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.
A surprising double marriage in London
Rosa Ringel married Pinkas Twiasschor in a borough of London in January 1911, at the same time that Twiasschor's sister wed another Berlin businessman. What was that all about?
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.
An afternoon at Lake Merrit
In July 2003, Stan and Helga came to the East Bay for a golden summer outing.
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.
Edith and Gina — the Ringel cousins in London
Betty Ringel's two daughters were able to leave Germany before 1938. They were in the twenties and they settled in London.
Elly’s European travels
Elly lived out her senior years in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side. But she lived for her annual European vacations.
Escape from Berlin—last good chance to get out
Our reconstructed timeline: How Elly and Helga Ringel were smuggled with SS escort out of Germany and across the Belgian border in October 1938
Family History Machine is reborn in 2020
Machinist Dan Ruby and his team members envision a new future for Family History Machine
Fourth Generation Rubys
Just a bit about Twyla, Gene, Zach and Lani.
From Rezitsa to Rostov
Sholom and Sophie Tulbowitz left their ancestral town in the 1870s to settle for 20 years in Russia near Rostov-on-Don.
Ghosts of Weißensee—the cemetery played on
How did Betty Katz meet her end in February 1942?
Grad-student life in a packet of letters
Stan maintained correspondence with his closest high school and Army buddies, several of whom went on to prominent careers.
Grammy — everyone’s favorite grandmother
She made each of her six grandchildren feel special
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
Helga in the League of Women Voters
Helga expressed a commitment to liberal values in her lifelong work for the League of Women Voters.
Hermann Ringel's German citizenship
When Hermann turned 21 in 1906, he presented documentation to secure legal German citizenship.
In the Signal Corps in New Guinea
Stan strung transmission wires in the South Pacific during World War II.
Jews in jazz—the big band era
Stan's musical idol was Benny Goodman, the King of Swing.
Just so—how the Rubys got their name
When and why did Walter Rabinowitz take on our abbreviated last name? He may have gotten the idea during intermission at a Bronx nickelodeon
Kindergarten campaigner
In 1955, Helga led a committee of parents to open a preschool in Vestal.
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
Long Beach—taking in the Klein family
During the Depression, families helped each other out. The Kleins moved in with the Rubys in Long Beach.
Memories of young Stan
Stan was smart and fresh, with something to say about almost anything
Mössbauer man—Stan makes his mark in physics
Stan's innovations in Mossbauer spectroscopy.
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?
Musical appreciation in the Ruby household
From Mozart to swing to the Grateful Dead.
On Hill Avenue
The Ruby family comes of age in a bedroom suburb west of Chicago
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.
Our Ruby name—sullied in Dallas
Lee Harvey Oswald's killer Jack Ruby was not related to our family. He tarnished our family name in the history books.
Ratner family in Albany
Rearing eight children in Albany’s Third Ward
Ratner family passage to America
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
Herman Ringel and Walter Ruby wore opposing uniforms in the Great War
Rose Ratner's scar—the 1881 pogrom in Rostov
The Tulbowitz tavern in Novocherkassk was overrun by Cossacks during the Rostov pogrom of 1881
Sidney Kessler and American Spirits
Walter Ruby's boss in the liquor business became an influential figure in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
Split decision on restored German citizenship
Both Dan and Joanne applied for reclaimed citizenship under Article 116 of the German Constitution, but only Joanne’s application was approved
Sputnik in the backyard
Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.
Stan at Brant Lake
Stan summered at a Jewish summer camp in the Adirondacks.
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 corkscrew on eBay—sourcing family artifacts
Out of the files of the U.S. Patent Office and into the peculiar subculture of corkscrew collectors
The family secret behind grandfather's desk calendar
A surprising artifact discovered after a parent's death leads to a series of discoveries and a new pastime in genealogy
The Felensteins of Long Island
Joan Ruby married Milton Felenstein. Their life and family in Rockville Centre.
The North American Ringel branch
When his siblings went to Berlin in the 1880s, Jakob Schia Ringel went to Hamburg, then Glasgow and Montreal. His two daughters raised families in the New York area
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 Ringels in Berlin—time of prosperity
From 1880s to the 1930s, the Ringel family prospered in the garment trade in the German capital. Herman made men's outerwear.
The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection
The Scheunenviertal in the 1880s
Schija Ringel came from Poland to seek his fortune in Berlin’s old Jewish district.
Third Generation Rubys
First came Walter, then Danny and Joanne. They would carry on the Ruby-Ringel genes.
Turning over rocks to find long-lost relatives
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
The Ringel sisters, Betty Twiasschor and Rosa Schattner, lived with their children in adjacent apartments on Lothringerstraße.
Twyla's childhood
Outlooks of a pre-millennial
Walter Ruby and the Carioca Cooler
The U.S. liquor industry took off after the repeal of Prohibition. Walter Ruby was the marketing manager for the American Spirits company
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"
Wild goose chase—an accident in Jersey City
A newspaper clipping placed Walter Ruby on the scene of an automobile wreck in Hudson County, N.J. Not every lead pans out.
Young man on the make in the Roaring Twenties
Walter Ruby hustled his way as a traveling silver salesman, with some career side trips into boxing promotion and medicinal alcohol.
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.