Belarus: Guess what I found in Gomel?

As Tracing the Tribe often mentions, dedicated researchers around the world cooperate to transliterate, translate and make available little-known records.

While I often receive information and write about new projects, I rarely discover anything for our elusive TALALAY family.

Last week was very different, and thanks go to Paul Zoglin for another piece of family history.

Let's backtrack a bit and I'll provide you with a snapshot of our Mogilev-centered family.

Rabbi Leib ben harav Mikhl TALALAI had numerous children: Bashe, another daughter (name unknown), Movsha, Ber (my direct ancestor), Mikhel, Anshel, Pinkhas Leizer, Chaim Velvel. There may another one or two according to some single records.

This story concerns Anshel ben harav Leib. Anshel's birth was noted in the Mogilev Crown Rabbinate records, written in Rabbi Leib's beautiful Hebrew handwriting. Some birth records say 1834, others 1837; he died 22 August 1884 in Moscow. He was married twice, but we only know his second wife, Perla bat Elkanon Minken Muenster.

Anshel's children were Benzion Mikhl from the first marriage, and Avram, Chaya Sora, Minai, Sonia (MENUHIN), Rosa (BERLIN), Yosef Yoel (Joseph), and three children who died very young (Leib, Leah and a second Leib).

Anshel and his children nearly all were born, lived and died in Moscow, except for Yosef (Joseph) who lived in Moscow, then in Berlin until 1933 and then to England and the US.

We knew Yosef Yoel (Joseph) was married to Sophie Brusterman of Gomel. They were the parents of Naum (who settled in Toronto), Anselm (Cleveland), Leo (New Haven) and Paul (Baltimore). Naum's son Victor was my excellent co-investigator into our family history before his recent death.

We know the birth and death dates for most of Anshel's children and grandchildren and whom they married, but who Avram's wife was a mystery. We knew his children, all born and died in Moscow, were Mina (CHERNIAK), Anselm and Boris.

Now thanks to Paul Zoglin and his team's work in Gomel vital records we know more about Avram.

Paul sent me the surname list for brides and grooms.

Since I knew we had a Gomel connection (Joseph and Sophie), I ran down the names quickly and saw several names of interest, particularly those families who I knew married into our Mogilev TALALAY family, including AZBEL (several marriages), BAEVSKY (a marriage gift of a book to my great-grandparents was signed by the family), BALTER, BERLIN, BRUK, CHERNYAK, DONIN, DYSKIN, ENTIN, GINZBURG, IOFA/E, IOFFA/E, KATSNELSON, KHANIN, KROLL, KRUGLYANSKY, MIKHLIN, PERLIN, PINSKY, RAKHLIN/ROKHLIN, RASKIN, RATNER, RAYKHENSHTEIN, SHUB, SHULMAN, IASIN/YASIN/YASINOV and others.

There is a separate list of bride's surnames as well, and I saw names of interest here as well: ALTSHULER, AZBEL, BOLOTIN, OMDIN/EMDIN, RAKHLIN/ROKHLIN, RASKIN, RATNER and others.

Gomel was one point of a triangle; the others being Mogilev and Bobruisk. People from Mogilev, the largest of the three cities, often married people from Gomel and Bobruisk, opened businesses or branches in those other cities, and thus it seems rather common for people to have relatives in the other two cities. As families got together to celebrate weddings and holidays, it stands to reason that the young people attending weddings met each other, leading to additional marriages.

If you are searching Mogilev, Gomel and/or Bobruisk and surrounding shtetls, make sure to look at records for the other two and you might find interesting connections.

In both the groom and bride lists, many shtetls are listed near the three larger locations.

The kicker, of course, was seeing Avram (Joseph's brother) TALALAY as a groom on line 2137.

