Connect the Dots

This web site I use to do the majority of genealogical research, ancestry.com , has a feature I cannot resist - which they call hints. I've got about 1,200 individuals on my tree and about 185 individuals with hints. When I go to the sight I go straight to the hints, where connections with other family trees, census records, school year books, draft registrations, naturalization records, marriage, divorce, and death records are all waiting to be tapped into. Most of the time it's just plod, plod, plod away. It can be boring to just start from the top of the alphabet and work down, especially when there's 185 people to sort through. So I mix it up, scanning down the list until I find a name I hope will help tap a vein with some juicy information. Most of the time this isn't the case. But tonight I happened upon some good stuff.

A fellow named Jacob Chaiken became a Naturalized Citizen in 1921. There's all sorts of information on these papers, which start with a declaration of intent (to become a citizen) and end (hopefully) with the actual certificate of naturalization. This took anywhere from six to twelve years, depending on all sorts of circumstances. Anyway, everybody has to have two witness/sponsor/people to stand up and say Yay, for the petitioner. On Jacob's (his original name was Jankel) one of the witnesses was Abraham Dortort. As you may know I've written about the Dortorts here before. I don't know about you but a name like Dortort seems unusual to me. It's stuck there in my brain as a name to watch out for. So I see this name and I go into my database there on the site to see if I've got an Abraham Dortort. I do, and I don't. I've got an Abraham Yankel ha Kahane Dortort, born about fifty years before the above Abraham is supposed to be born. So, it's not him. But maybe, hopefully, they're related.

So I start digging around and I find Freda Cherim, wife of Jacob Chaiken, is the sister of Yetta (also known as Ethel) Cherim, and the wife of Abraham Dortort, one of Jacob Chaiken's naturalization witnesses. It took me a couple hours to document these findings...it doesn't sound too complicated, but it felt like a bit of a game of hide and seek.

There are public member family trees on the site and private member trees, and there are private components of public trees. The standard private component are people who are still alive. But not always. If someone wants to keep parts of their public trees private they can do so - it's their family, after all. Anyway, I did a bit of detective work with the information I had on the site, and several family trees that included Dortorts, Chaikens, and Cherims. Insert here a good helping of suspension of disbelief. It's essential when coming across hints for people that do not appear, at first glance to be who you think you want them to be. For example, I searched for records for Yetta (Ethel) Cherim in a number of places but didn't find her until a hint turned up, after several connections with related (no pun intended) family trees, for a family listed as Charron, or something close to that. Just beneath the surface of this poor transliteration were salient details that matched up with bits of information I'd come across elsewhere in the search for documentation of this Yetta person. Once I had Yetta it was only a matter of time before I found Abraham and how he was related to the rest of the Dortorts. What was interesting about finding him, though, was that in several family trees his father, David Eliyu, was not included in the (long) list of siblings. But I was able to find one tree that did include David Eliyu, and that's how I was able to confirm Abraham's connection with the rest of the tree. And not because Abraham was listed as David Eliyu's son on the family tree I looked at directly. I had to look at the record kind of out of the corner of my eye, if you can imagine, so as to understand that I'd found what I was looking for.

Fun fact - Abraham Dortort was listed throughout his adult life as an egg candler (also known as an egg inspector).

I am going to have SUCH a party (when another cousin comes along and positively identifies the women in this photograph)

L-R: One of four Foxman (Fuchs) daughters, Usher Anshil Foxman (Fuchs), unnamed second wife of Usher Anshil.

Thanks to Amy Neifeld, a new-found cousin, I am posting yet another version (I'm up to three now, I think) of this venerable photograph. In previous versions the photograph was cropped at about hip level. I am excited to get to see the older woman's hands and skirt, the man and younger woman's shoes, and the pattern on the floor.

Oh course, it creates more questions than answers. For instance - what is the young woman holding? What's the container on the man's lap? Where are they? At home? In a studio?

Most importantly, and only slightly more tantalizing now than in previous versions - who are they, really?

I can only make an educated guess on the identity of the man in the picture, re-enforced by information passed down to living relatives. The four sisters were Fanny Tsisi, Yetta, Esther Faige, and Ethel. One of my recently discovered cousins resembles this young woman closely, so she, the young woman in the photo, may be Yetta, as that's her (my counsin's) great-great grandmother. But that's a guess. A lot of genealogy is educated guesses, backed up by hunches, some of them accompanied by the hair standing up on the back of someone's neck.

