Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Farthest-flung Ancestor

I guessed the correct person in my family for Randy Seaver's question this week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Our family trees contain historical persons who came from places all over the world.  Each of our ancestral lines came from somewhere.

2.  Can you identify your Farthest-flung Ancestor (FFA)?  Who in your ancestral tree came from the most geographically distant place from where you live now?  What brought that person (or his descendants) to where your family ended up?

3.  Share your information about your Farthest-flung Ancestor in your own blog post, write a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this idea.

Based on what I currently know about my ancestry, ancestors on my father's side came from the British Isles and on my mother's side from eastern Europe, in the former Russian Empire, so I focused on my mother's side.

I believe my great-grandfather Joyne Gorodetsky (who changed his name to Joe Gordon after he immigrated to the United States) was born in what is now known as Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine.  It is 5,667.56 miles in a straight line from Gresham, Oregon, USA, where I currently live.

I also checked the distance to Krustpils, Latvia, where my great-grandmother Sore Leibe Brainin (known as Sarah Libby here) is supposed to have been born.  It is 5,152.8 miles from Gresham.

My great-great-grandfather Gershon Nowicki (who changed only the spelling of his last name, which became Novitsky, when he came here) was from Porazava, Belarus, which is 5,357.92 miles from Gresham.

And my great-grandfather Moshe Meckler (Morris Mackler here) was from Kamyanyets, Belarus, which is 5,382.88 from Gresham.

So the winner appears to be Joe Gordon.  He was the first person in that branch of my family to leave Europe for the Goldene Medine for better opportunities than were available to Jews in the Russian Empire.  He arrived at New York City in 1909, going to his uncle Sam Schneiderman.  The family's decision to leave appears to coincide with the death of my great-great-grandmother in November 1908, but I don't know if that was the deciding factor.

Joe's departure started the chain migration of his immediate family, most of whom came to the United States:  brother David in 1910; sister Sarah in 1911; father Victor and brothers Hyman and Morris in 1914; and sisters Anna and Rose in 1921.  The oldest sister, Etta, who was already married and had children, went with her family to Ottawa, Canada, where her husband's family (he had eleven siblings!) had immigrated.

I don't know if my great-great-grandfather Victor (or his father Gersh Wolf) was born in Kamianets-Podilskyi or in nearby Orynyn, but it is only 5,658.4 miles from Gresham.  So Kamianets-Podilskyi is the clear winner for distance.

I used Distance Calculator US to determine the straight-line distances between locations.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: An Ancestor without Exact Birth and Death Dates and Places

I'm posting a little late for this past Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver, but since this topic is practically perfect for Jewish research, I had to weigh in.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  Do you have an ancestor with no defined birth and death dates or places?

2.  This week, please tell us about that ancestor and what clues you used to estimate birth and death dates and places.

3.  Share your ancestor and his estimated birth and death dates and places with us in your own blog post, by writing a comment on this blog post, or putting it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

And here I go.

1.  Do I?  Hoo, boy!  I have at least a dozen just on my Meckler line!  But every single one of my Jewish lines has ancestors like that.

2.  The ancestor I decided to write about is my great-great-grandfather Simcha Dovid Mekler (before about 1862–before about November 16, 1903).  I have his name from the yizkor book about Kamenets Litovsk, former Russian Empire (now Kamyenyets, Belarus).  He was the father of my great-grandfather Moshe Mekler, who went by Morris and Max here in the United States and eventually spelled his last name as Mackler.

I have no original documents about Simcha Dovid Mekler from Europe.  I have his parents' names, Zvi Mekler and Esther, from the yizkor book and from a cousin who was born in Kamenets Litovsk.

I estimated Simcha Dovid's death date based on the birth date that my granduncle chose after he immigrated to the United States.  Simcha Mekler was my grandfather's oldest brother.  He used the name Sam in this country, and Mekler became Meeckler at some point.  He was named after his grandfather Simcha, and because my Ashkenazi Jewish family members followed the minhag ("custom") of naming their their children after deceased ancestors, that means Simcha Dovid had to have died before my granduncle was born.  But because he didn't know his exact date of birth and I have no documents for it, it's a rough estimate.  The birth date he used for his Social Security application was November 16, 1903, and it's all I have to work with.

I based my very rough estimate of a birth year for Simcha Dovid on the ages for my great-grandfather Morris in the records I have found for him, including his incoming passenger list and several censuses.  He apparently was born roughly around 1882.  I have no documents with an actual birth date, so it's another estimate (he didn't apply for Social Security, as far as I can tell).  I don't know if Morris had any older siblings, but I figure his father was probably at least 21 years old when he was born, so I backdated it to before 1862.

As for where Simcha Dovid might have been born or died, we have another guessing game.  In his will, Morris Mackler left a bequest for a new tombstone for his father's grave in the cemetery in Kamenets Litovsk.  Morris Mackler was said to have been born in Kamenets Litovsk himself.  So my guess is that Simcha Dovid died in Kamenets Litovsk.  Because I have no other location associated with him or Mekler family members, my guess is that he was also born there.

