Category Archives: Blog information

Shana Tova—A Good Year to All

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Embed from Getty Images

Once again I find myself in the midst of the early September craziness after a long, relaxing summer: several family birthdays and anniversaries, school starting (well, not for me anymore, but for my husband), and preparation for the Jewish holidays.  In my spare time, I am trying to put together the pieces of my Schoenthal research slowly but surely.  But for the next week or so, I won’t have much time to write anything coherent about my research, so I will be taking a short break.

That seems appropriate as this is the time of year when I am supposed to be contemplating the year past and making decisions about the year to come.  It’s a time to be thoughtful and thankful.  A time of making amends and making resolutions.

So I wish all who celebrate a wonderful holiday with time for your families and your thoughts.  And for everyone, I wish a new year filled with gratitude, happiness, good health, and love.  And for the world, I will hope for peace and for a way to protect and shelter all those people all over the world who have been uprooted and seen their lives and families destroyed by war, poverty, and hatred.  Today is the 14th anniversary of the day that showed us all what hatred can do. May we finally learn from it.

WTC memorial lights

WTC memorial lights (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

May it be a year when somehow people everywhere find a way to accept differences and respect and honor the humanity of each other.

Shana tova.  A good year to all.


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Stopping the Tide

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I will be taking a break from the blog for the next week or so as I will be spending time with my family.   I have a number of projects on hold—more from the Seligmann handwritten family tree, more from my newly found cousin Lotte, more about the Schoenfelds.  But right now other members of my family—especially my two grandsons—will be the focus of my attention.

For the past several days we have been taking care of our older grandson; we brought him to the beach where he swam and walked through the water until I was exhausted (he wasn’t), dug holes, and did other beach activities.  But the activity that charmed me the most was when he tried to stop the tide from advancing.  Oh, to be five and to think that you can stop the tides— and time—-from advancing.

Nate at Indian Nec

Stopping the tide

Stopping the tide

Thank you and Back to work

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First, I want to thank you all for the kind words of comfort I received about Cassie—from those who emailed me or commented on the blog or on Facebook.  It really did help to know that others understand how our pets are family.  For those who are interested, I have added a few photos of Cassie when she was younger to the blog post.

Secondly, it’s time for me to get back to the real work of this blog—genealogy.  It’s been over a month since we left for our trip and since I’ve done any serious genealogy work.  I think having a break like this was really important.  I tend to be compulsive about what I am doing, and I love the genealogy work so much that, unlike when I had a real job, I could spend endless hours lost in my research and then blogging about it.  I have been driven to keep digging, keep blogging, since I retired a year ago, and I think I worried that if I stopped, I would lose steam and never get back to it.

So taking a month off was probably a very good thing.  Now I have new motivation for continuing my work, having seen so many new places and learned so much about Jewish history and history in general.  And I have a whole new branch of my family to begin—my paternal grandmother’s family.

But before I do that, there are some other new things to report and to share.  My Seligmann family tree continues to provide me with new members and new documents and new photographs.  I am trying to be sure I understand who is who before posting, but will share those soon.  I also have new documents to share regarding my Schoenfeld family tree as well as various other tidbits here and there.

So tomorrow there will be a post with new information about my Seligmann family.  Thank you all once again for your thoughts about Cassie and for following my adventures around Europe.

Where Am I? Where Am I Going? Tarnobrzeg

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Polski: Tarnobrzeg, Panorama nocna osiedla Ser...

Polski: Tarnobrzeg, Panorama nocna osiedla Serbinow (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s time to take stock and figure out where I am and where I have been and, of course, where I am going next.  I have “finished” my research on the Dreyfuss and Nusbaum families, and when I say “finished,” I know that as with all my family lines, I am never finished.  I always have more to do—whether it is trying to go back further in time or trying to connect with descendants.  There are a number of unanswered questions, as there always are and always will be.  I will write up something to bring some closure to what I know about these two family lines within the next several days.  But for today, I just want to think about where I am more generally.

