The Problem with Genealogical Research is ..... Simple. We Focus on 2 Relatives & Forget How Many Great Grandparents We Have...

 

Using this perfect graphic from Google AI

Obviously we have 2 parents. Biological parents vs Step parents.

We have 4 Grandfathers. Most of us know their names.

Then there's the Great Grandparents. We have EIGHT Great Grandparents.

            Odds are the average Joe does not know all 8 names or even 6 of those names.

Then there's Great Great Great Grandparents. Unless you are related to Georget Washington you really, really, really do not have a clue who they are ... unless you have a family tree someone made. 

If this was a Hurricane we would be on the letter P. Like say Hurricane Paul or Hurricane Peter. If you know you know there's logic there. 

We get focused on one or two ancestors that we are interested in and or just want to know more on and we get so focused when we see names that may actually lead us to another great great grandfather we move past them fast as they are not the name we are looking for........   

And yet.......... we just zoom past people we either don't know we know or we are not interested in being related to...

As I like to say everyone wants to be Cleopatra in another life, yet how many people do you know who want to be Cleopatra's Handmaiden ??? Probably none. 

Every family tree has someone famous. A politician, a reverand or a rabbi and somewhere there's a horse thief or an annoying person whose bio seems totally unbeleivable. British families find out they are 51% Irish (oh my gosh) and that really bursts their bubble some, unless they were hoping to be a bit Irish. I mean who would not want to be a bit Irish (they are fun) or say Scottish (sexy) or Swedish (sounds exotic in a Northern Up There way) who wants to find out they are related to Moe Slutsky the plumber on the Lower East Sid? He may have been a sweetheart, but he's not a famous politican or George Washington. 

I use George Washingon because Ancestry did a commercial on a sweet lady who found out she was related to George Washiengton. Now maybe that's Ancestry's basic data base but pretty sure there were people all over America who wanted to throw darts at that lady as they can't even figure out where their Grandfahter Joe came from let alone know the names of his other kids or parents. And, in a tree on Ancestry some stumped descendent probably put down Russia!

Russia in a Jewish tree can be anywhere from:
Lithuania

Poland

Belarus
Ukraine

Latvia
even parts of Austria or Hungary.

Russia is the great "catch all" for ancestors we know nothing about.

No one wants to write Germany unless they are German. Many German's post WW2 became Austrians. Many Romanians are proud others who are Hungarians don't realize they are really Romanian and now their ancestors graves are in Ukraine. Gets confusing. 

I was a Reference Librarian in Miami, in charge of the Archives and Genelogical records. Some nice red haired older guy came in, gave me like 3 names and a town in South Carolina and in a short time period or time I could find his family 4 generations back. Jews name after the dead traditionally and sometimes they change the name and use the letter R so Raizel becomes Renne or Rachel or Shoshana and names change because of Conscription...there's link to book below, the author wrote it while back when I was at Touro College where I was the Librarian. Or they went to Israel after WW2 surviving and deciding to start over a new life as my grandfather's brother Bela from Hungary did changed his name to Simcha after walking from Hungary with friends who fought with him as a partisan to Israel. It's not easy, even if you know what you are doing it's a mish mash, maze of possible names spelled every which way an immigrant could on any given day it changed. Robinwetz in the first cencus because Rabinowetz in figure census records, just an example. 

So yeah sometimes genealogy brings excitement, other times annoyment, other times dismay and other times you just need to take a break and write a blog so you can catch your breath back. 

Welcome to my life.

Grandparents: Yay I know all fout of mine and where they came from. Grandma Mary the Southern Belle  was so special and full of stories about life in Key West in the 1880s that her parents told her on what they went through and Tampa where Grandma Mary grew up.  Eventually she went to live by an older sister  "Up North" in Philly after their mother died. That was after she lived in New Orleans by her brother's fiance. Eventually in Philly she met her husband Ben and eventually had a cigar store on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Her brothers sent the cigars from Florida and grandma also had an Ice Cream Parlor in the Cigar Shop. It's been explained to me, it still seems strange but it was a tourist town like Miami Beach where anything goes. Grandma Mary did so love going to Ice Cream Parlors. Her husband from Chernigov who she met in Philly while being a model for Wannamakers finally took her back to Miami in the 1930s to work in the building boom on South Beach.  Mary and Ben aka Miriam Leah and DovBer "Berel" so many names to remember. My paternal Grandma Esther from Plunge via Lodz where her father remarried after her mother died and was in business and sent her to America 2nd Class with lots of money to reunite with her sisters who were living in New Jersey. She was born in Plunge to a family of merchant traders involved in the "new silk road" with a female ancestor named Esther that traveled to Bagdad with her husband which was quite the trip back then. Grandma Esther married Herman, a handsome Hungarian that she met in New York City and they started a family. 

Great Grandparents.

Abrams in USA (Abrahams in Manchester ) something Abrams itz or itch before that in Suwalki...

Marks connected to high level Marks people in Manchester and were Margolin or Margolius before that.

Chitrik Ha Levite from Nezhin & Chernigov as well as towns in Gomel and Riga.

Rosen from Nezhin and eventually Chernigov. When pogroms began in Nezhin they moved to Chernigov.

Schwartz but name was Weiss changed for Conscription long, common story. Badalo in Bereg Hungary.

Weiss on another side from Satu Mare as in the town where Satmar Chassidim became Satmar.
Darn I am stuck on 8 ... I know this hold on.

Naftalin spelled every variation you can find. Very political family, business, Telsai, Plunge, Lodz

Peres or Perres or Peress from Plunge. Connected in business & Litvak/Chabad with the Naftalins.

              lots of Mendels... Menachem Mendels...didn't see that coming in the heart of Litvak world.

                       but then again that's why there were issues with the old guard.

