Yulia was born the fourth child of Timofey Balatsky and Tatyana Kudas. She grew up shy and moderately cheerful, but always inquisitive. She always listened with interest to her parents' stories about their childhood, how they met, and their lives. Just before graduating from school, Yulia and her classmates were assigned to create a family tree and write their family tree. That's where it all began! At the time, she had very little information, but this inspired her desire to learn as much as possible and write about her ancestors. Who were they, where did they live, what did they do? But several decades passed before she began to make her dream a reality. Gradually, through asking relatives, browsing online archives, and reading historical data and her mother's diary entries, Yulia came to see a multidimensional picture of the lives of several generations of her family, and she was able to write a book. Some of the events recounted about ancestors who lived in the 19th century are partly the author's imagination, but the names, surnames, dates of birth, marriage, and death, as well as geographical names, correspond to historical data taken from the registers of the Church of St. John the Theologian in the village of Menchekur (now called Menchikury). In this book, if you are lucky enough to read it in its entirety, you will learn about the ancestors and brief histories from the lives of the Balatsky, Tolochko, Endovitsky, Lisovin, Meleshko, Kudas, and Bobrak families.