Genealogy with Rabbi Scott

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Genealogy with Rabbi Scott Rabbi Scott Kalmikoff is a professional Jewish genealogist based in NYC.

He conducts private, personalized genealogical research for those interested in discovering their family history.

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Je...
08/17/2026

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Mark first visited the center in March to research his great-grandparents, Rubin and Dora Kimmel, in preparation for a trip to Lithuania this summer. During his initial visit, we learned that his great-grandfather, Rubin Kimmel, was born Rubin Kimels in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1874, the son of Hertz and Pesia Kimels.

This time, we dug deeper into the family’s history and uncovered an unexpected chapter. Records revealed that Hertz Kimels had been married before he wed Pesia. In the 1858 Revision List, Hertz appears with his first wife, Henia, and their children, Moshe and Pesia Gittel. We located Henia’s death record and learned that she died in Vilnius on October 3, 1872. After her passing, Hertz married Pesia, with whom he had three sons: Rubin, Yona, and Leizer.

Additional records showed that Hertz died in Vilnius on January 10, 1893. His widow, Pesia, later immigrated to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island on November 11, 1903.

Mark then turned his attention to his great-grandmother, Dora. Family lore held that her maiden name was Levin. We knew from records in Vilnius that Dora’s father’s name was Chatzkel, a Yiddish form of Ezekiel, but before pursuing that lead, I wanted to verify her surname. We located the birth certificates of Rubin and Dora’s three oldest children, all born in New York City. To Mark’s surprise, those records identified Dora’s maiden name not as Levin, but as Schmuckler—opening an entirely new avenue for future research.

Adina, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, came to the center hoping to learn more about her grandfather, Alter Kalmanowicz. We located Alter’s displaced persons card from the postwar period, which revealed that he was born on October 14, 1903, in Suwałki, Poland, the son of Isaac Kalmanowicz and Henia Szejchatowicz.

While researching the family, I found the headstone of Alter’s brother, Isaac Joseph, who had changed his surname to Kolmen. The Hebrew inscription identified him as “Yitzchak Yosef, son of Yitzchak.” That immediately caught my attention. Among Ashkenazi Jews, children are traditionally named after deceased relatives, making it unusual for a son to bear the same name as a living father. I suspected that their father may have died before Isaac was born and that he had been named in his memory.

Further research on JewishGen confirmed the theory. We found birth records for Alter, Isaac, and an older sister named Esther—someone Adina had never heard of before. The records revealed that Alter and Isaac were twins and that their father had died in Königsberg, Prussia (today Kaliningrad, Russia), in March 1903, eight months before their birth.

We also discovered that Esther married Jacob Routensztejn in Suwałki on July 8, 1927, and that they had a daughter named Judith. Tragically, Esther, Jacob, and Judith were all murdered during the Holocaust.

One particularly moving moment came when we found a photograph of Esther and Jacob that had been uploaded to Ancestry.com by one of Jacob’s relatives. For the first time, Adina learned of her great-aunt Esther’s existence—and saw her face.

During Ruth’s previous visit, we focused on her maternal grandmother’s family. This time, she wanted to learn more about her maternal grandfather’s side and, in particular, locate her grandfather’s brother. The challenge? His original surname was Zeckczer, but after immigrating to the United States he changed his name to Sam Cohen. Finding a Sam Cohen in Brooklyn felt like searching for a needle in a haystack, and we joked about the odds of success.

Fortunately, Ruth knew a few key details: Sam’s second wife was named Sylvia, and he had a daughter she believed was named Sherry. Using those clues, we located the family in the 1940 and 1950 U.S. censuses. There was Sam, living in Brooklyn with Sylvia and his children from his first marriage, Irwin and Cherie—not Sherry, as family memory had preserved.

We then discovered that Sam had married Katie Cohen in New York City on August 18, 1924. Their marriage certificate identified Sam’s parents—Ruth’s great-grandparents—as Markus Zeckczer and Cirl Oxenhorn. Katie died in 1937, and Sam remarried Sylvia the following year. Katie’s burial records provided another breakthrough. She was buried with the First Independent Kamionka Strumilowa Young Men’s Benevolent Association, a landsmanshaft for immigrants from present-day Kamyanka-Buzka, Ukraine. This clue led us to the family’s town of origin.