I have now done many of my father’s paternal lines.  Starting with the Cohens, I’ve also covered the Seligmans, the Schoenfelds, the Nusbaums, and the Dreyfusses (Dreyfi?), and, of course, all the other names that came with later generations: Sluizer, Weil, Selinger, Bacharach,  Wiler, Simon, Meyers, Dinkelspiel, Hano, and so on.   I’ve also missed a few lines.  I haven’t yet focused on the line that starts with Hart Levy Cohen’s wife, Rachel Jacobs, or with Jacob Cohen’s wife, Sara Jacobs.  I haven’t looked at all at the line that begins with Voegele Welsch, wife of Amson Nusbaum.  And I am sure there are other maternal lines I need to explore.  Of course, those are often the hardest because the names have disappeared from the family, and each of those ancestors dates back close to 200 years ago.  But eventually I will get there.

And next I will explore my father’s maternal lines, the Schoenthals and Katzensteins: more German Jews who came to Pennsylvania in the 1840s or so.  Who knows what stories, what adventures, what heartbreaks I will discover along the way.

But before I turn to the Schoenthal and Katzenstein families, I have several other questions to research and address.  The Seligmann family tree continues to grow both backwards in time and horizontally, thanks to my cousin Wolfgang and all the research he has done.  Their stories continue to fascinate and also horrify me.  I am also in touch with the daughter of Fred and Ilse Michel, and she has shared stories and photographs with me.

There are also lingering questions regarding the Goldschlagers, now that I’ve found two other families with that name and roots in Romania.  We are hoping to hire a Romanian researcher to help us learn more.

And finally, there are those ever elusive Brotmans.  Although I am not putting any more hope (or much time) into using DNA as a tool to find my Brotman ancestors, I still have hope that something will turn up.  Just this past week someone contacted me, asking about Chaye Fortgang, Joseph Brotman’s first wife and the mother of the first four Brotman children, Abraham, Sophie, David, and Max.  He has Fortgang family from Grebow, a town less than ten miles from Tarnobrzeg and also the town that David and Abraham Brotman gave as their home on the ship manifest when immigrating to the US.  Perhaps by researching the Fortgang family, I will also learn about Joseph Brotman and his family.  In addition, I am focused on the Brotmanville Brotmans, hoping that that line will lead to more answers.

English: Gmina Grębów COA Polski: Herb gminy G...

English: Gmina Grębów COA Polski: Herb gminy Grębów (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In addition, I will be visiting Tarnobrzeg in person in just about a month.  We will be hiring a guide who also does genealogy research, and we will be joined by my newly-found cousin Phyllis, the niece of Frieda, the woman who matched my mother as a close cousin through DNA testing.  Phyllis and I have chosen to believe that our grandmothers were in fact first cousins, and we are hoping to find some evidence to corroborate it.  So although I am not writing about it on the blog, much of my time right now is spent researching for this trip.  Once I am there, I will share my experiences on the blog, so stay tuned.

Photograph of Tarnobrzeg Main Square.

Photograph of Tarnobrzeg Main Square. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Turning Your Blog into A Book (or Several Books)

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vols 1 and 2

Last fall I got into a discussion with a fellow blogger, Luanne at The Family Kalamazoo, about preserving all our work.  What happens if WordPress crashes some day? What if the Internet becomes a thing of the past like VCRs and turntables? All our hard work could be for naught.  Our grandchildren won’t know a thing about their ancestors and will have to start all over again.

I’d also been getting requests over and over again from my father.  He wanted me to print out all my blog posts.  He said it was too hard to go back and find earlier posts.  I told him that printing them out would not work well because I’d lose all the formatting, and he’d end up with hundreds of pages of posts all in reverse chronological order. (I did explain that new posts had links back to related posts, but he wanted a hard copy.)

So I decided to explore some options.  And what I found was a site called blogbooker.com.   It’s a free site that converts your blog into PDFs.  But not just that.  It creates a table of contents using your blog post titles and puts everything in chronological order.  I was very excited by the results.

