A lot of my genealogy research amounts to little more than adding names and dates to a computer database. It can be hard to understand why I bother. Every so often, though, I have one of those woo hoo! moments which keep me going. Last Saturday brought not one, but two, woo hoo’s.
First, I discovered that I have a distant connection to Isaac Mayer Wise, the man who founded Reform Judaism here in the United States, as well as the Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion. My great granduncle, Robert S. Herzog, married Wise’s granddaughter, Elsie Wise May. Robert was quite a man. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, researched the effects of cholesterol (thank you, Robert!), and researched space medicine and climatology. Elsie, in turn, had a very distinguished career in interior design.
Second, I learned that I have cousins living right here in St. Louis. After being here for 18 years, I had no idea that these people even existed, let alone that they were local. How did it happen? I wrote to Carolyn Serby Weinstein who gave the letter to her daughter Sarah Weinstein Windman who has since been corresponding with me via email. Sarah told me about our mutual cousins Jeffrey Mormol and Julie Mormol Stern. To cap it all off, Sarah will be in town for a bat mitzvah next month which will give several of us a chance to meet each other.
I also had a good chuckle when I noticed that my cousin Andrew’s wife’s mother’s maiden name was “Winkler” and that my step-mother’s mother’s maiden name was also “Winkler” and that the two women lived close enough to one and other that they could be related. They almost certainly are not but won’t it be funny if they do turn out to be?
