Earlier this week, I discussed my surprise in learning that my mother's family home, the town of Tarnow, was defined as a shtetl on a Jewish genealogy site. I hadn't previously traced my ancestry beyond sophisticated Vienna, and the notion that my origins were Yiddish-speaking and roof-fiddling took some mental adjustment. I next decided to try to put Tarnow into a larger
Genealogy
Shtetl Snobbery: Unearthing My Jewish Roots, 1
Exactly one year ago, on December 27, 2011, I learned that the butcher shop of my great uncle Siegmund Kornmehl was now an art gallery in Vienna's Freud Museum. This discovery spurred me to look into the history of my mother's family. It has been a year filled with surprises. The greatest one, unquestionably, was finding out that I had living relatives all over the
Belly Dancing, Knitting, Pastry & Psychology: A Virtual Convergence
A few months ago, I made the virtual acquaintance of a very accomplished woman with a Viennese Jewish parent. She, in turn, had recently become virtually reacquainted with an old friend/cousin with a Viennese Jewish parent. Each of the two friends/cousins has a Viennese non-Jewish parent too. It's a bit confusing. Bear with me here. How I Know the Very Accomplished Woman
“Inheritance”: Revisiting the Victim vs. Villain Debate
A few weeks ago I posed the question of whether it's preferable to have villainous or victimized ancestors. I came down clearly on the side of the villains, based on my own family's fit into the victim category. Several people commented about dastardly relatives in their distant past, including my friend Clare, who had an Indian hunter on her family tree. My friend Lydia had
Forests, Bricks Walls & Fish Ponds: A Newbie’s Genealogical Landscape
You can learn a lot about a discipline by examining the metaphors used to discuss it. On that basis, the landscape of genealogy looks rural and rather idyllic. This is how one newbie has been experiencing it. Venturing Into the Forest First and foremost, the terrain is filled with trees, family trees. A mere sapling of a handwritten chart made by my mother led to the
Thanksgiving: The Perfect Viennese Holiday
Starting a new blog when you have been accustomed to writing about another subject requires looking at occasions from a different perspective. In September, I wrote Blogging While Jewish: A Rosh Hashanah Reverie, exploring how it feels to focus on my heritage. Now I'm encountering my first Thanksgiving as a people- rather than a pet-oriented blogger. Last year, I could chose to
The Bride Ate Chocolate: A Genealogical Mystery
A couple of weeks ago I alluded to the fact that one of my great uncles had a cafe in Vienna, which will give me an excuse to add Viennese pastry to this blog's meat-oriented menu. I also promised to reveal the family link to Barton's chocolate. A Bit of Background My interest was piqued by an email from one of my new-found relatives, the indefatigable family historian
Call Me Putzi: Would You Prefer Villains or Victims for Ancestors?
I just finished reading Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts, the story of William E. Dodd's stint as U.S. Ambassador to Germany during the rise of Hitler (1933-1937). It's a compelling tale, involving the internal workings of the state department and the many missed opportunities to head off Nazism, with deft characterizations of the players in the unfolding global
The Far-Flung Kornmehl Family
I've alluded to the fact that I've gone from thinking I had no living relatives on my mother's side besides my immediate family to the realization that I have a very large -- and, as it turns out, far flung -- family. Not all of them have the name Kornmehl, of course. And there are probably still more Kornmehl relatives to be tracked down. But Jill Leibman, an avid family
Sex & the Single Genealogist
Single, no children... married, no children... The land of genealogical research is fraught for people without progeny, especially those of the female persuasion. I can't tell you how many times I've read or been told by others that they are exploring their family roots for the sake of future generations, for the children and grandchildren. And if you don't have any? Please
A Tale of Two Siggies
This much I know: For more than four decades, Sigmund Freud and my great uncle, Siegmund Kornmehl, rented space in the same building in Vienna, 19 Berggasse. Siegmund Kornmehl had a storefront butcher business, while Sigmund Freud lived and practiced psychoanalysis upstairs. Beyond that, things get fuzzier. Was Martha Freud Really Affronted? I haven't yet found records to
Five Genealogy Lessons I Learned From B’nai B’rith (Once I Stopped Sulking)
I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. -- Groucho Marx* As I wrote the other day, two of my top ten family research questions concern the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his butcher, my great uncle. My mother's claim that her first cousin had been sent to see Dr. Freud suggested to me that there might have been closer family ties than
What’s in a Name? Kornmehl
As I mentioned last week, one of the ten genealogical questions I want answers to -- #2 to be precise -- was researched by a good friend, who became very interested in the history of my mother's family, the Kornmehls. The result was this wonderfully rich guest post. Blame -- or thank -- me for the illustrations. I came across this classic ad as I was searching for a picture
10 Things I Want to Know About My Family & Freud
Focus, focus, focus. That's been my mantra ever since I realized my genealogical research was meandering in all directions. So I came up with a couple of goals: To flesh out the lives of my mother's immediate family members -- both to understand my mother better and to make the acquaintance of relatives I never met -- and to figure out the family's place in history. The
Blogging While Jewish: A Rosh Hashanah Reverie
This is my first Rosh Hashanah blogging as a Jew. It's not that I avoided the topic of Judaism when I blogged about dogs; I discussed it on several occasions. I was even considering having a Bark Mitzvah for my dog, Frankie, when he turned 13 earlier this year, but he objected to the yarmulke and having to learn the long arf-torah and I respected that. Generally, however,