Raindrops keep falling, and falling…

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Janette Silverman

The raindrops are very real, but they are also metaphorical. Today we took a long drive to Plungė. I’ve never been there before, and neither has Lina, a native of Lithuania. I have probably not been to half or maybe 3/4 of the places in my home state of New York and love when visitors want to go to places I’ve never been. I hope Lina felt that way about our trip today. We anticipated a 3 hour drive, and despite lots of cars on the road, and an area of construction, we didn’t have to stop for any of this, and it took 3 hours.

You could see big black clouds in the distance and either they caught up with us or we caught up with them periodically. Either way, it would rain slowly, and then with a lot of force for a few minutes, and stop. Just when we figured we were out of the rainy area, it would start again. This dogged us the entire drive, and of course didn’t stop once we reached our destination even though we were sure, getting out of the car, that we would be rain-free for a while. As they say, if wishes were horses…

Plungė was an odd mix of the very old, the relatively new (or newly re-done old) and soviet era buildings.

And then there was nature’s bounty – the gardens.

The city was almost completely destroyed during World War II. Unlike many other places that were once home to a thriving and vibrant community, and disregarded that history when the community was destroyed. Plungė had monuments commemorating what was.

It also has a strange preservation of many gravestones. Behind a school, with a soccer field taking up most of what was probably a large cemetery, are several rows of matzevot, gravestones. They are now stand in curved lines, many of them are still legible.

One surprisingly, has an English inscription under the Hebrew!

At one time in the central part of the city stood a winter synagogue and a summer synagogue which are both gone and almost invisible except for the remnants of the foundation, the now grassy field where it once stood, and this marker.

The city has a lovely park at the site of an old mill.

Life does go on, and after destruction is rebuilding. In this city, thankfully, the rebuilding did not elimate the memory of its Jewish population. At least there were commemorative steps taken. My heart aches and I feel the rain internally as tears, and externally as food for the plants that grow in place of people.

I am grateful as I walk in these places to not be alone, and to have Lina and our intrepid photographer, Gabriel, with me.

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be back in Vilnius for several days, touring the old part of the city including the Jewish quarter. Perhaps it will rain less. On a humorous note, and something I should be ready for – I never, ever, bring the right clothes no matter how much I bring. This time, I needed to buy a warmer cardigan, a lined raincoat, and a long sleeved shirt. It’s colder and wetter than I ever would have though in the middle of August.

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The Streets

Posted on August 24, 2025 by Janette Silverman

Last night I was lulled to sleep by the musicians playing on the street outside the hotel – accordions, guitars, I think I saw a violinist when I was outside, too. This morning, I woke up early and was lulled back to sleep by the rain. Although by the time I woke up and went outside, it had stopped, but it was cold and windy. Yesterday’s late afternoon purchase of something warm to wear was definitely welcome. Suddenly (of course) the wind stopped, it rained for a bit (grateful for the small umbrella I brought with me) and then warmed up. Back I scurried to the hotel to divest myself of the warm outerwear and with that done, and several email answered, I went out again, to wander streets I haven’t been on for several years.

I found myself fascinated by the same things that always draw my eye – the alleys, old buildings, and remnants of a time gone by. I know that Vilnius is a modern city – the restaurants, ice cream and coffee shops, cars, and people will all attest to that. Coming from the U.S. though, it’s really nice to see a place where the old is valued and not destroyed to make way for everything new. That isn’t to say that there aren’t new office buildings, hotels, apartments, but there is still much here that is either original or has been reconstructed to appear so.

The day alternated between rain and not rain.

I kept walking, as much to see and hear as to get the kinks out of my backs and legs from sitting so much in airports and on planes.

Although you can’t tell from most of these photos, the streets were crowded with people walking and shopping, eating in outdoor cafés, going into churches (it’s Sunday), and not being deterred by a little water falling from the sky.

The people may be interesting, but I find the streets more so. Tomorrow we’re off on an adventure – we’ll be driving to Plungė, about 180 miles from Vilnius. It’s a small city with about 17,000 residents. Two parts of the city are separated by the Babrungas River and two bridges are built over it.