Maybe someday I will find documents relating to Kamenets Litovsk about my family members, but I'm not holding my breath.  The Nazis were extremely thorough in destroying almost all archival material about Jews in Grodno gubernia, so there's hardly anything left.  I do want to investigate what is there, just in case there's something about my family, but I need to save a bunch of money to have the research done.  So this is as far as I can get for now.

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

Baby Boy Gorodetsky

Miscarriage, March 12, 1902/3 Adar II 5662 (February 27, 1902 Julian calendar)

Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Most Recent No-Name Ancestor

I'm not going to write about the ancestor most people might expect for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

1.  Sometimes an ancestor or relative has no name at all — not even a given name (for males, we usually can surmise a surname, but . . .).  We all have millions of them.

2.  Tell us about one (or more) of your ancestors that have no given name and no birth surname who has perhaps married an ancestor with a given name and surname from whom you are descended.  (Don't worry, we'll do unknown parents some time soon.)

3.  When was the last time you looked for this no-name ancestor?

4.  Share information about your no-name ancestor(s) in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook comment.

Okay, here's mine.

I'm sure many people would expect me to write about my paternal grandfather's father, whom I usually discuss when it comes to recent ancestors I haven't identified.  But in June I posted that I have decided his last name must be Mundy (or a spelling variant thereof), and I was already pretty sure his given name included "bert" in it.  So he really isn't a no-name ancestor anymore.

I'm going further afield.

The first person who next came to my mind is the father of my great-great-grandmother Beila, who married Simcha Dovid Mekler, possibly in Kamenets Litovsk (now Kamyanyets, Belarus).  I wrote about her in August for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, "Five Questions for an Ancestor."  I know her given name, and I have estimated her year of death to be before 1924.  That's all I know about her.

So it stands to reason that I don't know anything about her father, who I am calling my "no-name ancestor" for the purpose of this post.

I admit I have never looked for him.  To be honest, I have barely looked for Beila.  I'm pretty sure both were born in the Russian Empire.  I think Beila was probably born in what was Grodno gubernia and is now part of Belarus.  Her father might have been born there, or possibly in what is now Lithuania.

If I could find a marriage record for Beila, it might include her father's name on it.  But because of the dearth of records for Jews in the former Grodno gubernia (most having been deliberately destroyed during World War II, to eradicate the history of the Jews in the area), it is unlikely I will ever find that marriage record.

If I could find a tombstone for Beila, it might have her father's name on it in Hebrew.  But the Jewish cemeteries in that area were also pretty thoroughly destroyed during World War II, and it is unlikely I will find that tombstone.

If I could find the family in a Russian revision list, perhaps the 1897 list, it would probably list her father's name and maybe even a maiden name.  Even a Russified version would be helpful.  I actually have tried searching for her, Simcha Dovid Mekler, and the two children I know of in the revision lists as transcribed on JewishGen.org, but I have not found them.  I know that many of the revision lists did not survive.  Perhaps one day a page with my family on it will be found in an attic or tucked inside the wall of a house.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Five Questions for an Ancestor

Randy Seaver went way over his allotment of five questions in his post, so maybe I'll do the same for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music) is:

1.  If you could go back in time to interview one of your ancestors, what questions would you ask him or her?  Tell us your selected ancestor's name, birth and death years/locations, and spouse's name and marriage date/location.  List at least five questions to ask that selected ancestor.

2.  Tell us about your selected ancestor and your questions for that person in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook comment.

Ah, so now I see that Randy allowed for more than the allotted five questions by saying "at least five" in the more detailed instructions.  I can work with that.

I'm going to choose my great-great-grandmother Beila, who was married to my great-great-grandfather Simcha Dovid Mekler.  As her given name is pretty much the only fact I have for her, I'm going to start with much more basic questions.

1.  When and where were you born?  What were your parents' names?  What was your full name before marriage?  Do you remember when your parents died?  When and where did that happen?

2.  Did you have siblings?  What were their names?  When and where were they born?

3.  What were the names of your grandparents on both sides?  Did you know them?  Do you remember when they died?  When did that happen?  What did the family do at that time?  How did you commemorate them?  What are their yahrzeiten?

4.  Did you have aunts and uncles?  What were their names?  Do you know when and where they were born?  Do you remember when they died?

5.  When and where were you married?  Was it a civil marriage as well as a religious marriage?  Who attended the wedding?  After you were married, where did you and my great-great-grandfather live?  What did my great-great-grandfather do for a living?

6.  How many children did you have?  When and where were each of them born?  How many survived to adulthood?  Which of them married during your lifetime?  Did you get to know any of your grandchildren?

7.  What was everyday life like for you and your family?  Were there other Jewish families where you lived?  What was the community like?