From there, we found Markus and Cirl’s marriage record, which identified Ruth’s great-great-grandparents as Abraham Ber and Basche Riwe Zeckczer and Feiwel and Scheindel Ochsenhorn. We also located birth records for Ruth’s grandfather and his siblings, revealing that Markus (Mordechai) Zeckczer and Cirl Ochsenhorn had ten children:
Abraham Salomon
Simon Mendel (later Sam Cohen)
Feiwel
Basie Riwe
Scheindel
Juda Ber
Isak Hersch
Chaya Mindel
Chatzkel
Naftali Herz

Sandra’s father was born in London and immigrated to the United States as a young adult, leaving behind his entire family. Sandra never had the opportunity to know her grandparents, aunts, or uncles in the United Kingdom and hoped we could help her learn more about them.

We found the Lerner family in the 1911 England census. Sandra’s father was living with his mother, Rebecca, and his siblings Solomon, Esther, and Sarah. Rebecca was already widowed by that time and supported her family by operating a fruit stand.

When we located the family again in the 1921 England census, Rebecca was still earning her living as a fruit seller. The census also provided a valuable clue about her origins, recording her birthplace as “Colyus, Comenez Poldosk, Russia.” Further investigation identified this location as present-day Kalyus, Ukraine.

We also learned that Rebecca passed away in July 1944, just a few months after Sandra was born. Although Sandra never met her grandmother, census records and historical documents helped bring Rebecca’s life story into focus, offering a meaningful connection to a family she never had the chance to know.

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Je...
08/03/2026

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Ellen, visiting from California, asked if we could learn about her paternal grandfather, Samuel Shavelson. We found his naturalization papers which taught us that he came from Minsk, Russia. We wanted to figure out if Samuel came from the city of Minsk, the modern capital of Belarus, or if he came from a town or village in the Minsk province of the Russian Empire. Using the information in the naturalization papers, we found Samuel’s ship manifest from Ellis Island, showing him immigrating with his sister, Rachel, in 1907.

Samuel married Ellen’s grandmother, Sadie, his cousin, in 1920. We learned that before marrying Sadie, Samuel married Ida Wechselman in the Bronx in 1913. According to his marriage record, Samuel’s father was Solomon Shavelson and his mother was Ida Frucht.

We then searched for records for the Shavelsons in Belarus and found birth records for two babies, a baby Rubin born in Minsk in 1890 and a baby Rachel born in Minsk in 1895. The babies’ father was Shlomo (Solomon) and the babies’ mother was Itta (Ida). We concluded that these birth records were for Samuel’s siblings, including the sister Rachel who he immigrated to the US with. According to the birth records, the babies’ grandfathers were Samuel Shavelson and Nochum Frucht, Ellen’s great-great grandfathers. By finding those birth records, we concluded that Samuel came from the city of Minsk.

We were able to trace Ellen’s family tree back to her 6x great grandfather, Shavel which is who the family probably got their surname from.
Samuel - grandfather
Shlomo - great grandfather
Shmuel - 2x great grandfather
Zalmen - 3x great grandfather
Shavel - 4x great grandfather
Leizer - 5x great grandfather
Shavel - 6x great grandfather

Larry, also visiting from California, wanted to learn more about his maternal grandfather, Morris Weisstein. He was told his grandfather immigrated to America, went back to the old country, married his grandmother and then returned to the US with her. We found Morris’ naturalization papers which informed us that he was born in Potok, Austria and that he immigrated to the US in 1906, arriving at the port of Baltimore on February 15. We found Morris’ ship manifest showing him arriving on that date. He was going to a brother who lived in Rankin, Pennsylvania.

Morris became a US citizen on May 8, 1913 in NYC. He then applied for a US passport on June 19, 1913 so he could return to the old country. We then found the ship manifest with both Morris and his wife, Rose, coming to the US in September of 1913.

Morris passed away in Los Angeles in September of 1961. According to his death certificate, his father was Jacob Weisstein and his mother was Shifra Ast. Using this information, we found Morris’ birth record from Potok which is modern day Potik, Ukraine. We learned that Morris was one of 12 children born to Jacob Weisstein and Shifra Ast.

