Family History by Sid

  Louis Rubin      This post is about my wife’s uncle Louis Rubin. Louis married Arlene’s aunt Fran Snyder. Louis is the first person of interest in my blog that is not a blood relative to either me or Arlene.       Louis Rubin was born in Dinwiddie, VA. on February 8th 1922. He was the oldest child of Jake and Rose Rubin and most likely was named after Jake’s father Louis. Jake and Rose owned and operated a small grocery store in Petersburg, Virginia. Lou was born shortly after Jake and Rose entered the USA and they had a daughter Syllvia who was about two and a half years younger than Lou. Jake and Rose eked out a living with their small market but Lou claimed he never knew they were poor. He had a roof over his head and never went hungry. He had clothes on his back and friends to play with. He was very content with his portion in life.        Lou went to high school in Petersburg and after he graduated attended the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in Philadelphia, PA. Whi

       All Jews would list Israel as their ancestral home. However, when the Hebrews were expelled from their native country they settled all over the world. Most of them settled in eastern Europe and or Russia (Ashkenazie) while others made their homes in the Iberian Peninsula and north Africa (Sfardic). There also groups in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. Centuries of being displaced makes it impossible to trace roots back to those original ancestors in the Holy Land and we now consider ourselves as descendants from these varied regions.       My family traces its roots back to Lithuania and Belarus on my father’s side and to Poland on my mother’s side. My wife’s family hailed from Eastern Europe/Russia on her mother’s side and her father’s family came from Germany and Eastern Europe.       I don’t have the names of the home cities for all of my ancestors but I do have some and will give some insight of each of these towns.       Traby is a small town in western Belarus close to the L