                                  Alter Rebbe was often called "The Litvak" and so he was... 

                                          My Grandma's 2nd cousin was Mayor of Minneapolis. 

                                                    Shame I didn't know that when I spent summers in St. Paul a few years.

Speaking of Chabad

Chitrik/Rosen in Nezhin very Chabad.

Marks ancestors connected to Malarussia ... literally and rabbinical families dabbling in Chabad.

Naftalin's name was literally Mendel and he had a son Berel and well yeah that happened.

Shmuel Peres prayed in the same small shul in Plunge with Mendel Naftalin Nusach Ari. IYKYK.

(note Plunge has records that are as good as German records, so many details..)

This means when my parents became involved in Chabad they were basically coming home.

My father also attended the Kerostirer Sheeble by Gross family neighbors in Bereg. 

                  Rebbeztin Malka Gross granddaughter of Reb Steiner adopted my mother Chana

I'm 1/4 Hungarian 

I'm a good part Southern Belle ...because there was something so Southern about Grandma Mary (omg) who helped raised me. I'm part English as the family was in Manchester and various towns for quite a while before they moved to the South. Grandma Mary said her father Wolfe was an "English Gentleman" which means he put milk in his coffee. Not to be confused with her husband Benjamin (Dovber Berel) who drank tea with a sugar cube between his teeth Nezhin style.  Apparently no one on my material side drank coffee, but my father on the Hungarian side definitely drank coffee.

As for Great Great Grandparents?

I found out Ben's grandfather was Eliyahu Chaim Ha Levite who went by Elya Chaim in Nezhin.

I found out that Eliyahu Chaim's father was Yisroel who guarded the Ohel of the Mittler Rebbe and moved to Nezhin shortly after the Ohel was built, before Yisroel Noah Schneerson became Rebbe there and my family lived together in "Household 152" according to my notes. Gavriel Rosen and Efraim Fishel Rosen are listed in the same household... brothers? cousins? ??? who knows not there yet. 

I know a lot I am not saying as it's my business and not exactly things I expected.

I was really hoping for like 3% Irish and 3% Scottish when I took that DNA test. I mean I know who I am and where I come from but ya never know who married in...  alas not really. Or even maybe like 3% Gypsy as I am part Hungarian and I used to think that meant "Gypsy dancer" til it was explained to me. 

Before Ancestry and MyHeritage went all political and rounded everyone off up to various types of Ashkenazi I was consistently almost 6% Mizrachi Persian which is cool and possible considering that would mean I had an ancestor who lived in Bagdad and I was told some of her kids got married there before moving back to Europe that may account for DNA cousins there. Shared cousins on that side have Mizrachi Persian. I'll take it. The amount of DNA cousins that show up with names I cannot pronounce is huge. 

The point is..........   everything is meant to be and we don't see the purpose in things until we look back and go "oh wow" and I'm at the point in life where I am pleasantly saying or thinking "oh wow" a lot and just a bit "oh crap no not dealing with that" and that's why I wrote this blog today. I try hard not to think too hard on things that'll keep me up at night. 

I am going to start bloging to use this forum to save info and print it out. As its easy for me to blog so it makes sense.  Grandma Mary got her story telling talents from quite the story teller who like any writer used most every name in his family to create a character in his many stories. Writers just always have to be writers and anything and anyone is fair and game when they are looking for inspiration. 

Soon I will explain how my children are related to the owner of this magnificent home, this castle like home built over the generations that the Frank family owned. Zecharia Frank was an ancestor of "Opa" my exhusband's grandfather who I adopted and he will be my Opa forever. Loved him and Omi. He told me a story of his ancestor who had license to smoke in the town square, a piece of paper his grandfather (?) had that he had to keep on him always as not everyone could smoke in the townsquare (fires ..one fire burned down the whole town often) so the Frankfurt Au Maim side that I thought was Meyer turned out to be Frank (Omi's side) as it seems the bankers Frank and Meyer were dipping way back from the same gene pool. Explains why Opa never went into details with me, just kept saying his grandfather (or great grandfather) and had a letter from Prince Wilhem ....and yes that's true. 

So good luck with genealogy. Many Germans use a grandfather's name in a son's name and have great records so good luck with that it's easier that trust me. Poland not so much. Hungary not so much. Russia depends on the time and the year. America yes indeed if the relatives were talking to each other.

Friends and Feuds and every family has a few in their Family History. Makes for those brick walls ya know? Or you have an Omi (grandma) who refuses to talk about the dead people in Germany and if you pushed her for names Opa would say "nach" add in "no more" whisper she'll have nightmares for 3 weeks on "dead relatives" and well who was gonna upset Omi or Opa so another brickwall we are slowly working out way through. 

I feel so much better. 

Sorry if I didn't wax poetic on the lack of tropical systems today in the Atlantic but it is what it is..

https://www.abebooks.com/9781930143791/Cantonists-Jewish-Childrens-Army-Czar-1930143796/plp book on Cantonists but you can Google it or the topic ... responsible for most brick walls in Jewish Genealogy as often every son in the family was given a somewhat different surname or the identity of a cousin with a similar name that died which happened to my ancestor who was a Weiss, but became a Schwartz when the Chevra Kadish (Burial Society) helped give him a new idenity. IYKYK

Thanks for your patience.

Just saying careful you may find lots of people you weren't wanting to see in your ancestry tree.

Bobbi breathing now and gonna make dinner lol always feel better when I write. 

Ps Moral of the story is ...........don't get to obsessed with any one anscestor ;) you may find out all sorts of interesting stuff!