Backing up to the Garbers--and Two New Ancestors!

My grandmother Sonia Diamond had told me that her maternal grandmother's name was Devorah Garber Fine.  She was pretty sure that Devorah's father was Yisrael Garber, and she knew that Devorah had a brother Nathan whose children lived in America--Isadore, Harry, Eva and Ada, as well as a daughter Greinah who may or may not have come to America.  I even remember meeting Eva's son Stan (who went by his stage name "Hale") when I was in high school, and he helped me fill out the tree for his part of the family.

After getting a DNA match on Ancestry to one of Harry's granddaughters (who hasn't responded to my messages to her just yet), I decided to revisit the Garber branch.  And I found something very interesting--that started a cascade of finds that helped me push my family tree back further.

Garber Family Ship Manifest; 1921

The Brandman Connection

Just a few years ago, I only knew my great-great-great grandmother's first name.  I knew that Rochel was married to Aryeh Leib Sanshuck, and that their daughter Zlata Tzipra was my great-great grandmother.

Leib & Rochel Sanshuck's Marriage Record; Krasnoye, Russian Empire; 1849

But then I found their marriage record.

Ber Tolchinsky Through Russian Empire Documents

Ber Tolchinsky was a younger half brother of my great-great grandfather, Hillel Tolchinsky.  Although to my knowledge Ber never left the Russian Empire, via a multitude of documents, I've been able to trace much of his life.

Ber Tolchinsky Birth, 1873

The Lebovics Rutners

Here's another great reason to blog about your family research--it makes you reexamine what you already know and identify holes that need to be filled, sometimes with information you already have.

I began writing this post about the family of Shalom/Salamon Rutner, a brother of my great-great grandfather Shmuel Moshe.  And in doing so, I found at least two of his grandchildren who were missing from my tree, even though I had records of their birth all along.

Salamon Rutner Death Registration

News from FamilyTreeDNA--And Father's Day Sale Information!

If you are my relative and reading this and want to test, YAY!  Email me and we can discuss which test(s) make sense for you.  If you're not my relative, this sale is still a great opportunity to test--and who knows, maybe it'll help you discover that we are related after all.

FamilyTreeDNA's sale starts at midnight tonight and will end on Father's Day 11:59PM CDT.  So what products are on sale and what will the prices be?

Jacob Rutner & Genealogical Serendipity

Before starting the main part of this post, I'd like to mention the hugest genealogical coincidence ever.  As I was writing this post on Jacob Rutner, I used one of my favorite genealogy tools--Google.  I think I've Googled Jacob before, but a page I hadn't seen came up--a blog post about Jacob Rutner, written by his great grandson Michael!  It had many open questions he had about Jacob, some of which I could help answer.  I posted a comment on the page saying that I'd love to share information.  Shortly after, I received an email from the very same Michael who apparently had come across my blog within the past hour--and hadn't yet seen my comment on his blog!  Our messages crossed in cyberspace.

And now the actual post which includes documents that should help answer some of the Michael's questions and gives us a way forward.

When I was working on connecting Shmuel Hers Eisikowitz to my family, I noticed that he had come to the United States with Leopold Meilechovics; both were listed as coming from "Dorowa," which is Darva--today's Kolodne.  And Leopold was going to join a friend named Jacob Rutner.

I knew who Leopold was--I have his birth record.  And Leopold later married Fani Eizikovics, a first cousin to my great grandfather Josef Joshowitz.

Leopold Majlechovics Birth Record

But who was the Jakob Ruttner that Leopold was going to join?

Kirva Censuses

My Vizels are from what was then Kis-Kirva (somtimes just "Kirva"), Maramaros, Austria-Hungary and is now Bilovartsi, Ukraine.  Similarly to the way I looked at the Kolodne census records which have been indexed on JewishGen, I decided to look at Jewish individuals enumerated in Kis-Kirva to try to follow the population growth and figure out which were my relatives.  In addition, I found here that in some censuses, only first names were recorded.  In others, patronymics were used.  And in others, last names were given--but they sometimes morphed from census to census.  Systematically tracking individuals through the census records allows  you to link names to one individual and see how over what period that person was being enumerated.

Jewish Census for Kirva, 1774

OGS Conference, Sunday

OGS Day 2 started out with a presentation by...me!  I talked about how much our ancestors in Eastern Europe may have migrated and how that can impact where and how you do research.  I introduced many different kinds of documents to show how you can trace people and how important it is to know where your ancestors lived and how they migrated.  My fourth cousin once removed (on my Rutner branch) Hana who lives in Toronto came, and we met for the first time.

My First OGS Presentation (photo by Louis Kessler)

Ontario Genealogical Society Conference (OGS2016), Friday

Hi from Toronto, where I'm attending the Ontario Genealogical Society's annual conference!  And this year they have their first-ever Jewish stream, which will take place on Sunday.  I'm speaking then, which means that I was able to enjoy today.

Rutners Down Under, 17 Years in the Making

I've searched through JewishGen's SIG Discussion Group Archives before.  But every so often I search again and try to use spelling variations for surnames.  This time, I searched for Ruttner, with two Ts (rather than "Rutner" with one T).  And I got a "new" hit from 1999.

Archived Query on JewishGen