest Book - (except that my guest book is broken so try again later -- perhaps in August!)
Below is a list of
names and some alternate spellings of Skumanich relatives. Of Note: one
family branch changed their name to Stewart. Thus there are a
number of Stewarts living in
the
US
who are of Rusyn ancestry rather than British!
Andrashova