Wordless Wednesday ~ Ethel, Rachel and Roza

I have several photographs from my mother-in-law that came from her father's family in Romania and Israel in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. I am sharing them here in hopes of reconnecting with this branch of my husband's family.

The back is in Yiddish and I had help with the translation when I attended a "Help Day" meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston a couple of years ago. Let me know in the comments if you have anything to add about the translation.

Wordless Wednesday ~ George Levitt, Wife and Mother-in-Law

According to my mother-in-law's handwriting on the back of this photo, this is "George, Betty + Mrs. Brodsky (Betty's mother)"

George Levitt was the oldest brother of my mother-in-law's mother, Rose. He lived in Philadelphia. I have written about his wife, Elizabeth Girfman, and his mother-in-law, Sarah Brodsky, who applied for naturalization in 1927. I have also shared some U.S. Census records for the family from 1920 and from 1930 and 1940.

George died in 1965 at 64 years old and Sarah died in 1968 in her 80s. Too bad I can't see the car that's behind George and Betty to help date this photo, but I'm guessing this was taken in the late 1940s or 1950s.

Mining Ancestry.com Hints by Specific Record Collection

Randy Seaver, author of Genea-Musings, has again shared a wonderful hint on Mining Ancestry.com Hints by Specific Record Collection. Do click through to his blog post to see his explanation on how to do it.

The example he used was for the U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, where I have found some interesting facts for my family and my husband's family. (I shared one when this database was new on Ancestry.com.)

I want to share another interesting example in this database from my husband's family. Elizabeth (Girfanan or Girfanun or Girfman) Levitt was my mother-in-law's Aunt Betty.

This record, from the Social Security Application and Claims Index, 1936-2007, at Ancestry.com, shows that Sarah's maiden name was Brodsky and her father's name was Garson Girfanan (or Girfanan). Elizabeth's mother, Sarah Brodsky, immigrated from Russia as a young mother with her toddler daughter. I shared her naturalization papers here, one of which states that her husband is deceased.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Uncle Max and Aunt Lottie

Max Goldstein was brother to Morris Goldstein, my husband's grandfather. The Hebrew on his gravestone reads:

Here lies Menachem Mendel son of Mr. Yitzchak

Lottie (Rosen) Goldstein was Max's wife. The Hebrew on her gravestone reads:

Here lies Lottie daughter of Mr. Lieb

They are buried at Mount Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens, New York, in the same cemetery as Anna Goldstein, sister of Max and Morris.

Y-DNA Haplogroup for Morris Goldstein

I am slowly but surely getting a few more cousins to test their DNA.

A refresher: Y-DNA is passed down from father to son. To determine the Y-DNA of my husband's grandfathers, I can test my husband for his paternal grandfather's Y-DNA, but I needed a male cousin, son of the brother of my mother-in-law, in order to determine the Y-DNA of my husband's other grandfather.

A picture may help visualize what I'm trying to explain. The rectangles represent men; the "cropped" rectangles represent women (who do not carry Y-DNA and therefore cannot pass it to their children).

My husband, SH, is in haplogroup R-M198, as I wrote about at Y-DNA and Haplogroup Result. He received this Y-DNA from his father, Harry, who received it from his father, Josef, who received it from his father, Aaron.