Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
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.
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.
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 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 Stetson family’s manifest destiny
From stalwart Yankee roots, Herbert and Hattie Stetson went west with the country
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.