The sweep of family history across the generations
Before he became Abe Ratner, he was Abraham Blokh from Minsk.
Fleeing English coal country, he founded the family base in California's Central Valley
Widow Patty Smith Swett and six children by two husbands were among the first settlers who staked claims in Wapello County near Ottumwa in May 1843
Betty Ringel's two daughters were able to leave Germany before 1938. They were in the twenties and they settled in London.
Members of a farming family took to the sea both as an occupational calling and a means of emigration
Isetta Stetson descended from early Massachusetts colonists, going all the way back to the Mayflower on one side. Nine generations later, her midwestern parents still upheld Yankee values
Sholom and Sophie Tulbowitz left their ancestral town in the 1870s to settle for 20 years in Russia near Rostov-on-Don.
Insider dealings in the French jewelry trade. Swank cocktail parties for the Nazi elite. A rough-cut Jewish jeweler and his ebullient new wife. Where Henry Kissinger met Le Duc Tho.
Families from Connecticut settled northeastern Ohio in the early 1800s
The Ringel family crossed from Lisbon on the SS Guine—but their entry to the U.S. was anything but routine
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?
Abe Blokh became Abe Ratner to avoid conscription and get out of Russia. With his young wife and her mother, they voyaged from Bremen to Leeds to New York
Rosa Feidt was the only Lewi sibling who got out, to her everlasting remorse
From Red Hook to Gerritsen Beach to Bay Ridge, Jack and Camilla Eilertsen lived the Norwegian immigrant experience in Brooklyn
Social reformer Nathan Meeker was among nine men killed in an uprising of Ute Indians at the White River reservation where he was serving as U.S. agent. His wife and daughter—Smith family descendants—were held hostage for three weeks
Moses Ringel and Rose Lea Reichman raised a large family in Rzeszów in the Galizianer tradition
From stalwart Yankee roots, Herbert and Hattie Stetson went west with the country
Before moving his family to Berlin in 1912, Isaak Wohlgemuth prospered as a mover in Danzig. His family roots were in nearby West Prussia.
If Sholom Tulbowitz had gone to Dvinsk instead of Rostov, as his cousin did, his Ratner descendants might have grown up in Perm instead of Albany.