Relatives from the Old Country

My dad was from the old country (Belarus).  He was the youngest of 13, and was one of only four who supposedly emigrated to the U.S.  (We never found the other three, since they came over at different times.)

Part of that is due to the fact that our last name was originally in the Cyrillic alphabet, which can be transliterated X-many ways into the English (i.e., Latin) alphabet.  Another reason is that most (if not all) of my father's generation is deceased.  Mix in a couple of World Wars, restricted borders, politcal upheavals, etc., and a lot of data has been lost.  (Genealogical research is darn near impossible.)

Since there was such a great age gap, some of my cousins have also passed on.  We tried to stay in contact while our respective parents were alive, but once they passed, people moved or moved on.  (I haven't seen anyone from that side of the family in almost 30 years.)  I had cousins (that I knew of) in Europe and on the East Coast.  But we've long been out of touch.

However, I occasionally receive mail from one of the cousins who currently lives in Germany.  This would be awesome if he would actually WRITE me in German, since I have some knowledge of the language!  However, he insists on writing me in Belarussian or Russian (I'm not sure which), even though I've told him I never learned it (other than stuff I've picked up from singing, or from the nights my dad played cards and drank vodka with his pals -- so I know swear words when I hear them!).  And written Cyrillic is way different than printed Cyrillic.  I suppose it would help if I actually knew the language, but think about how difficult it can be to decipher handwriting in a language you actually DO know, let along one you hardly know!

Last time I wrote him, I used Google Translate to turn my English into both German and Russian.  (Technology is wonderful.)  At that time, I told him it would be excellent if he could e-mail me or use Facebook, since that would be easy to cut and paste into a translation program.  However, it's entirely possible that he doesn't have access to the internet (or doesn't use a computer), since he's an older gentleman.  But hey, at least we're both trying!

Thankfully, I know several people who can translate.  I just need to get the letter to them.