Pittsburgh, Baltimore, North Carolina

22 August 2019, 6:30 – Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh, Multi-purpose Room of the Heinz History Center
Why Did My Father Know That His Grandfather Had An Uncle Selig?

25 August 2019, 1:30 Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland, Pikesville Library, 1301 Reiserstown Road

I shall be part of the Ask The Experts panel

27 August 2019 -  Wake Forest University Campus, 1834 Wake Forest Road, Winston -Salem, NC, sponsored by university's Office of Jewish Life.

4:00 - (Student program) Lessons in Jewish DNA: One Man’s Successes and What He Learned On the Journey

5:15 - (open to the public) Why Did My Father Know That His Grandfather Had An Uncle Selig?

Some Coming Events

Looking past the wedding of my son Devir Tuesday and my subsequent move to Ashkelon next Monday, I am planning a quick trip in August to see some of my elders in West Virginia and Pittsburgh. While I am there I am planning to see my grandchildren in Piscataway and ending up in Baltimore.

Steve Jaron of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh has arranged for me to give a presentation at the Heinz at 6:30 on 22 August. Details as they become available. The subject will be
Why Did My Father Know That His Grandfather Had An Uncle Selig?

This will be my first presentation at the JGS in my home town

We are working on a couple of other things as well.

A Month Abroad: Part Four - Speaking

This is the fourth in my series of blogs on my recent four weeks in the US.      Part One (Iberia) is here. Part Two (GRIP) is here. Part Three (Seattle) is here.

The trip to the US was built on two pillars, the genetic genealogy course at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) which I discussed in Part Two and the IAJGS conference in Seattle which I discussed in Part Three. There were two weeks in between, part of which I described at length in Part One.

I gave seven lectures before Seattle - six of them were "Lessons in Jewish DNA - One Man's Successes and What He Learned on the Journey."

- - - - - - -

My second night in the US, I spoke at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Buffalo Grove Illinois. The turnout was not large but included a few notable people in the audience. Two were from my school days - one my best friend from second-sixth grade with his wife. We've been in touch the last few years. Another was in my high school class; we didn't have much to do with each other then, but we have had some correspondence the last few years because his uncommon surname is the same as someone in my step-children's family.

Another attendee was Victor Weisskopf who came out from Skokie. He was the first non-Pikholz to join my project at FTDNA, based on numerous matches with us. I mention him in one of my closing slides as someone whose most recent common ancestor with us is almost certainly in the pre-surname period - 1750 or 1720 or 1690.

In Part One, I mentioned the Pikkel descendant who may show that we came to Galicia from Sub-Carpathian Hungary. The man I had been after for a Y-DNA test did not show up ("I know who I am") but his wife and son were there and the son tested in Buffalo Grove. I'm looking forward to his results in another month or so.

I was staying at my sister's and although she was out of town, her older son was in the audience.

- - - - - - -

During GRIP, I spoke Wednesday evening. This was obviously a much more knowledgeable audience, though many of the GRIP students have no DNA background at all. (Imagine that!!) We used the main assembly area, as we did two years ago, and it was well received, with good questions afterwards, some book sales and many kind words the next days. I wrote at length about GRIP in Part Two of this series.

The audience included Aunt Betty and Uncle Ken and also my friend Tammy Hepps who has been in Pittsburgh for several years writing the history of Jewish Homestead.

- - - - - - -

 The following Sunday, was the fast of the seventeenth day of Tammuz but it takes more than a hot day with no eating or drinking to keep me from a podium. In this case, it was the JGS of Maryland in Baltimore, where I had given my first DNA talk last year. This time their president Lara Diamond had me speak on "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: What We Know vs. What We Can Prove," which has next to nothing about DNA.

While we were setting up, two women walked in, looking shall we say out of place. "Hi, I'm Wendy" said the younger one. My last blog before leaving home was about Wendy whose mother Carolyn matches thirty of my kits and she was hoping I could help identify Carolyn's father. Wendy is a serious and knowledgeable researcher and they - um - fit right in with the audience.

