From: IsraelP Subject: Genealogy #78 Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 17:19:11 +0200 Dear Cousins, I have a few things I want to write about as we approach the holiday, the last of which will be shall-we-say out of the ordinary. I do hope that everyone takes it in the spirit in which it is meant. My weekly blog - http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.com - has been doing very well. I am really surprised I have been able to keep it going for over a year. You can read a new post most Sunday morings. Parts of two families have made contact, one of Rozdol descendants, the other Skalaters. In both cases because they saw the Pikholz Project web site. AARON THE SINGER Eight years ago in letter #50 I wrote this. "We turned up a 1926 note in the LA Times reporting a radio appearance by a singer named Aaron Pickholz. The only identification is that he began singing at age forty and that he came from Austria. I know of no Aaron anywhere near the right age for us." I made some efforts with this over the years but remained stumped. No longer. One of the ten children of Moshe Pikholz of the main Rozdol line (RavJG) was Gittel who married Jacob Lax (sometimes Lachs). They had three children, one of whom was Aron, born in 1881 in Zurawno. For some reason, I neglected to list him in the Given Name Analysis, so I never saw him as a likely identity for Aaron the singer. But that is who he was. He married in Lwow, went to the US in 1913, first to Philadelphia and later to Los Angeles. His granddaughter saw the Pikholz Project website and contacted me. Aaron and his wife Perl had six children and thusfar forty-one descendants, including seven great-great-grandchildren. He apparently used Pickholz as a stage name so as not to sully his synagogue career. THE PFEFFERS OF KOPICIENICE A few months ago, I blogged about Leo Pickholz, who worked in US military intelligence and is buried in an unmarked grave in Lugano Switzerland. His father was Berl Pfeffer and his mother Lea Pikholz, the daughter of Simon Pikholz of Skalat and his first wife Dwojre who died at twenty-three. Simon then married Dwojre's sister Chana and that is the family we call DORA. There were quite a few Pfeffer children, but I knew very little about most of them. I mentioned these in my blog, including Leo's brother Marcel Pfeffer who was an opera singer. A couple of weeks later, a man in England was listening to a recording from La Scala in Milan and decided to google his grandmother's brother Marcel Pfeffer who had sung there. He found me. The grandmother was one of the siblings about whom I had known nothing but a birth date. I have alot of new information, not only about her family, but about others of the Pfeffer clan as well. I have not yet recorded it, but hope to hear back with further information and then I'll update everything. THE CONFERENCE IN BOSTON AND SUBSEQUENT PLANS The IAJGS Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be in Boston, the first week in August and my lecture proposal on the Pikholz DNA Project has been accepted for presentation. I'll be in Boston from the Thursday before and perhaps will be able to meet with any of you in the area. I leave Friday the ninth for Miami and will be there until maybe Tuesday. I hope to use that time to see Pikholz descendants living and dead. I'll leave it to the living to initiate getting together. The dead are in six cemeteries and I would really appreciate if all of you would have a look at http://www.pikholz.org/Florida.html to see that I haven't forgotten anyone. There will be nearly two weeks after Florida which I have not scheduled yet, but I plan to return home 26 August from Chicago. JRI-POLAND INDEXING After a break in relations of nearly seven years, a new agreement has been reached between the Jewish Records Indexing - Poland project and the Polish State Archives whereby they will once again index records that have recently arrived in their various archives. That index will be available online and we can use the index information to order the records themselves. The new records include Skalat births 1906-09 and deaths 1902-07, Rozdol births 1901-06, Stryj and Tarnopol records through 1911 and much more. It will be some months before this becomes available, but we are raising funds within the general Jewish genealogy community for the indexing for each individual town. NOW TO THE MATTER OF DNA I have written to you several times recently about the DNA project we have begun, to help identify the connections among the Skalat Pikholz families. Despite my doubts about the whole thing, we have had some outstanding, though limited, results. The idea was to test representatives of the various Skalat families who have male-line descendants living today and also to do autosomal tests of a few representatives of each family without regard to whether the person being tested is male or female or the type of descendancy involved. (Three people in my own family have tested and I really appreciate their cooperation.) The male-line tests can be done without regard to generation. The Y DNA that came from my great-grandfather is pretty much intact in my grandsons. But autosomal is more problematic as it gets diluted with each additional generation. My aunt's autosomal test has twice as much Pikholz DNA than my own and my children's would have just half of mine. The further away from the source generations, the less useful it becomes, therefore it is important