Baruch Dayan HaEmet - ברוך דיין האמת

The funeral for my brother Daniel - Zvi Moshe - will be held Monday at two o'clock at Shalom Memorial Park, Arlington Heights Illinois. Additional details to follow.


Amy and Sarajoy will sit shiva at Amy's in Buffalo Grove Illinois. They will be receiving visitors 10 AM - 5 PM and 7 PM - 10 PM, Friday morning and 6-10 Sarurday night..

I will sit at home in Jerusalem, beginning directly after the funeral, which will be late Monday evening here. Services will probably be at 6:40 AM and maariv at 7:30 PM. I do not know if we will have enough for a minyan for minha. The address is Avraham Arest 6/4, on Patt by the entrance to Bet Zefafa. Check back here for updates or talk to me by phone or email.

Judith and Jean will sit at Judith's in Elkana, though Jean will go home to Arad Friday.

All of us plan to have email open during shiva. We` get up Monday morning, but Amy and Sarajoy should get up Sunday morning.

Dan's increasingly serious condition is why I was in Chicago last week.

I do not expect that there will be any changes in my travel plans.

Trip Notes

I am in the midst of a very brief personal trip to the US. Some notes.

** The flight from Israel had a stopover in a major European airport where, despite regular security, they do additional interviews at the gate. So I'm waiting in line for my security intervew and the gate agent on my right says to the couple she was talking to "Can you spell that for me?"

And the woman spells out their name "K-L-x-x-x."

And I say "You're from Podkamen." and she says "How did you know that."

So I say "All the KLxxxs are from Podkamen." And she says "Yes, but how did you know that."

And I say "I'm a genealogist. And besides, some of my family lived in Zalosce - the next town over." Now the husband gets involved and he says "Some of our family also lived in Zalosce."

So feeling I was on a winning streak, I say to the man "Your name is probably Pinchas." And he says "Yes it is, but how did you know?" And I say "All the KLxxxs are named Pinchas."


** I have mentioned my four sisters often in the context of our DNA tests. I also have a brother, whom I saw last week. I am pleased to report that two vials with his DNA are on their way to Houston.

I would not be surprised to find that he has segments that the rest of us don't, but I will be truly surprised if something significant shows up. Of course, we cannot know what may come of any specific DNA test until we have the results in hand.


** The call for papers for the 37th IAJGS Conference on Jewish Genealogy came out a few days ago. The Conference is planned for 23-28 July in Orlando Florida. I will probably submit proposals for the three presentations I made last year,plus the new "Uncle Selig" that I described here a few weeks ago.


** Anyone who is interested in a program in mid-July, especially in southern United States, please let me know. For that matter,we can also talk about late April early May 2018 when I expect to be in the US for my grandson's bar mitzvah.


** And there are still some speaking dates available in the US at the end of January. Let me know if you are interested.


** The FTDNA sale continues, with reduced prices and coupons.
I can offer six coupons for $5 on Family Finder, in addition to coupons for BigY ($75), Y-DNA ($20), Y-67 ($40) and Full MtDNA ($40) . Send me an email or a Facebook PM, if you want any of these.

"Why Did My Father Know That His Grandfather Had An Uncle Selig?"

So far, two of the presentations I will be doing in the US this winter will be on the new topic

WHY DID MY FATHER KNOW THAT HIS GRANDFATHER HAD AN UNCLE SELIG?

Those two events are

22 January 2017, 1:30 – JGS of Maryland, Baltimore County Public Library, 1301 Reiserstown Road, Pikesville and

13 February 2017, 7:30 – JGS of Los Angeles, American Jewish University, American Jewish University, 15600 Mulholland Drive

This is the summary that they will be using for their announcements:

More than twenty years before Israel Pickholtz began doing serious genealogy, his father sent him a postcard with three bits of family information. One of those was that Israel's great-grandfather Hersch Pikholz had an uncle Zelig. That information was very important in Israel's research over the last two decades, research that was helped along by traditional sources and more recently by genetic genealogy.

 

But even as he was progressing in his research, Israel could not shake the question "Why did my father know this?" Israel says "My father was eight years old when his grandfather Hersch Pikholz died and they never had any real conversation. None of the cousins knew about Uncle Zelig, not even the older one who lived in the same house as my great-grandfather. My father himself did not recall why he knew this."

And did it even matter? Israel tells the story of his great-great-great-uncle, what he learned about his family and why now he thinks he knows how his father knew. And yes, it matters.

This presentation is available 23-26 January and 30-31 January in the Maryland, New Jersey, New York area, 1-2 February in the Pennsylvania, Cleveland area and mid-February in the NJ/NY area.

Of course, there will be presentations on DNA during this trip.

Housekeeping notes
I have an extra $10 Family Finder coupon, if anyone wants it. Contact me by email or Facebook PM. (Update: This was snapped up withing five minutes of posting.)