During her last visit, we learned that Rebecca’s great-great grandmother, Rebecca Goldstein, had a brother named Alter Fischler who lived in NYC. Rebecca returned to see if we could find information about Alter and his family. We learned that although he was mentioned as Alter Fischler in Rebecca’s great-great grandmother’s obituary, he was more commonly known as Walter Fischer in the US records.

Alter married Sarah Fal in Iasi, Romania in 1891. Alter and Sarah had three daughters who were born in Iasi: Yetta, Esther Devorah and Chaya. Alter immigrated to the US in 1901, sailing from Hamburg, Germany and arriving at Ellis Island on November 10. Sarah and their daughters followed a few months later, arriving at Ellis Island on April 14, 1902. Just two weeks later, Sarah gave birth to a third daughter, Mollie. Sarah immigrated to the US with their daughters while being pregnant with another. We noticed in the ship manifest that there was a fourth daughter, Etel, who was traveling with Sarah. We learned that Etel, later known as Adele, was Alter’s daughter from his first marriage to a woman named Nechama Schwartz.

In all, Sarah had a total of seven daughters who lived to adulthood: Yetta Seidman, Dorothy Reissman Sold, Clara Silverman, Mollie Rosedale, Gertrude Cetron, Evelyn Kronfeld, and Faye Benn in addition to Adele Plaxsun who was Alter’s daughter from his first marriage.

Nili, visiting from Israel, came to the museum for an event and only had a few minutes in the center before the program started. In the short time we had, we found Nili’s father’s and aunts’ Lithuanian Internal Passports which included their pictures. For the period 1919-1940, every Lithuanian citizen age 17 or older was required to have an internal passport. These passports could only be used to travel within Lithuania. However, these internal passports were not issued for the purpose of traveling - these were personal identification documents every Lithuanian citizen was issued at the age of 17, even if one had no intention of traveling. In the beginning of the 1920s, all the adult citizens, regardless of age, had to obtain internal passports. They had to prove the right to Lithuanian citizenship by producing evidence that they were residents of the territory of Lithuania before World War I.

Esther was told that her mother, aunt and uncle immigrated together from Luninyets, Belarus in 1928. She was also under the impression that they traveled through Canada, crossing the Canada-US border to reach their final destination, Detroit, MI. She had tried finding the manifest but was never able to locate it. By searching on Ancestry.com, we found the border crossing manifest showing Esther’s mother traveling with two of her siblings, Chaya and Rubin. They were going to another brother who had already settled in Detroit.

Esther was also told that her grandparents, the last in the family to immigrate to the US, came in 1930. Moshe and Beila Kowal actually immigrated in 1929, sailing from Rotterdam and arriving at the port of New York on April 7, 1929.

Steve, visiting from Florida, wanted to research his grandfather’s family, the Kessels, who lived in Newark, NJ. We started by finding his grandfather’s WW2 draft card which taught us that Irving Kessel was born in Lutsk, Russia. We then found a picture of his headstone which taught us that his Jewish name was Yitzchak, the son of Shraga Feivel. Based on my years of genealogical research, I knew that the vast majority of Jewish men named Irving were originally known as Isadore and that the vast majority of Jewish men with the Hebrew name Shraga Feivel were known as Phil/Philip in the US.

I then searched for earlier records for Irving Kessel and found him in the 1920 US Census living in Newark with his parents, Philip and Sarah, and his siblings. We then found Philip Kessel’s WW2 draft card and naturalization papers which said he was born in Lutsk, Russia, confirming that we had the correct family.

According to his naturalization papers, Philip immigrated to the US in 1907, sailing from Liverpool, England on the SS Caronia and arriving at Ellis Islands on November 22. Under the Basic Naturalization Act of 1906, any immigrant arriving after June 29, 1906, had to prove they were a lawfully admitted immigrant before they could naturalize. When an immigrant filed first papers (Declaration of Intention) or final papers (Petition for Naturalization), the government checked their original passenger arrival record. If the record was found, immigration officials issued a Certificate of Arrival and forwarded it to the local naturalization court.

