My research over the past 4 years has resulted in a family tree with over 2200 entries. More than 900 of these are direct descendants of the ancestral Kronisz families of Zborow spanning 7 generations. The rest include spouses and in-laws.  There are two separate clans. Ours has Jewish roots in the town of Zborow and is the subject of my research. The other has Roman Catholic roots in Czechoslovakia and Bohemia and has carried the name Kronisch since at least the 1600s. Only a few of them have come to the US and most reside today in Germany. Their genealogy can be found (mostly in German) at the website of Jens Kronisch at www.kronisch.com.  Zborow for much of the 2nd millennium has been part of Poland. It was part of the territory taken by Austria in 1772 during the first of three partitions of Poland. During the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century Poland ceased to exist having been completely divided between Austria, Russia, and Germany. However Polish culture, including its language, remained largely intact.  Zborow was in the Eastern part of the Austrian Province of Galicia until 1918. With the defeat of the Axis in World War One, Poland was reformed from territory ceded by Germany and the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, including Galicia. This was short lived. In the realignment of Europe following World War Two Eastern Galicia, including Zborow, became part of the Ukraine, a Soviet Socialist Republic. Fifty years later, with the collapse of the Soviet Union the Ukraine has become an independent country which today struggles to build and maintain a democracy and a market economy.  Historically Jews did not have surnames, being known instead either by parents name or by their profession, for example, Yitzhak ben Moshe or Jankel the butcher. In one of the early acts of the new Austrian government surnames were mandated for all residents, primarily for military conscription, but also for taxation and record keeping. January 1, 1788 was the deadline imposed. The rich were able to buy a surname and the poor were assigned one. Several families in Zborow adopted the name “Kronisz”, a Polish name that literally translates to "person of the Kroneland". Kroneland was the German word for Crown Land and referred to territory of the Emperor of Austria. It is important to note that these original families were not related. However it appears that the name was unique to Zborow, hence we all have our roots there. By one immigrant’s account there were three unrelated families in Zborow of this name. The earliest Jewish records in existence from Zborow are contained in a death register covering the years 1819-1846 housed at the Lvov Archive. It contains an entry dated February 24, 1820 of the death of Ribke Kronisz, a widow, age 60, residing at Zborow house #35. This is the first documented evidence I have of family in Zborow. How long they were here before this I have no idea. There were a total of 25 Kronisz deaths in this register indicating perhaps dozens of Kroniszs living there in the early 1800s.  In the 2nd half of the 19th century the German language infiltrated the region and the name evolved from the Polish Kronisz to the Germanic Kronisch. Later registers indicate that there were hundreds of Kronischs in Zborow in the late 1800s. Many resettled in the nearby towns of Zloczow, Gologory, Bialy Kaimen, Kozlow, Brzezany, Tarnopol, and Lvov. A few moved to neighboring Russia, Moldova, and Romania. The first to come to the US was Gustav Kronisch in 1882 followed by about 75 others over the next 40 years. Philip Kronisch went to London in 1895. Jews left Zborow because of increasing anti-Semitism and pogroms, the lure of opportunity, and most importantly because while previously not an option, technology was making the journey possible. The railroad now enabled “easy” travel to the Baltic Ports and the steamships there brought them across the Atlantic much faster and safer than the sailing ships before them.  In 1914 Zborow was engulfed in fighting between the Germans and the Russians. Immigration to America halted as sea travel was too dangerous. Many fled to Vienna, Romania, and Hungary. When they returned after the war they found Zborow badly damaged, and part of Poland. Some stayed and rebuilt, others left. After 1923 America tightened its policies effectively preventing further immigration of Jews from Galicia. In the 1920s and 1930s several more families settled in Toronto and perhaps ini South America, but almost all of those who remained in Europe perished at the hand of the Nazis. The few Holocaust survivors of our family settled in the US and Israel. Most immigrants to the US changed their name from Kronisch to Kronish to make it sound less German. Other variants including Kranish, Cronish, and Cornish appeared for the same reason. Sometimes it was necessary in order to get a job. Many simply wanted to distance themselves from their past. Genealogy texts claim that stories of spelling errors by Ellis Island clerks or other immigration officers leading to name changes are rare and greatly exaggerated. The descendants of the 75 immigrants have become demographically diverse as they assimilated into American society. The first generation all lived in Manhattan’s lower east side and most found employment as garment workers. Their children spread to Brooklyn and the Bronx in the 1910s and 1920s, to New Jersey and Connecticut in the 1930’s and 1940’s,to Florida and California in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Today we are scattered amongst half the states, Canada, and Israel. My initial genealogical research was based on interviews with as many extended family members as possible. This provided numerous trees, some of which overlapped. I then ordered copies of many public records including birth, death, marriage, census, immigration, draft, cemetery, and social security. Due to privacy laws, this information is not available for living persons, but is part of the public record for deceased persons. At the archives of New York, Washington, and Salt Lake City I have reviewed additional vital and government records, microfilm of old phone books and the city directories that predate them, passenger lists of the steamships which brought the immigrants, records of the first Zborow Sick and Benevolent Society, an organization in New York dating from 1901 to the 1950s in which the immigrants provided for their own medical costs, burial costs, and also had many social functions. Through the governments of Poland and the Ukraine and the www.jewishgen.org website I have found many of the vital records of Zborow and nearby towns for the 19th century. As the trees expanded they continued to merge. Today there are 19 distinct families that I have documented. Some of these families intermarried. Others are related through common in-laws. Others are undoubtedly biologically linked despite the lack of documents or records in existence providing the links. It is hoped that DNA testing could provide the answers.