Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

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

Mercantile roots in old Danzig
  • 1850 - 1910

Three brothers of the Kleemann family from the Weinberg district of 19th century Danzig operated a coffee and tea import business. Hugo Lewi married into the family and was a dealer in military effects. 

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
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Stan summered at a Jewish summer camp in the Adirondacks.

The Kaufhaus at Schloßstraße 97
  • 1907 - 2001

In 1907, Moritz Feidt built a department store in Berlin Stieglitz. It still stands today