We noticed that Philip’s Certificate of Arrival said that “no record of his arrival could be found” and that he arrived under the name Fabisch Kessel, Fabisch being a nickname for Feivel. We searched and learned that the SS Caronia did in fact arrive at Ellis Island on November 22, 1907. We scrolled through the pages and found a Feiwisch Flom who was coming from Lutsk and whose final destination was Newark, NJ. We believe this is Steve’s great grandfather but will need more evidence to prove it.

Robert never had a Bar Mitzvah, but is having one later in life. His rabbi suggested he research his family tree to connect with his Jewish roots in preparation for his adult Bar Mitzvah. He visited the center to learn about his ancestry. We focused our research on his grandmother, Celia Singer. We found Celia’s naturalization papers which taught us that her maiden name was Zimmerman and that she immigrated to the US in 1911, arriving at Ellis Island on April 3. The witnesses to her naturalization were Samuel and Anna Selinger. Using the information in the naturalization papers, we found Celia’s ship manifest. According to the manifest, her most recent residence was Wilna, Russia and her mother, Mera Zimmerman, was her point of contact in the old country. She was going to her brother-in-law, Abraham Pressman, who was living on the Lower East Side.

Fast forward nine years, we found Celia living on the Lower East Side with her sister, Annie (Hessie) Zimmerman Pressman and her family. A year later, Celia married Robert’s grandfather. Robert didn’t know that her grandmother had a sister. We then found Hessie Pressman immigrating to the US in August of 1906, also coming from Wilna.

We learned that Annie/Hessie’s husband, Abraham Pressman, died in 1933. Annie got remarried to a man named Samuel Selinger in 1936. We realized then that the Samuel and Anna Selinger who served as witnesses to Celia’s naturalization were her sister and brother-in-law.

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Je...
07/20/2026

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

David and his family are interested in obtaining Hungarian citizenship in order to secure EU passports. He asked whether we could research his family tree and locate documentation proving that his ancestors came from Hungary. We focused our investigation on David’s grandmother, Pauline Pick. In the 1930 U.S. Census, we found Pauline living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with her brother, Adolph Pick, and his family. Adolph’s marriage license revealed that he and Pauline were the children of Leo Pick and Rosa Neufeld. According to Adolph’s World War II draft card, he was born in Eperjes, Hungary—present-day Prešov, Slovakia.

We also discovered that Pauline’s parents had immigrated to the United States. Leo Pick died in Chicago in 1937. His death certificate states that he was born in Miskolc, Hungary, the son of Ignatz Pick and Theresa Gross. We then located a transcript of Leo’s birth record from Miskolc, confirming that he was born there on July 5, 1852. The record lists his parents as Ignatz P*k and Terez Grosz.

During Dana’s previous visits, we had concentrated on her mother’s side of the family. This time, we turned to her paternal grandfather, Harry Basen. We located Harry’s 1916 marriage certificate from New York City, which identified his parents as Kive Leib Basen and Mollie Topf. The certificate notes that Harry was living at 115 Essex Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and worked as a typewriter repairman. We then found the Basen family in the 1910 U.S. Census living at 117 Essex Street.

Further research showed that Harry’s father, Kive Leib, died in Brooklyn in 1932 and was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery with Congregation Massas Benjamin Anshei Podhajce, a burial society connected to Jews from Pidhaytsi, Ukraine. We also found Harry’s immigration record. Originally known as Hersh Bessen, he arrived in the United States in 1899 with his mother, Mollie (formerly Malie), and his older sister, Rebecca (formerly Rivka). The ship manifest lists their last residence as Podhajce and states that they were joining their husband and father, Kive, who had already settled in New York City. We then located Harry’s birth record in Pidhaytsi. He was recorded under his mother’s maiden name, Topf—a common practice among Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where children whose parents were not civilly married were legally required to use their mother’s surname.

Rebecca is planning a trip to Romania with her father to reconnect with their roots. Their family came from Iași, Romania’s third-largest city. We learned that Rebecca’s great-grandfather, Samuel Goldstein, settled in Wilmington, Delaware. His siblings and parents—Rebecca’s great-great-grandparents, Samuel and Rebecca Goldstein—also immigrated to the United States. The research was complicated by the fact that both Rebecca’s great-grandfather and his father were named Samuel Goldstein. However, headstone inscriptions, naturalization papers, and ship manifests clarified that Rebecca’s great-grandfather was originally known as Solomon/Shlomo and adopted the name Samuel after arriving in America. His father, by contrast, was always known as Samuel/Shmuel.