8.  What do you remember about the end of your life?  Do you remember how old you were?  Did you become ill?

I can think of so many more questions!

The Gregorian Calendar Enters Use in Russia

Pope Gregory XIII

On my mother's side of the family, I am (as far as I know and have been able to verify through research) 100% Jewish.  All of my Jewish immigrant ancestors and most of my Jewish immigrant relatives within memory (and based on research) lived in the Russian Empire.  A small number of those relatives remained within the empire long enough also to live in the Soviet Union.

And that means that all of those ancestors and collateral relatives lived with the Julian calendar.  You know, the calendar that was corrected and improved upon by Pope Gregory XIII (lucky 13?), thereby giving the world the Gregorian calendar.

The Julian calendar dates back to the days of Julius Caesar, from whom it takes its name.  It had a 365-day year with a leap day added every fourth year.

The Julian calendar was a little longer than the actual solar year — .0078 days per year.  That doesn't sound like much, but over time — 1,628 years — this created a problem with when the seasons began and, more importantly, with determining when Easter began.  That then became a problem for the Catholic church, which is when Pope Gregory enters the picture.

Pope Gregory commissioned a new, more accurate calendar and declared on February 25, 1582 that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582, correcting for this mistake by dropping ten days.  But he did not rule the world, only the church, so at first only the Papal States and the church itself enacted the change.  Not long after, many Catholic countries switched over.  Protestant countries took longer, because they didn't want to be following the edict of the Catholic church, but eventually most of them made the change also (Great Britain and its colonies, including what would become the United States of America, corrected the calendar in 1752, dropping eleven days).

But many parts of the world didn't change until the 20th century, including the Russian Empire.  In fact, the Russian Empire never did make the change.  The Russian Revolution occurred, the Russian Empire was dissolved, and the brand-spanking new Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), declared that the country would switch to the Gregorian calendar.  January 31, 1918 was followed by February 14, 1918, dropping thirteen days to bring the calendar into compliance (because those additional centuries of extra leap days added up!).  So today is the 107th anniversary of the Russian change to the Gregorian calendar.  I love the fact that, once you took into account the changes in dates, the October Revolution actually took place in November.

All of my ancestors who were still alive left the Russian Empire before the October Revolution.  Most of my other relatives did also.

But a few were not able to leave quite that early and did live in the Soviet Union for some amount of time.

My great-grandfather's older sister, Etta Gorodetsky, married Dovid Kardish in the Russian Empire, and they had at least eight children there.  One child died in Europe, but Dovid, Etta, and the other seven children immigrated to Canada in 1927.

Dovid is probably my cousin, based on information I have found and been told, although I have not determined exactly how. But that makes everyone else in his family my cousins.  He had eleven known siblings.  Dovid's father and four of the siblings died in Europe, but his mother and six of his siblings were living in the Soviet Union before they left for Canada.  And one of Dovid's sisters never left; she married in the Russian Empire in what is now Ukraine, was still there during the transition to the Soviet Union, and eventually went to Uzbekistan, dying there before it became independent.

So all of those who did not leave before the fall of the Russian Empire went through the calendar transition from Julian to Gregorian.

The records I find for my relatives before the switch to the Gregorian calendar have dates based on the Julian calendar.

So I need to note in some way in my family tree that those dates are Julian, to make sure I'm accurately recording events.

I would prefer to enter the dates per the Julian calendar, because that's how they were originally recorded, and that's the logic I use for entering locations.  What it was called when the event happened is what I enter, and then I make a note that the location is now called something else.

But my computer program isn't able to handle dates that way.  When I put in a Julian date, it wants to interpret it as a Gregorian date, like all the other dates in the database.

What I eventually decided was to record the dates per the Gregorian calendar and then to make a note for each one of what the original Julian date was.  That way, the computer doesn't get confused, I still have the information about the date as originally recorded, and everyone is happy.  And I want to keep my computer happy.

But That Doesn't Add Up Right

I posted last month about finding my great-great-grandparents' marriage record and several other family records in a recent data upload by the Ukraine Research Group on JewishGen.org.  But now I have to worry about how accurate the years are on those records as they are indexed.

I found a Russian birth record for one of my cousins, Dvorah Kardish, the daughter of Moishe Kardish and Rivka Polatnick.  The index entry shows Dvorya Kardish, daughter of Moshe, son of Chaim Duvid, and Rivka, daughter of Leyb.  This certainly sounds like my family member!  The entry indicates she was born January 21, 1899.  I clicked on the image link.

Record #9
Birth record for Dvorya Kardish
January 21 / 12 Shevat
Father Moshe Chaim-Duvid, mother Rivka daughter of Leyb
Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire
(image has been edited to crop out some of the other records on the page)

But when I went to enter this information in my family tree, I noted a few inconsistencies.

There is a note on the page for the record above Dvorya's that refers to 1897.  How could there be a note about something that happened to a child in 1897 if the child wasn't born until 1899?

