Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

Bradley homestead in Wapello County, Iowa
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Widow Patty Smith Swett and six children by two husbands were among the first settlers who staked claims in Wapello County near Ottumwa in May 1843

Family History Machine is reborn in 2020
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Machinist Dan Ruby and his team members envision a new future for Family History Machine

Grad-student life in a packet of letters
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Stan maintained correspondence with his closest high school and Army buddies, several of whom went on to prominent careers.

Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
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Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime

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

Mel Brenner
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Mel accomplished many things in life, but his life’s greatest moments happened during the Battle of the Bulge

Shtetl life in Russian Rezhitsa
  • 1790 - 1875

Today it is Rezekne in Latvia. In the 19th century, it was the village in Vitebsk Province where our Tulbowitz clan lived in the old Yiddish way

The Kauflers of Krakow
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Our best documented family line is Feige Kaufler's ancestry among the Jewish families of Krakow.

The Meeker Massacre
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Social reformer Nathan Meeker was among nine men killed in an uprising of Ute Indians at the White River reservation where he was serving as U.S. agent. His wife and daughter—Smith family descendants—were held hostage for three weeks

The Rabinowitz family in Jewish Harlem
  • 1875 - 1917

Joseph and Lena Rabinowitz were Russian immigrants who ran a corner grocery in Jewish Harlem. Their nine children were native Americans

The Rabinowitz girls
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Meta, Blossom and Sadie

The Yeserskys of Volkovysk
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Joseph Rabinowitz’s mother was Bertha Yesersky. Was she related to Sora Yesersky, the wife of Rabbi Elchanon Spektor?

When Ed Eilertsen "crossed the bridge"
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In a dramatic moment while crossing the Mississippi River, he broke with his parents' austere Lutheranism for a more ecumenical approach