Family History by Sid

       The genealogy club in my community is presenting a program on Monday about how to find female ancestors. It seems that through the centuries the focus was always on men. They were the ones that could own land, vote, serve in the military and so on and so on. Women were generally only referred to as wives or mothers or daughters. That makes it difficult to search for the women who preceded us. Convention says that women in a family tree should be listed by their maiden name but many trees only have their married name because that might be the only record we have of them. In the early 20th century women automatically became citizens when their husbands were naturalized. The amount of documents referring to the women in our lives is substantially lower than that of our fathers and brothers. If you look at a headstone in a Jewish cemetery it will give the name of the person and their father’s name. Lately, however, some people are adding the mother’s name...

       I’ve been struggling with my genealogical research for the past several months. I seem to have lost focus and can’t decide which direction I want to go in. Should I search out new cousins via DNA matching or should I research people in my tree to confirm the facts and find new items to add to their stories? Or, should I just organize my data? A simple bike ride indicated what would be my next project.  Philip and Bessie Snyder gravestone       We were in Philadelphia for just over three weeks, spending time with our kids and visiting other family and friends. We wanted to visit the gravesite of Philip and Bessie Snyder (Arlene’s maternal grandparents) but we always seemed to be in a bit of a time crunch and just didn’t get there. The day before we left I decided to take a ride down to Montefiore cemetery in Elkins Park to place a stone on their metzivah but to also find out what Philip’s father’s name was. We knew his mother’s n...