Thursday, September 3, 2009

Romania -- Family history

Great Synagogue, Radauti. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber


By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I'm too tired to write much tonight. Suffice it to say that the Cousins and Candlesticks tour had its genealogical high spots.... We visited the tomb of our great-grandmother, Ettel Gruber, in the Jewish Cemetery in Radauti (where I have been three times before since 1978).

Photo: Doru Losneanu

Thanks to the good efforts (and contacts) of Doru Losneanu, Mr. Dorian Frankel helped us go through records at the Radauti Town Hall. We found the marriage registry for the parents of both our Grandfather, Ephraim/Frank (that is, Anschel Gruber, widower, aged 34 and Ettel Lecker, single, aged 19) in 1880 and our grandmother, Rebecca Rosenberg (David Rosenberg and Celia Halpern) in 1902.




This also gave us the address in the village of Vicovu de Sus where, it seems, Anschel Gruber lived at the time of his marriage.

We drove to Vicovu de Sus, about 1/2 an hour's drive, up at the border with Ukraine -- there is a border crossing there for local people. It's a village strung out for seeming miles along one road... with the help of a couple of very nice local policemen, we found what we believe was the house, an old wooden farmstead, set down a dirt track, amid cornfields, well of the road (apparently an elderly woman, as well as a barking dog, lives there -- and she does have a satellite dish...).

3 comments:

  1. ruth,
    i am seeking a contact in raduati town hall to try to find my great grandparrents marriage records and possible graves. i looked online and i can not find any contacts


    annab123@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing with us. look like you had a great bonding time with the family, i did the same heritage trip last year in Poland with my family and it's a life changing trip

    ReplyDelete
  3. Not sure if Sturm family is an interest of yours, but I do have links to a Maria Sturm and a Lazar Gutmann, both born c1820 in the region of Nagyvarad, formerly Hungary, now Romania. (thegrants@citromail,hu)
    Roy

    ReplyDelete