Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

Abe Ratner in the seltzer business
  • -

The Ratner family became established in the Fifth Ward of Albany, N.Y. Abe bottled soda water and Rose nurtured a brood of children.

Family History Machine is reborn in 2020
  • -

Machinist Dan Ruby and his team members envision a new future for Family History Machine

Grad-student life in a packet of letters
  • -

Stan maintained correspondence with his closest high school and Army buddies, several of whom went on to prominent careers.

Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
  • -

Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime

Mel Brenner
  • -

Mel accomplished many things in life, but his life’s greatest moments happened during the Battle of the Bulge

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 Eilertsens in Brooklyn
  • -

From Red Hook to Gerritsen Beach to Bay Ridge, Jack and Camilla Eilertsen lived the Norwegian immigrant experience in Brooklyn

The Rabinowitz family in Jewish Harlem
  • 1875 - 1917

Joseph and Lena Rabinowitz were Russian immigrants who ran a corner grocery in Jewish Harlem. Their nine children were native Americans

The Rabinowitz girls
  • -

Meta, Blossom and Sadie