I wrote to Paul and asked about this particular record. He provided the following information:

Abram, son of Anshel, TALALAY, 35
married Dveyra, daughter of Abram, KAPLAN, 21
on 10 January 1902 in Gomel

Are you searching Gomel (or Bobruisk or Mogilev)? You might want to contact Paul Zoglin for more information.

Now's a good time to remind researchers that contributions to continue special projects are always welcome, so ask Paul about that as well.

But you must promise to let Tracing the Tribe know if you find records of interest!

Thank you, Paul!

Melbourne: Meeting the family - at last!

Thirty years ago, Alexander Katsnelson, his wife Jenny and toddler Nelly arrived in Melbourne from Bobruisk, Belarus.

Later on, his father and brother Leon arrived from Bobruisk. Alex and Leon's mother was a TALALAI whose family was from Mogilev.

In the photo below are (from left) Leon, Schelly and Alex.

About seven years ago, members of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society - notably the late Les Oberman - located Alex and Jenny after information from new-found Moscow cousins indicated they might be in Melbourne.

We communicated for awhile until I experienced a major computer malfunction and lost much data (including emails). Yes, I know. Tracing the Tribe always advocates backing up, backing up, backing up. I goofed and thus our family lost years during which we could have been in contact.

However, as soon as I landed in Melbourne, I told my hostess, Ziva Fain, that we needed to find them. Fortunately, we found L. Katsnelson in the online phone book (cousin Leonid), who gave me Alex's number.

Today was cousin day.

Alex and Jenny came to take me to their home - which is very close to Ziva's - where Alex's younger brother Leon, their older daughter Nelly and granddaughter Miliana, 2, were waiting. Later that day I also met Nelly's son Jordan, 5, and Nelly's sister Fleur.

Nelly has a degree in journalism - is it genetic? - while Fleur is an attorney. Our daughter is Liana, Nelly's is Miliana.

We went over family charts and photographs. Leon told us many anecdotes from his childhood. As the younger brother, he was closer to his grandmother and he remembered a large photo on the wall of his mother's family in Mogilev.

When Alex and Jenny left, they could not take any family photos with them. When Leon left, he took many small photos, but was not permitted to take other family memorabilia. His mother's sister went to Brooklyn later on and took other items, including the photo. She has since died; no one knows where the large photo of the Mogilev family is now, but Alex and Leon said they will try to find who has it (and many other photos) and have them scanned.

After lunch, Jenny showed me a Russian-language site that translates as "classmates" - sort of a Russian Facebook. We checked for TALALAI and were amazed to find so many, although some I knew. This could be a very valuable resource for genealogists. Names can be typed in English, but everything else seems to be in Cyrillic.

I showed Jenny and Nelly how to use both Ancestry and JewishGen. Everyone was surprised to see how many FamilyFinder entries for KATSNELSON from Bobruisk were listed. A few years ago, Leon had been contacted by a US researcher who sent him information and charts but they couldn't see how they were related; he did not hear from that researcher again.

Many of the KATSNELSON researchers in the Family Finder are either deceased or have not logged in since 2004.

Jenny is also looking for her HEIMAN (sometimes written KHAYMAN) family of Bobroisk. Her grandmother lived in Bobruisk, but her family had moved to Riga, Latvia, where she grew up and attended school. How and why they moved to Riga is a story in itself.

Jenny and I later went to dinner and we didn't stop talking all evening. There was an instant connection, as if we had known each other for a lifetime.

There will be more to tell. And this time we won't lose the connection!

Warm fuzzies: Uncle Lou's graduation photo

Following the very kind comment of an anonymous reader concerning my great-uncle, Dr. Louis Tollin, detailed here, I set out to find his yearbook photo. I used to have a copy here somewhere, but believed it had been lost in our last move.

I emailed the University of Maryland Medical School Alumni Association yesterday. Today, I had a nice email from them with Uncle Lou's 1927 yearbook entry attached (above).

Thank you, University of Maryland!

