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

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

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

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

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 problem with anti-ballistic missiles
  • October 6 1968 - March 10 1969

Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.

The Stetsons of Sumner, Maine
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Militiaman Hezekiah Stetson homesteaded in Oxford County, Maine, in the years after the American Revolution

Ze'ev and Penina Sharon of Kibbutz Afeq
  • 1935 - 2009

A pioneer to Palestine in 1936, Ze’ev married Penina and they did their part to build the state of Israel as founders of Kibbutz Afek.