Wendy and Carolyn - my new DNA cousins

Also in the audience were my second cousin Beverly and her daughter Miriam. For those keeping score, that's at least one documented family member at each venue. The turnout in Baltimore was larger than anywhere on this trip aside from GRIP and the first Seattle presentation. (Good for you, Baltimore.)

- - - - - - -

The following evening was the Fairfax Genealogical Society at the JCC of Northern Virginia. (In Part Two, I explained the genesis of this particular meeting.) Almost all of the fifty-odd seats were filled, though there was some expectation of more people from JGS of Greater Washington.

The audience included an old school-days friend from Pittsburgh and my second cousin Sam, Beverly's brother.

I was preceded by a comprehensive survey of the genealogy holdings of the local library.

- - - - - - -

I had picked up a rental car when I arrived in Pittsburgh from Chicago and it served me well for nineteen days. By this time, I had had only one semi-long drive, the Friday afternoon from Pittsburgh to Baltimore. (Remember, I am no longer used to American distance driving as all of Israel is not that big.) After Fairfax, the drives were longer; Tuesday afternoon to Rachel and Dan in Charlottesville (See Part One), then Thursday to Charlotte.

The early-evening meeting was sponsored by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library, where I had set to meet a woman named Gay to discuss her matches with my families. It was a small audience, about thirty people, not as well-versed in genealogy as I had expected.

It was also the only venue where I had no family members. My Charlotte third cousin once removed was out of town.

I was to spend the night near Columbia South Carolina (more on that in Part Five) so this was my one night drive. My daughter was concerned about my night driving, citing some memories from when she was young. It was uneventful, even though about half the drive (it seemed longer) was dark back roads.

-------

Sunday I spoke for the Triangle Jewish Genealogical Society in Durham. In fact that was the centerpiece of that whole part of the trip, the reason I went in that direction to begin with. Last summer, I had discovered a new Pikholz branch headed by a woman named Sheva Pikholz Weinstein whose children were born in Nemerow (Podolia) in the 1890s. A granddaughter lives in Durham and I had been trying to communicate with her daughter about the family and of course to get a sample of her DNA. It was my theory that Sheva is a sister of Necha / Nellie Rochester of Kansas City and California. One of Nellie great-granddaughters has tested but her matches are weak and the family is pretty much orphaned within the Pikholz structure.

So when I began putting this trip together, I decided to go to Durham to meet the mother and daughter in person. They came as did a second daughter (and husband) and the mother's DNA is now in the lab in Houston. As far as family information goes, their knowledge is sparse and they could not give me contact information for cousins, but I'm taking this one thing at a time.

The turnout was excellent considering that it's a small group. They say that they never had thirty-seven people before. I added the story of Debbie Long to my presentation as she is the founding president of the local JGS. Debbie, who is a fourth or fifth cousin of mine on the Zelinka side, was not present, but we caught up with each other in Seattle.

The Durham audience was one of the best I have had, with many good questions and much discussion both before and after

- - - - - - -

Monday I drove to my cousin Linda in northwest West Virginia. (More on that in Part Five.) 

I was using Waze to get around and it worked very well, though occasionally sent me on more scenic routes than I would have chosen on my own. Such was the case between Durham and West Virginia, as Waze took me up Route 52 through Mt. Airy. But that was obviously meant to be.

Soon after crossing from North Carolina into Virginia, something possessed me to stop at a roadside antique shop. I had never been inside one before. While looking around, something large caught my eye. It virtually called to me and said "buy me." So I did. The manager wrapped the two pieces of porcelain very carefully and I put the basin into my suitcase and the pitcher into my hand luggage. I am happy to report that both arrived home safely and now stand on a small table in the dining room.

Sometimes driving is a chore, but on this entire trip I quite enjoyed it. I never turned on the radio and mostly sang. A lot of it I made up on the fly, both words and music. Hours and hours of singing solo in the car, for the better part of two weeks. Glorious!

- - - - - - -

After two days of catching up with myself at Mitch and Linda's house, I made my last significant drive, setting out mid-morning Wednesday to Cincinnati. I decided I could manage without Waze until I got closer and ended up seeing more of Kentucky than I had intended.

