Leveraging Google Maps in Genealogy

I posted about this a few years back, but after meeting up recently with my cousin Sara (great granddaughter of my great-great grandmother's brother Meyer), I realized it bears repeating and updating.

You've probably used Google Maps to get directions.  But did you know that you can create personal maps of places your ancestors have lived to help visualize their migration and how close various branches lived to one another?

Locations in which my family members have lived

Holocaust Memorial Day

[An (unfortunately) updated 2017 listing is here.]

Tonight begins Yom HaShoah--Holocaust Remembrance Day.  I grew up knowing that my father's parents were Holocaust survivors and had lost most of their families.  But my mother's family came to America well before WWII, and I never heard mention of anyone on my mother's side having been impacted by the Holocaust.  But as it turns out, my mother's family was greatly impacted as well--my maternal grandmother had aunts and uncles who were killed as well as first cousins and many others more distant.

Below is a list of my nearly 100 relatives who I know were killed in the Holocaust--many of whom were just small children.  There are many others for whom I have birth records and who disappear from records and were likely killed as well.

The back of my paternal grandparents' tombstone--their immediate family members killed in the Holocaust

Endogamy In Action; Sibling Edition

Earlier, I looked at how endogamy made me share much more DNA with known relatives than would be expected.  While this can help to guide those with endogamous backgrounds to know what varying amounts of shared DNA may mean about actual relationships, it's important to remember that the amount can significantly vary by individuals.  Each of my parents has a brother who has tested, and my parents have both been tested as well.  While each of my parents and their brothers are related to other tested relatives in the same way, in practice, they sometimes share a very different amount of DNA with known relatives.

Name	Actual Relationship	Shared cM w/mom	Shared cM w/uncle	ISOGG average	Comments
Ruth	Aunt	1771.4380	1725.0190	1700.00
Scott	1C	1013.0784	732.1877	850.00
Ken	2C1R	281.4508	243.9142	106.25
Myron (2nd cousin to Ken; 1/2 second cousin to Sue)	2C1R	181.4029	232.4263	106.25
Sara (Myron's niece)	3C	95.9599	158.6909	53.13
Sue (1/2 second cousin to Ken and Myron)	Half 2C1R	134.2947	123.5351	53.13
Judith	3C	224.05	138.70	53.13
Jonathan (Judith's son)	3C1R	160.0293	79.4094	26.56
Pat	2C	181.9369	221.3467	212.50
Ben	2C1R, 3C1R	127.7907	143.6804	106.25+	Has 2 Supkoff great grandparents

Table showing shared DNA between my mother and maternal uncle and other known relatives

Happy 145th Anniversary--Sort Of!

Happy 145th anniversary to my great-great-great grandparents, Yehoshua Zev and Mira Lefand!  Kind of.

Marriage Record for Yehoshua Zev Lefand to Mira Halperin; 1871

When You Can't Find a Ship Manifest

You know those relatives that you just can't find on a ship manifest?  That you search for using wildcards and alternate spellings and every trick in the book--and they're just nowhere to be found?

Well, those were my Joshowitzes.  I knew that my great grandmother Esther Rutner Joshowitz came to America with my grandmother's oldest brother Izzy.  They came at some point after WWI and at least nine months before my grandmother's birth in February 1922.  I tried with just first names (lots and lots of Esthers and Esters came to the US in that time period).  I tried with as many wildcards as Ancestry would allow.  And nothing.

I cursed transcribers who obviously couldn't read my great grandmother's name.  I grumbled at the Ancestry programmers who put too many restrictions on wildcards in searches.  And then I tried searching on Steve Morse's site.

Output on Steve Morse's site

New Eizikovics Link--Or Maybe Not!

Samuel Hers Eizikowitz kept popping up in my research.  Since I had a great-great-great grandfather with this name, I suspected he was relatively closely related to me, but even with a pretty comprehensive Eisikovics tree, I couldn't fit him in.

I knew he had gone to America--his daughter's birth record has his place of residence as "New York, America."

Berta Eizikovics Birth; Kolodne; 1911

Award for Greatest Distance and Time-Lapse for a Birth Registration

And the award for going through the most difficulty to get a birth registered goes to....Eizik Fuchs, the brother of my great-great grandmother Rochel Fuchs Rutner!  Eizik's journey to get his birth registered spanned an ocean and more than seven decades.  When I started writing this post, I wasn't sure why he would have done such a thing, but in the course of writing this post, I figured it out!

From Josef Joshowitz's Ship Manifest; 1913

In 1913, Josef Joshowitz (my great grandfather) came to America, and he said he was joining his cousin "Eizig Fuchs" in New York.  I knew of my family's Fuchs connection but was never sure how Eizig was related.

Isaak Fux; Petition for Naturalization; 1909