LitvakSIG has a chapter from a book by Sir Antony Sher about his family and a visit to Plungė in 1992, called “The Last Jew in Plunge” from his book “Beside Myself.” The town had about 1,800 Jews there in 1923, today it has none. All the buildings that at one time housed Jewish families, schools, shops, community activities were destroyed during World War II. One building remains. Tomorrow we will see that, the Holocaust memorial, and a memorial to Dr. Borisas Efrosas who was a pioneer of esophageal and pulmonary surgery and in 1958 performed the first successful heart surgery in Lithuania.

We’ve been to other places in Poland and Lithuania where there were vibrant Jewish communities, once upon a time, and looked for the signs alerting people to what once was and is no more. Every once in a while we find something behind a building, hidden from view, or in a museum or other repository, where (in theory anyway) nothing should be found. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

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Time

Posted on August 23, 2025 by Janette Silverman

As a genealogist I spend a great deal of time searching for people who lived centuries ago. I marvel at the clarity of some of the pages of documents that have withstood the ravages of time while bemoaning the degradation of ink and condition of the paper for other documents – definitely no consistency. As an aging person my perception of time is that the clock must be speeding up when I’m not looking at it because it passes by so quickly. Unless you’re on a long car or plane trip. Then it drags on, and on, and on. Those 8 hour drives from Santa Fe to Phoenix? The clock wants to keep me befuddled by saying it still takes 8 hours but really? It feels like double that. Plane flights also go sooooo slowly. I arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania today 17 hours after I left Phoenix. That flight seemed endless and changing planes twice didn’t make it go any faster.

Vilnius doesn’t seem to have changed, though. The last time I was here was in 2019, and after checking with the concierge at the hotel to make sure everything was still where I left it, knowing I could easily get around, I ventured out. Well, the cobblestone streets don’t make it easy, but I could find my way around.

I walked outside after collecting my bags at the airport to get a cab. The day was glorious – warm, sunny. Perfect weather. Then the rains came. By the time we reached my hotel, the rains stopped. The sky resumed its bright blue, sunny asspect, as if there had been no disruption.

So I did the sensible thing after checking into the Narutis – I went for a short walk in case the weather decided to do it again.

The weather was glorious, but unpacking, getting on-line, and taking care of other chores was calling me.

The hotel is so charming. The lobby is an interior courtyard and there are plants going up all four floors. I decided I would have dinner at the hotel and since the weather was so nice, I would eat outside. By the time I was done with dinner, about an hour later the temperature had dropped significantly, and I realized that once again, the huge pile of clothes I brought with me, was going to be insufficient. I noticed people were wearing jackets.

I remembered there used to be an outdoor market with all sorts of things not far from the hotel, and sure enough, I found a dark rust merino cardigan! Saved by the wool. I wonder where I’m going to put it to come home – the southwest is still going be be very warm in mid-September. Oh well. I don’t have to try to figure it out now. After all, tomorrow is another day,

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The Adventure Starts (or perhaps continues)

Posted on August 21, 2025 by Janette Silverman

Depending on how you look at it, I am either off for a new adventure or just continuing the journey of discovery I’ve been on for a long time. I realized many years ago that researching made me really happy, and it didn’t matter whether it was my own family’s history or someone else’s.

Tomorrow I leave for Lithuania and will be there until 1 September when I fly from Vilnius to Warsaw. A lot of the places we’ll be visiting are towns, cities, museums, repositories, I’ve been to previously, but an adventure in my mind, includes a deeper exploration of those places, and seeing some new spots.

The flight I’ll be taking is not exactly direct. I’ll be flying from Phoenix to Minneapolis to Amsterdam, and then to Vilnius. I think it is about 17 hours of flying (perhaps that includes the time between flights) but of course it doesn’t account for the arrival at the airport 2 hours early and the time in Vilnius waiting for bags. After a couple of recent flights to and from Ft. Wayne, Indiana where my computer roller bag didn’t fit under the seat or in the overhead, I made some packing decisions which may mean the backpack I’m carrying with electronics is going to be too heavy as I trek through airports! I’m checking that roller bag because ultimately, knowing the challenges I always face when confronted with books, I will need an extra bag!

