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FROM WARADY TO WEINBERGER:
How JewishGen’s Genealogy Class Helped Me Make the Connection
THE RASCHINSKY DIAMOND:
Restoring a Family’s Name
WALKING MY LINEAGE:
A Roots Tour to Lithuania and Poland
EDITORS' NOTE - August 2013
In this issue we present four very different stories of success. The common thread that ties these stories together is the drive to understand a family’s history and connect it to the present. Our authors research their families in Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and Israel.
April Stone was unsuccessful in finding any information regarding her paternal great-grandfather. She enrolls in JewishGen’s Basic On-Line Genealogy Class and later the Independent Study Class. Through these classes she enhances her researching skills, locates her great-grandfather’s records after discovering his surname had been changed, and ultimately connects with previously unknown family members. As April so aptly puts it, Victory!
Roberta Fleishman wanted to help her uncle research his father’s family history, but this proved difficult since the family’s surname had been changed when they came to America and Uncle Herb did not know the original surname. After four years of fruitless research, Roberta’s husband finds the Rosenbaum Bank Passage Order database on JewishGen, which leads them to other records, and to ultimate success. A family name is restored!
Beth Weitz Katz, along with her mother, visits the grave of her great-great-grandmother in Jurbarkas, Lithuania. They locate the grave with the aid of a 1935 photograph of family members gathered around the tombstone, family members who would all later be killed by the Nazis and buried in a mass grave nearby. Beth prepares for the trip by accessing JewishGen resources such as Yizkor Books, Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and the Discussion Group.
Marla Raucher Osborn had questions about her great-grand-aunt Bronia. Bronia was born in 1904 in Galicia, left for Palestine in 1936, came to America in the 1950s, and then returned to Israel, where she died in 1992. Why had she returned to Israel? Marla’s research takes her to Bronia’s Israeli probate file and to the archives of two universities in Lwow and Krakow, where she discovers Bronia’s lifelong friend, Lotte.
We hope you enjoy these stories and learn from the variety of research approaches the authors describe. JewishGen provides many resources to assist you in expanding your knowledge and connecting with family. We wish you success and encourage you to send us your stories.
Nancy Siegel, Editor Anna Blanchard, Webmaster
San Francisco, California Saint Louis, Missouri
