Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Because Genealogy Is More Than Just Names And Dates

 Monday evening, 4 Kislev, 28 November, at seven-thirty I shall be presenting 

WHY DID MY FATHER KNOW THAT HIS GRANDFATHER

HAD AN UNCLE SELIG?

for English Speakers of Ashkelon - Kehillat Netzach Israel,  Harel 8 (entrance on the side path..Yaakov Haham). Cost for ESOA members 20 shekels, non-members 25 shekels.

Please send an email to esoa972@gmail.com to reserve your spot!

 

 

 

This is not a genealogy group, so the presentation should interest non-genealogists as well. 

 

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 twenty-five years, 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 does it even matter? This evening, Israel tells the story of his great-great-great-uncle, what he learned about his family and why now he thinks he knows why (if not how) his father knew. And yes, it matters.

 

A European story with an Ashkelon connection.

 

Because genealogy is more than just names and dates.

 

The presentation will mark my father's forty-second yahrzeit.