Second, I have found Dvorya enumerated with the Kardish family in an 1895 Russian revision list (kind of like a census).  If she wasn't born until 1899, that just couldn't happen (that's a really big twinkle in someone's eye).

Third, Dvorya's first child (at least the first I know about) was born in 1915 (I found her birth record in this upload), which would make Dvorya only 16 years old at the time.  Not a deal-breaker, but not likely.  (Yes, I realize the year could be wrong on her daughter's record.)

And not as definitive, but still important to take into account, an 1899 birth would change Dvorya's position in the accepted birth order of the children in that family.  I often tell people that before knowing your exact birth date was an important fact in everyday life, most people didn't know precisely when they were born, but they did usually know who was the oldest child, who was second, etc., down to the youngest.  And the birth order that I was told matches that in the revision list.

So now I had four data points pointing to the possible inaccuracy of the birth year quoted in the JewishGen index.

Obviously, this required further investigation.

The page with Dvorya's birth record does not have a year written on it anywhere I could see to indicate when these births had taken place or were recorded.  I looked several pages before and after but none of them has a year written on it to indicate when the births occurred.  The only one that has a year on it, a few pages before the page in question, has a big block of text in the middle of the page and the year 1898 at the end of the text.  It looks to be some kind of "this is wrapping up the end of the year" note.  I considered that maybe the indexers had used it as an indication that the pages following were for 1899.

Working on the hypothesis that the page with Dvorya's birth had somehow fallen out and been [re]placed out of order in the record book, I looked at the information on the sheet that I probably could rely on:  that she had been born on January 21 on the Christian calendar, which equaled 12 Shevat on the Jewish calendar.  The months were abbreviated at the top of the page, and while I don't know the names of the months in the Jewish calendar well enough to recall them, I could see that the month started with "sh", so I Googled "Jewish months", and only Shevat starts with that.

To try to resolve the problem, I went to SteveMorse.org, clicked on Steve's handy Jewish Calendar Conversions in One Step page, changed the readout to the 57th century in the Jewish era so I could see years for the 19th century, changed the Christian date to January 21, and started going year by year through the Jewish years until I got January 21 and 12 Shevat in the same year.  Yay, it's 1891 (5651 on the Jewish calendar)!

Except I then remembered that the Russians were still on the Julian calendar in the 19th century, but the Jewish calendar was going by the Gregorian dates and Steve's page shows Gregorian by default.  Oops.

So I went back, changed the readout to Julian, set my date as 12 Shevat, and scrolled through years on the Christian calendar line.

Aha!  The year in which 12 Shevat and January 21 were the same day in the Julian calendar then became 1890 (5650 on the Jewish calendar).  That resolved the three concrete inconsistencies and kept Dvorya's birth order in the family the same.

Hooray!

It appears that the pages in the birth registration book are out of order, but that's how they are now and how they were filmed.

I fixed my date question, but how do we correct that problem?  How many more pages in this book are out of order?  How many people will have enough information beforehand, as I did, to realize that there's a problem?  And how many more of the digitized record books might have the same problem?

And what does the note from 1905 on the left side of Dvorya's birth record say?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Long Ago Was Your Last "Genealogy Happy Dance"?

Here's tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver:

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems — and traditionally we do a "genealogy happy dance" when we succeed.

2.  When was the last time you did a "genealogy happy dance" after solving one of your difficult problems?

3.  Share your story on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

Well, my last big "genealogy happy dance" has already been celebrated in my blog, and for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun no less.  That was when I posted two weeks ago about finding the marriage record for my great-great-grandparents Vigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leya Shnayderman.  This was exciting not only because of the record itself but because it corroborated six hypotheses I had made during my research.

But I mentioned in that blog post that I had found several other records for my family and related lines in the same batch of records.  And I did genealogy happy dances for many of those also.

One in particular I am still excited about is the birth record for my cousin's great-great-grandfather.  Again, very cool just to find the record and have an exact birth date, but it provided his mother's name, which we did not have previously.  We learned that we had the wrong town for his birthplace.  And it is the oldest record I have from the Russian Empire for anyone in my family.

Record #20
Birth record for Aizik [Isaak] Belder
March 5, 1848 (Julian calendar; March 17 on Gregorian calendar)
Father Shimshon, mother Rivka
Proskurov, Proskurovsky Uyezd, Podolia, Russian Empire

So, yeah, I did the happy dance for this record too.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: A Genealogy Fun Day

There's nothing like an open-ended invitation to write about almost anything, which is what we have tonight from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  When was the last time you had genealogy fun?  It could be research, conferences, a society meeting, or just talking with friends about your research, a favorite trip, etc.  Tell us about a recent genealogy fun day!

2.  Share your answers on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

I have had lots of genealogy fun the past two days!

