Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
1968 Democratic convention
It was a signature moment of the turbulent 1960s. Walter, 18, and Dan, 15, were there in Chicago, working as messengers for the Eugene McCarthy campaign.
A milliner's daughter in Long Beach
Elly worked hard to earn a living as a hat maker while Helga adapted easily at Julia Richmond High School. In the summer, they took a room in a beach town on Long Island.
Abe Ratner in the seltzer business
The Ratner family became established in the Fifth Ward of Albany, N.Y. Abe bottled soda water and Rose nurtured a brood of children.
Action at a distance
Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations
Adventures in Israel—Walter and Joanne
Two of the Ruby offspring went back to Israel for significant periods.
Dan's 2018 research trip to Berlin and Gdansk
Dan supplemented his attendance at a Warsaw genealogy conference with a tour of family locations. Read his blog postings and view the post-trip video coverage.
Ed Eilertsen tribute puzzle
Ed loved crosswords, so Dan Ruby created a tribute puzzle for his memorial. Kate and Twyla were the clue crew.
Family History Machine is reborn in 2020
Machinist Dan Ruby and his team members envision a new future for Family History Machine
Green Valley Drive—our exurban childhood
Our years in Pittsburgh were spent in a tract house in a natural wonderland—backed up against a family farm and an equestrian estate.
Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime
Internment on the Isle of Man
German refugees in the UK, even Jews like Gerhart Feidt, were deemed potential enemy aliens
Janis Brenner—a Ratner in motion
An innovator in modern dance and choreography since breaking in with the Murray Lewis Dance Company in the 1980s. The Ratners moved geographically. Janis moves artistically.
Lest we forget—family Holocaust testimony
Remembering our Ringel and Wohlgemuth/Paechter family members who perished in the Shoah.
Liberal values in the 1960s
From civil rights to war resistance to arms control, Ruby family members embraced liberal social causes
Lisbon to New York—with a detour to Havana
The Ringel family crossed from Lisbon on the SS Guine—but their entry to the U.S. was anything but routine
Love conquers all as Gerhard marries Ilse
Two young Berliners make a modern marriage—with lasting consequences
Margot Dränger's survival story
Helga's second cousin suffered unimaginable traumas in and around Krakow from 1939 to 1945. She survived and gave testimony later in life
Meeting Harriet Berkowitz
Harriet Berkowitz was doubly distanced from her Rabinowitz roots, first by her father’s partial family estrangement and then by his divorce. But she shared a trove of precious family documents and childhood memories after discovering this blog.
Memories of young Stan
Stan was smart and fresh, with something to say about almost anything
Motives for mercy—the consuls of Toulouse
In July 1940, consular officials from three nations conspired to open an escape route for Jews out of occupied France. Why did they do it?
Our Brenner cousins
Janis, Leslie and Amy grew up—each a star in her own way.
Our family during the Nazi years in Berlin
During the first five years of Hitler's reign of terror, Jewish families of Berlin faced one repression after another.
Stan finds love outside of a 20-block radius
Home from the war, Stan Ruby was a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. Helga Ringel was a smart, pretty war refugee from Berlin
The early history of the Wohlgemuth family
In 1812 in Preußisch Stargardt, an elderly Jew Moses and his sons Salomon and Herz took the surname Wohlgemuth in exchange for Prussian citizenship rights. Our family, descended from Herz Wohlgemuth, stayed in Stargardt for the next three generations
The Kaufhaus at Schloßstraße 97
In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today
The Kauflers of Krakow
Our best documented family line is Feige Kaufler's ancestry among the Jewish families of Krakow.
The physics experiment that went wrong
How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?
The problem with anti-ballistic missiles
Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.
The Ringel family roots in old Rzeszów
Moses Ringel and Rose Lea Reichman raised a large family in Rzeszów in the Galizianer tradition
The Yeserskys of Volkovysk
Joseph Rabinowitz’s mother was Bertha Yesersky. Was she related to Sora Yesersky, the wife of Rabbi Elchanon Spektor?
Walter's first draft of family history
Cherry picking the best content from our founding document written in 2006: "The Ruby Family Histories — The Early Lives of Stanley and Helga Ruby"
Yichus and our relation to the famous rabbi
Walter thought he had proved the family legend of descent from the celebrated Kovno Rav, Rabbi Yitchak Elchanon Spektor. Later facts emerged that suggested a more tenuous connection.
Ze'ev and Penina Sharon of Kibbutz Afeq
A pioneer to Palestine in 1936, Ze’ev married Penina and they did their part to build the state of Israel as founders of Kibbutz Afek.