Monday, February 14, 2011

Where is it????

I spent the night trying to find the box of photographs that my bio dad sent me so I could get them in photo albums......I can't find the box! I am FAREAKING out because there is a notepad in there with family names on them...I suck:(.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

On to the Goldman Side

I took a slight break from researching the family so that I could get to know my newly found, flesh and blood, directly related to me cousins. Can I just tell you how frigging awesome they are? I really wish that my Grandfather could have known Warren as he grew up. He is a really cool guy and his daughter is absolutely AWESOMESAUCE!

Last night I jumped back into the ancestral pool but started researching the Goldman side of the family. Now somewhere amongst my 3rd cousins is the "Goldman Family Saga". I had heard of this as I grew up but I have never laid eyes on it. Apparently it is the family history, the last person I know of that had it was my cousin Vic Teich....he passed away at the end of last year and now no one knows who has the family history. So I sent out requests among the relatives who I have emails for, BEGGING them to find out where it went. That is the easy part, the hard part is once I find it, convincing the person to hand it over to me so that I can catalog it and upload it to flash drives so that EVERYONE has the family history.

Never the less, onward I pressed and found out why I had not been able to find any census records with my Great-Grandparents on them, I was looking for the wrong names. My Great Grandfather was named Simcha (but he went by Samuel), my Great Grandmother was Pauline Nussbaum (maiden name) (but she went by Peppie). I had been randomly searching for my Aunt Lulu (Lillian) and low and behold up pops the New York State census for 1905 with......my Grandmother's whole family on it:). She was only 10 months old and my Uncle Seymour was still 4 years away from being born. Once I found that everything started falling into place, I found the 1910 US Census with Peppie as head of household (Simcha had passed on already). After that I found my Great Uncle Sam's marriage record (to a Julia and my aunt has no idea who that is...maybe she died and he remarried, maybe they divorced, who knows). I also found my Great Aunt Ida's marriage record and the death record for my Great Uncle Arnold, who it turns out was named Emanuel Arnold, we never knew that:). Thanks to the 1905 New York State census I was finally able to get a peek into my Grandmother's family's life. My Great Grandfather sold Pocket Books and one of his sons Sandor (Samuel) also sold pocket books. My Great Aunt Ida was a dressmaker (at 16 years old) and my Great Uncle Samuel (yes, there were three Samuel's in the family) was a painter. Now I am not sure if that means house painter or actual "art" painter. I don't know if I will ever find out the answer to that little question.

So tonight, instead of researching more I am going to turn my attention back to the Hess side and get all of the paperwork that I now have filed away by family group. There are A LOT of copies of the same information, but you have to make sure your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed right?

Cheers!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

So much Information!

What can I say, when one wall comes crumbling down, the others that have been blocking your way do also. I can't believe the amount of information I have found since finding my cousins. It's like someone up there did not want me finding this stuff until I found them....which too me makes perfect sense:). In a period of 24 hours I finally found my Great-Uncle Sidney's obituary, my Great-Aunt Madeline's obituary and my Great-Grandmother's obituary! The last three pieces of the original puzzle are in place and I can't believe how great it feels.

Now onto the new family mystery....finding my Great-Grandmother's sister Fanny and my Great-Grandfather's sister Sarah. It dawned on me that my Great-Grandmother came to the United States before my Great-Grandfather and that Mathilda may have traveled here with her whole family, not just her sister. If that is the case then I am praying I can find the ship manifest that shows her arrival.

I also had to deliver the bad news to the family that lives an hour from me that my Madeline and their Madeline were not the same person. I felt awful because I was so sure that we were related:(, that being said, I offered my services to them to help them unravel their own family history mystery. We were brought together for a reason and I refuse to believe it was supposed to be just long enough to tell them we weren't related. I am excited to help Bridgette, her dad and her uncles because there is nothing like finally finding the information you have been searching for:).

Cheers!