Recently the Ukraine Research Division of JewishGen (the self-proclaimed home of Jewish genealogy on the Web) announced that it had uploaded a bunch of records from several different locations, including (finally!) Kamenets-Podolsky (formerly in Russia; current name Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine).  I was very excited, as that is where I have always been told my maternal grandmother's father's family was from, but I had no documents from there showing their names.  I actually had not been optimistic about ever finding any, due to a significant fire several years ago that affected the archive there.

So I searched using the form on the JewishGen home page, looking for Gorodetsky (my great-grandfather's original surname) in Ukraine.

And I found my great-great-grandparents' marriage record!!!

Record #109 (bottom)
Marriage record for Vigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leya Shnayderman
August 17, 1888 (Julian calendar; August 29 on Gregorian calendar)
Kamenets-Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire
(image has been edited to crop out other records on the page)

Not only was this exciting because, hey, it's a new family record, but it actually corroborated several hypotheses I had made over the years.

• I had guessed my great-great-grandmother's maiden name to be Schneiderman, based on correlating a lot of information from multiple generations of relatives.  Correct!

• I had guessed that her father's name was Joine (pronounced yoy-ne) after looking at naming patterns in my family.  Correct!

• I had estimated the marriage to have taken place before 1891.  It was in 1888.  Correct!

• I had guessed that the marriage should have taken place in Kamenets-Podolsky.  Correct!

• I had estimated my great-great-grandfather's birth year to be between 1864 and 1868.  He was listed as 25 at the time of the marriage, putting his birth year about 1863–1864.  Damned close!

• And I had estimated my great-great-grandmother's birth year to be between 1868 and 1874.  She was listed as 21 at the time of the marriage, putting her birth year about 1867–1868.  Also damned close!

It is great to have my logic substantiated by the actual record.

And on top of that, I have also found two dozen additional records — births, marriages, divorces, deaths, revision lists (kind of like a census) — for my Schneiderman and related lines, including Kardish and Belder.  I have been staying up way too late for the past couple of days because I can't tear myself away from the computer.

Genealogy fun?  Absolutely!  I've been doing the genealogy happy dance for two days!

Thank you, Randy, for giving us a topic tonight that allowed me to write about my cool discovery!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Ancestor Photographs

We're going on another scavenger hunt through our family hstory holdings for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver!

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) How many ancestors do you have photographs of?  What is your oldest ancestor photo (the year it was taken)?

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

At first I (mis)read this challenge to be how many photos do you have of each ancestor, instead of how many ancestors!  I was thinking, How in the world am I going to count all those photos Zadie took before the end of the day today?  Phew, thank goodness I only need to figure out which ancestors had photos taken of them.

• Parents (Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr.; Myra Roslyn Meckler):  I have many of both, going back to childhood, teenage years, marriage, and later, including after their divorce.

• Paternal grandparents (Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr.; Anna Gauntt):  A good number for each of them individually and one of them together.  I think the oldest are for their teenage years (none when they were children), and then throughout their lives.

• Maternal grandparents (Abraham Meckler, Lillyan E. Gordon):  Many of my grandmother (a lot taken by my grandfather), very few of my grandfather.  The ones of my grandmother go back to when she was fairly young.  I have one of my grandfather when he was 13 and then only three or four during young adulthood, but I have many more from while he was married to my grandmother.

• Great-grandparents (Cornelius Elmer Sellers versus Mr. X; Laura May Armstrong):  Only one of Elmer Sellers, my grandfather's adoptive father and the only father he knew; it is with Laura Armstrong.  Mr. X, my grandfather's biological father, is as yet unidentified.  A few of Laura May Armstrong, mostly later in life.

• Great-grandparents (Thomas Kirkland Gauntt, Jane Dunstan):  A couple for each of them when they were younger, and then several during their life together.  I think I have cousins with more photos of Thomas Gauntt.

• Great-grandparents (Morris Mackler [Moishe Meckler], Minnie [Mushe] Zelda Nowicki):  One photo each of Morris and Minnie.

• Great-grandparents (Joe Gordon [Joine Gorodetsky], Sarah Libby [Sore Leibe] Brainin):  A few of them here in the States, including two from before they were married (one is an engagement photo).  One of Sarah in Europe circa 1905.

• Great-great-grandparents (Catherine Fox Owen, Cornelius Gottschalk Sellers):  One of Catherine (Owen) Sellers, none of Cornelius Sellers.

• Great-great-grandparents (Joel Armstrong, Sarah Ann Deacon Lippincott): One that has been identified as them, but I'm not sure the identification is correct.

• Great-great-grandparents (James Gauntt, Amelia Gibson):  One of James Gauntt, none of Amelia Gibson (although cousins might have photos of her).

• Great-great-grandparents (Frederick Cleworth Dunstan, Martha Winn):  None.

• Great-great-grandparents (Simcha Dovid Meckler, Baila):  None.

• Great-great-grandparents (Gershon Itzhak Nowicki, Dube Yelsky):  Two different photographs of them as a couple, one from Europe and one from the United States.

