In the past few weeks I’ve been contacted three times (via ancestry.com) by individuals who are cousins of mine. I’ve confirmed each of these relationships and so I am now friends with these new cousins who live in distant states. I thought it would be interesting to document these new connections.
A Shared Jewish Ancestry
The first contact was from a man I’ll call “G”. I had
showed up as a cousin on his ancestry account via shared DNA. He is three years
younger than I. He shared his family story with me, including that his
great-grandfather (all on his male line) was a brother to Alexander Levy (my
great-great-grandfather via my grandmother Vera [Levy] [Russell] Rogers).
There is an interesting parallel between us in the
attempt to deny the Jewish connection. My grandmother (born in 1895) always
stated VERY firmly that she was NOT Jewish. She had also changed the spelling
of her maiden name from Levy to Levvy so that it had a different pronunciation.
G’s father (also born in 1895) had changed his last name from Levy to Lanning
for the same reason.
Even though our Jewish ancestors came to this country
in the mid-1800s, it’s difficult to imagine the discrimination that they felt
back in the early 20th century. We hear a lot about the difficulty
that Jews faced in Europe, culminating in the Holocaust of the late 1930s and
early 1940s. And we would like to think that here in the US we were above that
kind of thing. But both G’s ancestors and mine were living in the NYC area in
the early 1900s and must have felt some of that same discrimination – enough so
that they tried to separate themselves from their Jewish heritage.
G was born in Newark, NJ, grew up and went to college
in Miami, then took a job in Texas where he still lives. He is my 3rd
cousin, once removed (he was born when his father was in his late 50s).
Filling in the Gaps
My second contact was from a man I’ll call “M”. He was
doing some ancestral research on behalf of his mother-in-law who knew very
little about her ancestors because her mother had passed away at the age of 52.
His grandmother-in-law’s maiden name was Blackman and as he traced her family
line he had encountered some common links to individuals in my family tree.
My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Blackman.
Looking at the family tree that M was building for his mother-in-law, I could
see that our common ancestor was Isaac Blackman. M and his family still live in
New Haven County, CT, where the Blackman family have resided since the founding
of New Haven in the 1600s. That’s also where I’m from, but I have now moved to
PA.
I shared some pictures and other information that I
have about the Blackman family and he is happy to share them with his
mother-in-law. She is a few years younger than I and is my 4th
cousin, once removed.
Same Name, Different Side
The last message I received was from someone I’ll call
“R”. Although he and I share the same surname, Russell, the connection is not
on my father’s side, but is through a series of females. Our common ancestor is
Riverius Russell (1756-1834), but my descent line is through Mary [Russell]
Sperry, Anna [Sperry] Talmadge, Stephen Talmadge, Alice [Talmadge] Blackman, Sara
[Blackman] Pierpont, Sylvia [Pierpont] Russell, myself. Thus, R is my 5th
cousin, once removed.
R was looking for information on his direct ancestor,
Benedict Russell, who is my great*4 granduncle. I had not done a lot of
research on Benedict, but I quickly remedied that and was able to pass along
what I had found, including a couple of things that R could check on. I passed
along my findings and R will stay in touch with me if any of those leads are
fruitful.
Although my maternal line above all stayed in CT, R’s
line went from CT to NY to Nebraska. R is four years older than I am and has
retired to AZ.
Common Themes
There are a couple of common themes that run through
the above three encounters.
The first is that when we get into our 70s there seems
to be a renewed interest in genealogy. At the age of 75 I’ve been doing this
for over a decade, G is three years younger than I am, M is doing this on
behalf of his mother-in-law, who is a few years younger, and R is four years
older.
The second is that because I am the oldest son of the
oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son, the gap between generations in
my ancestors has been pretty short. That’s not true of any of the above, which
is why each of my connections has a “once removed” in it even though these
individuals are about my age (3rd cousin, once removed; 4th
cousin, once removed; and 5th cousin, once removed).
It’s been an interesting few weeks! Receiving three
unsolicited messages from three distant cousins, being able to share my
findings with each of them, and now having connections from TX, CT, and AZ whom
I can add to my genealogical family.
