Family Story Finder
The sweep of family history across the generations
Abraham Blokh came from Minsk
Before he became Abe Ratner, he was Abraham Blokh from Minsk.
Benjamin Hopper settles in California
Fleeing English coal country, he founded the family base in California's Central Valley
Eilertsens at sea
Members of a farming family took to the sea both as an occupational calling and a means of emigration
Family History Machine is reborn in 2020
Machinist Dan Ruby and his team members envision a new future for Family History Machine
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
From Rezitsa to Rostov
Sholom and Sophie Tulbowitz left their ancestral town in the 1870s to settle for 20 years in Russia near Rostov-on-Don.
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
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
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
The corkscrew on eBay—sourcing family artifacts
Out of the files of the U.S. Patent Office and into the peculiar subculture of corkscrew collectors
The Eilertsens in Brooklyn
From Red Hook to Gerritsen Beach to Bay Ridge, Jack and Camilla Eilertsen lived the Norwegian immigrant experience in Brooklyn
The Ringel family roots in old Rzeszów
Moses Ringel and Rose Lea Reichman raised a large family in Rzeszów in the Galizianer tradition
The Stetson family’s manifest destiny
From stalwart Yankee roots, Herbert and Hattie Stetson went west with the country
The Wohlgemuths in Danzig
Before moving his family to Berlin in 1912, Isaak Wohlgemuth prospered as a mover in Danzig. His family roots were in nearby West Prussia.
Tulbowitz in the USSR—an alternative history
If Sholom Tulbowitz had gone to Dvinsk instead of Rostov, as his cousin did, his Ratner descendants might have grown up in Perm instead of Albany.
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.