• Great-great-grandparents (Victor Gordon [Avigdor Gorodetsky], Esther Leah Schneiderman):  Two or three of Victor Gordon, one of them from Europe, which includes Esther Leah.

• Great-great-grandparents (Morris [Mendel Hertz] Brainin, Rose Dorothy [Ruchel Dvoire] Jaffe):  One of Rose Dorothy Jaffe in Europe; one of the two of them in New York City.

• Great-great-great-grandparents:  Only one possibility, 3x-great-grandfather Gersh Wolf Gorodetsky.  What I have is a photo of a photo, so dating it accurately is pretty much impossible.  It being of Gersh Wolf is my best guess based on the little bit of information I have.

I think the oldest photo I have is the one of Avigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leah Schneiderman in Kamenets Podolskiy, Russian Empire, circa 1890.  And I counted a total of 25 ancestors of whom I have photographs.

I really should talk to cousins about getting more copies of photographs.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Great-grandparents' Locations

Looking for family member!  Looking for family members!  This week Randy Seaver has us hunting down information about some of our relatives for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) We all have eight biological great-grandparents.  Where and when were they born, where and when did they marry, and where and when did they die?

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

Well, we may all have eight great-grandparents biologically, but that doesn't mean we know who all eight of those people are.

Paternal Great-grandparents

• Someone, probably a man named Mundy.  No idea when or where he was born or died.  He did not marry my great-grandmother.

She was Laura May Armstrong, who was born May 7, 1882 in Bustleton, Florence Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.  She was married at least once, November 7, 1903, to Cornelius Elmer Sellers (the only father my grandfather knew), in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.  She died October 23, 1970 in Niceville, Okaloosa County, Florida.

• Thomas Kirkland Gauntt was born May 23, 1870 in Fairview, Medford Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He died January 21, 1951 in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.

He married Jane Dunstan on September 2, 1891 in Greenland, Camden County (I think), New Jersey.  She was born April 28, 1871 in Manchester, Lancashire, England and died August 1, 1954 in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.

Maternal Great-grandparents

• Morris Mackler (originally Moishe Meckler) was born about 1882, probably in Kamenets Litovsk, Grodno gubernia, Russian Empire (now Kamyanyets, Belarus).  He died July 27, 1953 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

He married Minnie Zelda Nowicki (originally Mushe Zelda[?] Nowicki) about 1903, possibly in Porozowo, Grodno gubernia, Russian Empire (now Porazava, Belarus).  She was born about 1880, probably in Porozowo.  She died August 4, 1936 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

• Joe Gordon (originally Joine Gorodetsky) was born about 1892, probably in Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire (now Kamianets Podilskyi, Ukraine).  He died May 2, 1955 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.

He married Sarah Libby Brainin (originally Sore Leiba Brainin) on April 4, 1914 in Manhattan, New York County, New York.  She was born about 1890, possibly in Kreuzburg, Courland, Russian Empire (now Krustpils, Latvia).  She died July 23, 1963 in Miami, Dade County, Florida.

 

Five of my great-grandparents were immigrants to the United States, four from the Russian Empire and one from England.  Two of my great-grandparents were Jerseyites through and through.  And I still don't know the name of my paternal grandfather's biological father.  His adoptive father was born in Philadelphia but lived most of his life in New Jersey.

On my father's side, the three great-grandparents about whom I have information all died in New Jersey.  On my mother's side, three of them died in Brooklyn, while the one who died most recently moved to Miami after she was widowed and died there.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Three (or More) Things about a Great-grandparent

Today for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver has us writing up information about one of our ancestors.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission: Impossible! music):

(1) Pick a great-grandparent of yours—any one of your eight.  Tell us three (or more) things about him or her.

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

I decided to write about my great-grandmother Minnie Zelda (Nowicki) Meckler (c. 1880–1936).  She was my mother's father's mother.  Like Randy, I'm writing more than three things.

Minnie's original name was Mushe; I don't know if she had a middle name at first.  I don't have documentation of her birth, so 1880 is an estimate based on later records stating her age.  She was probably born in Porozowo, Russian Empire, now Porazava, Belarus.

Mushe Nowicki married Moishe Meckler about 1900, again an estimate.  They might have married in Porozowo or somewhere nearby; it was almost definitely in Grodno Gubernia.

Moishe and Mushe had three children in Russia:  Sora, born about 1900; Simcha, born about 1903; and Hirschel, born about 1905.

Moishe immigrated to the United States in 1906; Mushe came later with the three children.  They departed from Antwerp, Belgium on October 14, 1911 and arrived at Ellis Island on October 23 on the Vaderland.  At some point after arrival everyone Americanized their names and they became Morris (sometimes Max), Minnie, Sarah, Sam, and Harry.  To make their family name sound less Jewish, Morris and Sam modified it to Mackler; Harry used Meeckler.

