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Apr. 1st, 2007 12:51 pmIf my father hadn't taken sides in an ugly 1940s divorce my name would now be Gillian Roudner. We thought the family name was Rudin, but my genealogically-minded brother-in-law checked the Cyrillic on my great-grandfather's passport and has just emailed me to say that Rudin was the Australianised version. Isn't that life-changing?
I'm going to get copies of the passport photos. Until now we had no idea what my great-grandfather looked like. There are also pictures of his second wife and his son by that wife. I always wondered where that particular Uncle Maurice fitted in. I have an inordinate number of uncles called Maurice, but Uncle-Maurice-who-did-his-barmitzvah-when-he-migrated-to-Israel-in-his-70s is the Uncle Maurice who visited when I was an uncomfortable teen and told everyone how beautiful I was. Only time in my life that has ever happened.
He died quite recently at a vast age. The family theory is that he did his barmitzvah so late that he needed a proper life as a Jewish adult after it.
He would return to Australia from time to time to catch up with family events and he always looked the same, fine-boned and small and thin and dark, with a big hat and a bigger accent. One of my aunts tangled his relationship to us rather thoroughly when she told me that he was born out of wedlock. His parents were most definitely married.
These are my Bielarus' ancestors, as opposed to my English, German, Moldavian or Polish ancestors. They come from a Dubrovna, but not the famous one. And that's almost the extent of my knowledge, except that it's an incredibly quarrelsome side of the family so I know hardly any of them. My father didn't speak to most of them after the divorce and didn't speak to anyone named Gorr, either, since my grandfather married Mrs Gorr when he and my grandmother were legally free of each other. My mother and one of my sisters knows these relatives. I need to meet some of them.
I need to meet them with care, though. Two cousins argued over a factory and drew a line down the middle of the floor and never spoke to each other again. At least, that's how the family story goes. I bet the reality is less fun, but whenever we went past the Red Robin warehouse when I was a kid I saw a white line in my mind's eye and two entirely separate sock manufacturers working either side.
I'm going to get copies of the passport photos. Until now we had no idea what my great-grandfather looked like. There are also pictures of his second wife and his son by that wife. I always wondered where that particular Uncle Maurice fitted in. I have an inordinate number of uncles called Maurice, but Uncle-Maurice-who-did-his-barmitzvah-when-he-migrated-to-Israel-in-his-70s is the Uncle Maurice who visited when I was an uncomfortable teen and told everyone how beautiful I was. Only time in my life that has ever happened.
He died quite recently at a vast age. The family theory is that he did his barmitzvah so late that he needed a proper life as a Jewish adult after it.
He would return to Australia from time to time to catch up with family events and he always looked the same, fine-boned and small and thin and dark, with a big hat and a bigger accent. One of my aunts tangled his relationship to us rather thoroughly when she told me that he was born out of wedlock. His parents were most definitely married.
These are my Bielarus' ancestors, as opposed to my English, German, Moldavian or Polish ancestors. They come from a Dubrovna, but not the famous one. And that's almost the extent of my knowledge, except that it's an incredibly quarrelsome side of the family so I know hardly any of them. My father didn't speak to most of them after the divorce and didn't speak to anyone named Gorr, either, since my grandfather married Mrs Gorr when he and my grandmother were legally free of each other. My mother and one of my sisters knows these relatives. I need to meet some of them.
I need to meet them with care, though. Two cousins argued over a factory and drew a line down the middle of the floor and never spoke to each other again. At least, that's how the family story goes. I bet the reality is less fun, but whenever we went past the Red Robin warehouse when I was a kid I saw a white line in my mind's eye and two entirely separate sock manufacturers working either side.