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.
Action at a distance
Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations
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 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.
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
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
Mössbauer man—Stan makes his mark in physics
Stan's innovations in Mossbauer spectroscopy.
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
Sputnik in the backyard
Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.
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 physics experiment that went wrong
How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?
The problem with anti-ballistic missiles
Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.
The Ringel family roots in old Rzeszów
Moses Ringel and Rose Lea Reichman raised a large family in Rzeszów in the Galizianer tradition
The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection
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.
Walter Ruby and the Carioca Cooler
The U.S. liquor industry took off after the repeal of Prohibition. Walter Ruby was the marketing manager for the American Spirits company