Skorina is such an unusual name. It is so unique that until last week,
every Skorina that I have come in contract with, I am somehow related to.
The story goes that two brothers immigrated from the city of Grodno (which
is now in the country of Belarus) late in the first decade of this century.
I have not found any written confirmation of this and although I tend to
believe it, I am suspicious on how we got the name Skorina. You see my
world wide web searches have only found Skorinas that are descendants of
these two brothers except for one famous Skorina, Francisk Skorina, who
lived around the 16th century. He is so famous that he even has a large
street in Belarus's capital Minsk named for him. (I'll include a little
about this guy later.) Since I was not able to find any references to Skorinas
even in Belarus (sans Francisk) and because of a lack of official
documents on their immigration, I have a theory that they took the name
when they came to the United States. This is just a theory.
One death certificate lists their parents as Sam Skorina and Julia Zuk.