I was also successful - about 12 years ago - in contacting what was South Side High School - now Shabazz High School - attended by Uncle Lou, my grandmother and their siblings. When I called them, a very nice young woman went into a back room and found the dusty records.

Moral: Contact your ancestors' high schools, colleges or universities and see what they might have. You may be pleasantly surprised! Don't forget to contribute your own family yearbooks to online resources to make it easier for others to find information for their own families.

Get ready to do the genealogy happy dance!

Warm fuzzies: One reason for this blog!

There are many reasons for Tracing the Tribe. While its primary reason for existence is to inform readers about Jewish genealogy innovations, resources, books, events and more, there is also a a personal motive. As a researcher, I am always hoping that long-lost and far-flung relatives will chime in as well - and some have.

Today, I received this comment from a former patient of my great-uncle Dr. Louis Tollin, in response to a post titled Maryland: Jewish Museum and genealogy.

Oh my; you are a relative of our beloved Dr. Louis Tollin of Edgemere, Maryland? There are thousands of us from coast to coast that he delivered and took care of our whole lives out of his office in the front of his home on North Pt Rd.

He would come to our houses in the 1950's in what I remember to be a Nash Rambler. I was a child then, but remember him pulling up. He was so funny, always telling jokes to keep us from being scared as he stitched us up in his office or gave us a shot, examined us for eyeglasses or made our medications himself in the little back room.

His son Max I believe worked at "Four Roses" distillery in Dundalk. Mrs. Tollin was his nurse and had red hair.

When I go back home and drive past the home that used to also be his office, it is sad. He was and is a legend in our town. Dr. Louis Tollin will always live on in the Sparrows Point/Edgemere/Fort Howard area of Maryland through the hearts of generations of patients.

What a great way to start a blogging day! Thank you, dear writer, for what is now my favorite comment!

I knew Uncle Lou from his brief summer visits to my grandparents' (his sister Bertha was my maternal grandmother) large bungalow colony in Kauneonga Lake, New York. The only tidbit I had ever heard about his professional life was that he was devoted to Sparrows Point and would never consider moving, despite family suggestions.

It really made my day to hear from this former patient (there was no name, email or location to identify the person or I would have written personally and thanked the writer).

I will expand on this at a later date and add snippets of documents as befits a genealogy blog! But for now, here's a photo of Lou (bottom left), younger brother Samuel, my maternal grandmother Bertha, and their parents Aron Peretz ben Menachem Mendl Talalai (Tollin) and Riva bat Tzalel Bank (c1910; Newark, New Jersey).

The story in the family was that Uncle Lou was afraid of blood. When he was accepted to medical school - the ultimate achievement for every immigrant family - everyone was worried. A relative found him a summer job in a slaughterhouse, which apparently cured him of his fear.

Uncle Lou/Leib was named for his father's illustrious ancestor, Rabbi Leib ben haRav Mikhel Talalai of Mogilev. Lou's father, Aron Peretz ben Menahem Mendl, lived in the Vorotinschtina agricultural colony (adjacent to the hamlet of Zaverezhye) , very close to Mogilev, Belarus, where the main Talalai family lived; Talalai were among the colony's founders. There were other early Talalai branches in Novgorod Severskiy (Chernigov gub., Ukraine), St. Petersburg, Moscow, and elsewhere.

Aron Peretz' wife was Riva bat Tzalel Bank - whom we called Little Grandma for her diminutive stature - was from Petrinisky near Kovno, while Tzalel's brother Gedalia and family lived in Keidan.

Louis was 2, Bertha 5 months old, when they arrived at Ellis Island and settled in Newark, New Jersey. Aron and Riva's family grew with the additions of Samuel (Shmuel), Abe (Avraham) and Harry (Hirsch). Zayde Aron's brother David and his family (his wife was a Visotsky from Bobruisk) also lived in Newark. Extended family had emigrated to New York, Philadelphia, Springfield/Boston, and elsewhere.

Are there any more of Uncle Lou's former patients out there?