Contents

But then I still had well over a thousand pages of PDFs, and printing all of them would still lead to an unmanageable pile of paper that no one would be able to use easily.  Plus the ink I’d use in printing them would be costly.

Fortunately, blogbooker also suggested several sites where you can turn those PDFs into a published book—either an e-book or a full-fledged hard copy bound book.  The one I chose was Lulu.com.  I looked at the various options, and for cost reasons I chose to print the blog in a paperback format on 8 by 11 sized pages in black and white.  Since I did this after blogging for fifteen months, I had to break the blog into four volumes.  That meant creating separate PDFs on blogbooker for four different volumes.  No big deal.  It’s easy enough, and remember that blogbooker is free.

Lulu.com is not free, at least not for hard copy printed books, but it is really reasonable.  Each volume cost me about $15 a copy, and I made two copies of each, one for me and one for my parents.  At least now my parents can flip through the pages and find older posts, and I can sleep a little more easily, knowing that there are two hard copies of my blog.  And they really look quite nice—I was pleased with how they came out.  The photos and graphics are not as clear as on the Internet, but they are adequate, and the text is all there as are all the comments.

vol 3 and 4

 

I’ve just created and ordered Volume Five, covering from January 1, 2015 through April 21, 2015.   (If there are any family members or even just interested readers who want a volume, let me know.  🙂 )

What do you do to preserve your work? How do you make sure that all your research and documents and photographs are going to be safe and accessible for another 100 years or more?

 

 

Back from Spring Break

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It was a great break—especially being away from the cold and snow.  And probably good to clear my head and get away from the laptop for a while.  But now I am back, and even while away, I’ve had some new developments.  New DNA results to post about, some new cousins to research (one found by my first cousin’s son while participating in the Model UN in Spain, one who found me on the blog), a new baby to celebrate (on my husband’s side), some new photos and other information from my Seligmann cousin in Germany, some updates on the Roseznweig family, and so on.  And I have to finish the story of my Nusbaum relatives, in particular that of Ernst Nusbaum’s family.

So lots to do in addition to the unpacking, laundry, and readjusting to cold weather.  I have to catch up on all the blog posts by my fellow genealogy bloggers as well.  For now, just reminding you that I am here, I haven’t disappeared, and that I will return soon.

 

2014 in review: Thanks and Happy New Year!

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As 2014 draws to a close, I look back with gratitude for all the wonderful things I have experienced this year.

First and foremost, on June 5, 2014, my grandson Remy Brandon Fischer was born.  He is now almost seven months old, sitting up, playing with toys, and enchanting all of us with his calm nature and sweet disposition.  Remy and Nate continue to be constant sources of joy in my life.

nate and remy blocks

My family has grown in other ways as well.  Not only have there been new babies across my family lines, I have found more and more new cousins.  This was a year when in April, we had an amazing reunion of the Brotman cousins in New York City.  I got to meet several of my second cousins for the first time as well as their significant others and some of their children.  It was definitely a major highlight of 2014 for me.  I am hoping we can do it again soon, and I am also beginning to think about a reunion for the Rosenzweig/Goldschlager cousins also.

Ten of Joseph and Bessie's great-grandchildren on the Lower East Side

Ten of the great-grandchildren of Joseph and Bessie Brotman having lunch on the Lower East Side

On the Rosenzweig/Goldschlager side, I had a great time having lunch with my cousin Linda and her husband Harvey in Boston.

I have also been blessed with many other new cousins whom I have yet to meet in person, but with whom I have skyped, talked on the phone, or emailed.  My cousin Pete has been a wonderful friend and colleague as we shared the adventures of learning about our Seligman ancestors.  Gracias, mi primo, for it all. Talking to my cousin Marjorie was a special treat, as was skyping with my cousin Richard in Australia, talking to my cousin Jean in Georgia, my cousin Barry in Florida, my cousin Lois and her brother Paul, my Selinger cousins,my Kohl cousins, my Cole cousins, my Bacharach cousins, and my Cohen cousins!  Thanks also to Lou for the wonderful photos of my Cohen relatives. All of these conversations and email exchanges have made this year meaningful and interesting.