Minnie gave birth to four more children, all in Brooklyn, New York:  my grandfather Abraham, July 23, 1912 (the firsr-born in the United States, exactly 9 months after Minnie's arrival!); Rubin, May 31, 1914; Florence, December 22, 1915; and Elsie, August 24, 1919.

Minnie died August 4, 1936 (her yahrzeit is 17 Av) in Brooklyn of a cerebral hemorrhage.  She was buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery in Queens on August 5.

As far as I can tell, Minnie did not become an American citizen.  My great-grandfather Morris naturalized in 1942.

The 1911 passenger list indicates that Minnie was 5'1" tall and had a fair complexion, dark hair, and brown eyes.  I have one photo of her, taken with the three children born in Russia.  Judging by the ages of the children, it was likely taken shortly before Moishe's departure in 1906.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Was Your First Ancestor Born in ...

For this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun adventure, Randy Seaver is asking us to climb up our family trees to find some of our "first" ancestors.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission: Impossible! music!):

(1) Lorine McGinnis Schulze, in her blog post "Who Was Your First Canadian or American Born Ancestor?", asked that question.

(2) Let's broaden it a bit to "Who was your first ancestor born in your chosen county, state, province, or country?" based on your known ancestry.

(3) Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post.

I'm going to make a caveat to my post:  These answers are based on what I have entered into my family tree program.  I have additional information about earlier generations, but this is the information that is accessible.

• For the British colonies that became the United States, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 7th-great-grandmother Ann Pharo, born about December 14, 1677, probably in the Province of West Jersey, probably in an area that became part of Burlington County, which was not officially formed until 1694.

• For the Province of New Jersey, which was established in 1702, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 6th-great-grandfather Hananiah Gaunt, born March 2, 1706/07, possibly in Germantown or Hananicon.

• For the United States of America, declared an independent country in 1776, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 3rd-great-grandfather Hananiah Selah Gaunt, born January 25, 1795 in Burlington County.  I suspect I do have someone else born earlier than that, but I can't find the info currently.

• For New York State, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my maternal grandfather, Abraham Meckler, born July 23, 1912 in Brooklyn, Kings County.

And that's it for me and North America.  No known ancestors born in Canada or in states besides New Jersey and New York.  Now, if we go back across the pond:

• For England, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 4th-great-grandfather Richard Dunstan, born about 1790ish, probably in Lancashire.  I know I have ancestors born before that; I think the earliest Gaunt ancestor I know about is Peter, born about 1507 or something like that.  But I can't find that information right now. :(

• For the Russian Empire, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 3rd-great-grandfather Avram Yakov Nowicki, born before about 1835, likely in Grodno gubernia, now part of Belarus.

And so far those are the only countries I have prior to North America.  My family didn't move around much.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Oldest Ancestral Item

Time to go on a treasure hunt with Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Lorine Mcginnis Schulze on her Olive Tree Genealogy blog asked this question several weeks ago in http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-is-your-oldest-ancestral-item.html.

(2) So have at it — what is the oldest ancestral item in your collection of artifacts and stuff?  

(3) Tell us all about it in a blog post of your own, in comments on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.  Be sure to link to them in a comment on this blog post.

Thank you to Lorine for the idea and to Linda S. for suggesting it.

I don't have many ancestral items to begin with and very few old ones, but I did take my time thinking about this to make sure I had determined the oldest item.  I'm pretty sure it's a photo of my Gorodetsky great-great-grandparents taken in Kamenets Podolsky, Russian Empire, from about 1890.  It's the only family item I have from before 1900.

The second-oldest ancestral item I have is a photo of a different set of great-great-grandparents, the Brainins, from about 1906, taken in Manhattan.

And that's almost everything I have that can count as an "ancestral item."  I do have my great-grandmother's set of silverplate tableware, but I don't have a date for them.  She married in 1914, so that's the oldest they are likely to be, but there's a good chance they're more recent.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Which Ancestral Home Would You Like to Visit?

Randy Seaver asks for a difficult decision in this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Tell us which ancestral home (an actual building, a village, a town, even a country) you would most like to visit.   Which ancestors lived there and for how long?  

(2) Share your ancestral home information in your own blog post or on Facebook, and leave a link to it in the comments.
 
Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic.

Randy appears to be fortunate in that he has several lines in his family that were in the same location, making it easy to choose that place.  Mine are kind of scattered all over the place, which makes the choice difficult.  On the other hand, Randy did give country as an option, so I think I'll choose "Russian Empire."  As in the one that doesn't exist anymore.  But it was the country from which all of the ancestors on my mother's side of the family emigrated.

All the American documentation I have says that the Brainins came from Kreuzburg, which is now Krustpils, Latvia.  I would love to go there and try to find some European documents that actually confirm that's where they were from.  Supposedly my 3x-great-grandfather was a doctor; maybe that increases the possibility of finding a record about him?

The Mecklers came from Kamenets Litovsk, Grodno gubernia, which is now Kamyanyets, Belarus.  I have that family tracked back to my 3x-great-grandfather Zvi Mekler.  I wouldn't expect to find much about my family in modern Kamyanyets, but I want the opportunity to look.

