Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

Demise of the cultured Lewi family
  • 1902 - 1942

Five siblings who stayed true to German ideals until the bitter end

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.

Just so—how the Rubys got their name
  • 1912 - 1939

When and why did Walter Rabinowitz take on our abbreviated last name? He may have gotten the idea during intermission at a Bronx nickelodeon

Love conquers all as Gerhard marries Ilse
  • 1931 - 1939

Two young Berliners make a modern marriage—with lasting consequences

Ratner family passage to America
  • July 1890 -

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

Stan at Brant Lake
  • -

Stan summered at a Jewish summer camp in the Adirondacks.