Meet The Distant Cousins

Genealogy research has led me to connections with distant cousins that I never knew existed. Yes, I know that many purists consider genealogy to be the study of (primarily dead) ancestors but I rapidly hit dead-ends in that realm since I am of Jewish, eastern European and Russian descent. Between the pogroms and the Nazis, there is not much left for me to find. Since I have not been able to focus on my ancestors, I defocused my attention and have been actively documenting the living branches of my family tree.

Last month, I wrote to Harold Zemon, my first cousin once removed, and asked for information about his branch of the Zemons. He replied with a wealth of data which I did not have. Most exciting was this brief note about Moses Zemon, Harold’s father:

Moses Zemon… was very close with his brother Isaac a/k/a Joe a/k/a Uncle Ike…. My father & Uncle Ike were wonderful sons to our grandmother Rose Zemon.

This is the first first-hand information that I have about Isaac, my grandfather. I never met him since he passed away when my father was a child. For reasons that my father never explained, he never told me anything at all about Isaac.

I have also swapped a bunch of email with my second cousin once removed, Wayne Zemon. He filled in his branch of the Zemon tree, all the way down to Robert and Alison Wiseman. My son, David, noticed that Robert and Alison are about his age and zipped right over to Facebook to contact everybody by those names. He was able to, in surprisingly short order, talk on the phone with the right Robert who was tickled pink to find any connection to the Zemon name. Until I began corresponding with Wayne, my branch of the Zemon’s had had no contact whatsoever with Wayne and his sister Ruth (Robert and Alison’s grandmother). In case you are wondering, Robert and Alison are David’s fourth cousins.

Jule Turnoy, another second cousin once removed, has been sharing her knowledge of the Freiler line. Believe it or not, she and I were introduced by the Steve and Laura Stroud of Elgin, Illinois, who live in (and have beautifully restored) Philip Freiler’s home.