family history and genealogy
When I last wrote about my great-grandmother Tillie Kopelman, I didn’t expect to write about her again. When Harry Met Tillie included a brief sketch, mostly based on my Uncle Jay’s memories. Origins: Taube Kurdabrin documented her arrival at Ellis Island and rehashed the earlier sketch. I didn’t think I had anything more to say about Tillie. But exchanges with two fellow genealogists taught me that other discoveries awaited, even if I was oblivious to the possibilities. Continue reading
My great-grandparents Harry and Tillie Kubrin came from a town called Volpa, which in their day was part of the Russian Empire. Nowadays it is called Voupa, or Woupa, and it is part of Belarus. How you identify this place depends on where you locate it in the long view. Over the centuries, Volpa has belonged to Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, in addition to Belarus, and it has been known by its Russian, Yiddish, Polish, and Belarusian names, which are rendered in English as Volpa, Volp, Wołpa, Voŭpa, and Wolpa. The purser who boarded my great-grandparents on the S.S. Finland entered this name on the manifest as Wolpy. This swirl of place names hints at the area’s history of conquest, and it makes for confusing research. If you like certainty and order, genealogy might not be for you.
I never knew my great-grandmother was originally called Taube. I always thought her name was Tillie, the name she used most of her life, the name by which she is remembered today. But apparently I was wrong. I stand corrected now thanks to the record of her arrival at Ellis Island, which I located through the Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation. Taube, or Tillie, arrived on June 24, 1905, sailing on the S.S. Finland out of Antwerp, like her husband Chaim Kurdabrin before her. That’s Taube on line 22 in the image above. Her son Schmuel (later Sam) is on line 23. He became my grandfather. Continue reading
My great-grandfather Chaim Kurdabrin landed at Ellis Island on June 6, 1903, arriving on the S.S. Finland out of Antwerp. I make this statement with reasonable certainty, having located his arrival in records posted online by the Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation, which also sold me a facsimile of the ship’s manifest. That’s him on the seventh line in the image at the top of this post. Continue reading
Several people have read my family history in manuscript and asked for some sort of device to help them keep track of the characters and relationships. This request is understandable. The manuscript is crowded with characters. The narrative jumps between branches of the family and between generations. If you don’t already know our lineage, it can be hard to keep it all in mind. Continue reading
Any writer of family history will face many questions of protocol and style. The first and most basic is: Where should I begin?
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