Me and Steven Davis in Montefiore Cemetery, Queens
Here's a quick summary of how genealogy enhanced my life in 2021!
1. Visiting the ancients with Cousin Steven
Above is a photo of me with my distant relation Steven Davis. Since September 2020, we've kept up a pretty steady correspondence, as we've pieced together clues on our Davis family, Russian Jews who came to the United States in the 1880s and 1890s.
In September 2021, we had the pleasure of meeting up in person and spent a sunny late summer day looking at four Jewish cemeteries in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island (and inspired by Steven, I went to a fifth shortly thereafter). We had the honor of visiting the graves of each other's great-grandparents. Given that our mutual relatives were buried in a cemetery section for people from Korsun, Ukraine, we're pretty convinced that Korsun is our Davis family hometown.
I am grateful to contact two more mutual Davis relatives this year, Larry Davis and his mother, Arlene Davis. Funny enough, Arlene worked in 1950 in the same Manhattan building that I will hopefully commute to once Covid-19 subsides: 30 Rockefeller Plaza! She knew it as the RCA Building, and I will know it as the Comcast building.
2. The family left behind in Poland
My Grandma always told me that everyone in her family left Poland and Russia for the United States, but this year Shirley Frum Cohen and her daughter-in-law Helena Cohen thankfully emailed me and showed me that was not the case. We were surprised to see we had matching research on our common ancestors who had lived 150-200 years ago. While my side of the family immigrated to New York, Shirley's direct ancestors stayed behind in 20th-century Poland.
Szaia and Rajzla Frum (from USC Shaoh Foundation video testimony of their daughter, Dina Nord)
My Mom has memories of her great-grandmother, Fannie Scher Davis, an immigrant born in Poland. At least two of Fannie's first cousins (and likely more) lived out their days in Poland: Szaia Frum, who died in 1935, and Fałek Sender, who died in the Lodz Ghetto in 1941. An overwhelming number of Szaia's and Fałek's children and grandchildren died in the Holocaust.
Shirley and Helena's family history also has incredible stories of resistance and endurance. Shirley's father Mike Frum and great-aunt Dina Nord survived the Holocaust, and Dina's testimony can be seen online via the USC Shoah Foundation. Mike Frum settled in Cleveland, Ohio, and aided the creation of the first free-standing community Holocaust Memorial in the USA.
3. "Little carps" in Cyrillic
Once again, other people's kindness demolished one of my major research brick walls: Russian records about my Grandma's Karasov ancestors. I knew from gravestones that my great-great-grandfather, William Karasov, had a brother named Yitzchak Chaim, a father named Jehoshua, and a grandfather also named Yitzchak Chaim.
Thankfully, JewishGen.org indexed a death record that matched the elder Yitzchak Chaim and FamilySearch.org posted the digitized death record. This was my first Russian genealogical discovery, overcoming the Cyrillic language barrier!
William Karasov had the alternate surname "Karasik" in his naturalization papers. A Ukrainian-born Canadian, Yuri Karasik, found mention of his last name in my blog and generously shared more Russian-language records involving the Karasik family. Amazingly, one of the records is for the 1903 marriage of William's brother, whose name is given as Yitzchak Chaim Karasik!
4. Long-lost aunt comes from behind the brick wall
Another major research brick wall toppled this year thanks to Gesher Galicia, an invaluable research group dedicated to Galitzianer Jewish genealogy. This year they posted links to scanned interwar death records on Ukrainian archives' websites. This allowed me to find the death record of my Grandpa's aunt, Fryderyka (Freide) Kikenis (1870-1937), which clearly lists her maiden name as "Fingerhut."
Freide Fingerhut in Lemberg in 1893, a year before she married Izak Kikenis.
Kikenis descendants and I have been in touch for about a decade but we had no definitive proof linking the young Freide Kikenis I found in 1890s Lemberg records with the grandmotherly Fryderyka Kikenis who had lived in 1930s Bobrka, a town near Lemberg. This 1937 death record in Bobrka finally links the two halves of Fryderyka's life back together. The Holocaust killed off most of my Grandpa's family, but now two distant branches can know each other once again.
5. One love for Juan Cohen
This blog has already gone into extensive detail on my investigation of my Caribbean privateer ancestor, Captain Juan Cohen (c.1787-c.1865). Here's my last blog entry on that investigation, and here's the separate write-up compiling what's been found.
I want to thank once again all of the people who helped me in 2021's iteration of the Cohen family hunt. Ainsley Cohen Henriques, former president of Shaare Shalom Synagogue in Kingston, Jamaica, generously answered my questions about a 1791 Jamaican baptismal record of a boy named John Cohen, who may or may not be my Juan Cohen.
My WhatsApp group of Juan Cohen descendants (Claudia Acero Cohen, David Cohen, Saul Cohen, Veronica Escolar, Gina Goff, Patricia Kessler, Gina Porcella-Du Briel, Lina Prada, Ernesto Rubio) has had many great discussions of sources, history, and random topics over the year. One of the most exciting moments came when I found on FamilySearch.org a Barranquilla notarial record describing Juan Cohen's son, Henrique Cohen, as "natural de Jamayca." Juan Cohen also being Jamaican has gone from a fringe theory to a more probable likelihood.
I'm especially grateful to Gina Goff for letting me share her Newspapers.com account, allowing me to find numerous 1820s newspaper articles about "Captain John Cohen" that provided enough clues to prove the privateer was the same man as the English merchant living in Cartagena.
1822 news account of Captain John Cohen raiding the Draper, a ship bringing cargo from Havana.
6. A Maury Povich kind of year
In 2021 I had terrific DNA discoveries as well. Through MyHeritage's Chromosome Browser, I found three relatives who descend from the Herrera Leiva family, a lineage closely tied to the colonial history of Cartagena, Colombia, including its infamous Inquisition. All four of us Herrera Leiva descendants share a decent portion of Chromosome 3.
I also gained insight into ancestral Y-chromosome lines: Jellissa Alvarado shared info on the Vásquez male line (Haplogroup R1b), and Steven Davis shared info on the Davis male line (Haplogroup J1).
7. Razib Khan's Substack
Last but not at all least, geneticist Razib Khan has launched a great project on Substack: "Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning." This $8 monthly subscription provides access to Razib's growing library of essays and podcasts, including genetic histories of human populations. So far he's covered Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Afghans, Finns, Hungarians, central Eurasian steppe dwellers, Roma people, and prehistoric human populations (Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc.). I can only imagine what Razib will offer us in 2022!
Razib Khan's Twitter feed is also a treasure trove of info. Just recently he linked to studies on a Han Chinese maternal line that entered the Ashkenazi community around AD 1300 and Sub-Saharan African admixture in Jewish populations around 2,000 years ago.
This pandemic is very isolating, but through my passion for genealogy I've made a number of unexpected and rewarding friendships. I look forward to the new year's new friends and unexpected discoveries!
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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