Family Branches
Great Eight branches
Rabinowitz
The Rabinowitz family may be descended on the maternal side from the Yesersky family of Vaukavysk, who were related by marriage to Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanon Spektor. In 1873, Joseph Rabinowitz came to New York with his wife Lena and they raised a family in Jewish Harlem.
Related branches
Lincoff, Yesersky, Ruby
Lincoff
Little is yet known about this branch, except that Lena and her brother Arthur Linkoff arrived in New York together with Joseph Rabinowitz, so can be presumed to also originate in a community in Grodno Province, possibly in the vicinity of Vawkavysk.
Related branches
Rabinowitz
Ratner
Abraham Ratner was really Abraham Bloch, having taken the new surname during his illegal exit from Russia while evading military service. He came from unknown parentage in Minsk and settled later outside the Pale of Settlement in the Rostov area, gateway to Crimea. With his wife, Rose Ratner from the Tulbowitz family, he raised a large family in Albany, New York.
Related branches
Ruby, Tulbowitz
Tulbowitz
The Tulbowitz family went forth and multiplied in the town of Rezhitsa in Vitebsk province, now the city of Rezekne in Latvia. Our Tulbowitz ancestors left Rezhitsa in about 1870, not for the Golden Medina or western Europe but to Russian territory near the Black Sea in the town of Novocherkassk. Rose Ratner was born and raised there. She came to America with her husband Abraham Ratner. They settled in Albany, New York, together with the Tulbowitz elders.
Related branches
Ratner, Gorelik
Ringel
The Ringel family has its roots in the traditional Galician town of Rzeszow, then part of Austria and now Poland. Moses Ringel and his wife Rose Lea Reichmann had five children who would all later seek better opportunities in cosmopolitan Germany. Our ancestor came to Berlin in 1880 and laid roots that lasted there for the next 60 years.
Related branches
Wohlgemuth, Ruby
Wohlgemuth
Two Wohlgemuth brothers took the surname in the town of Preußich Stargard in the West Prussian Jewish emancipation of 1812. Several generations later, our ancestor took a wife from the Paechter family of Tiegenhof. Our family members later lived and succeeded in business in Elbing and Danzig before settling in Berlin. They were proud Germans who also maintained their Jewish faith.