Romanian Jews were often reluctant to adopt hereditary surnames. As a result, many families used patronymics, with fathers’ given names appearing as surnames. U.S. records indicated that Samuel/Solomon Goldstein’s mother’s maiden name appeared variously as Rebecca Fisher, Fischler, or Fishel. We then found Rebecca Goldstein’s headstone, which states that her father was Shmuel Fishel—suggesting that Fishel was originally his middle name rather than a surname. This explains why her children reported multiple versions of her family name, including Fishel, Fisher, and Fischler.

According to her obituary, Rebecca Fishel/Fisher/Fischler Goldstein had a brother named Alter Fischler who lived in New York City. We discovered that Alter Fischler was also known as Walter Fischer, and that his wife was Sara Fall Fischer. We located a transcript of their 1891 marriage record from Iași, showing Alter Fisel marrying Sura Rifca Fal. The record names Alter’s parents as Shmuel Fishel and Feige, confirming them as Rebecca’s great-great-great-grandparents. This was further corroborated by Rebecca Goldstein’s 1934 death certificate from Wilmington, which lists her parents as Shmuel Fischler and Feiga.

Jonah asked if we could research his grandmother’s family. We began with a quick search on Ancestry.com and, within minutes, traced the family back to Jonah’s great-great-grandparents. In the 1940 U.S. Census, Jonah’s grandmother was living at 881 Lexington Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her parents, Louis and Minnie Starnbach, and her maternal grandmother, Sarah Ginsberg. Sarah, Jonah’s great-great-grandmother, was already widowed by 1940.

We then found Louis and Minnie’s marriage certificate, showing that they were married in Cincinnati on March 31, 1931. Minnie was living at 881 Lexington Avenue at the time, and the certificate names her parents as Morris Ginsberg and Sarah Shalitzky. We subsequently located the Ginsberg family at the same address in the 1930 U.S. Census. Since Sarah Ginsberg was already widowed by then, we knew Morris must have died before 1930. Further records showed that he died in 1929, while Sarah died in 1958. Her headstone identifies her Jewish name as Tzirl, daughter of Eliezer Shalitzky—Jonah’s great-great-great-grandfather. Once we knew Sarah’s Jewish name, we searched for her immigration record and found that she immigrated to the United States with her children in 1912 through Baltimore, with Cincinnati as their final destination. The ship manifest lists their last residence as Brest-Litowsk, Russia—modern-day Brest, Belarus.

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Je...
07/06/2026

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Cheryl visited the museum hoping to learn more about her grandparents, Abraham and Ida Kallem. We found the Kallem family in the 1930 U.S. Census, living on Metcalf Avenue in the Bronx. Cheryl was surprised to discover that her great-grandmother, Anna Adelman—Ida’s mother—had also immigrated to America and was living with the family. We learned that Anna passed away just a few months after the census was taken, on October 12, 1930. Her headstone revealed her Jewish name: Chana Rochel, daughter of Zelig. We then traced Anna’s journey to America in 1910, when she sailed from Liepāja, Latvia, arriving at Ellis Island on September 26. Her last residence was listed as Dwinsk, now Daugavpils, Latvia.

We also learned that Chana’s husband, Notka/Notel (Nathan) Adelman, died in Dvinsk on November 3, 1899. He was only 38 years old, the son of Abram Chaim Adelman, and originally from Salakas, Lithuania. Searching records from Salakas, we found Notka/Notel and Chana listed in an 1876 register of residents, along with their daughter Sarah. Also on the list were Notka/Notel’s siblings, their families, and his parents, Abram Chaim and Chaya Liba Adelman—Cheryl’s great-great-grandparents. We were even able to identify Abram Chaim’s father, Zelik Adelman, Cheryl’s great-great-great-grandfather.

