A Big Breakthough in the Monkovski Family Tree.

Genealogy research can be very tedious.  A lot of time is spent going through lists of people who lived long ago, trying to find your ancestor. The search can be complicated by inaccurate records, unfamiliar spellings of names, and a lot of dead ends.

This week I had none of those problems.  I put aside writing about the Monkovski family, thinking that the information I had was all there was available at this time.  Well, I was wrong.  Jose Gutstein of the Szczuczyn Web site, came through again. 

Jose has been helping an Israeli family with their family tree, and he discovered that that family had the same picture of the Chiam Pesach Monkovski family I had (without the crack down the middle.)  He supplied me with information identifying some of the people in the picture.  I heard from family stories that some Monkovski relatives immigrated to Israel, but that was all I knew.

My picture of Chiam Pesach Monkovski's family with the crack.

The Israeli Family's picture of the Monkovskis

It turns out that one of Chiam Pesach’s sons, Yoseph, did immigrate to Israel, but first immigrated to Cuba in 1929.   Two of his daughters are still living in the Tel Aviv area. Then I found out that some members of the Monkovski family immigrated to Argentina, and about 10 years ago, visited the Israeli branch.

Now there is another mystery.  The family in Israel has this family picture, and nobody has any idea who they were.  One of my husband's cousins sent me this postcard that was in some of her father’s things.  Is she the girl with the white beads in the back row?  Perhaps the message on the back, written in Yiddish will provide the answer.

 

Is the girl in the center of the top row in the picture to the right?

This picture belongs to the  family in Israel.  Nobody knows who they are.

 

Message on the back of the picture above. Wasosz, 1929.  To my sister, from Abraham.

So, don’t give up.  Occasionally those lists can get results, but it helps to know someone who has the resources to trace family roots in Europe.  I found Jose searching the net for information about Szczuczyn.   I e-mailed him and eventually found more than I ever expected.  Sometimes researching the places you ancestors lived can give you results you never expected.