Validating Instincts

As a genealogist, I have learned to trust my instincts. They often lead me to pursue what might seem like a tenuous link to some, perhaps merely a coincidental confluence of facts, but for some reason they call to me. My challenge is to validate the connection through records to confirm that it is more than a coincidence, to prove or disprove my hypothesis.

In my latest project I was asked to identify the towns of origin for both sides of my client's family. My starting point is what I know which in this case was very little except for grandparents' names. This is a fairly typical beginning point. This client reached out to other family members who offered some rumored ports of arrival, all helpful information if applied wisely. While I use this in my search, I am always careful not to let it blind me to other possibilities. Often family members immigrate separately or in small groups so while I assumed at least one family member followed the route of family folklore, I also explored alternate routes.

As always I began by searching for census records on ancestry.com which tell me at least the approximate year of arrival so I can narrow my focus. With that information, I turned to stevemorse.org which allows me to search for immigration records on many variables. After a number of searches I found some immigration records for each family which revealed the towns of origin. Mystery solved, but wait a minute. One record noted Warsaw as the town of origin. I've learned that many immigrants will note a nearby large city rather than the smaller town in which they live. My grandfather's marriage record notes he was from Warsaw when in fact he came from a town an hour away. I wondered if this might also be true in this case.

I did a search on JRI-Poland.org with the given names of both husband and wife along with the married name. I was searching for Leon and Bella, but first I converted Leon to Leib and Bella to Bayla, the non-Americanized versions that they went by in Poland. Only a few index entries came up and the most promising was a marriage record for a town about 80 miles from Warsaw. The entry had the correct surname and the given names of Szija Leib and Bayla Brandel. Close, but no certainty, still very much in the realm of hunch.

This was just the index and I wanted the actual record. Records can be located in one of three ways. Some records are held at the Family History Library in Utah. The JRI-Poland site will often tell you the film number or you can search the FHL catalog on-line to learn whether they have the film for the year or town in question. You can order a film to review at one of their church libraries or if it is an isolated record for which you know the precise coordinates you may ask them to send it digitally.

If not at the FHL you can contact the appropriate arm of the Polish Archives to order the record, sending them a wire for the cost involved. Needless to say this is the most cumbersome means with potential language barriers to navigate.

The third way is fairly new. The Polish Archives are beginning to digitize records and in this case the index advised me that this specific record was on-line and provided a link. It took a while to navigate the all-Polish site, but with the year and record number I was able to ultimately locate it.

The record was in Russian so I deciphered enough to believe it was still a possibility. I decided to cross-check my translation by posting it on Jewishgen's Viewmate translation site in hopes that a kind and fluent researcher might translate it for me. After a few days I had received my translation.

To verify this record I needed to know one more detail, what was on their tombstones. Jewish tombstones have the Hebrew names of the individual and that of their father, the same information that is in a marriage record. I circled back to my client who sent me photos of the tombstones. Then I began to see how the information matched up.

So what did I find? The record showed Szija Leib's father as Mechil and Bella's father as Izak. Their tombstones showed Menachem and Yitzhak, a pretty close match in the art of tombstone matching. I then looked at the Hebrew tombstone names. Leib's appeared to be Joshua Arieh and Bayla's was Bayla Brina. I knew that Szija is derived from Isaiah which comes from the same root as Joshua. I soon learned from baby naming sites that they all translate to God is salvation or God saves. Similarly Areih and Leib both mean lion. Bayla's name in the marriage record was Bayla Brandel, not far from Bayla Brina.

My hypothesis has strengthened, but still reliant on comparable names, not a perfectly clean match. How else can I prove this out? I decide to return to immigration records, but this time using the town's name from the marriage record I had discovered. Searching with this new piece of information I found the immigration record of Bayla and several of their children. There are two pieces of data on which I focus, nearest relative in Europe and who were they going to. In this case I had a perfect match as she named her destination with her husband's name and town. Even better she gave her mother's name as nearest European relative, a perfect match of both given name, surname and town to the marriage record.

So what's next? With a firm foundation, we can begin to look for related records. On JRI-Poland I find indices for birth records for both Leib and Bayla, a marriage record for Bayla's parents and a death record of a Leib with the correct last name just one year before the younger Szija Leib's birth. Given the time proximity it may well be his grandfather after whom he is named. I need only order the records from the Family History Library and settle in to await further discoveries.