to test those in the oldest generations. While we can. The test itself is a simple cheek swab and once the sample has been entered into the system, the different tests can be done as circumstances and budgets warrant. We are working with the testing company Family Tree DNA. There are two problems here. One is that the tests themselves are fairly expensive. The regular price for an autosomal test - what they call Family Finder - is $289, though occasionally they have quickie sales. The Y- chromosome (male line) test varies depending on how many markers you want to test. The second problem is that we do not have male-line descendants in some of the Skalat families and where we do, we often have only one candidate. We started with two - my own family (I had myself tested) and the ELIEZER family and much to our surprise, they were a perfect match. There are seven other families with male-line descendants - three in the US, three in Israel and one in Poland - and for some months I have been trying to get these others to test. One of the three Israelis has done so and he matches no one, but his may be a special case. The other two Israelis have never agreed to speak to me about anything, though both have sisters who are on my Hebrew mailing list. The Pole has not been enthusiastic whatsoever as few know he has Jewish blood and he wishes to keep it that way. But his niece keeps pressing him. Two of the three in the US have said that they would test, but have not done so. The third ignores my requests entirely. I would send out a notice each time the company was having a sale, but nothing ever came of it. So last month, Family Tree DNA began a special sale price of $39 for the most basic twelve marker male-line test and I once again encouraged the male-line descendants to go for it. The one in Poland did. This is very important as it affects three of our family groups - LAOR, RITA and TONKA - and I hope we will be able to some autosomal tests out of those families. Especially the woman whose grandparents were Pikholz first cousins. As a side result, one of the Rozdolers also did this test and it might give us an idea if there is any connection between the Rozdol and Skalat families. I am not pushing additional Rozdolers to test at this time, but there are a few whose results would be helpful further down the line. The male-line Skalaters of the three families in the US have remained silent. So I decided - what the heck - I'd spend the $39 for each of two test kits and approach the two Israelis who have refused to talk to me. I had planned to try to visit one last Sunday on my way north to give a gen lecture, but two days beforehand I learned that he had died. At age fifty-four. Nearly nine years ago. And no one had told me. Both his sister and a female first cousin are on my Hebrew mailing list and neither said a word. He has a daughter and no sons, so that male-line has ended and the only way I can make any progress with that family would be by autosomal tests among their US cousins - folks with surnames that include Weissman and Ball. I will be asking you individually soon, but if you would speak up on your own, I'd feel better about it. There are some others in other families I may approach as well. Here too, I'd prefer not to have to beg. We have set up a fund at the testing company to help defray the costs of these tests so that it is not borne solely by the testees (and me). You can find it at http://www.familytreedna.com/group-general-fund- contribution.aspx?g=Pickholtz THE RANT But there are some things I feel the need to say. Let me be clear - no one here owes me anything. I do this research because I want to and because I consider it important. There are others who participate - some more, most less - and no one owes them anything either - except me. But still. There are probably a hundred and fifty people on this list. Maybe more, I no longer count. Some of course bounce because they never tell me about address changes. Some of you are very good about telling me about births and marriages and deaths. Most of the time I find out much later if at all, and in roundabout ways. Most never speak at all unless spoken to directly. And not always then. Now back in the beginning, I used to ask your help in financing major acquisitions of Pikholz records and a handful of you were very generous, but we have solved that issue and I get the records pretty much as I need them. To be sure, many of you have said "Thank you for what you are doing" over the years. Some in response to almost every one of these summaries, but most rarely if at all. Some of you visit when you are in Israel. Often I never hear from you again. It's really weird about that! Some days - like when I found out last week that Aharon was dead FOR NINE YEARS - I want to run up to the roof and yell my head off and shut down the project entirely. But in the end I am not doing it for you, I am doing it for me. But it would be nice if every one kept me informed about your vital family changes - the births, deaths and marriages. And it would be really REALLY nice if you could find a way to participate in or help out with the DNA project. END OF RANT. Let me close by wishing everyone a most happy, kosher and meaningful Passover. We'll be away for a couple of days, with one of my own, genetic, Pikholz first cousins who is coming from the US with her husband and we are looking forward to that. Be well, all of you. And your families. Israel P. -- End --