Why I got into genealogy

Both of my parents kept me well informed on their family history, my mother made up a photo album of family pics for each of her children and we have copied our albums for each other (back then one couldn't scan or copy photos easily). Once I got seriously interested in genealogy I began scanning and e-mailing pictures around and getting other pictures from relatives and compiled quite a few different albums for the different lines. I'll be putting all that stuff on here as I get around to it.

But I want to start with my favourites: My father gave me a box of ancient photographs, but didn't really know who all those people were. One picture always haunted me. I wanted to know who they were and what their names were. Since my great-grandmother Tobei REDLER KRAVETSKY is a family legend (although nobody has been able to tell me exactly why...but almost all her grandchildren have a child named after her, as I also am) and there are good pictures of her and since the woman in my mystery picture is so obviously related to her, I took a good guess that those were her parents. It took five years and a cousin's visit to Odessa to finally find out the names of these two people with the sad eyes: my paternal great great grandparents,

Berko and Iosya REDLER from Kherson Gubernia in the Ukraine.

The other reason I got involved in all this is because my father always told me that I was the last of our name: that his grandfather was an orphan, his father an only son as he was, and so I was the last of the HYMOFFs, except for some relative of that name in Paris, whose connection my father did not know and who we have not been able to find yet.

Since my father was a professional historian, I assumed he had all the facts and that was that. One day I googled him, expecting to only find lots of entries for him and his work. Well , I was right about that, there were over 14.000. Five of me. And, surprise: lots of other Hymoffs!

That of course was a total shock and I began to try to find out who those other Hymoffs were! Since my great grandfather was widowered early, it could have been that he married again and had a new family, but someone would have told me about that, I hope. Or a family feud split up some brothers who never spoke to each other again... and maybe I had lots of cousins I had never met....

Fate would have it that it has been easier to trace those other Hymoffs than it has been to trace mine. So far I have been able to establish that we are not related in the 5 generations since they all emigrated to the US. My ggf Israel Hymoff claimed to be from Lublin, Poland - whereas the other Hymoffs are respectively from Minsk, Belarus; Iasi, Romania and Volhynia Oblast, Lutsk. Technically speaking, they are geographically close enough for some family connection to be possible. But we're working on finding out if that is so.

Israel Hymoff arrived in the USA in June of 1889, as he claims on his "First Papers" for US Citizenship. The other Hymoff families arrived after 1906. I've been in touch with several members of each one of those families (genealogy is great for making new friends) and we have exchanged a lot of information (and jokes).

 

Then there are alterative spellings - that is a whole other matter...

I've also had a lot of help from more experienced genealogists and would like to once again thank you all for teaching me, sharing your experience with me, getting me over rough spots, giving me tips to get information faster, translating documents from Polish and Russian and gravestones in Hebrew for me and bearing with me in this exasperating, but extremely rewarding, hobby!

Israel Hymoff married Adeline (Hadel Esther) Kadetsky Waters around 1890 (civil ceremony in 1903) which links in the Kadetskies - a large tribe that have been very helpful in providing information, although we still have not managed to link "My" Kadetskies to Gary and Mark's.

Happy Hunting to us all!   

Please contact us at:    Kadetskyfamilyhistory@gmail.com