And there we have it, puzzle solved.

Many Hands Make a Mitzvah

One of the satisfying things about my work with genealogy is when I am able to help another person make an important family connection.  As I have created two Kehilalinks, websites for others searching their family history, I often have the opportunity to do that.  It frequently takes many hands to make a mitzvah (a kindness for someone else) and a recent experience illustrates that well.

The first step in the making of a mitzvah was an e-mail that I received last November from the head of the Radom Society in Montreal.  He advised me of the discovery of 72 previously unknown Jewish tombstones that had been erected into a monument in the Jewish cemetery in Radom, Poland.  As most of the tombstones in the cemetery had been used by the Nazis to pave the roads, the discovery of intact tombstones was a very important event. His uncle Haim Kinczler, head of the Israeli Radom Society, had been instrumental in discovering these tombstones and assuring that they would be available to those visiting Radom, a huge mitzvah in itself.  The Israeli prison system and the Polish prison system collaborated with the help of Polish prisoners and a British/Israeli philanthropist to build the structure that houses the tombstones. For more information on this project see my prior post Unusual Collaboration Unveils Lost Tombstones.

When I heard about the tombstones, my first thought was that I needed photos.  The tombstones potentially belonged to the families of those researching family from Radom and I had the means to reach them through the Radom Kehilalink. With the information that was provided, I contacted a friend at the Resursa, the Arts and Culture Center in Radom.  I had met Jakub on my last visit to Radom when he secured the key to the former cemetery for me so I could visit it.  I asked him if he might be able to take photographs of the tombstones for me and he graciously went out to the cemetery in the middle of winter to do just that and sent me a CD with the photos.

I then needed to get them translated so posted a request for help on the JRI-Poland e-mail list.  Two volunteers did the translation.  One of the translators, an Israeli friend with ties to Radom did an additional step cross-referencing it to the Book of Residents, a kind of ongoing census that records family groupings.

Up until now I was choreographing, arranging for photos and translations.  Now my hands-on work began as I had to isolate each picture for a web album, clean up the information into a format for the web and build the appropriate pages and links to publish it on the site.  I also submitted the photos and translations to the Jewish On-line Worldwide Burial Registry which will add them to their database that is easily accessible to researchers.  Finally I completed the circle by sending an e-mail to JRI-Poland’s email list to announce its availability.

Now I had only to wait to see where it led and it didn’t take long.  I already knew that one of my translators had found a family member in the tombstones that he had translated.  This week I spoke with a woman who is planning a trip to Radom who had discovered the Radom Kehilalink.  She reported that in looking at this database she discovered her grandmother’s tombstone.  The links to the Book of Residents further added to the information on her grandmother.

In order to connect a woman in Detroit, the child of a survivor, with her grandmother’s tombstone in Poland, it took many Israelis and Poles to create the structure, someone in Montreal to communicate it, the help of my Polish friend to photograph, two translators, one American and one Israeli and finally me to organize the effort and build it into the website.  Many hands make a mitzvah.

Of Castles and Cemeteries

Yesterday was devoted to castles and yet one more cemetery, one of the most interesting ones to date. We began our day in Khotin, a city about 30 miles away from Kamenetz Podolsk in Bessarabia. My interest in this city is that my grandmother’s family originated there and several family members gave it as their most recent residence prior to immigrating. At that time it was located across the Dniester River in Roumania. Now it is part of the Ukraine.

We began our day with a visit to the fortress/castle that we had admired from Zhavnets on the other side of the river. Not quite as grand as that in Kamenetz, it made up for this by the striking views of its location. Located high above the river, it is surrounded by earthworks and fortifications.

We also drove around Khotin to the area where the Jewish homes and shops had been and identified buildings that would have existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A synagogue still stands and is in use although there are not enough Jews to have a minyon. At one point we drove past a home that was abandoned and I viewed the inside which consisted of two rooms with what may have been a heating unit of green enamel. An outhouse stood in back and a wooden storage shed and root cellar adjoined the house.