In addition, I have been blessed by the help and friendship of so many genealogy researchers this year.  I cannot list them all, but special thanks to my fellow bloggers Wendy, Su, Leslie (Pancho), Luanne, Alex, Stephen, Jana, Mary Anne, Charles, and all the other bloggers who have read and commented on the blog and also provided me with useful tips and research insights.  And thanks to all those who have helped through JewishGen or ancestry or Facebook like Dorothee, Beate, Walter, Ralph, Ned, Renee, Matthias, and many, many others who have helped me in my search.  I apologize for any names I haven’t mentioned, but the list is so long that my aging brain cells cannot retain all the names.

Thanks to all my followers and readers, whether you comment or not, whether you read once a year or every post.  Although I like to think I am writing for posterity—for the future generations who cannot even read yet, it means a lot and makes doing this more fulfilling knowing that there are people out there who are reading what I write.  Special thanks to my brother Ira aka my medical consultant and to Laurel aka my consultant on matters of crime and mystery and to my cousin Jody, who found my aunt’s notes on the Brotman family trees and sent me all the old family photographs from her basement.

Family Tree drawn by Elaine Goldschlager Lehbraum

Family Tree drawn by Elaine Goldschlager Lehbraum

And extra special thanks to my parents, who read every post, answer every question, listen to every boring detail, and support everything I do as they always have.

My daughters may not read every post, or even most posts, but I continue to hope that someday in the future they will be interested in knowing more about their family history and will have this resource to turn to for answers.  My daughters are in my head and in my heart with every word I write, every document I find, and every photo I share.  This is ultimately for them whether they know it or not.

 

And finally, for Harvey.  Thank you for putting up with my obsession, for supporting it, for listening and hearing, for sharing in the journey, and for taking joy in knowing that this is something that gives me great joy and satisfaction.  As with everything in our lives, I could not do this without your love and support.

Luna

Luna

The year did, of course, have its sad moments.  For me, the loss of my beloved cat Luna still makes my heart ache, but those sad moments just make me that much more grateful for all the happy times that far outweigh the sad times.  In addition to my genealogy adventures, I got to go to the Florida Keys twice this year and spent a great summer on the Cape.  I retired from a job I loved with no regrets, and I am now able to spend my days choosing what to do and when to do it.  I’ve found some meaningful volunteer activities and more time, of course, to research and blog.  I’ve even started writing a novel, something I’ve always dreamed of doing.

So it’s been an amazing year in many ways, and I look forward to another productive and fascinating year ahead in 2015. Coming soon—a big breakthrough on my Brotman line! And more about the Nusbaums, and then on to my father’s maternal lines.

I close with this annual report prepared by the WordPress.com people.  Thank you one and all, and happy New Year! May this be a year of happiness, health, fulfillment, and love for you all.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

One Lovely Blog Award—A Nice Start to the New Year

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My new year started off on Thursday morning in just the right way.  First, my daughter texted me to tell me that her baby, my grandson Remy, had slept through the night for the first time.  Then I checked my email and saw there was a new post from one of my favorite bloggers, Pancho of The People of Pancho.  She’d been nominated for The One Lovely Blog Award and was very excited.  I was excited for her because I really enjoy her blog about her family research and about her childhood growing up in the Panama Canal Zone.

But imagine my surprise as I read through her blog post to see that she had in turn nominated me for The One Lovely Blog Award!  I am so honored and flattered to have received this nomination.  So Pancho, thank you so much for this nomination and for starting my year off with this great ego boost!

