Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

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

Rabbi Spektor's true genealogy
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Most of what we discovered about Rabbi Spektor's genealogy was entirely true. All but the myth of our family's connection to it

Stan finds love outside of a 20-block radius
  • April 1946 - June 1947

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
  • 1938 - 1939

Out of the files of the U.S. Patent Office and into the peculiar subculture of corkscrew collectors

Yichus and our relation to the famous rabbi
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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.