After touring the town we drove to the cemetery. I had done a search on-line and found the tombstones had been photographed. One was of particular interest to me, Mariam daughter of Avrum was all that was recorded, no surname and no dates. My great-great grandmother was Mariam (Wasserman), daughter of Avrum so I was interested in locating that tombstone to see if it was possible to decipher more. We arrived at the cemetery in front of which stood a house with writing on it that indicated it was the Jewish cemetery. As no one appeared to be home except a small child, we began to explore. Once again we saw striking photo engravings and I quickly found a tombstone for a Wasserman, the maiden name of my great-great grandmother. My first thought was that this appeared to be an orderly cemetery with tombstones in rows. That belief was shattered as I got about three rows back and discovered that small saplings made many of those rows impassable.


First the cemetery manager’s wife appeared and then the manager himself. A burly man with a white beard, he was accompanied by his grandson, a small child who perched on a tombstone as Alex translated for us. The manager told us that he grew up in the cemetery and was the third generation to manage it. He reported that when a group tried to improve it they actually created problems. They cut trees down, but they dropped their seeds creating the saplings. They also tried to burn brush and it destroyed about 500 tombstones.

We asked him about my family names and the one he was able to offer information on was that of Wasserman. While two had been on the on-line site, he showed us several additional ones. He told us that a Wasserman came from Israel each year to visit the grave of a family member. I was interested in a Mariam Wasserman of a more recent generation as family names frequently are repeated within a family. He showed us a tombstone that had a scissors on it and no surname and indicated that it was for a Wasserman as it was one that the Israeli visited as well. He seemed to know all of the tombstones personally as well as their families reporting that one was the mother-in-law of another.

The cemetery has been in existence for 300 years. When I asked about my great-great grandmother he asked when she would have died and led us to the section that would be around 1900.

While I found Miriams and Abrams, I didn’t find them in the same tombstone. Realizing the futility of the search, I began to focus on the decorative details on the stones. The other cemeteries typically had a Star of David, but very little other ornamentation. The tombstones in Khotin were often multi-colored as well as ornamented with fish, birds, lions, griffons and ornate patterning. I inquired about an area that was particularly decorative and was told that it was 200 years old.

Upon returning to Kamenetz we visited the castle there. The prior day it was closed as they were filming a movie there. It is often used for such projects. Our final project was to attempt some videotaping. A test drive by auto quickly reminded me of the bumpiness of the roads and I walked across the bridge filming and down the street where my grandfather lived. Not quite ready for prime time, these videos will allow me to share the imagery with family.

This morning we began our journey back to Lviv. By now the horse drawn carts, storks and elderly women in head scarves looked much more familiar. The day was sunny and we chatted as we drove. By now we felt like old friends with Alex having discussed a wide variety of subjects spanning family, politics, history and literature. When we arrived in Lviv, Alex gave us a brief tour of the Jewish sites including what remains of a 16th century synagogue destroyed by the Nazis, the former Jewish district and ghetto area, traces of Yiddish writing which remain and a Holocaust memorial. We bid a fond good by to Alex. His assistance had allowed us to access sites which would otherwise have been inaccessible to us due to language barriers and a lack of knowledge. Our investment in his time had been well worth it. Tomorrow we fly back to Warsaw and meet up with Dora and her son for the next leg of our trip in Radom.

The Pathways of One's Life

Have you ever thought about how each action lays the groundwork for the next?  Any genealogist soon learns how each document provides information that leads to the next piece of information.  A census record helps you to hone in on an immigration record, a death or marriage record gives you the names of the prior generation.  Step by step we construct a family tree by leveraging off prior discoveries.  It is only when we look behind us that we realize how far we’ve come.

Lately I’ve been thinking of the process of genealogy as a metaphor for understanding the pathways of one's own life, not just the lives of our ancestors.  Just as with genealogy, we begin to understand and manage our path through life when we understand the way each step opens the door for new paths and how multiple paths can begin to weave together into a more powerful direction than any one path in isolation.  The often innocuous discovery can lead to opportunity.  Sometimes the opportunity is right in front of us, but we don’t recognize it until we are ready. 

I am an “ incrementalist” by nature, realizing that the big stuff grows out of many little steps.  And perhaps I am more focused on this than most, going so far as to keep a spreadsheet of steps taken and what they lead to. 

