Though I am not as good as I'd like to be at keeping up with this blog—and not as good as Google would like me to be, according to my rankings--many people have nevertheless managed to find my posts over the years. Most recently, I heard from my cousin Rena, whom I'd been trying to locate for years. Those marital name changes wreak havoc on genealogy. She commented: I
Allina
Rewriting My Childhood: A Tale of Mystery Relatives
It boggles the mind, how little I knew about my family until I started writing this blog. My mother was an only child and, as far as I knew, everyone in her immediate family had died in Europe. I had one living uncle on my father's side, but he returned to Vienna after the war and I didn't meet him until I was 19. In effect, I grew up without relatives -- at least not the