Dr. Matthew Levitas ~ Is He the Unknown Graduate?

Last week, I shared a photo of an unknown graduate. This photograph has been kept by my mother-in-law's family for many decades - an academic graduation was a significant milestone for an immigrant Jewish family and the parents of this graduate likely shared this photograph with their extended family.

I am theorizing that this is a photograph of Matthew S. Levitas, a first cousin of my husband's grandmother. (I have written about him before.)

Wordless Wednesday ~ Unknown Graduate

I have had this photograph in my collection for several years. It comes from my mother-in-law's side of the family and is a graduation photo. (See the scroll in the young man's left hand and the books under his right.)

Unfortunately, no one knows who this young man is, though it's believed to be a relative of my grandmother-in-law (Rose Levitt Goldstein).

Kaufman Studio, 287 E. Houston St., New York is the photographer. New York City Directories at Fold3.com has Sol Kaufman working at that address from 1908 to 1918, and likely longer, but I only checked a few years.

Celebrating Blogiversary #4

This is blog post number 164 over the past four years. Although I have not blogged as much recently, I still enjoy writing about my husband's Jewish ancestry (in Eastern Europe and America), and often try to fit in a post that can be helpful to other researchers using these not as common or more challenging resources.

There were two big finds during this past year:

First, I believe I found the family of my mother-in-law's grandfather, Max Levitt, in Husiatyń, Galicia. See:

My Best Recent Genea-Prize
Levitas / Lewites from Austria
Mappy Monday - Husiatyń

Second, having a second cousin find my blog and contact me was great. When I learned that he made a video recording interview of his aunts (and my father-in-law's first cousins) and posted it on YouTube as Mishpacha Tapes Helen and Esther 1988, that was icing on the cake! See:

Connecting with a Handler Cousin: Blog as Cousin Bait for the first post about this connection. I have tagged all my blog posts mentioning this 1988 video with Mishpacha Tape. I plan to share more about this tape.

I also connected with a fourth cousin on the Segal line through DNA testing. See Connecting With a Segal Cousin to read about our meeting.

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you continue to read and enjoy!