Heading to Washington DC

Randy Schoenberg - Look for me there. I attended the opening Shabbat dinner last night. I'll be at Sunday night's event possibly and certainly be there Monday - Thursay.

See you there, Randy. I will arrive Monday AM.

Made it and checked into the hotel. I'll be around most of the time. See you here.

I'll come by Sunday afternoon. I have a conflict early afternoon. I'll look for the Geni guys. Maybe you'll be there.

Let me know if you need anything since I'm local.

Hello Randy!
My reply is not related to the convention. It just triggered something I found lately about the family which I wanted to share. So here it is: While working on my family tree, I received an article by a third cousin of mine named Michael Toch. Michael Toch is also a professor of History in the Hebrew university, and specializes in middle ages German Jewry. Anyway, his article contained a lot of info about the Toch branch of the family which I immediately added to my tree. After a while, I examined this branch, and found a relatively rare name: Glogau in it. It attracted my attention, because a guy bearing that name was my closest childhood friend, and used to live next door. I carried on investigating a little, and indeed I found via another tree on Geni, that the guy, my closest friend for 8 years, was actually a remote relative. It turned out that his great grandfather's brother was married to my great grandmother's sister. Even more astonishing was the fact that my father was in good terms with his father, and I am sure they never knew their families came from the same Moravian border village: Nikolsburg. My father used to mention this village a lot, so it's quite amazing that he didn't know his neighbour also originated from Nikolsburg.

Has nothing to do with your trip - I heard yesterday your comment about your uncle Zisel,who was bapticed at the Anglian Church in Vienna 1938 in a report off BBC 4.
Yours Hubertus

Thanks Hubertus. You can still listen today at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013214v

And yet another interesting finding about the Toch family. My scholar cousin: Michael Toch also informed me that he was notified by a colleague carrying out a research in the Brno archive, that the he had found a rare document dating back to the 17th century, by an official who represents the nobleman to which the whole Nikolsburg belonged (who had been sitting in Vienna). The official is writing the nobleman and recommends to get rid of that Toch guy who runs the inn in Nikolsburg, because the guy managed to burn the inn down three times now because of his negligence. First of all, this is quite amazing, as surnames were a practice of the late 18th century. Also, today I was contacted by Peter Rohel who referred me to a certain Salomon Toch who appears on his tree and was probably born close to the beginning of the 19th century. Possibly he is a descendant of the Toch mentioned in the document because he was also an innkeeper in Nikolsburg.

There are tons of Tochs (I've entered a number of them). I'd love for you to build out the full Toch tree with the info you received.

Hello again!

I got the document from my cousin. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to publish it at the moment, but I can give you the essense of it. The document is a letter dating back to December 9th, 1675! It is written by an official named F.S. von Palmberg, and sent to the nobleman: Fuerst Ferdinand von Dietrichstein to whom the county of Nikolsburg probably belongs. He mentions a Jew, Salomon Toch, who almost burnt the brewery down twice by his negligence. As a result, the official took the liberty to throw him out of the brewery and replace him with a guy named Gabriel Saxen (or Gabriel the son in law of Saxen). The interesting thing here is that the name of the sloppy Toch here is Salomon, which makes it even more likely that he is a forefather of that Salomon Toch Peter Rohel has mentioned to me who lived in the first half of the 19th century.
Furthermore, the raw version of the document refers to the name: Saloman Dach, and this could tell us something about the origin and meaning of the surname Toch.

Randy, I'd like to ask a philosophical question about what we are doing here on what I see some have taken to calling the "Big Tree". Some would say that it's all "genealogy" under a broad definition of the word....but by other definitions, "genealogy" is limited to research and documentation of bloodline relationships, and all of the linkages and relationships we show through marriages is something else, not genealogy. It makes me wonder if maybe we need a new word (or a couple of new words). Any thoughts?

Genealogy works fine. I just call it "fun". For me it is the same as a big, never-ending jigsaw puzzle.

Randy

David, - Geni's slogan are "We are all related", something that shows up the more profiles that are added to the big tree by going wider on siblings and in-law families.

Very often you will discover that a spouse is blood-related too, but unfortunately Geni have no option to show that connection (yet), but re taking shortcuts over a spouse connection.

There is something about "connectedness" in an increasingly disconnected world that the Geni site enables. In the Jewish culture, we constantly practice what is known as "Jewish geography", seeking connections to those whom we meet, even to the extent that someone who comes from our home village ("landsmen") is almost equivalent to family. So relationship through marriage? That is a big deal! :)

"It is not the shy that learn". For the curious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_geography

Given the size of the population in Israel, and the rather large size of extended families here, I would not be surprised if many people were 6th-degree "related" to the half the country.

They say that all Litvaks are no more than 7th cousins. I have found an enormous amount of cousins, including people I work with in the great big U.S.A., since joining Geni.

I'll be seeing several sets of cousins (~ 4th) next week. When my ancestors went westward to America, their ancestors were the early Zionists and went eastward. I probably knew their children when I lived in Israel and never knew it.

Speaking of Litvaks, my great grandparents; Myer Harry Jacobson (b. 6 Jan 1844) and his wife Rose Mirvish (b. 7 Jul 1844) came from Grinkiskis area of Lithuania, does anyone have any further info?

Hi Charles,
this place in Lithunia I've heard of. Please contact Pam Karp (Jacobson) e-mail : pamkarp@bigpond.net.au

You may have some persons in common.
Best wishes
Ingrid Meissner

Ingrid

Thanks for the tip. I just sent her an email---hopefully she can help.