I have never found an answer for which viewpoint is used to determine a connection to a cousin. I recently discovered the great-granddaughter of my great-great-grandfather. From my standpoint I would think she would be my 3rd cousin, once removed. However, Ancestry says she is my 2nd cousin, once removed (up a generation). That seems to be from her viewpoint. I then checked the great-granddaughter of my grandfather. This time Ancestry looked at it from my viewpoint, and labeled her my 1st cousin, once removed. (down a generation). Can someone clarify, as I have always wondered. Thanks.

Carl Kaplan
Kaplan, Edelsen (Minsk)
Steinberg (Lviv)
Hoffert, Bienenstock (Kolbuzowa)

Hi Tammy, 

There is just one correction from the excellent translation by Joseph Ash.
The name of the father of the deceased person is Menachem Arieh. Arieh is a middle name and not an abbreviation of "land of Israel" 

Best regards  
Laurent Kassel 
Moreshet, Israel 

This is a very sad cemetery in an urban neighborhood. 
Many graves are in bad condition. Stones have fallen down or been pushed over. It’s quite expensive to fix those stones as I found out. 

 

Based on the death certificate of her eldest son David Blistein, I have long assumed that one of my great grandmothers was named Esther Resnick (Blistein) .  Recently I had an old Yiddish letter translated. It  was written to my grandfather in either 1953 or 1959  from his cousin Nathan Resnick in the Bronx.  Using the names of Nathan's wife and daughter in the letter, we were able to trace his brother and sister, also in New York and learn from manifests and death certificates, that their father's name was Abram Resnick, or Resnik or Reznik and that the family came from Pohost.  Since both my grandparents came from the Slutsk area, this was no surprise but we would very much like to find some evidence that Abram Reznik was a sibling of  Esther Resnick who died in childbirth in 1890.  Any Resnicks from Pohost out there?

These are two possibilities.  I haven't read them myself so I can't say how useful they might be.
--
Bob Friedman
Brooklyn, NY

Thank you to all who have responded to my post.  This group is so wonderful at sharing information.  All of your suggestions and insight have been most helpful.  

I may never know for sure which Rabbi my grandfather visited, but I now have a better idea of why he would have made this trip.  I only learned recently that the family was Chasidic.  My mother had only said her family was Orthodox.  However, her mother was a Klepfisz and that family had many members who were Rabbis.  

Does anyone know if there were any lists of who were members of specific religious sects?  I know so little about my grandfather, I am searching for any means of learning more.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Elizabeth Jackson

The translation:
Halevy 
A dear and honorable man
young age mo"h (morenu harav our teacher the rabi- usually it doesn't mean he was a rabi)
Shmaryah
son of Moshe Ary(eh) n"y(nero yair - his candle will light means his fther was alive)
Ribnik (Rivnik) died
2nd day of Passover 
year 5,685
May his soul be bound in the bond of life

The death date 31 March 1926.

Here is information on a town with a similar name in Hungarian:

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Uzhhorod/
Uzhhorod was called Ungvar in Hungarian, which covered most of its history of the past 100 years.

Good luck -

Not "land of Israel", rather "Aryeh", i.e. the father's full name was 'Menachem Aryeh'. And "may his light shine" indicates that the father was still alive at the time.

David Shapiro
Jerusalem

I have never had any knowledge of those records - someone in LitvakSIG who has access to the database may be able to help.

Joel Ratner

--
Ralph N. Baer        RalphNBaer@...       Washington, DC

Fellow Searchers -

Invigorated by the response to my recent posting of the many family names I actively search, I figured it might be worth taking a specialized shot in my COHEN search:

 

It was just one week ago that I actually found descendants of my Beral William ‘Willy’ COHEN, b: +-1902, Kovno, and later lived in Bronx and Brooklyn; m: Mary FRIEDMAN. Willy is one of my grandmother’s brothers (possibly the youngest) and was in the coat business in Brooklyn with another brother, Julius, m: Clara OFFMAN / HOFFMAN.

 

So, Willy and Mary had NY-born: (another) Julius, Robert Bernard, and Marsha, and I just found Robert’s descendants !!!! 

They live just north of me in Texas (what are the chances of that?) BUT ARE NOT RESPONDING TO MY FACEBOOK OR TELEPHONE MESSAGE, and I do not want to bug them.

I only want to connect with them because of the unusual and amazing (to me, anyway) immigration story of their grandfather, Willy, that his descendants should know.

So, if anyone out there knows Julie (COHEN) MCBRIDE and/or Mark S. COHEN, of North Texas, please tell them a family-member storyteller has a story for them.

‘Thank you’ is not enough.

Sandi (Blumenthal) Root
roadrunr2@...

 

Actively searching:

ASHLEY, AUSLANDER, BADESCH, BANUS / BENESH / BENESCH / BENIS / BENNITZ / BENITEZ / BENNISH /BEINASH / BEINASHOWITZ, BECKERMAN, BLOCK / BLOCH, BLUMENTHAL / BLUM, BRODY, BROUTMAN, CHERKOVSKY / CHEKOWSKI, COBRIN, COHEN / KAHAN / KAGAN, EICHEL, FOX, FRIEDLEN, FRIEDMAN, GALINA, GOLD, GREENBERG, GUTKOWSKY / GOOD, HANAK, HARRIS, HARWICK, HERRE, JANKELOWITZ / JACOBSON,  KRIZANSKI, LEVIN, LEVY, LIEBOVITCH, LOND / LUND, MANNE, MENDELSON, MICHELSON, NIDER, OFFMAN / HOFFMAN, OFSALLOF / OFSEAL / OFSAROF, OPEAN / OPPEAN / OPIN / UPIN,  POSISKI / PISER, ROSENTHAL, ROTHCHILD, SCHAFFNER, SCHNEIDERMAN / SNYDERMAN, SHAPIRO, SIEGAL / SIEGEL, SILVERMAN, SIMON, STERN, SUVALKER / SUVALSKI, TABACK, WHATLEY, ZIVETZ

I just discovered my great grandfather's surname was TAJWIL and the name appears on the JRI list of Rozdal surnames 1869-1901.  Can anyone please tell me how to pronounce this name? Is it Yiddish, Polish, Russian or whatever? Would there be an English or Yiddish equivalent of this name?
Also, I have two different first name versions for, what I believe, is the same person.  One is spelled Uszer and the other is Vicher. Could this be the same name?

Many thanks,
Karol Schlosser Swanson
Scotland

Agreed, It could be any of the "Admorim" (leaders of a Hassidic dynasty) .
Another option could be the Radomsker Rebbe, who would have been situated a bit closer to Krakow. At the time, it was a large movement and all of the Rebbes were either Shlomo Rabinowitz (died in the 1860's)  or his direct male line descendants. Another event that would have spurred a pilgrimage would have been the funeral of the Rebbe himself (of course those weren't annual!).

One interesting fact: A number of Hassidic movements were consolidating throughout the 1800's and then continuously until after the Holocaust. That was one factor that made several of the movements very large.

Considering where your ancestor was from originally, I'd also guess it was the Gerrer Rebbe that he went to see. Perhaps it was easier to take a train into Krakow and then 
ride by horse carriage (there might have been a few cars...very few) to Gur even though Warsaw was a bit closer? Either that or the Krakow thing is just a mistake or he followed a rabbi in Krakow that we haven't identified yet?

One thing you might want to do is use a reliable source to figure out if there were any INBERG marriages into the family of one of the big Rebbe's of that area. That could end up being an important clue.


Steve Bloom
Central Virginia, USA