Genealogy
October 15, 2018
Like any hobby or passion, there can be enormous expenses involved in it’s pursuit. I have paid for numerous DNA tests so that I can build a base of “known cousins” in order to find and match lost branches. I have paid for books, monthly fees to records databases, hosting and building this website, etc. I don’t expect any compensation for this and I guess I am grateful my hobby has a reasonable financial outlay compared to something like collecting Faberge eggs, mountain climbing in the Himalayas or other exotic pursuits. What I do want to share with you, and hopefully enroll your support in, is a new project I just started. Eager to find information about my mysterious grandfather Harry Spiel and his brother Morris, I’ve setup a project through JewishGen.org to transliterate the 14 documents I have so far received from a Ukrainian archive after purchasing them a […]
October 10, 2018
When I first started doing DNA testing and connecting the dots of my new cousins I had visions of the kind of family reunions you read about in Women’s Day. 100 people with matching family T-shirts grilling hot dogs and eating watermelon in a big park somewhere. Bulletin boards cluttered with family photos and three-legged sack races. Well, it didn’t take long to peel the rose-colored layer off my glasses. Not everyone was happy to hear from me. Many people with strong DNA matches never responded to my inquiries. I guess it’s a “thing” to get your DNA tested and see what percentage of you is Irish, never mind actually following up on who you might be related to. After sending an email to a second cousin who it took me months to locate, his wife told him that my email was spam and that I was probably looking for […]
September 30, 2018
As I mentioned on the home page of this website, I have been working on my family’s genealogy for at least 10 years now, but I didn’t get really serious about it until this past year. I’m not sure I can point to this as the reason, but I think the loss of both my parents played a large part in my turn toward the tree. After caring for them for so many years, I felt unmoored with their departures. My sense of family felt disconnected. We were a small family. My father was an only child, and my mother had one brother who died several years before her, leaving only one son. I made an effort to better know the cousins that I already had relationships with, and I started looking at that research again. The DNA tests I did on my parents were yielding emails from people wanting […]