The Nowicki family came from Porozovo, Grodno gubernia, now Porazava, Belarus.  This is another location where not much has survived regarding the former Jewish population, but you never know unless you try.

The Gorodetskys were at least registered in Orinin, Kamenets Podolskiy gubernia, which is now Orynyn, Ukraine.  I don't know how far back that registration goes or how long it might have been since someone lived there.  The family was apparently at one time in the city of Kamenets Podolskiy (now Kamyanets Podilskyy), which is where my great-grandfather and his older sister are said to have been born, so that's probably the more important location to visit first.

The Schneidermans were also said to have been from Kamenets Podolskiy, although I don't think it was stated whether that was the city or merely the gubernia.

I don't know where the Jaffes, Bindermans, Blooms, or Yelskys are supposed to have been from.  I guess I would start searching for the Jaffes and Bindermans in Krustpils and the Blooms and Yelskys in Porazava.  I might also have Cohen/Kagan and Kardish/Kortisch ancestors.  I would start my search for them in Kamyanets Podilskyy.

So that gives me a lot of territory to cover.  What was once one (very large) country would now necessitate going through at least three modern countries.  And not going at all to modern Russia, because my ancestors all seem to have stayed in the Pale, apparently not having any of the high-end occupations that permitted one to reside in Russia proper.

Russian Rubles

My second former daughter-in-law and her current boyfriend (I have mentioned that my family tree is complicated, right?) recently were looking at some books being given away for free and found several pieces of paper money tucked into one of the volumes.  After we determined that, unfortunately, none of them was valuable because they were all in such extremely poor condition, they allowed me to keep two of the bank notes, which are in Russian rubles.

The first note is for 25 rubles.  The front (I think it's the front) shows Tsar Alexander III, who ruled the Russian Empire from March 13, 1881 until his death on November 1, 1894.  The back shows the year of the bank note, 1909.

The second bank note is for only 3 rubles.  The front is highly decorative, and the back shows the note is from 1905.

Why would I care to keep these?  All of my mother's family lived in the Russian Empire for many generations prior to some of them immigrating to the United States in the early 20th century.  I have almost nothing from their time in Russia — a grand total of three photographs.  This is probably the type of money they would have used over there.  Kind of like collecting photographs of towns where family lived, this gives me a little more information about their lives.  It makes me feel a little more in touch with them to have these bank notes.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Ancestors In the 1900 Census?

I love when Randy Seaver has us looking through our records for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but my database is still offline, so it's a lot harder to do right now!

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) How many of your ancestors are in the 1900 United States census?  List them all, their locations, their ages, and their occupations.  Were any ancestors missed by the census enumerator?  (Note:  For folks who have census entries in other countries, substitute your country for the U.S. and the closest available census to 1900.)

(2) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a comment to this post with a link to your post.

Here are mine.  I also worked backward in time.

• My grandmother Anna Gauntt is the only grandparent I have who was born before 1901.  In the 1900 census she was 7 years old, lived in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, and had no occupation.

• Great-grandfather Thomas Kirkland Gauntt was 30 years old, lived in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, and worked as a farm laborer.

• Great-grandmother Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt was 29 years old, lived in Mount Laurel, Burlington County, New Jersey, and had no occupation.

• Great-grandmother Laura May Armstrong was 18 years old, lived in Westhampton, Burlington County, New Jersey, andi is listed as a "helper" in the occupation column.

• Great-great-grandmother Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt was 68 years old, lived in Chester, Burlington County, New Jersey, and had no occupation.

• Great-great-grandmother Sarah Ann (Lippincott) Armstrong was 40 years old, lived in Westhampton, Burlington County, New Jersey, and for occupation had "boarder" listed.

So I have a grand total of six (!) ancestors I have found in the 1900 census.  I don't know of anyone who was missed by enumerators.  My list is short for several reasons:

• Jane (Dunstan) Gauntt's parents (and grandparents) died well before 1900.

• I have not yet identified my biological great-grandfather, who fathered a child with Laura May Armstrong.

• Amelia (Gibson) Gauntt was widowed before 1900.

• Sarah Ann (Lippincott) Armstrong was apparently divorced from Joel Armstrong before 1900, and he in all likelihood was still alive and was enumerated in the 1900 census, but I have not definitively identified him yet in the census.

• I don't actually know whether Sarah (Lippincott) Armstrong's parents were alive in 1900.  I don't have death dates for either of them.

• All of my ancestors on my mother's side of the family were still in the Russian Empire in 1900, and I have been unable to find a single one of them in the 1897 revision list.  The closest record to 1900 I have found for an ancestor on that side is for my great-great-grandfather Gershon Itzhak Nowicki; he appears in a 1904 or 1906 (I can't find it right now to check) voter list, living in Porozovo, Grodno Gubernia (now Porazava, Belarus).