Other Romanian Olars

The Surname "Olar" and its Variants

AS I DISCUSSED on my Olar Genealogy page, among ethnic Romanians there are five variants of the Olar surname: Olar, Olaru (or Olari), Olariu, and Olarescu, all derived from the ancient Latin word, ollarius, "a potter." My father and his brothers and sisters have said that our surname used to be "Olaru" or "Olariu" (and in the 1920 U.S. census our name appears as "Olru"), but in many early records about our family, our surname appears as "Olar," whereas other records show our name as "Olari" and "Olariu." This is how Romanian genealogical researcher Cosmin Ciocan explains Romanian surnames that end with the suffix -u:

"In Romanian the articulation of the word is generally done by adding the -ul suffix to the word. Thus, to say "the locksmith" you would write "lacatusul" (lacatus = locksmith). However in spoken language the final -l is not heard so here's how "John the Locksmith" would be written in Romanian: Ion Lacatusu. Almost all Romanian names ending in -u fit into this expanation."

Thus, "Olaru" and "Olariu" would have originated as "Olarul" or "Olariul," meaning "the potter."

On this page, I have compiled a few examples of other Romanians who share my surname, or whose surname is a variant of the Olar surname. With some of these examples, there is a possibility that my family has a close genealogical connection with them, but with other examples there is little or no chance of a link between my family and theirs. In the latter case, I include them merely to show examples of one of the five "Olar" variants.

Olars in Montana

DURING THE period from 1920 to 1963, there was an Olar family living in Montana. U.S. census records show that an ELI OLAR, born about 1884, lived in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1910, in Powell County, Montana, in 1920, and in Wheatland County, Montana, in 1930. Census records indicate Eli emigrated to the U.S. in 1907 or 1909. Eli's World War I draft card (dated 10 Sept. 1918) and U.S. census records say Eli was a Romanian immigrant from the Austrian Empire (specifically Transylvania), and was born 16 July 1883. The draft card also says he had a relative (probably his brother) named JOHN OLAR living in Townsend, Meagher County, Montana. John's published obituary and the Montana Death Index describes him as a retired sheepherder in the Helena and Harlowton areas who died at the age of 74 on 10 Sept. 1951 in Lewis & Clark County, Montana. He was given a Catholic Requiem Mass and buried in Resurrection Cemetery in Helena. As for Eli, the Social Security Death Index says Eli was born 15 (not 16) July 1883 and died in Jan. 1963 in Montana. Eli's death is not listed in the Montana Death Index, but that index does mention a VASSILY OLAR, born 1914, died 22 Jan. 1963 in Glacier County. It is remarkable that Eli and Vassily both died in Jan. 1963. At this time we do not know the way John, Eli, and Vassily were related, but it is possible that John and Eli were brothers, and Vassily was possibly Eli's son. However, census records never mention any wife or children of Eli, instead listing him as single.

Michal Olar of Galicia

DURING THE month of June 1909, a certain MICHAL OLAR, from Galicia, arrived in Quebec, Canada. Coincidentally, my grandfather's older brother Mihai Olar, from Bucovina, arrived in Quebec during the same month. However, Mihai Olar is not to be confused with Michal Olar. Although they both arrived in Quebec at about the same time, Mihai came on the S.S. Victorian while Michal came on the S.S. Mount Temple. Both Mihai and Michal were married farm laborers, and they both are listed as being in poor health, but Michal was 38 years old when he came to Canada, while Mihai would have been about 40 then. Also, Michal was unable to read or write, unlike Mihai. Bucovina was bordered on the north by Galicia, so it is not impossible that this Michal Olar was related to us in some way, but it's more than likely that he came from an unrelated family of Olars.

Olars from Tereblecea

MY OLAR ancestors came from the Bucovina village of Tereblecea. In early 2007, I discovered the names of some Olars from Tereblecea that were listed at the website of the Procesul Comunismului project, which is devoted to studying the bloody history of Communist tyranny in Romania. In the project's dictionary of Romanians who were arrested, tortured, enslaved, and/or murdered for their opposition to Communism, these names are found:

OLAR, Dumitru. Din Basarabia (Tereblecea). Deportat īn lagărele din Siberia, la 13 mai 1941.
OLAR, Dumitru Ion. Din Basarabia (Tereblecea). Ridicat de N.K.V.D. şi dus la muncă silnică la lacul Onega, īn 1944.
OLAR, Zenovia. Din Basarabia (Tereblecea). Deportat īn lagărele din Siberia, la 13 iunie 1941.

