[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Games of Volhynian Germans

[Jerry Frank]

Did your ancestors play any games that may have had origins in Volhynia?

This past week I was researching the rules for a card game our family had 
played when I was a teenager.  The author of a card game website advised me 
that it was a game of Ukrainian origin called Hola.  Our family had called 
it Seven Holler.  Since we did not live near any Ukrainian community in 
Manitoba, I wonder if the game may have had origins in our ancestry and 
migrated with them to Canada.

Do any of you other readers recall this card game?  Briefly:  7s are 
wild.  Aces and 10s are counters.  You play as partners.  Each person has 4 
cards in hand.  Leader plays a card and others discard on it.  He retains 
the lead until someone plays the same rank card or a 7.  After each round, 
you replenish your cards in hand from the stock.  Objective is to collect 
as many points as possible.  Few more rules than that but that is the basic 
play.

Do you know of any other games you played that may have had ancestral 
origins?

Or were our ancestors too busy surviving to play games?



Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca