I know that I have asked for help before, and many of you have responded by sending some pictures and other documents.  Those contributions have really been helpful in learning about our family and the various personalities and relationships.  For example, one wedding picture helped us figure out that Judy and I were both talking about the same Uncle Sam.  One bar mitzvah picture showed that as of 1957,  Gussie’s children and Hyman’s children were still connected.  One hand-written family tree helped to confirm that Abraham’s children and Max’s children had met.

But now I am asking you all to try and find pictures, letters, journals, any documents that may also shed light on our grandparents and great-grandparents as well as our parents and ourselves.  I know that somewhere some of you must have old family pictures like I had.  Maybe you have a wedding album or bar mitzvah album, a box of random old photos or letters.  Maybe someone even has a photo of Frieda or Joseph or another relative, but you had no idea who they were.  Maybe there’s an old newspaper clipping or a birth certificate or draft card or some other document buried in your attic or basement.

I know that you are all busy, and I know that the thought of digging through dusty, musty boxes and albums is not that pleasant.  I just am asking that you perhaps make a resolution for 2014 that you will spend one or two hours seeing if you can find anything.  If you don’t have a scanner, you can mail whatever you have to me, and I will scan it.  I promise to return all the originals once I have scanned them.  If you can scan documents, that would be wonderful also.

No one likes a nag, and I don’t want to be one, but we will all benefit from your efforts.  I hope you will consider spending a little time engaged in a hunt for these things.  From my own experience, I can tell you that I have found great joy and satisfaction in looking at the faces of our relatives in those old pictures.  I hope you will also.