Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

Family roots in the Plymouth colony
  • -

Isetta Stetson descended from early Massachusetts colonists, going all the way back to the Mayflower on one side. Nine generations later, her midwestern parents still upheld Yankee values

Rabbi Spektor's true genealogy
  • -

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

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.  

Young man on the make in the Roaring Twenties
  • March 1919 - September 1929

Walter Ruby hustled his way as a traveling silver salesman, with some career side trips into boxing promotion and medicinal alcohol.