family histories
It's funny how different pieces of family history get handed down, or not...
My father was the youngest of five children, and the only boy. His sisters married young and had children right away; he became an uncle at the age of 8. My father, on the other hand, didn't marry until he was 32 years old. I was born the day after his 33rd birthday.
I have 11 first cousins, all of whom are older than me. Some even have children my age.
Most of my first cousins remember our grandparents, can tell stories about them. I cannot, my paternal grandparent died before I was born. There are huge chunks of our family history that I simply do not know.
And yet...
I knew something they didn't know.
My grandparents grew up in the same shtetl, a small village in the Ukraine, outside of Kiev. My grandfather immigrated to America in 1907, and sent for my grandmother in 1909. They were married shortly after her arrival.
My grandparents had a very common, very Jewish, surname.
My cousins always assumed that our grandfather used the same surname in the Ukraine. When my cousin was trying to flesh out her family tree, she looked for his immigration records using the name she knew him by. And found nothing.
Because my granfather legally changed his name in the mid-1920's, shortly before my father was born.
I've seen the court documents. He filed a petition in Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Kings, seeking to change his name and the names of his daughters. for some reason my grandmother wasn't listed in the petition -- I don't know if she filed a separate petition, or if her name changed automatically when his changed. The original name was something long and almost unpronouncable. His reasoning was that "I don't want a name some Cossack gave my grandfather. I'm Jewish, I want a name that identifies who I really am."
My cousins all knew the man, but not the story. I knew the story, but had never met the man.
My father was the youngest of five children, and the only boy. His sisters married young and had children right away; he became an uncle at the age of 8. My father, on the other hand, didn't marry until he was 32 years old. I was born the day after his 33rd birthday.
I have 11 first cousins, all of whom are older than me. Some even have children my age.
Most of my first cousins remember our grandparents, can tell stories about them. I cannot, my paternal grandparent died before I was born. There are huge chunks of our family history that I simply do not know.
And yet...
I knew something they didn't know.
My grandparents grew up in the same shtetl, a small village in the Ukraine, outside of Kiev. My grandfather immigrated to America in 1907, and sent for my grandmother in 1909. They were married shortly after her arrival.
My grandparents had a very common, very Jewish, surname.
My cousins always assumed that our grandfather used the same surname in the Ukraine. When my cousin was trying to flesh out her family tree, she looked for his immigration records using the name she knew him by. And found nothing.
Because my granfather legally changed his name in the mid-1920's, shortly before my father was born.
I've seen the court documents. He filed a petition in Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Kings, seeking to change his name and the names of his daughters. for some reason my grandmother wasn't listed in the petition -- I don't know if she filed a separate petition, or if her name changed automatically when his changed. The original name was something long and almost unpronouncable. His reasoning was that "I don't want a name some Cossack gave my grandfather. I'm Jewish, I want a name that identifies who I really am."
My cousins all knew the man, but not the story. I knew the story, but had never met the man.
Thank you for sharing this. Family histories do tend to get confusing along the line.
ReplyDeleteInez | My Small World
Nice to have part of the story they didn't have.
ReplyDelete11 first cousins? Wow. I have no idea what it's like to have cousins. I have no official first cousins.
Wow. What a neat piece of family history! Knowing your last name, I would have assumed the same as your cousins!
ReplyDeleteMy husband, on the other hand, is the son of an orphan. He is not entirely sure if his last name is the real one, or if it was one the nuns in the Catholic orphanage gave his dad. The orphanage burned down in the 30's, and all we have is a handwritten replacement birth certificate he used to enlist in WW2.
See why 23andMe is probably one of his Christmas gifts? (Ancestry has traced his roots on his mom's side back to Holland.)