My final pre-Seattle lecture was at noon Thursday at the Genealogy and Local History Department of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. This was my smallest turnout and a significant part of the audience was library staff.

Another venue, another genetic genealogy T-shirt
from Gold Medal Ideas

As I was setting up, I was very surprised to see Jeannie McClenahan Cecil, whom I had met a few months earlier in Jerusalem. Jeannie is a definite DNA cousin who had driven down from Spencer Ohio, three and a half hours away.

Also in attendance was my first cousin Ed, Aunt Betty and Uncle Ken's son. He is the one who initiated the contact with the library. So Jeannie and Ed are also DNA cousins and I enjoyed being able to introduce them.


The audience included the Director of the Cincinnati Hebrew Academy and one of his science teachers.

My Southwest flight to Seattle was scheduled to leave Dayton at 8:20 PM with a short stopover at Midway. The incoming flight was late but they turned it around quickly and we made the connection. We, being me and my luggage.

Part Five, the last of this series, is here.

Fiftieth Reunion, Genealogy, Young Cousin Matt, Geni - and More About Marla's family

My Class Reunion
The fiftieth reunion of my high school class (Taylor Allderdice, in Pittsburgh) is planned for the

No, I do not plan to attend

end of the summer. I never had much to do with my 462 fellow graduates during the two years I was there, but it's amazing what happens when you fill in your profile on the reunion website and write "Occupation: Genealogist."

This one writes to me and tells me what his family name was in Europe and throws in some Hebrew ("Shalom Chaver") for good measure. That one remarks on how interesting it must be for me. Others had questions about their families or how to do this or that.

There are also a few whom I approached, because their unusual surnames had some family connections with me. Or with my wife. In one case, a classmate has the same rare name as my wife's late husband. In another, the surname is almost surely from my ancestral town Skalat. (Actually, I think the family of my wonderful fourth grade arithmetic teacher at Linden School may also have been from Skalat.)

The truth is there may be some meaningful communal genealogy to be done among my classmates and others in my home community, based on their towns of emigration.

Zalosce and Podkamen
My great-grandfather, Hersch Pickholz, was probably born in Podkamen, though his family had been from Skalat. Other Pittsburgh families that I knew were also from Podkamen - the Klahrs and the Steins, for a start. But there are no Podkamen records, so I could not do anything on that front.

Hersch Pickholz married Jutte Lea Kwoczka from neighboring Zalosce and their older children were born there. His brother and one of his sisters also raised their families in Zalosce. When JRI-Poland came out with indexed birth from Zalosce for 1877-1890, I was eager to see them. I went through the lists and saw so many names that I knew from Pittsburgh, including from school and the neighborhood. Kweller, Lewinter, Papernik, Chotiner, our own Braun and Kwoczka, Charap, Schwadron, Wachs and others.

There must have been a lot of chain migration from the Zalosce area to Pittsburgh in the 1890s. I don't know if the chain was mostly intra-family or just people who knew each other. There is at least one person is my class whose (great-)grandparents were from two families on the list above.

After WWI, Rabbi Wolf Leiter, the son of the rabbi of Zalosce, came to Pittsburgh where he served until his death in 1974. His memoirs helped me solve a major family relationship in a different town. A story for another time.

Enter Matt
One of the girls in my class (I am allowed to say "girls" in this context even though the next big birthday will be 70, right? Nana always called her friends "The Girls.") tells me that her grandfather came from a town called Nasielsk, not far from Warsaw. The grandfather died here in Israel and is buried in Petah Tikva. She has never been here.

I am not sure how much effort I am interested in putting here, but I figure I can do a bit of poking around to see what comes up.

The grandfather is listed in the cemetery website and appears on JOWBR, with a photo.

His grave is the next section over from my parents, so it's easy enough to visit, next time I am there.

Anyway, just as she and I are corresponding, I meet Matt. Matthew Saunders is newly married to Jessica Gordon, whose late father David is my first cousin. Jessie and Matt were visiting from New York and spent Shabbes here, together with her brother and sister-in-law Ari and Bobbi, who live here in town with their baby daughter Devorah. We had a lovely time, full of Torah and genealogy, as Matt is very much into both of these.