Let me give you an example…Recently I was invited to show my artwork on Radom, Poland at the arts and culture center in the city of Radom.  I’ve had many people ask how that came about and I realize there is no simple answer, multiple threads connected to create that opportunity.  Just as I often retrace my steps in genealogy to understand how I solved the puzzle, I began to retrace my steps in life.

In actuality it started over five years ago when I tracked down a second cousin in Israel.  His daughter who spoke English became my point of connection.  When she was going to a conference in Montreal, I flew up to Montreal to meet her.  There I also met her cousin who is head of the Radom Society, the organization for survivors and children of survivors of Radom who live in Montreal.

And another thread…Early this year I developed the Shtetlink for Radom, Poland.  The Shtetlink is a website for Jewishgen.org that is created to help others researching family from that town.  In developing the site, I connected with people all over the world sending out 400 e-mails to fellow researchers.  One Israeli friend provided me with a homemade film of the Jewish community of Radom that dated to 1937, five years before that community was annihilated.  In taking stills from the film for the website, I realized its potential as source material for artwork.  That same friend connected me with the arts and culture center when I was planning a trip to Radom.  They very kindly assisted me in getting the key to the cemetery as well as providing photos for the website. 

I’ve been working on a series of artwork on Radom, but feeling the need for story to breathe life into it.  My work typically is a vehicle to tell a story and while the Radom work captures a picture of the former Jewish community, it needed more.  I do quite a bit of public speaking and it was through an arts connection who heard me speak that I was introduced to a woman in my community who is a survivor from Radom.  She has graciously agreed to let me interview her and incorporate her memories with my artwork.

So we have the website, source material feeding into a body of artwork, a survivor’s story, a connection in Radom and a connection in Montreal.  Now we have only to set it in motion.   I have a mental image of a pinball machine shooting the ball forward. A month ago I received an e-mail from the head of the Montreal Radom Society telling me about a new development in Radom.  I’ve written about it in this blog at An Unusual Collaboration , but essentially it was the discovery of 70 previously unknown Jewish tombstones that had been hidden away and are now incorporated into a monument, that had recently been dedicated.

Now to appreciate this fully you must realize that the Nazis used many of the Radom tombstones to pave the roads, not only destroying the synagogue and the people, but also destroying the history of past Jewish families as reflected in the cemetery.  I promptly decided I needed to get pictures of the tombstones for the Shtetlink, but how to do so?  An e-mail to my contact at the arts and culture center soon secured their agreement to send me photos.  Of course, I also shared with them the link to my artwork on Radom and the story of my interviewing the survivor.  They quickly responded with a request that I consider showing my work in April when they do a focus on the former Jewish community of Radom.

 And that is how things happen.

An Unusual Collaboration Unveils Lost Radom Tombstones

 When I visited my ancestral town of Radom, Poland, we had an opportunity to visit the Jewish cemetery.  Just a few tombstones remained intact with broken portions embedded in the wall that surrounds the cemetery.  The Germans had used many of the tombstones to build a runway and to pave a road to the airport. 

I recently learned an interesting story about the Radom cemetery and efforts throughout Poland to restore Jewish cemeteries. Prisoners from 50 Polish jails have volunteered to participate in a project to restore Jewish cemeteries.  When the Israeli Prison Service learned of these efforts they began a collaboration with their counterparts in Poland. Brian Anderson, a former Brit who retired to Israel, became aware of these efforts and raised the funds for this project to continue.  

Haim Kincler, head of the Israeli Radom Society, made a fascinating discovery on one of his visits to Radom.  A Polish tombstone maker had moved 70 of the most elaborate tombstones to safety hoping to sell them at a later time.  This plan was thwarted by the Communist regime which prohibited citizens from holding anything of historical value. Many years later the sons of the tombstone maker returned the tombstones to the city with the understanding that they would be showcased.  With the support of the Polish cemetery project, a monument was recently unveiled which incorporates the 70 tombstones.  Thus an important piece of history has been preserved.  I am making some inquiries to see if I can secure photos of these tombstones for use on the Radom Shtetlink as they may well represent family members of those who are researching family from Radom.  You can read more about this at Vos is Neias? (What’s News) along with pictures of the monument.