My Misinformation

As I enthusiastically embark on this journey of heritage exploration (as only a true Obsessive Compulsive can do), I want to make note of the "facts" that I think that I already know about my family.

From what I've gathered from decades of family lore and semi-drunken stories told at picnics:

• The Butlers (my father's family & my namesake) came over from Ireland, and they are very closely related (read: possibly creepily inter-married) to the Donnelly & McQue families of Irwin, PA, USA.
  
• The Oeberdicks (my father's mother's family) was Slovak, according to my Grandmother.  I do know that my Grandmother (Audrey Oeberdick) was the oldest of 8 or 10 children, and she was a large, intimidating, and fabulous woman who could throw a mean left hook and was an amazing baker.  That's the extent of what I know about her and her family.
• The Likers & the Goslaks (my mother's families) were first generation immigrants from Czechoslovakia.  They all worked in the mines around Pittsburgh, PA from the time that they arrived at the turn of the 20th century.  Story has it that the Goslaks also went by "Gosiliak" and/or "Gosliak" depending on which relative you were talking about (they all spelled it differently, which I'm sure will make my research all the more difficult).
• Both of my parents' families are immigrant families from either Czechoslovakia and/or Ireland who have lived only (stateside) in Western Pennsylvania until my parents' generation moved away to eastern PA and either VIrginia opr North Carolina.
  
• Both sides of my family, prior to leaving their native lands, were very poor and starving farmers