In 2018, when I was first in Vilnius with some of my team: Marek, Lindsay, Ola, Lina, and a photographer, we went into a beautiful old hotel in downtown Vilnius, the Narutis, for lunch.

It was so elegant – not only the restaurant, but also the lobby area. This year, the opportunity presented itself for us (Lina and I) to stay somewhere other than the several hotels we’ve stayed at, we decided to try it. I’m really looking forward to arriving there late Saturday afternoon. Sunday will be a quiet day, catching up on emails, wandering around the city, and meeting Lina (who is arriving later than I am) for dinner.

Stay tuned for more.

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Relevancy

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Janette Silverman

I’m deep in chores of packing, rearranging, and packing some more. I definitely don’t pack light, ever. This trip appears to be no exception. Will the summer’s heat continue into September in Poland and Lithuania? Will it rain? Will it be chilly. I’ve traveled to these countries in the past and never had the right clothes with me. This time for 3 weeks of flying, driving, and taking a train, I think I’m taking everything. I have objections to buying things when I travel, but clothes shopping is not high on my list.

I returned from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where I was at a conference, only a few days ago. Just in time to unpack, do laundry, and repack. In my suitcase, I found something I had packed carefully, hoping the crumbling pages wouldn’t disintegrate even more. A few weeks ago, I was visiting my parents and my dad asked me to bring a small box up from the basement. I was very pleasantly surprised to see what it held.

My dad was stationed on Iwo Jima during World War II and for part of the time was on the staff of the newspaper. Some of the crumbling pages were copies of the newspaper – I haven’t had a chance to look at the pages. I want to photograph each of them so I can avoid putting them on a scanner and perhaps ruining them. The newspaper and the articles he wrote will certainly be of interest, but for me, better than that were a small stack of loose papers. My dad kept a journal of his days at sea traveling to Iwo Jima. There was more in that box. A larger stack of loose papers were handwritten and typed letters my dad wrote to his parents, my mother (this was several years before thy married), and others. From the few letters I had a chance to read, they are filled with family news and also my dad’s impressions of his surroundings, and politics surrounding the newspaper office! I can’t believe that I will have an opportunity to get to know my young dad.

The trip for which I’m packing will take me through cemeteries, museums, archives, and streets where my ancestors and those of my client who I’m accompanying, and those of the researchers on my team traveling with us walked. Although we’ll be seeing modern places and remnants of the past, my eyes will be open, looking for buildings and shops that stood long ago, and which are no more. I will be imagining, as I have done on other trips, what the past looked like. The sounds in the streets will feed my imagination, as will the smells and tastes of the food. I can’t wait to get on the plane and get started.

While we travel, as I’ve done in the past, I will try to write daily and share photos and thoughts about where we are and what we’re doing.

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Our Never-ending Stories

Posted on July 5, 2025 by Janette Silverman

Those of you who read my book Stories They Never Told Us may think you’ve heard (or read) all my stories and all the techniques and resources available for genealogical research. However, our lives are filled with stories. The minutia of daily life includes backstories, and then there are the fragments that get handed down from one generation to another. The stories themselves seem perfectly clear when we hear them for the first time and become imbedded in our memories with each subsequent telling. Until one day we look closer and realize we may not know the full story after all, and there’s no one left to ask.

My aunt and uncle were married for 66 years.

We have many photographs of their wedding day in January 1951. BUT they celebrated two anniversaries. As a genealogist, I thought nothing of the two dates. Research into marriage records in New York City (where my aunt and uncle married) frequently turns up two marriage records. One is a civil marriage at a courthouse or similar locale, officiated at by a judge or civil servant. The other record is always a religious marriage, most often the religious ones I have found are for Jewish weddings, but I have, on occasion, also found ones performed by a Catholic priest.

