The farthest person that I can trace back with the name Pitura is Lucas Pitura (b: 1766) of Chlopowka, Husiatyn, Tarnopolskie, Galicia which is a neighboring village to Chorostkow, the village where my polish ancestors came from. Apparently, they all belonged to the same Roman Catholic parish in Chorostkow. The big question ...is Lucas Pitura our ancestor?
Emigration
Polish Pituras spread from Galicia with the great emigration, immigrating to Canada, USA, even Australia, and to other Eastern European countries. About 3.5 million people left Polish territories that belonged to Austria, Russia and Prussia in years 1870-1913. This was mainly economical immigration, so called "for bread" (za chlebem) immigrants. This immigration consisted mainly of peasants from economically neglected rural provinces, many from the mountainous region of Galicia (Southeastern Poland) that belonged to Austria.
Pitura Surname
There are two variants of origin of the Pitura surname, first is that it came from Poland and second that it is from Northern Italy. Moreover ‘pittura’ is a Latin word and in Italian it means – art, picture, and painter.
Pitura vs Petura
Pitura has been misspelled several times, perhaps by accident, perhaps on purpose. In documents I have seen it as Petura and even Pytura. As a generalization, many Pituras who moved from Canada to USA seem to have the Petura name. To add confusion there are also Peturas from Bohemia, now in Wisconsin, USA (see Petura Genealogy).
More about Pitura Origins.