"Dumitru Ion" would mean "Ion son of Dumitru," so Dumitru Ion Olar in 1944 is probably the son of Dumitru Olar in 1941. Zenovia Olar in 1941 is probably a close female relative of Dumitru and Dumitru Ion, maybe wife or mother or sister. (It is impossible to say if this Zenovia Olar is the same as Zinofia Olar, wife of my grandfather's relative Ilie Olar.) At the time, Bucovina was a part of Basarabia, which was occupied by the Russian Communist Empire. These three Olars were deported to a Gulag slave labor camp in Siberia. My grandparents left Bucovina in 1907, which was 34 years before these Olars from Tereblecea were forced into slavery. Since my grandfather was born in Tereblecea, it is quite possible that these Olars were cousins. It is unpleasant to contemplate what terrible things happened to the persons listed in this project's dictionary, especially when it is possible some of them were my cousins.

Other Olar Victims of the Communists

THE PROJECT'S dictionary also lists these three Olars:

OLAR, Gheorghe. Din oraşul Galaţi. Arestat şi condamnat la īnchisoare.
OLAR, Iosif. Născut la 9 februarie 1929. Din oraşul Arad. Muncitor. Arestat īn 1952 sub acuzaţia de agitaţie anticomunistă. Condamnat de Tribunalul Militar Constanţa la 3 ani īnchisoare. O parte din detenţie īn lagărele de la Canal. Eliberat īn 1955. (informaţie oferită de Cornea Corneliu)
OLAR, Pricopie. Din Basarabia (comuna Iordăneşti, raion Hlibova). Deportat īn lagărele din Kazahstan, la 13 iunie 1941. A murit īn timpul detenţie.

These three men are not said to come from Tereblecea, but they do share my surname, and one of them, Iosif Olar, has the same name as my father, Joseph Olar. The village of Iordăneşti is in the same general area as Tereblecea, but somewhat to the northwest of Tereblecea.

The project's dictionary also has 15 entries on persons with the surname Olari (the Russianised spelling of Olaru), all of them from villages in Bucovina. Most of them were from the village of Ropcea near Iordăneşti and Storojinet. In addition, the dictionary has 13 entries on persons with the surname Olariu, from various locations. One of them, Aurel Titus Olariu, has the same name as one of my uncles, Aurel Olar. In all likelihood, these 28 entries do not refer to persons who were closely related to my Olar family, but the fact that so many of the persons named "Olari" (Olaru) lived in relatively close geographical proximity to Tereblecea, coupled with the fact that my father and aunts and uncles believed that "Olaru" was the proper spelling of our surname, raises a possibility that some of these persons were related to me in some way. But it is only a possibility.

Olars from Costişa, Bucovina

IN AN email of 12 April 2001, Bucovina genealogical researcher Beth Long informed me of an Olar family she had encountered in her records. This family lived in the Bucovina village of Costişa (German Kostischa), located near the town of Siret just to the southwest. This would be to the south of Tereblecea, which is located north of Siret.

The genealogy of this family begins with NICOLAS and CATHERINE OLAR, who had a son named STEPHEN OLAR, a merchant. Stephen's wife was ANGELA KOTKSOWSKA. Stephen and Angela had two sons, JOSEPH OLAR, born 1 Jan. 1907, and JANOS OLAR, born in 1908. Apart from the fact that one of these persons had the same name as my father, there does not seem to be anything to suggest they might be related to my Olars.

An Olar Family in Basarabia (Moldova)

WHILE RESEARCHING the Olar surname, I found an ethnic Romanian family of Olars living in the nation of Moldova, also known as Basarabia, formerly a part of the Kingdom of Romania until it was annexed by Russia. Demographically, Bucovina and Moldova are similar, in that their two largest ethnic groups are Ukrainians and Romanians. This Olar family originally came from a village called Cubolta in northern Basarabia, near the city of Balţi. Northern Moldova is due east of Bucovina, but otherwise Cubolta is nowhere near Tereblecea, so it is unlikely that there is any close genealogical connection between them and my family.

