Steven Tyler — singer with roots in the Russian Empire
Steven Tyler was born Steven Victor Tallarico in New York City on 26 March 1948, the son of Victor Tallarico, a classically trained pianist who taught music in the Bronx, and Susan Ray Tallarico, née Blancha, a secretary. His father's family came from Calabria and Germany. The family spent summers near Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire, and it was there, in 1969, that he met the guitarist Joe Perry.
His mother's father was born Felix Czarnyszewicz in 1892 in Klichaw, then in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire and now in Belarus. He emigrated to the United States in 1914, married Bessie Elliott and changed his surname to Blancha, turning the Polish word for black into a version of the French for white. The genealogist Megan Smolenyak, who traced him, found that his ship's manifest gave nearby Bobruysk as his hometown and identified the family as Polish. Tyler himself has repeatedly described his grandfather as Ukrainian; the documentary record points to a Polish family from what is now Belarus. Felix's brother was Florian Czarnyszewicz, a Polish novelist who settled in Argentina and wrote about the Polish communities between the Berezina and Dnieper rivers. Felix died in 1987.
Tyler and Perry formed Aerosmith in Boston in 1970 with Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer and Ray Tabano; Brad Whitford joined the following year. The debut album appeared in 1973, and Toys in the Attic (1975) and Rocks (1976) sold millions. By the end of the decade the band had stalled and Perry left in 1979. He and Whitford returned in 1984, and after Tyler completed drug rehabilitation in 1986 the band recorded Permanent Vacation (1987), Pump (1989) and Get a Grip (1993). "Janie's Got a Gun" won Aerosmith its first Grammy Award in 1990; three more followed.
The band has had twenty-one Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and holds the record for the most total sales certifications by an American band. Aerosmith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, and in 2013 Tyler and Perry received the ASCAP Founders Award and were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Tyler was a judge on American Idol from 2011 to 2012. His daughter is the actress Liv Tyler.
"Klichaw (Minsk Governorate) to the United States, 1914 (maternal grandfather)"
Migration storyTracing the roots — Klichaw (Belarus)
His maternal grandfather, Felix Czarnyszewicz, was born in 1892 in Klichaw, then in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire and now in Belarus, and emigrated to the United States in 1914, where he took the surname Blancha.
Grandson of Felix Czarnyszewicz (1892–1987), born in Klichaw in the Minsk Governorate, who emigrated in 1914 and took the surname Blancha. Tyler has called him Ukrainian; genealogical research identifies a Polish family from present-day Belarus.
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Klichaw (Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.