Now part of the deal in accepting this nomination is that there are certain rules to follow.  Here are the rules for this award:

 

  1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to that blog. (Thanks again, Pancho!)
  2. Share seven things about yourself.
  3. Nominate 15 bloggers you admire (or as many as you can think of!).
  4. Contact your bloggers to let them know that you’ve tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award

 

So… seven things about me? In no particular order, here are seven rather random thoughts about who I am:

 

  1. My family is the center of my life, and not just my dead ancestors! My living and breathing family—those who have known me since birth and childhood and those I’ve only known since adulthood. I have been married for 38 years to the guy I met working at a day camp back in 1973. I still am amazed by how wonderful a man he is.  My children and grandchildren give me endless joy.  I am writing this blog for them, whether they realize it or not. SONY DSC
  2. I taught law for 32 years—copyright, trademark, antitrust, and contracts law. I retired last spring, and so far retirement has been wonderful! I have more time to pursue genealogy, and I am exploring various volunteer projects that give me a chance to work with children and use my teaching skills.
  3. I love animals, especially cats and dogs. I have never met a cat I didn’t like. They are all beautiful to me. I love dogs also, but not as much as I love cats. Except my dog. I love her as much as my cats.smokey luna sibling love
  4. The Outer Cape in Massachusetts—the location of the towns of Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown—is my favorite place in the world. No place else is as beautiful to me. Put me on the beach in the National Seashore or overlooking Cape Cod Bay, and my mind immediately clears. IMG_0341
  5. I am a die-hard Red Sox fan and have been for 39 years…ever since 1975 when the Red Sox lifted me out of the doldrums and stress of my first year of law school. This year might have been the hardest season ever to be a Sox fan, from last to first to last again. Go Sox….2015?
    English: Boston Red Sox Cap Logo

    English: Boston Red Sox Cap Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

  6. Reading has been my favorite pastime since I was very young. I am always reading something for pleasure. My tastes are pretty eclectic, but mostly I read novels, biographies, and memoirs. I thank my mother for getting me hooked on books at a very early age. My favorite two books from childhood are The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.  The first taught me that books could create a whole imagined world where anything can happen; the second taught me that books could make me care enough about well-developed and well-written characters—even a spider—that I would cry over them.  I still cannot think about the ending of Charlotte’s Web without getting choked up.
    Cover of "The Phantom Tollbooth"

    Cover of The Phantom Tollbooth

    Charlotte's Web

    Charlotte’s Web (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

  7. Since I first started reading books on my own as a child, I have always been inspired by good writing. I have always, always, wanted to write. Work, family, and life got in the way.  This blog has been a gift for me—I finally get to write what I want to write the way I want to write it.  Thank you to all my readers and followers for giving me an audience and the encouragement and the inspiration to keep on writing.  I share this nomination with you all.

 

And now my turn to recognize some of the blogs that have inspired me and that teach me something about genealogy, about writing, and/or about life.  First, Pancho already recognized three of my favorite blogs: Bernfeld Family of Galicia & More,  The Genealogy Girl, and Shaking the Tree.  I  would also have  nominated these three as all are wonderfully written, very expressive, and very well-researched genealogy blogs.  All three touch me and help me all the time.

I would also re-nominate The People of Pancho for all those reasons and also Jana’s Genealogy and Family History Blog, though I know that Jana nominated Pancho thus must herself have been nominated.  So those are five genealogy blogs that I would also have  nominated even though they’ve already been nominated.  But I will spread the wealth and nominate a different group of fifteen.

These are in no particular order, but the first group are all genealogy blogs that I enjoy reading, find helpful, are amazingly well-researched and well written.

1.  Root to Tip

2. The Family Kalamazoo

3. The Lives of My Ancestors

4. The Legal Genealogist

5. Genealogy Sisters

6. Moore Genealogy

7. Genealogy Lady

8. One Rhode Island Family

To demonstrate that I do have interests outside of genealogy, here are seven non-genealogy blogs that I enjoy:

9. wmtc:  formerly, We Move to Canada, a blog originally (not surprisingly) about Laura Kaminker’s move to Canada from the US, but now much more than that: politics, books, travel, personal reflections, dogs, baseball, you name it—all clearly and beautifully written and often very provocative.

10. The Joy of Sox:  the very first blog I ever read—all about the Red Sox.  Allan Wood’s latest book about the Red Sox, Don’t Let Us Win Tonight,  has made me an even bigger fan.