Rachelle’s father was a Holocaust survivor from Warsaw. A relative had told her that before the war he had been married and had a child, but that both his first wife and child were murdered in the Holocaust. Her father never spoke of this devastating loss. Rachelle came hoping to learn the names of her father’s first wife and child—her half-sister.

We found Moshe Pieprzyk’s engagement announcement in Głos Gminy Żydowskiej (The Voice of the Jewish Community), a monthly Polish-language periodical published by the Warsaw Jewish Community from 1937 to 1939. In the May 1938 issue, Moshe was announced as engaged to Dyna Grynberg. We then searched the Yad Vashem database and found a Page of Testimony submitted by Dyna’s brother, Yaakov Grynberg, who survived the war and later settled in Israel. From that record, we learned that Dyna had a daughter named Esther—Rachelle’s half-sister. Finally learning her sister’s name brought tears to Rachelle’s eyes. It was a deeply emotional moment.

Diana had done some genealogical research on her own and came to the center hoping to take her work to the next level. She wanted to learn more about her great-grandparents, Benjamin Markowitz and Rose Guttman. In her earlier research, she had learned that they came from “Ribnitz.” We identified Ribnitz as modern-day Rîbniţa, Moldova—but there was a problem: all of the Markowitz family records listed their birthplace as Hungary, while Rîbniţa was historically part of the Russian Empire. Benjamin Markowitz’s death certificate added another clue, listing his birthplace as “Ribnitz, Austria-Hungary.”

We then located the birth record of Ida Markowitz, Diana’s great-aunt and her grandfather’s sister. According to the record, Benjamin and Rose were from Szobrancz, Hungary. We learned that Szobrancz is modern-day Sobrance, Slovakia, formerly part of Hungary. Looking more closely at the surrounding area, we found a nearby village called Nižná Rybnica. At last, we had solved the mystery: this was the “Ribnitz” from which the Markowitz family came.

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Je...
06/22/2026

Here are a few highlights from my day at the Peter and Mary Kalikow Jewish Genealogy Research Center at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Amy and Josh were visiting the museum while on vacation in New York City from Arizona. Amy shared that her grandfather was a Holocaust survivor from Germany and asked if we could learn more about his family history. We began by locating records showing Amy’s grandparents and uncle immigrating to the United States from Palestine in 1947. According to the ship manifest, Karl Kaufmann was born in Krotzenberg, Germany, and his wife, Sarah, was born in Lutsk, Russia. We identified these places as present-day Großkrotzenburg, Germany, and Lutsk, Ukraine. The manifest also revealed that they were traveling to join Karl’s uncle, Nathan Kaufmann, who was living in Woodstown, New Jersey.
Further research showed that Nathan, his wife, and their two sons had immigrated to the United States in 1940 and settled in southern New Jersey. Nathan’s World War II draft card listed his birthdate as March 2, 1891, in Großkrotzenburg. We then uncovered his original birth record, which named his parents as Karl Kaufmann and Hannchen Waller—Amy’s great-great-grandparents. It seemed likely that Amy’s grandfather had been named in honor of his own grandfather.

We also found Karl and Hannchen’s marriage record from Großkrotzenburg. They were married on June 21, 1880. Karl was the son of Jacob and Sarah Kaufmann, and Hannchen was the daughter of Herz and Regina Waller, making them Amy’s great-great-great-grandparents.
Using the JewishGen Worldwide Online Burial Registry, we located Karl and Hannchen’s burial records in the Jewish cemetery of Großkrotzenburg, where their gravestones still stand today. Karl died on December 8, 1909, and Hannchen died on June 25, 1927. Additional research in the Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen allowed us to trace Amy’s family line back to her fifth great-grandfather, Eliezer Waller.

Amy’s family line included:
Karl Kaufmann – grandfather
Herz Kaufmann – great-grandfather
Karl Kaufmann and Hannchen Waller – great-great-grandparents
Herz Waller and Regina Strauss – great-great-great-grandparents
Nathan Waller and Sprinz Oppenheimer – great-great-great-great-grandparents
Eliezer Waller – fifth great-grandfather

Josh then asked to research his great-grandfather, Jack Clousner. We found Jack in the 1940 U.S. Census living in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Sally, and their son, Philip. The census recorded Jack as born in New York and Sally in Illinois. We then discovered that Jack and Sally were married in New York City on August 20, 1929, and that Jack’s parents were Meyer and Annie. Interestingly, they were married not by a rabbi, but by a city clerk in a municipal building. When we checked the 1930 U.S. Census, we expected to find Jack and Sally living together as newlyweds. Instead, Jack was listed in his parents’ household with his siblings. He was marked as married, but Sally was not living there. Their son, Philip, was born in March 1931—just seven months after their wedding….