So Friday afternoon we are sitting at the computer talking and Matt says something about his grandfather's having come from Nasielsk. I had him write a note to the girl from my class right there on the spot. We'll see if that leads anywhere.

Matt and I also discussed Geni.com, which he uses. Some of my thoughts on that appear here. It turns out that despite what Geni says, Matt and my mother-in-law are NOT related. There is a chain leading from one to the other, but as soon as I saw that it depends on a "brother-in-law relationship" in the middle, I knew they could not be truly related.

Speaking of Geni
Which reminds me, I received a note from an experienced genealogy researcher in the US purporting to show how we are related. I removed the names aside from my own, leaving the initials of the fellow who sent me this.

As you can see, there are twenty-one steps here from him to me, including half a dozen in-law relationships, which jump bloodlines It misspells my name and includes a photograph of me that I don't think I have ever seen before; I certainly didn't authorize its use on Geni.

It's hard to take this stuff seriously. But we have to, if only to protect ourselves. And laughter can be oh so effective.


Leftovers from last week
After posting last week, I added a comment, which I revisit here with some illustrations and further explanation.

If Marla and her brother match nineteen Pikholz descendants between them, but their mother matches only seventeen, we must consider that there are some who would match on Marla's father's side. (There are also two that only the mother matches, but that is not a problem.)

The four that the mother doesn't match are Bonnie, Gene, Gadi and Micha. Bonnie and Gene are third cousins from Skalat and Gadi and Micha are from Rozdol. The only interesting overlap involving those four is on chromosome 19, where Bonnie has a 5.97 cM match with Marla and Gadi has a 6.33 cM match, with a large overlap between them.

Marla as background, from top to bottom:
Marla's brother, mother, uncle, Bonnie, Gadi

In fact all four of Marla's group match the entire length of chromosome 19, so I thought that perhaps there was some kind of testing anomaly such that Marla's mother did not match Gadi and Bonnie.

But I ran them against Marla's uncle - who as I say matches them with Marla as a background. But he in fact does not match them on chromosome 19 at all, even though FTDNA calls them remote matches.

Here with Marla's uncle as background,
Bonnie and Gadi disappear entirely.

So it is clear to me that at least Bonnie and Gadi match Marla on her father's side.

Marla's father is deceased so we have to see if she has anyone else on his side who can test.

Her brother did a Y-37 test last week. It was always a longshot, but their surname has a meaning that is related to wood and maybe around 1800 two brothers chose different wood-related names, perhaps as a reflection of their family occupation..There was no match. Too bad. I liked the theory.

Oh, and one other thing for the consideration of the professional explainers. Since both Bonnie and Gadi have an overlapping match on chromosome 19 on Marla's father's side, a chromosome check of either Gadi or Bonnie that includes the other should show that both match Marla and her brother.

Gadi matches Marla and her brother,
on their father's side, but not Bonnie

Bonnie matches Marla and her brother
on their father's side, but not Gadi

So does this mean that Bonnie and Gadi are on different sides of Marla's father?

So much to learn.

Housekeeping notes
1. As a result of what I consider a nearly-confirmed relationship with Marla's family, I had a look at how her family connects DNA-wise with some of the other non-Pikholz families who also match with many of us. We have had an ongoing discussion among half a dozen such families the last few days and I would like to think that we will eventually nail something down. As I write this, several others of the non-Pikholz have joined our surname project at FTDNA, making it easier to do these comparisons.

2. I ordered four books from Amazon to help prepare for the GRIPitt.org course on Practical Genetic Genealogy in July. Matt brought one of them. My cousin Linda will be here next month and already has the other three. I am really placing alot of faith in this course.


GRIPitt has spaces available in some of the other courses.

3. PIT-ORD flight booked. ORD-SLC-ORD flights booked. International flights will wait until I am more certain of when I want to travel. Prices are way higher than last year.- more than 50% higher.