And the older woman? My great Uncle Izzy wrote a short family history crediting Usher Anshil's second wife with bringing up all the Foxman (Fuchs) children, which also included three sons, but he neglected to name his step-grandmother. Usher Anshil's first wife and the mother of his seven children was Sussa Ruchel. Esther Faige was the youngest, born in 1883. According to Uncle Izzy's story Sussa Ruchel died at an early age - if it was not long after Esther was born then probably Sussa Ruchel was only 35 or so when she died. Another guess - this photograph is probably later than 1885, which supports the idea that the older woman is the second wife.

Positive identification of these women would be a pretty awesome party starter. Just sayin.

Fecundity and Muscles

Late this summer I saw a friend from college I hadn't seen in over 25 years. We lived next door to each other one or two semesters and then drifted apart, but those few months of proximity produced a good half dozen finished portraits, in crayon, pencil and acrylic paint, and many more quick sketches. I dug them up and was struck by how fresh they still are - immediate - reflecting my fecund muscularily of purpose.

Earlier today I stretched a few poetic muscles and someone noticed, a stranger on a social networking site. It made me realize how little I use these well developed muscles of mine, how my purpose languishes while I find just the right point of view to express myself with. Enough already. I think I'm just gonna write and draw and post other sorts of amazingness and eventually I'll figure out what I'm trying to say. The big picture comes now and then, but the little pictures are frequent and profuse. I've been self editing plenty long enough.

Heidi, Spring 1985     caran d'asche crayons on paper

Homage

This is a painting sketch I did from a photo-booth photograph of my late Aunt Rose, my late Mom's sister. The photograph was taken when she was about nine years old, approximately 1945. I didn't know my Aunt very well. She died in March of 2006, about six months after my Mom passed away. I remember her telling me at least once that she was leaving something for me and my older brother in her will, but it seemed more like a threat than a promise. It turns out it was both. But the point of this introduction is to start to pay homage to my Aunt, who did her best in circumstances not designed for excelling.

The stories, oy, the stories.

Listen, there's a lot to tell. I've got stories coming out of my ears now, understand? There's the Great Aunt whose grandfather married her grandmother in 1894 and then divorced her in 1896, and then later, much later, provided said Great Aunt with her wedding dress. You don't believe me? Ask the grandfather's great niece, with whom I've been corresponding via the wondrous genealogy web site I've been using. She, the great niece, has been looking for documentation for her Great Aunts and Uncles, of whom said grandfather above is one, by marriage. And so we've met (virtually), corresponded and exchanged tasty tidbits of information. She's even helping me find some long lost Chicago relatives, about whom I know almost nothing, except first names, maiden names, and other not necessarily helpful information.

But really! I've got so many second cousins now I don't what to do with them now! It puts me in mind of very crowded working conditions where people are forced to share beds - when one is working the other is sleeping, and vice-versa. That's what my family tree is beginning to look like. Crowded, but accomodating the newbies as they display their bona-fides (or not, but more about that later), and colorful plumage.

It's pretty heady stuff and now I've got a second cousin one time removed of my Great Aunt (see above), who strictly speaking is related to me by marriage, not by blood. But if I only counted blood relations that would make for rather dull reading. Umm, well maybe not, but trust me this is much better.

So this second cousin I've just mentioned lives nearby. And I didn't know she existed until a couple days ago. I am trying to screw up the nerve to call her. What do I say? 'Erm, hello, my name is Eva. Guess what? We're cousins by marriage! Isn't life grand?!?' Yeah, probably not quite that. But now that I know she's here I can't ignore her proximity. I mean, if the stars are lining up to reveal proximate second cousins, I feel I should show some gratitude and respect, no?

I'll let you all know if anything comes of it.

More (relatively) recent family photographs

Grandmom Gerri circa 1940s. More after the fold.

Fox Family Album

Israel and Rose Fox circa 1914

This is Uncle Izzy, my Grandmom Gerri's cousin and brother-in-law, and his sister Rose, probably when Izzy was about four years old.