Maybe my ancestors heard the Yiddish expression “to live like God in Odesa!” and believed Odesa was the land of opportunity. Whatever the reason, members of three branches of my family emigrated there from within the Russian Empire. Mythical in the Jewish imagination, Odesa was a polyglot, free port city founded…
Category: Family history
“A direct contradiction of what should be”: The life of Charles Duer McCreary
“That a bright young man, honored by a fine position, favored with excellent health, and with an exceptional bright future before him, should meet death at his own hands seemed a direct contradiction of what should be.” The Inter Lake, Kalispell, Montana. January 6th 1893 I first came across Charles…
The two lives of Sam Schechowitz
A lot of people had questions about Sam. His first family, who knew him as Sam Schechowitz, wondered what happened to him when he disappeared in 1929. His second family knew him as Sam Miller and they wondered about his past. Through DNA and genealogical research, I’ve been able to…
In the beginning
I first got interested in genealogy a few years ago when I began researching my eligibility for Italian citizenship, jure sanguinis, by blood. Italy is one of the only European countries that will grant citizenship to family members further removed than grandchildren. But qualifying hinges on quite a lot of…