11. BJJ, Law, and Living–the thoughts and experiences of the blog owner, who is a recent law graduate and mother

12.  Wellfleet Today—the ins and outs and ups and downs of running a B&B in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.  Amazing photographs.

13. Rex Parker Does the New York Times Crossword Puzzle—ever since I discovered this site a few years ago, I no longer have to wait 24 hours to find out what obscure answers I missed, and I also get to read all the rantings of Rex and his followers.

14. Over the Monster–another Red Sox blog

15. The TTABlog–a blog I followed regularly while teaching trademark law.  Although I am retired and no longer reading it regularly, I want to recognize it because it was tremendously helpful to me while I was teaching.

So those are my fifteen nominations.  Now I have to go tell them all they’ve been nominated.  I hope they are as pleased as I was by my nomination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change of Plans

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Shofar (by Alphonse Lévy) Caption says: "...

Shofar (by Alphonse Lévy) Caption says: “To a good year” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was going to post about Gau-Algesheim this morning, but have decided to wait until after Rosh Hashanah.  It’s an important post (to me, at least), and with so many family and friends celebrating the holiday, I thought it might get lost in the shuffle.  So I will wait until Sunday to post it.

 

In the meantime, I also will be busy celebrating the holiday and so will take a short break from writing and researching so that I can focus on the holiday and my family.

 

For everyone out there, whether you celebrate this holiday or not, let’s hope for and work for a year of peace everywhere—within our families, our communities, our countries, and our world.  Shana tova!

 

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Happy New Year, Shana Tova, and Happy Blogiversary!

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A shofar made from a ram's horn is traditional...

A shofar made from a ram’s horn is traditionally blown in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish civic year. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I will post tomorrow morning about the town in Germany where my Seligman ancestors were born and what I learned about my family by researching that small town called Gau-Algesheim.  But for now—I have three events to recognize.

 

First, it was a year ago today that my cousin Judy set up the blog and I made my first blog post.  It had no text—just a posting of my great-grandmother’s death certificate.  I was learning how to use WordPress, and I don’t even know if anyone saw that post other than Judy and me.  I didn’t actually post anything substantive until October 4 when I wrote my first post about what to expect from the blog.  But I will always celebrate September 23 as my “blogiversary” for another very good reason.  September 23 was my grandmother Gussie Brotman Goldschlager’s birthday.  She would have been 119 this year.

So happy birthday, Grandma, and happy blogiversary to me!  Thank you all for being with me on this journey.  I can’t believe in a year that I have made so much progress in learning about my mother’s family and my father’s family, although I am humbled by how much more I have to learn.

And there is another reason for posting today.  Tomorrow night is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  So it is not only the beginning of a new year for me with my blogging and genealogy adventures, it is a time for being thankful for all our blessings and for being reflective about the year that has gone by and the year to come.  So let me reflect for a moment on this past year.

 

First and foremost, this year has brought the miracle of more children into the family.  I am particularly grateful for the birth of my grandson Remy, now over three months old, a happy, smiling baby with a sweet and calm disposition.  Two of my cousins also had new grandchildren this year, and perhaps there were others I don’t even know about yet who have enlarged our family tree.

Remy

Remy

 

Second, I am grateful for the continuing presence in my life of my family—both my immediate family and my extended family—and for all my friends who are like family to me.   I wish for you all a new year of good health, peace of mind, gratitude for all you have, and joyfulness.

Third, I want to thank and recognize all my genealogy friends—fellow bloggers, Facebook genealogy group members, the people at JewishGen.org and JRI Poland and Gesher Galicia, and, of course, Renee Steinig, my mentor who has inspired me and taught me so much.  May we all continue to work together to break down brick walls, to find our roots, and to honor our ancestors as best we can.

Shana Tova to you all!  May you all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year, and may it be a sweet year for everyone.

 

 

English: Symbols of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish N...

English: Symbols of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year: Shofar, apples, honey in glass honey dish, pomegranates, wine, silver kiddush cup (Photo credit: Wikipedia)