Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Your Best Genea-Prize in August 2014

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music):

1)  Did you do some genealogy research during August 2014?  Did you find a great record or story pertaining to an ancestor or family member?

2)  Tell us about the BEST genea-prize ("record") you found during August 2014.  What was it, where did you find it, and how does it help advance your research?

3)  Share your genea-prize in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.  

3)  NOTE:  If you didn't find one in August, tell us about a recent genea-prize from another month.

Here's mine:

Well, I did find a bunch of my family in the 1921 Canadian Census finally this past month, so that would have worked for this post...until last weekend. Last Sunday I went into my email to pull up a bill to pay when I discovered a new email with the header "Information on Benzion Kresch." As anyone who follows this blog knows, my Jewish line is one that I have very little information on. The Kresch family in particular. Because of this, I have tried to find things in a number of ways. Including posting on the Roots Web message boards. 

A few years ago, I posted there about my great-great grandparents hoping to find more specific information that might get me further back. I messed up the post, and accidentally kept posting it (it turned out the send page was open in another browser, and every time I opened that browser, it posted again), so I tended to avoid the boards thereafter. I got some responses in my email, but nothing that really helped much.

Sunday, I had so long ago forgotten about that post that I figured it was just another spam email from some genealogy site promising me information that would turn out to be about a Benjamin Krouch or something like that. However, when I opened the email, I discovered it was not only information I didn't have, it was from my great-great grandfather's granddaughter by his youngest son. She'd come across the post, and so she had decided to email to see if we were truly connected. I was thrilled. Where before I had three of the Kresch children, now I know the names of all six (though one is a bit murky), and have so much more information about the family than I ever did before. 

The line as it developed for me:
Benzion Kresch married Feige Golda Reich, likely in Galicia. I knew that they had at least five children, one of which was my great-grandmother, Dora. At a family gathering, I then saw a picture of Dora with her sister Minna, so my family tree gained one more name. While researching our family tree for family books my sister and I created, we learned that some of the Kresch family escaped to South America. Upon finding a record set about immigration into Brazil, I decided to check and see if I could find any Kresches that might match. In doing so, I found Naftali Mendel Kresch, Dora's elder brother, and also his wife, their daughter, her husband, and their young daughter. Also from our research, I knew that Benzion had died sometime in the early 1900s, and that Feige had died shortly before 1930 in Frankfurt, where she'd gone to live to be near her daughters.

My new cousin filled in the rest of the blanks for the names in this line. Mendel was the eldest, and given his birth date and Dora's, I believe she was the second-eldest. Minna was either next or fourth, and there was another son either before or after her whom my cousin believes was called Haim. He disappeared after the First World War, and no one knows what happened to him. After Haim came Erna or Esther, and finally my cousin's father, Aharon. All of them managed to escape the country (except for my great-great grandparents, who were already gone by this time) except for Esther, who sent her family ahead to Israel, but was caught by the Nazis. I have always known that I might find stories like that in my family tree, but I have to say how relieved I am that there is only one of them in this line. It's not easy to hear, but far better than more.

My new cousin is a very lovely person, and I look forward to talking to her more in the future. (*waves at her if she's reading*) And who knows? Maybe now that I have a few more names, I might have a bit more luck in finding more records on my family.