Locating the marriage record in this case, was easy – the Marriage License Index which I found on Ancestry.com identified the 18 December 1950 date of their license. Because access is still restricted under New York City privacy laws, I thought that was the end of it. My cousin (their daughter) searched through piles of papers and found the marriage record with the county clerk’s seal, attesting to their marriage on 19 December 1950. I searched for a second license that would match their January 1951 second marriage with no success.

Back to the drawing board, or in this case, boxes and stacks of papers. Success! A ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract was found for the couple dated January 1951.

So, this called for a slight revision of the original story. The revision isn’t for the story itself but, rather, for our understanding of it. The story as we all remember it was that my uncle served in the military in World War II. He enlisted in 1946 and was discharged in 1948. Then came the Korean Conflict. New draft registration was required. His widowed mother was partially dependent on him for support, but he thought it would strengthen the case for an exemption if he was married. He and my aunt already had marriage plans, but they quickly made some changes, and in mid-December 1950 got a marriage license and a civil marriage. The big celebration was scheduled several weeks later accompanied by a marriage according to Jewish law. The ketubah is part of that. So, unlike other marriages I had researched with two marriage records, this one only had one record filed with New York City. The second marriage was just within the Jewish community. My uncle celebrated the first anniversary every December, the January anniversary was my aunt’s!

What happened to the draft registration? In 1954 my uncle received a 5-A classification. That classification was for people who aged out of the system. The drat required that men up to age 26 register. In 1954, he turned 26 and aged out of the system! There may be a stash of the registration cards for men who aged out somewhere, but from what I read, the draft registrations for men with this classification who registered during the Korean conflict may have been destroyed. Like so much else ostensibly destroyed, there may come a time when these will surface. Until then, I will be content with the story we’ve pieced together.

Are you going to be in Fort Wayne, Indiana for the IAJGS conference in August? If so, come see me. If you bring your copy of Stories They Never Told Us I’ll be happy to sign it.

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Excitement – Research, Travel, Book

Posted on May 21, 2025 by Janette Silverman

Not only did my family find the names on the tablecloth fascinating, but as I’ve been adding new names, I went down memory lane. I searched for photos, I updated my tree with new findings, and stuck my fingers countless times with the needle as I embroidered the signatures of my amazing relatives.

I did discover that in my zeal to make sure I don’t lose information, that I saved my digital documents in countless locations – flash drives, big external drives and in the cloud. Of course, to retrieve the information, it really helps to be able to remember what names you gave the files.

Today I had an amazing experience at the Jewish Book Council Network’s conference, where as one of their 2025-2026 authors, I presented a two-minute talk. There were 34 other authors doing the same thing, and this was so humbling – to be included in this group of phenomenal speakers and writers. People who have incredible stories to tell.

Earlier this week, I found that at long last, my ebook I’ve been waiting for was finally online. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to see a copy of a kindle book. When Family Tree Maker finally came out with its long awaited update, I was so thrilled to see my book as one of their offerings. That wasn’t a surprise, of course, but it was nice to see.

Now the travel part! We are planning and tweaking an itinerary that will take some of my team and myself to Lithuania and Poland this summer. I’m looking forward to revisiting some favorite places and discovering new places. For the first time (for me) my travels will include cities on the Baltic, like Gdańsk. There’s a relatively new immigration museum there that has wonderful reviews and I’m looking forward to seeing it.

As we create our itinerary and embark on the trip, stay tuned – as in the past, I’ll be blogging daily.

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An Unintentional Legacy

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Janette Silverman

I’d like to sound all-seeing, all knowing, and say that what I started in 1974 had a very intentional outcome, but that would be far from the truth. I’m thinking about this now, as my parents approach their 75th anniversary, and this all started as we were leading up to their 25th – 50 long years ago. So much has happened, so much is different, but my parents are getting ready for another landmark celebration.

A long time ago before I was all-consumed by genealogy, I used to do a lot of embroidery, crewel, and needlepoint. My parents’ 25th anniversary was going to be celebrated with a surprise party, and I wanted to give them a special gift. The gift I decided on turned out to be something that surpassed any of my original intentions.

