I am in a holding pattern right now, waiting for some more documents and also waiting to talk with Elaine Ashin, who is Moses Brotman’s granddaughter (of the Brotmanville clan). I am also still working to find some way to determine our ancestral home town in Galicia. It’s frustrating sometimes, waiting to find more information, but it has always been worth it once it arrives.

So while we’re waiting, please consider sending in some pictures, old or new, of your family members. We created a new page for the “Newer Generations” that would include both current and older pictures of any of us—including our children, grandchildren, parents, etc.

It would also be nice to add some pictures to the pages set aside for the first, second and third generations. If you have lots of pictures to add, that’s great and easily done; Judy and I each compiled a Picasa online album of older pictures of our families and created links to those albums on the Max page and the Gussie page (see the bottom of each page); it would be nice to do that for Abraham, Hyman and Tilly also. If you want me to scan pictures for you, I’d be happy to do that also.

Also, I think it would be nice to add some personal recollections to the blog—your memories or feelings about your grandparents. I’ve done some of that on Gussie’s page, and some of her other grandchildren have added comments with their stories. It would be great to do that for Abraham, Max, Hyman, and Tilly also. Since I didn’t know any of them, I can’t do it without your help. So feel free to add comments on the blog, and then I can incorporate some of that to the pages themselves.

Meanwhile, I will keep you all updated about any new things I learn.

Oh, and GO SOX!

Thanks to all for the feedback and for the new pictures, corrections, and information.  I am trying to keep up with it, but if I forget, please remind me.

A few things: I am trying to be sensitive to privacy concerns.  For example, I wasn’t sure people wanted me to list their birthdays, spouse’s names, or other identifying information about anyone living.  Thus, I deleted all the information and only listed first names of the children and most of the living descendants.

Instead of the document that had included a lot of that information, I have posted a set of family trees.  You can find them if you click on Joseph’s Descendants: Family Trees.  These were not created by me directly, but by software that works with ancestry.com  Although I can fix errors in names and add and delete people through the ancestry.com site, I cannot rearrange people on the trees.  I know some of it is odd: first husbands listed after second husbands, for example.  Not my fault! So I can either leave the trees or delete them.  I can either leave the information on the pages incomplete or add every bit of information you want.  But I won’t do it unless you tell me you want me to.  

One more tip: click on the photos to zoom in and even zoom in again.  It’s great to be able to see old photos that were 3 inches or so enlarged enough to see more clearly.

That’s it for now.  Thanks again for your feedback.

Amy

First, thank you, Judy, for setting up the blog and putting up with all my confusion and questions as I struggled to figure out how to post pictures, text and documents here.  I still am not very good at this, and I am still trying to figure out how to move pictures around and to make things look better, but I decided that if I wait until it is perfect, no one will ever see it.

The blog is organized into separate pages: one for Joseph and Bessie and their story, documents and pictures, and then separate pages for each of the children we know of to this point: Max. Herman, Tilly, Gussie, Frieda and Sam.  On each page there are pictures and documents relating to that child and his/her descendants.  Obviously, I have the most pictures of Gussie’s line, but I am hoping that the rest of you will supply pictures of your grandparents, parents, siblings, children, etc.  I haven’t finished posting all I have for Gussie, but I wanted to get this out.

As for what’s next, I am still working to find out the name of the towns where Joseph and Bessie came from.  We know that they were cousins and likely did not live in the same town, but aside from one reference on Herman’s naturalization application to “Jeekief,” we have no information about where they lived in Galicia.

I also am still trying to determine whether we have a direct relation to the Brotmans of Brotmanville, NJ, or to Abraham Brotman of Brooklyn, for whom Max was the witness on his naturalization papers.

I have tried to protect the privacy of anyone living, so I have left it to you to identify your birthdates, your spouses, your children, grandchildren, etc., more specifically than I have.

Please give feedback! You can post comments or you can email me or Judy directly if you have pictures or documents to post.

ENJOY! I will post more about my research and what this process has been like for me.  I also still hope to meet some of my long lost cousins some time before too long.

Amy