Showing posts with label Benditovich. Show all posts

Randy over at Genea-Musings has another great Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge for us tonight:

1. Who is your MRUA - your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name.
2. Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed?
3. What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your MRUA?
4. Tell us about him or her, and your answers to 2) and 3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or a comment on Facebook or some other social networking site.

As usual I will split this into my ancestry and then my wife's.

My MRUAs are half of my eight 2nd-great-grandmothers (no maiden names):
21. Hanna Minka Smorgonski
23. Ita Segalchik
29. Sarah Zinberg
31. Miriam Benditovich

For the first two, on my father's side, I only have my sister's roots project family tree as well as Yad-Vashem pages of testimony for their children, listing them as the mothers. I have not been able to track down any other information from JewishGen or family members about these two women.
The other two are on my mother's side and all I have for them is oral history from my grandmother. Both of them were her grandmothers, but she can not recall their maiden names. I suppose I could try my grandmother's brother, but since he is younger I don't think he will be able to help me either.

On my wife's side, I was surprised to find that her MRUA is also her 2nd-great-grandmother, Maria Kearney (also number 31 with maiden name unknown). This is obviously due to me not doing enough research on this branch. Here's what I know about her:

She was born in Ireland in January 1843 and immigrated to the US in 1847 at the age of 4. She married Thomas Kearney (born 1840, Ireland) about 1868 and had 4 they had at least 4 children: Thomas Jr. (born April 1876), James (born July 1878), Mary (born May 1880) and Margaret T. (born 27 Dec 1882). Most of this basic information was found in an interview done in 2000 with Agnes Auth, who was her granddaughter. I also found some of the family in the US Census, but it's obvious to me that with a little digging I will be able to find a lot more information about Maria.

The difference in information about my side versus my wife's is staggering. Especially because my wife's ancestors have been in the US for centuries and almost every line is well documented. I mean, if I pull up my pedigree chart, I have only 9 out of 32 people in my 6 generation chart and most of those are unconfirmed first name only ancestors. My wife, on the other hand, is only missing 8. I have done some basic research on some of her branches and they easily go back to early the 1600's colonial settlements. I also know she is descended of several Revolutionary War patriots. The next challenge is documenting all this properly and citing all sources correctly. That will take a very long time.

As usual Randy Seaver comes up with great genea-challenges. This time we're finding descendants of one of our great-grandparents:

1) Pick one of your four great-grandparents - if possible, the one with the most descendants.

2) Create a descendants list for those great-grandparents either by hand or in your software program.

3) Tell us how many descendants, living or dead, are in each generation from those great-grandparents.

4) How many are still living? Of those, how many have you met and exchanged family information with? Are there any that you should make contact with ASAP? Please don't use last names of living people for this - respect their privacy.

5) Write about it in your own blog post, in comments to this post, or in comments or a Note on Facebook.

So I chose the only great-grandparents who have a big list of descendants, Moshe Zinberg (died about 1960) and Elka Benditovich (holy cow, I don't have any dates for her - adding to my to do list right now):

1. Children - 6 (3 deceased, 3 living) - I met all but two.
2. Grandchildren - 11 that I know of, there may have been more. I have met 8 of them.
3. Great-grandchildren - 20 that I know of. I believe I have met 11 of them. Obviously I need to fill in some gaps because I don't even know the names of some of them. I have to call my grandma, she'll know.
4. Great-great-grandchildren - I only know of 4 of which 2 are my own children. I am sure there are more out there, but I need to research that more.

Since this is a relatively young line, the total comes out to 41. Since almost all of the descendants that I have not met are still alive, I will not list them here. I have a lot of work to do on the Zinberg line. So much work, so little time...

I have to thank Randy Seaver for his challenging Saturday night fun posts that help me get out of my genea-blogging slumps. This time around he asks us to:

1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.

2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.

3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 - 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).

4) If you don't know all 16 of your great-great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.

5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.

I followed Randy's advice and grabbed my info from a RM4 Ahnentafel list:

1. Avraham Benjamin KIELCZEWSKI: b.? m.? died bef 1 Jun 1918. POLAND

2. Zywa Golda KRUG: b.? m.? died bef 1 Jun 1918. POLAND

3. Haim Shmuel KALMANIEWSKI: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

4. ???: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

5. Shlomo SMORGONSKI: born abt 1836. m.? d.? POLAND

6. Hanna Minka ?: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

7. Jacob SEGALCHIK: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

8. Ita ?: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

9. Jacob Yitzhak DOMBEK: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

10. Sarah Rachel KARPIK: born abt 1861 in Sterdyn, Sokolow, Lublin, Poland. m.? died abt 1941 in Sterdyn, Sokolow, Lublin, Poland. POLAND

11. Avram KREPLAK: b.? married 1874 in Kosow Lacki, Poland. d.? POLAND

12. Dobe JABLONKA: b.? married 1874 in Kosow Lacki, Poland. d.? POLAND

13. Aaron ZINBERG: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

14. Sarah ?: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

15. Joseph BENDITOVICH: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

16. Miriam ?: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

Hmmm. I have a lot of work to do. For starters, I know I have looked for all of these ancestors on JewishGen, but those databases are far from being complete. My next task should be to get some microfilm from the LDS, but how is that really going to help me? I can't read Russian or Polish or Latin or whatever language any of these records will be in. If they even exist.

At least I can pretty firmly say that I am 75%/25% Polish-Russian, which I have known pretty much all my life. And as I have written here before, the next generation after this one had a 75%/25% split for those who perished in the Holocaust. Yes, the entire Polish side. It's a good thing my grandfather fled to Russia.

So, does anyone have suggestions how I should go about filling in all these question marks?