I embroidered a table cloth for my parents to use on holidays when we were all together. It had symbols of Jewish holidays, and it took long hours over many months to create. They were thrilled with the gift and put it to use immediately. I don’t remember what was said or who said it, but my response was that they should treat it gently because another one wouldn’t be forthcoming until their 50th anniversary. By the way, to this day, my parents still use that original cloth, and it is in pretty pristine condition.

About 15 years later, I decided on the theme for the new tablecloth. Looking back, I can’t figure out if it was the most brilliant or the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. It has taken hundreds of hours over many years to create. For the next holiday when the family would all be together, I purchased a huge, banquet size tablecloth and came equipped with markers. I asked everyone to sign their names. I wrote the date, the place, and the occasion on the side of the tablecloth and chose a color. Everyone’s name would be embroidered in that color. Each year and each event would have a different color. I am really grateful for the wide range of colors available in embroidery threads.

As the years went by, we continued to sign. Sometimes I barely finished embroidering the signatures before it was time to get the tablecloth signed again. In 2009 (10 years after I intended) this was to be my parents’ gift at a 60th anniversary party and the hordes who attended were invited to sign it. It took several years before I finished. My parents didn’t want to take it home – their house was no longer large enough for the growing numbers of grandchildren and spouses. It remained packed away.

This year, to my surprise, my niece in whose house the tablecloth was living in a box, brought it to the family seder. My nieces and nephews had so many questions about who people were whose names were on the tablecloth and whose names they saw on our family tree. Many of them were babies the last time we had the cloth out. There was a whole new generation who had never seen it and with whom we could share events and memories. There are signatures on the tablecloth of cherished relatives who, in the years since they signed, had died; old friends who moved away; relationships that were no longer. While I was embroidering the last of the names, 13 years ago, I ironed and glued decals to cover the worst of the stains and I had chosen those decals to reflect things people were interested in.

A family decision was made for this traveling tablecloth, to start signing it again and do so as long as room remained on it. This is the unintended legacy – a visual way to enhance holidays and family celebrations, a lead-in to the stories of the family. As I said, an unintended legacy.

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Quests and Questions

Posted on November 2, 2024 by Janette Silverman

Yesterday, I indulged myself with research into my own family. I didn’t start with anything particular in mind. I thought I would look at JRI-Poland and see if there was anything new I could find of interest. I was looking in the Galicia province of the Austrian Empire – specifically the part that became Poland after WWI. My father’s maternal family came from what was Stanislau, Stanisławów, Galicia, Austrian Empire and is now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. Every once in a while I find new information about them which sends me back to examine records I’ve already looked at and ignored because there was no previously known connection. Just to be clear, I re-examine databases and records constantly.

My 3x great-grandparents were Markus Shmiel Braunstein and Libe Zweifler. They had at least children: Rechel born in 1839, Sheindel (my 2x great-grandmother) born in 1846, and Itamar Sumer born about 1850. Obviously there must have been other children, but I haven’t found them yet. Itamar was generally called Sumer or Simon. He married a cousin, Sheindel Devorah Zweifler. It’s particularly confusing because due to the restrictive and complex laws about marriage registration, Sumer wound up using the surname Braunstein sometimes, and Zweifler at others. His father-in-law was a Zweifler and his mother-in-law was a Haller, and the 3 surnames – Zweifler, Braunstein, Haller have to be thrown into the mix whenever looking at the records.

While I was surfing the indexes, I came across something intriguing. I knew Sumer and Sheindel’s daughter Breina wound up in the U.S. and I knew she was married to someone whose surname was Peckerman. But I found a record that was very curious. It was a 1903 marriage record for a Brane Braunstein and a Chaim Mortko Lerchenfeld.

