Sunday, April 1, 2018

Luck in the Form of an Unexpected Phone Call

In December, 1953 I was married. It was a lovely wedding. Of course, the young bride was only  interested in her friends and a fun time. She was not interested in her father's relatives who had come from Philadelphia to be at the wedding. She really did not even know how they were related. I am sure she was polite and met them and thanked them for coming. The wedding was over and many years passed by.  Since that wedding much time has passed, bringing with it many changes. The bride and groom were divorced thirteen years later. The father and the mother of the bride passed away. Life went on for all others. The bride remarried, began a new life and had a fulfilling career and retired. Retirement did not sit well and a lucky phone call brought a new interest and excitement into her life.



Of course, I am sure you have guessed that I am the lucky person.  Through a phone call in late 2010 I met Bruce Brown. He had a genealogical question for me. Why was a member of his family buried right next to my paternal grandmother and her sister? Our family question, of course, was... who is buried next to Buby and Aunt Fannie.  Prior to that time I was not involved in genealogy in any way. What a lucky gift that was and what wonderful experiences it brought into my life. It also made me start to look for more family members. As a resulted my paternal family really began to grow.

Though much brainstorming we recalled the family name of the 'wedding cousins'.  That search introduced another sister of my grandmother into our lives, Jenny (Talmici) Talmage had married Aron Baraf and raised her family in Philadelphia.  The next step was to reconnect with some younger cousins in Israel. We knew how they were related. Guess what? When we connected by email they suggested to another new name, Yehuda Issersohn. Another family surprise! Another Talmici sister appeared on the tree, Roza Talmici Issersohn.  We finally were able to 'view' my paternal grandmother's family. Meyer and Perla Talmici had six children; Fanny, Jenny, Victoria, Hana, Roza and Isaac.

You are right is guessing these first steps did not solve the cemetery problem. But that lucky phone call has brought all of these years of pleasure in the area of genealogy. I have learned so much about family, so much about the joys and problems of genealogy, met so many new and interesting people and, yes, after 7 years we have solved the cemetery problem. That is a story for another day.


1 comment:

Ftm 2018 said...

I have researched the families of several of my friends and learned I am related (by marriage) to my best friend of 50 years and another good friend of 40 years.

I discovered my stepdaughter and her husband are related by one marriage, which is truly amazing since one family is from Illinois/Missouri and the other from New York. At one time the two families crossed paths in Ohio.

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