Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

Abe Ratner in the seltzer business
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The Ratner family became established in the Fifth Ward of Albany, N.Y. Abe bottled soda water and Rose nurtured a brood of children.

Brood of Haskells in Chautauqua County
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After service in the War of 1812, Vermonter George Haskell set out with his third wife and many previous children for new lands in the west

Family roots in the Plymouth colony
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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

From Rezitsa to Rostov
  • 1875 - 1892

Sholom and Sophie Tulbowitz left their ancestral town in the 1870s to settle for 20 years in Russia near Rostov-on-Don.

Grammy — everyone’s favorite grandmother
  • 1941 - 1981

She made each of her six grandchildren feel special

Life on the Western Reserve
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Families from Connecticut settled northeastern Ohio in the early 1800s

Long Beach—taking in the Klein family
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During the Depression, families helped each other out. The Kleins moved in with the Rubys in Long Beach.

Memories of young Stan
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Stan was smart and fresh, with something to say about almost anything

Our family during the Nazi years in Berlin
  • February 1933 - September 1942

During the first five years of Hitler's reign of terror, Jewish families of Berlin faced one repression after another.

Ratner family in Albany
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Rearing eight children in Albany’s Third Ward

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

Ringel vs. Ruby in World War I
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Herman Ringel and Walter Ruby wore opposing uniforms in the Great War

Rose Ratner's scar—the 1881 pogrom in Rostov
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The Tulbowitz tavern in Novocherkassk was overrun by Cossacks during the Rostov pogrom of 1881

The Stetson family’s manifest destiny
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From stalwart Yankee roots, Herbert and Hattie Stetson went west with the country

Turning over rocks to find long-lost relatives
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During the course of my genealogy work, I have discovered and connected with cousins from all my family branches. Here are some lessons learned.

Two Ringel sisters manage on their own
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The Ringel sisters, Betty Twiasschor and Rosa Schattner, lived with their children in adjacent apartments on Lothringerstraße. 

Young man on the make in the Roaring Twenties
  • March 1919 - September 1929

Walter Ruby hustled his way as a traveling silver salesman, with some career side trips into boxing promotion and medicinal alcohol.