It was late in the afternoon on a Friday but I was hoping that one of my intrepid team members at AncestryProGenealogists who knew Polish was still working and had time to help. Sure enough, Marek Koblanski, a research manager on my team jumped right in. The translation of entry 95 reads:

Married on 6 December 1903 in Stanisławów
Chaim Mortko, 2 given names, Lerchenfeld, bachelor, 42 years and 7 months old, born and residing in Stanisławów, merchant, son of Schloma and Keita Lerchenfeld, allegedly married couple residing in Stanisławów, and
Brane Braunstein correct Zweifler, allegedly 32 years old, single, allegedly born in Stanisławów, residing in here, daughter of Sumer Braunstein and Scheindla Zweifler, residing in Stanisławów
Present Rabbi: Alter Nebenzahl, the deputy Rabbi in Stanisławów
Witnesses: Gerson Kriegel, merchant in Stanisławów, and Israel Rosenkranz, privatizing in Stanisławów
Remarks:

  1. The groom’s birth record
  2. Conscription extract in the Magistrate of Stanisławów of 17/7 1903 No. 3020/903
    for the bride
  3. Recommendation of the local government of 17/9 1903 No. 26981 to perform this marriage without the bride’s birth record
  4. The certificate of banns in Stanisławów on 14, 21 and 28 November 1903.

This was my Breine! What happened to her? What happened to him? In the U.S. I discovered that in 1921 she married Wolf Schwind under the surname Lerchenfeld and she was a widow. She was widowed again in July 1934 and in September 1935 she married for the last time to Nathan Peckerman. Wolf and Nathan were both widowers when they married Breine who became Bertha in the U.S.

Then, knowing when she arrived in the U.S. she probably was on the manifest under Lerchenfeld not Zweifler or Braunstein which were the names I previously searched for her under. I found that she left from Le Havre, France on 3 December 1920 and arrived in New York on 17 December 1920.

Now I had significant questions. My paternal grandmother, Blima Rose Grass arrived in the U.S. in December 1920 and left from Le Havre. Were they on the same ship? I looked at my grandmother’s manifest and found she left France on 28 November 1920 and arrived 7 December 1920. I knew her sisters Clara and Fanny left a few days earlier with some other relatives. They left from Rotterdam on 23 November 1920 and arrived in New York on 4 December 1920. My great-grandfather, Zelig Grass, Blima, Clara, and Fanny’s father died in Europe right after his daughters landed – he died on 12 December 1920 in what was by then Stanisławów, Poland.

The questions are about why so many in the family left in such a short period of time. Many of My great-grandmother Chana Jetta Zweifler Kreisler’s siblings left Europe long before 1920. They however left more than a decade earlier. What happened? Why 1920? Why did they leave over those couple of weeks?

Oh, the questions that may never be answered. The questions we didn’t know to ask.

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It’s that time of the year (again)

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Janette Silverman

In Jewish tradition, we are at the time of the year when self-reflection is part of our holiday/holy day preparation. We recognize, acknowledge, and apologize/make amends for the wrongs we have done affecting other people, and take steps not to repeat them. Six months later, we do something similar in preparation for Passover – we search through our homes and rid ourselves of those things which are not acceptable to have. Both preparations have physical and spiritual aspects as these two important and ancient anchors of the Jewish calendar approach.

When I was a child, both holidays had a major family component. Passover of course had the whole family gathering together for the seders. Rosh Hashanah included my grandparents staying with us and the whole family filing into and filling up a row in the synagogue sanctuary. Neither the seders nor dinner on the first night of Rosh Hashanah could begin before my dad, my sisters and I, returned from the synagogue. Holiday foods only eaten at these times would stick in our memories.

The other night I was speaking with someone and commented how I was sad that my children would probably not remember the foods they ate at their grandparents’ house, the traditions I grew up with. The person with whom I was speaking pointed out that they would develop their own traditions, as my parents did and my sisters and I did.

In each generation we carry with us the stories from earlier generations, perhaps some of those recipes and the tantalizing memories of the taste and scent of those foods, and of course, the names of the people around the table.

As a genealogist, I hope for these things, and that the memories and stories continue to be recorded so they remain in living memory.

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