The genealogy of this family starts with STEFAN OLARU of Cubolta, who had a son named VASILIY OLARU. Vasiliy Olaru in turn was the father IVAN OLARI. Ivan Olari's daughter LARISA OLAR provided me with this brief account of her paternal ancestry. She had emigrated to the U.S. and in 2001 was living in Tacoma, Washington. In an email of 13 Dec. 2001, Larisa Olar gave this account of how her family's surname changed over time: "Actually at first my last name was Olaru, but after the Russians came that changed my last name to Olari. In Russian there is a letter 'I' they call soft sign. Americans don't have such a letter so they changed it to Olar'. But now I don't use the apostrophe so my last name changed to Olar."

An Olar Family in the U.S.

Around 1997, my family met another family of Romanian Olars who were living in Freeport, Illinois, at the time (they have since moved out of state). The family visited with us at my parents' home in Dixon, Illinois, but we were not able to find any genealogical connection between our families. It is interesting, however, that this family showed a variation among the surname spellings of Olaru, Olari, and Olar similar to that of the abovementioned Olar family from Cubolta, Basarabia.

According to information given to us on that occasion, as well as subsequent information supplied by another descendant of the family, these Olars are descended from VASELIA OLARU, who came from Buteni, a small village just outside of Arad, Transylvania, in western Romania. Vaselia left Romania about 1912 and came to the U.S. through Ellis Island, taking the name of William Olar (or being given that name by the immigration official). The name "Vaselia" or "Vasilie" is the same as our name "Basil."

Vaselia/William was born 22 Dec. 1890 and died 17 May 1958. His first wife was ANITA SASS, the mother of his first two or three children. Vaselia and Anita were Romanian Baptists, not Orthodox, and they settled in Arenac County, Michigan. Anita died in childbirth, after which Vaselia married AURELIA JOAN, born 19 Aug. 1904, died 10 May 1962, the mother of the remainder of his children. Vaselia had eight children: LENA OLARI RUJA (1912-1998), HOWARD OLARI (1914-1986), MABEL OLAR (died 1993), WESLEY OLAR (died 1998), BETTY OLAR FITZGERALD, NORMAN WALTER OLAR (1934-1990), VIVIAN OLAR SCHUTTE, and WILLIAM OLAR.

Norman W. Olar married NORMA JEAN PRINGLE and had a daughter, KELLIE OLAR PRUYT, and a son, BOYD NORMAN OLAR. It was Boyd N. Olar with his wife KARI and their three children who visited my family at my parents' home. Boyd Olar and his older sister Kellie Pruyt have about 15 cousins on the Olar side of their family, children of their paternal aunts and uncles.

Interestingly, my father says his older sister Linda was really named Lena, which is a diminutive form of Elena or Helena (I also had an aunt named Helen). However, according to my father, my aunt never liked her given name -- my father says she thought it was too "Old Country" -- and she always preferred that people call her Linda or Lyn.

An Olarescu Family in Romania

In February and March 2000, I exchanged a few delightful emails with Mr. GHEORGHE OLARESCU (born about 1965), a resident of the city of Iasi in Romania. At the time, Mr. Olarescu and his wife IOANNA (married 1988) owned two small transport companies, and had a daughter, ADARA OLARESCU, born 1995, and a son, DORIAN OLARESCU, born 1998. Gheorghe Olarescu's father was MIRCEA OLARESCU, who came from Buzau, a city of Muntenia, but Mircea's father had come from northern Romania. Mircea died when Gheorghe was young, but Gheorghe's mother GINA died in 1999. In 2000, Gheorghe had Olarescu cousins living in Covasna, Romania, and an Olarescu aunt who lived in the Romanian capital of Bucharest.

It was Gheorghe Olarescu who first informed me of the meaning and origin of the Olar surname, in an email of 28 Feb. 2000. In the same email, he wrote, "The names Olar and Olarescu are very rare. I searched the phonebooks of Romania's great cities and rarely found matching names. More common forms are Olaru and Olariu, but they are only vaguely related to Olar."

According to Romanian genealogical researcher Cosmin Ciocan, the common surname suffix of -escu "was used in the past by the nobility," and therefore "later on (by the 1850s), with the rise of the middle classes, a real explosion of -escu names could be observed. A large part of these surnames came from patronymical and occupational nicknames." The surname of Olar with its five variants is an occupational surname, and it was probably around the middle of the 1800s that Gheorghe Olarescu's ancestor presumably changed his surname from Olar to Olarescu. Since this family used to live in northern Romania, there is a remote chance (note: only a remote chance) that this family and mine share a common ancestor.

To learn more about Romanian surnames, I highly recommend the About Names webpage of Romanian genealogical researcher Cosmin Ciocan.

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