DNA AND CANDLESTICKS THAT MATCH-PART I

For over three years now, I have been writing a weekly blog post, the subjects of which vary. Ofttimes, I write about the family, peppered with genealogy intrigue.

After gathering and organizing an update of living relatives in my collection, I have begun charting all the latest information. At the same time, with all the helpful Facebook groups online and the release of foreign archival records, it was the ultimate time to delve further into our ancestry.

A daily flow of newly released records is startling, and research has been unexpectedly fruitful. Plus, I am racking up friends in all places, not to mention blog post followers. 

After great finds on my husband’s maternal side of the family (see my July 20, 2021, blog post, Never Say Never), I hit pay dirt on my father’s side (see my blog, Incredulous! dated September 7, 2021). Aside from those in our family, I found others who were “like” family and blogged about some of them, including Mae Federbusch in, Who Remembers Mae Schnoll Federbusch? on April 13, 2021. That led me to find her descendants and write another blog called, Not Just Any Family, dated September 14, 2021.

Documenting other family friends, this time from my mother’s side, led me to write, With a Tear of Joy, on July 27, 2021, about the Mindlin family. The latest findings on the Mindlin’s appear in the blog post, I Was Wondering, dated September 21, 2021.

Continuing with great finds, I posted for help uncovering records of my grandfather Harry Friedman from Mozyr, Belarus. I joined a Facebook genealogy forum and wrote to the group:

“Seeking records on the Friedman family from Mozyr, Belarus - my grandfather Harry Friedman emigrated from Mozyr on March 3, 1906, as Hirsch Friedman (he traveled from Glasgow to Boston) and settled in NY. His brother Gus - Ellis Island records show Gotz Friedmann came to Chicago from Mozyr in 1904. They had another brother Mayer who never came to America but his daughter Dora (Yiddish-Dwoire) came to America on the Czar ship on January 21, 1913. She left her closest relative listed as her father Mayer Friedman in Mozyr. My grandfather greeted her at Ellis Island.”

It’s happened before. Fellow researchers have contacted me with information about the person/s I am researching. But, when a woman reached out and said that she was sure she was related to the Mindlins, it took me by surprise. More on that to come. 

Svetlana sent me a private message on Facebook, noting that she posted a message on my website. Minutes later, my son Judd, the webmaster of my site, forwarded her message. It read, “Dear Sharon, I have noticed your inquiry about Friedman from Mozyr. I [am] also very much interested in Mindlin research. I have a reason to believe that your ‘Mindlin’ and our ‘Mindlin’ are related.” She continued, “I admire your blog.” She left her telephone number and said that she lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

I could hardly wait to pick up the phone and call my admirer. We had a very lengthy and heartwarming conversation. She came from a city 10 miles from Mozyr, Belarus, in 1994. Her sister lives in Israel and has been tracing their roots. With Hurricane Ida surging outside, we talked up a storm. 

My mother, Ida, said she would never have the patience to work on the family history. With the tropical storm raging, it seemed so apropos, almost an omen, for me to be working on tracing the family roots on my mother’s side, as trees and homes uprooted outdoors with the ravages of Hurricane Ida. My mother would have sat glued to the news, worried about the impact of the storm. See my blog post dated October 5, 2021, Remnants of Our Hurricane Ida.

The storm concerned me but didn’t stop my desire to strike while the iron was hot and speak with Svetlana, who could hold the key to my Friedman ancestry and more. An accent, which Svetlana apologized for, didn’t faze me a bit. I told her that I was communicating with all my newfound cousins. They all immigrated from Ukraine in the past 30 years.

During our first telephone conversation, Svetlana taught me about the country of her birth and the land of my ancestry. She even corrected the spelling of the ancestral name of my grandfather’s first wife, as Golod, shortened to Gold in America.

Mollie, a sister of my grandfather’s first wife, was married to a Mindlin. Svetlana texted me a picture of a page from her Golod family tree with Mindlins intertwined. They were Golod family members from where she hailed, Skrigalow. Svetlana explained that Mindlins came into that area in 1848. “Given land,” she gulped, “really they were swamps, which they turned into paradise.”

We didn’t get to delve into our ancestry too much more that evening. Svetlana was eager to contact her sister, but it was 5:00 a.m. in Israel when we were speaking. Yet, she didn’t want to hang up before checking the DNA connections of my cousins, whom I knew had done testing. Neither did I.

Look for Part II next week…

Matching candlesticks-pictured here Rina and Moss Cohen at Juliet Bernstein’s home in Chatham, MA. Juliet had her husband retrieve the candlesticks of his deceased mother, Gussie, aka Goldie, Neidich Bernstein, from a pawn shop.

Pictured in my December 15, 2020, blog post: Generations of Candlesticks

Full version of the candlesticks in the cover photo-Svetlana said her grandmother’s candlesticks are marked inside “Warsaw 1825”

Golod (Gold) married to Mindlins in Svetlana’s family could be related to the family of my grandfather’s first wife