Long-lost relatives I didn't even know existed
People, I am so excited that I don't know what to do. I was about to head to bed, wiped out from astronomy class (telescope optics are cool, but my brain = not so loving of physics), when I did the perfunctory final e-mail check of the night, not expecting anything in particular. Little did I know...
Now yesterday was an interesting correspondence day -- out of the blue, I got an e-mail from someone who apparently recently found me on a genealogical website. Last summer on my trip to southeast Poland, I visited the shtetls of my father's mother and father (this was meant to be summarized in a travelogue here months ago, but I haven't gotten around to it yet -- it was a stressful, deeply emotional, and moving experience, especially as I was the first person in my family to walk the streets of these towns since 1940) and upon my return, I posted photos and information on this website. I had downloaded useful, if really bare-bones, information from the site a week or so before my trip, and so wanted to share my findings and help the next person heading out on a roots journey so they would have more information and a better sense of what they'd find. I also have been hoping for a while to find my long-lost Argentinian cousins, whose grandparents stopped writing to my grandparents after a money-related family feud back in the 30s, and I figured that listing myself on this genealogical website would be a good start. Anyway, yesterday, almost a year after posting my information, I got this surprise e-mail in my inbox from Ms. Potential Relative: she had found me on the site, her grandfather had the same last name as my grandmother and had been born in the same small town (but had moved to Berlin as a child in the 1880s), her family knows that someone (a cousin?) had moved from Berlin to Northern California (perhaps this was my branch?), and did I think we might be related?
Now very few documents regarding my paternal grandmother's family have survived (this, of course, because both family members and town documents were destroyed during the war), and the generation of people who might have had a real grip on oral history are now all gone as well. My father's generation is now the oldest generation around, and as I understand it, their parents tended to not talk much about their families, especially once it became clear that everyone who had stayed behind had been killed (Galicia, the part of Poland/Ukraine/the Austro-Hungarian Empire (depending on year) where my dad's parents hailed from, was the starting point for the solution to the "Jewish problem" and almost no one made it out of there alive). So I had no idea if I might be related to Ms. Potential Relative -- none of the family names she gave had any meaning to me. I wrote back and said that I currently didn't know enough to know, but that it seemed likely given the smallness of the town (even though the name is a pretty common one), and that I had passed along her e-mail to my dad and uncle and maybe they would know something.
Tonight that last perfunctory e-mail check of the night brought in Ms. Potential Relative's response. She had provided the names of a few more relatives and had also attached her grandfather's 1939 Berlin passport photo, and dear reader, now that I have looked at this photo there is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Potential Relative is actually Ms. Long-Lost-and-I-Didn't-Know-She-Existed Relative. Of course the first impression was totally gestalt: I opened the photo, zoomed in, and said to myself, "My god, that looks just like Grandma!" Maybe it'll be obvious not just to me, but also to people who didn't know her (e.g., you). Here is a cropped version of the 1939 photo of my newly found relative's grandfather.
And now here is a cropped version of a 1928 wedding photo of my grandmother.
Look! There's no way they're not related. Look at their eyes! Look at the faint cleft in their chins! The shape of their mouths! It's all the same!!!!! (!!!!!!) He's about 25 years older, so maybe an uncle? I feel like they have to be closely related to look so similar.
My god, I have a whole branch of the family that I didn't know about until just now!! I am WIDE awake, it is all too exciting. I'd better go e-mail some cousins and let them know.
Now yesterday was an interesting correspondence day -- out of the blue, I got an e-mail from someone who apparently recently found me on a genealogical website. Last summer on my trip to southeast Poland, I visited the shtetls of my father's mother and father (this was meant to be summarized in a travelogue here months ago, but I haven't gotten around to it yet -- it was a stressful, deeply emotional, and moving experience, especially as I was the first person in my family to walk the streets of these towns since 1940) and upon my return, I posted photos and information on this website. I had downloaded useful, if really bare-bones, information from the site a week or so before my trip, and so wanted to share my findings and help the next person heading out on a roots journey so they would have more information and a better sense of what they'd find. I also have been hoping for a while to find my long-lost Argentinian cousins, whose grandparents stopped writing to my grandparents after a money-related family feud back in the 30s, and I figured that listing myself on this genealogical website would be a good start. Anyway, yesterday, almost a year after posting my information, I got this surprise e-mail in my inbox from Ms. Potential Relative: she had found me on the site, her grandfather had the same last name as my grandmother and had been born in the same small town (but had moved to Berlin as a child in the 1880s), her family knows that someone (a cousin?) had moved from Berlin to Northern California (perhaps this was my branch?), and did I think we might be related?
Now very few documents regarding my paternal grandmother's family have survived (this, of course, because both family members and town documents were destroyed during the war), and the generation of people who might have had a real grip on oral history are now all gone as well. My father's generation is now the oldest generation around, and as I understand it, their parents tended to not talk much about their families, especially once it became clear that everyone who had stayed behind had been killed (Galicia, the part of Poland/Ukraine/the Austro-Hungarian Empire (depending on year) where my dad's parents hailed from, was the starting point for the solution to the "Jewish problem" and almost no one made it out of there alive). So I had no idea if I might be related to Ms. Potential Relative -- none of the family names she gave had any meaning to me. I wrote back and said that I currently didn't know enough to know, but that it seemed likely given the smallness of the town (even though the name is a pretty common one), and that I had passed along her e-mail to my dad and uncle and maybe they would know something.
Tonight that last perfunctory e-mail check of the night brought in Ms. Potential Relative's response. She had provided the names of a few more relatives and had also attached her grandfather's 1939 Berlin passport photo, and dear reader, now that I have looked at this photo there is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Potential Relative is actually Ms. Long-Lost-and-I-Didn't-Know-She-Existed Relative. Of course the first impression was totally gestalt: I opened the photo, zoomed in, and said to myself, "My god, that looks just like Grandma!" Maybe it'll be obvious not just to me, but also to people who didn't know her (e.g., you). Here is a cropped version of the 1939 photo of my newly found relative's grandfather.
And now here is a cropped version of a 1928 wedding photo of my grandmother.
Look! There's no way they're not related. Look at their eyes! Look at the faint cleft in their chins! The shape of their mouths! It's all the same!!!!! (!!!!!!) He's about 25 years older, so maybe an uncle? I feel like they have to be closely related to look so similar.My god, I have a whole branch of the family that I didn't know about until just now!! I am WIDE awake, it is all too exciting. I'd better go e-mail some cousins and let them know.
posted by Pangea at 11:20 PM
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