The ubiquitous “About” page, to be completed at a later date. (And not yet finalized, despite what you see below.)

Heritage and background

My own familial heritage, at least going back to my great-great grandparents, includes the modern-day countries of Norway & Iceland (maternal side), Germany (paternal grandmother) and Poland (paternal grandfather). Poland, however, is a well-known challenge for many who have immigrant ancestors from this area of Eastern Europe due to the multiple partitioning of this part of the continent. In all actuality, my great-great grandparents identified themselves as “Russian” because Poland did not exist as a country at the time they were born and left for the United States of America (USA or US). Poland had been divided up between three other countries, of which Russia had gained control over my ancestors’ homelands. My ancestors’ area was known at that time as “Congress Poland,” “Russian Poland,” or part of the “Russian Empire.” All official records were kept in Russian except for those recorded in either Hebrew or Yiddish, as these ancestors were all Ashkenazi Jews. However, when Poland became a country once again, these ancestors, many of whom were by now naturalized American citizens, began identifying themselves as Polish in heritage. Family who did not make the trip to the USA are among those I am interested in tracking down – if possible. Given that all four great-great grandparents lived in or near to the city of Łodz, which was the site of one of the largest Jewish grottos during World War II, I am not sure how many (if any at all) of those family members who stayed in Poland may have survived. One historical article I read some time ago (it might have been from the city of Łodz’s English translation “History” page, but I would have to check) stated that almost the entire Jewish population of Łodz was exterminated during the war.

Lest you think that Poland is the biggest hurdle to overcome, I should point out that naming conventions in Germany – along with the multiple boundary changes of territories and government – make Germany only slightly less of a challenge. Furthermore, the naming conventions of Norway and Iceland would, you might think, make tracing a family line easier, but in many ways it makes it more complicated.

Although Iceland was settled permanently by Norwegians (part of the family line, as it happens), the naming conventions in both places created certain issues. A child’s surname was the first name of the father, with a suffix to denote “daughter” or “son” of that father. This is reflected in common names such as Johnson which would mean “John’s son” and is often seen in Norwegian and Icelandic family trees as Jonsson or some variation on that name. Depending on the country, one might find the suffixes “-sson” or “-sen” or “-son” for the males, and “-dottir,” “-datter,” or “-dotter” for females. (I am largely excluding the accents and other specific non-English character marks solely due to my currently limited knowledge of how to insert these characters into this type of formatting.)

This naming convention extended through Denmark and Sweden as well. Further complicating matters, even before the move to the United States, some families in these countries had begun to standardize their surnames so that instead of potentially every member in a family having a different surname according to the traditional naming patterns, they all shared the same surname. All the females then switched from the suffix version of “daughter” they had used previously, and adopted the family’s decided “son” suffix instead. I have individuals born and baptized as a “-dottir” who on passenger lists are shown as “-son” or “-sson.” The old custom of fostering children as other farmsteads also resulted occasionally in that child taking on the name of their foster-parents rather than their birth name. This is again an instance where a FAN search can prove particularly useful. I am fortunate to have a large amount of genealogical information on my maternal side compiled by other family members into family history books and a large scroll, so my focus has primarily been on my paternal line at this point.

Contrary to popular misconception, there were no deliberate name changes done by port of arrival officials. They copied down names provided to them from existing lists, or tried to write as best they could the names as they were spoken by the passengers themselves. If there was any deliberate tampering with names, it would likely only have been if an assumption was made that a family shared the same last name. However, that was not likely, as the port of arrival workers were well aware of the diversity of names and traditions coming through their stations, and were instructed not to take anything for granted when it came to names. Passengers, for their part, dared not give any other name than what they originally used to book their ticket, as if the names did not match, they would be refused admittance and sent back to their home country.

What’s next?

With all that said, I hope you will find the information provided here interesting and/or useful. There are no current plans to post on anything resembling a set schedule, but only when I have something of significance to share. At the beginning, this might mean more posts as I try to populate the site, but after a while, it should taper off a bit. I have set up a contact form accessible at the bottom of the page (I think) where you can send me any additional information you may have, bits of family history I might be missing, specific questions about individuals you would like to have looked into, and the like. I created the form this morning, but have not yet tested it out. For those of you who are linked with me on Ancestry or other means, you can contact me that way in the meantime.

Current research

• My current research is focused on the Milgrom and Rothman families, my father’s paternal great-grandparents. I’m actually spending a fair amount of time on them, as they were the ones who were the immigrants (all four of them) from Russian Poland, bringing their children with them in various stages (including both my great-grandparents), and are the connections I need to begin my overseas research in that part of the world. The fact that they were also all Jewish means I have multiple languages to try and acquaint myself with in order to verify documents, so it is slow going, but I am making progress.

• One generation closer to home, I’m attempting to locate the date and place of death/burial for my paternal grandfather’s father, a Rothman. I have some leads, but so far, nothing concrete I can put a check mark next to.

• I am also working on a generations-old mystery regarding the parentage of my mother’s paternal great-grandmother. Her father (a Ross from Canada) is known to us only via her birth certificate, and possibly one photograph, so we only have a name and a country of birth for him. I’ve made some progress there as well, though not as much as I’d like. I continue to work on this though.

Suggestions, information, comments, family stories, requests, etc. are all much appreciated as I work to develop and document this family’s history and lineage.