Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
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.
If walls could talk—75 years in a Parisian villa
Insider dealings in the French jewelry trade. Swank cocktail parties for the Nazi elite. A rough-cut Jewish jeweler and his ebullient new wife. Where Henry Kissinger met Le Duc Tho.
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
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
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?
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
Rosa’s fateful choice
Rosa Feidt was the only Lewi sibling who got out, to her everlasting remorse
Shtetl life in Russian Rezhitsa
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
Our best documented family line is Feige Kaufler's ancestry among the Jewish families of Krakow.
The Rabinowitz family in Jewish Harlem
Joseph and Lena Rabinowitz were Russian immigrants who ran a corner grocery in Jewish Harlem. Their nine children were native Americans
The Yeserskys of Volkovysk
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"
In a dramatic moment while crossing the Mississippi River, he broke with his parents' austere Lutheranism for a more ecumenical approach