We also learned that although Jack used the surname Clousner, his parents and siblings used several alternate spellings, including Klousner, Klausner, and Klosner. Jack’s father, Meyer Klosner, died in 1952, and his mother, Annie Klosner, died in 1973. They are buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery with the First Zloczower Sick & Benevolent Association, a landsmanshaft for Jews from Zlochiv, Ukraine.

Searching records from Zlochiv, we located Jack’s original birth record. He was born there in 1903, the son of Meyer Klausner and Henie Ochs. The family immigrated to the United States in 1904, with Meyer arriving in March and Annie and Jack following in September. Although Jack had been born in Europe, he later reported that he was born in New York—a common practice among immigrants who arrived as young children and preferred to identify themselves as native-born Americans rather than immigrants.

Sandra had been researching her family tree but had been unable to uncover information about her grandmother, Anna Whellan. She wanted to learn her grandmother’s maiden name and where she came from.

We began by locating the marriage licenses of Sandra’s aunt and uncle, which listed their mother’s maiden name as Krepp. Using that clue, we searched for the marriage certificate of Meyer Whellan and Anna Krepp and discovered they were married in New York City on October 30, 1915. The certificate identified Anna’s parents as Harry (Hirsh) Krepp and Ethel Sokolosky.

Next, we searched for Anna’s passenger manifest and found her immigration record from 1912. She sailed from Antwerp, Belgium aboard the SS Lapland and arrived at Ellis Island on May 13. The manifest stated that she was coming from Wolpa, Russia—modern-day Volpa, Belarus. It also listed her contact in the old country as her mother, Elka Krepp. This revealed that her mother’s given name was Elka, and that it had been anglicized to Ethel on the marriage record.

We also learned that Elka later immigrated to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island in January 1921. She died in 1928 and was buried with the Chevra Ahavas Achim Anshei Volpa Umost, a landsmanshaft for Jews from Volpa. Her gravestone named her father as Yosef Sokolsky, Sandra’s great-great-grandfather.

Ruth deeply cherished her maternal grandmother, Rachel Zekcher. Rachel had moved to Vancouver to live with Ruth’s aunt and her family. After Rachel passed away, she was buried in Vancouver, while Ruth’s aunt, uncle, and other relatives later moved to Israel.

To begin our research, I located a photograph of Rachel’s grave in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry. Seeing her grandmother’s name carved in stone moved Ruth to tears. The headstone identified Rachel’s father as Moshe, Ruth’s great-grandfather.

Ruth knew that Rachel’s maiden name was Laszczower, that she came from Lviv, Ukraine, and that she had many siblings. She hoped to identify them and learn what became of them. Through records on JewishGen, we found that Rachel’s parents were Moshe Yitzchak Laszczower and Basie Lemel.

Rachel’s siblings were:

Miriam Laszczower Rothfleisch
Esther Laszczower Truczman
Benjamin Laszczower
Leibush Laszczower
Rojza Laszczower Babarach
Beatrice Laszczower Lemel
Sarah Laszczower Harris
Mala Laszczower
Feiwel Laszczower
Chana Feiga Laszczower

By searching Yad Vashem records, we learned that Miriam, Esther, Benjamin, Leibush, and Rojza were murdered in the Holocaust. Sarah and Beatrice immigrated to the United States, Mala died at age seventeen, and Feiwel moved to South America. The fate of Chana Feiga remains unknown.

We also located the marriage record of Ruth’s great-grandparents, which identified their parents as Feiwel and Chana Pesia Laszczower and Leibush and Beile Lemel, Ruth’s great-great-grandparents. The record also revealed that Moshe Laszczower originally came from Belz, Ukraine.

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