Project Research- Slow but...nope, just slow

     So, I've really been trying to hunt down some records of my family pre- Canada, but so far I'm coming up completely empty. As in, NOTHING. Even deciding on what spelling of my last name to use is difficult. When the first wave of my family came over, the official who admitted them asked them to spell their name, which anglicized came out to  SZPURKO. When the rest of my family came over, they were asked to pronounce their name, which anglicized came out as SHPURKO. I've also been searching in cyrillic after using this online tool with сзпурко or шпурко. It just seems so bizarre to me that there seems to be no record of anyone with my last name, related to me or not. 

     My cousin Jessica has been really helpful and given me all the research she has. Right now I have a family tree with the name of my grandparent's parents and my grandmother's siblings, She also gave me a few pictures of my grandfather and grandmother she managed to find in my grandmother's house. I was planning on going home this weekend and spending Saturday digging through the house for any papers or photos I could find, but I got blocked by the snowstorm. We know there are such things in the house, it's just that my grandmother has hidden them away somewhere. My grandfather died before I was born. 

Here are two of the pictures:

     It's funny, looking at these pictures I know they are my grandparents, but it feels like looking at pictures of strangers. Even when I try to imagine them in the past, I keep visualizing them as I have most often seen them, much older. 

     Right now I am also in the midst if trying to get documents and records from when my family arrived in Canada. Because it has not been a significantly long amount of time since their arrival, I have to mail away for any potential documents to various government agencies. 

   I'm also working with this organization that my cousin Jessica found. Luckily, we know that the name of the camp my grandparents were at was called Stuttgart. 

And that is all of the information I have. Right now it feels like I'm trying to put together a puzzle without all the pieces, but the finished puzzle has so much potential!