Family History by Sid

         It is likely that every family tree has more than one person of the same name. The practice of naming a son after the father results in many Johns, John Jr.s, John IIIs and so on. It wasn’t as often that daughters got named after their mothers but I grew up next door to a family whose parents were William and Mary and their two children were also William and Mary. My family tree consists of 100% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry on both, my side and my wife, Arlene’s side. The tradition among these eastern European Jewish families was to name children after a respected ancestor who had passed away. I was named after Simon Muckler, my grandfather’s uncle and Arlene was named after her uncle Arthur Cohen/Carlton, her father’s brother. No duplicates there.           Looking at my tree I found several duplicate names. There are five Reuben Kaganovich’s, four Moishe Kaganovich’s, and 4 named Chaim with the same last n...

        While in the midst of this pandemic I am relieved to say that I only know of one relative who has tested positive for the Corona virus and she has recovered and is doing well. I am sure that people researching their family histories have found that they had ancestors who have succumbed to previous maladies and plagues that have afflicted the world population, maybe even as far back as the Bubonic Plague in the 14th century. I don’t go back that far but I did check the family tree to see if there were any deaths due to the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918. I only had two confirmed deaths in my family tree during that time. One was my fraternal great grandfather, Moishie Kaganovich who died in Europe in 1918 and the other was my mother’s brother, Harry who died as an infant in 1919. I don’t have documentation of the cause of death but it isn’t unlikely that the flu could have been the cause. Moishe was only 57 years old at the time of his death ...