Emdin-Maresky & Krauskopf-Fishler

GENEALOGY Site

Updates

Genealogy Database

Maps

Historical Notes

Family Group Sheet

Guestbook

Introduction

A genealogy site is one containing records of individuals bound by family ties.

It is clear that as families grow, additional people become associated with them. In most cases, these people are from different families. We can therefore encounter situations in which the extended family of the same generation can have as many as 15-20 or even more than individuals especially if we take into account three generations - grandparents, parents, children, uncles and aunts and their children - who maintain their family ties.

One has to have quite a remarkable memory to know by heart all those people who make up their families and the exact relationships between each one. To overcome this difficulty, people began using the graphic image of a tree, which expresses most clearly the shape of the expanded family.

The basic data of the family ties is transferred initially verbally, relying on the knowledge of the older generation, and is usually limited to one or two generations. To preserve this information there is a need for a devoted person, or a few of them, who will dedicate the time and energy required to document this information in an orderly manner. Computers and special software has made this task much easier, but much research and cross-referencing of data and information from many different kinds of resources is still required.

The foundations of the “genealogy ties” which this site is based upon, where lied some 55 years ago by my late father Shmuel Ezion, who searched and drew the Family Tree of the Krauskopf family. Those days where after the Second World War and the Holocaust, which was a traumatic event for the Jewish People in all parts of Europe. Families were broken as considerable parts of them were murdered at the Ghettos and the Death Camps. The few Survivors from the Death Camps came to Israel, and the need to re-collect the “ what ever is left “ of the Family, was one of the targets of those who came to Eretz-Israel before the war, and escaped the Holocaust. One of the ways to know who survived was to draw the Family Tree and to mark the missing ones. (Some years later the Yad Vashem started to organize the “Daf Edut” - Page of Testimony - project, in which people from all over the world send the names of their dear ones who perished in the Holocaust). The tree had many branches, but lots of them were broken, with no continuation. After my father’s death in 1978 I took upon myself to carry on the task of up-keeping the document and add the new additions and newborns to the Tree.

A big trigger for extending the Family Tree document, was some 15 years ago when my daughters had to do their “Roots Project” at school, where they had to present the family ties of both sides of the family. Now the South African side of the Tree came in, and it became quite involved to put in the Emdin, Maresky, Karelitzki-Blotnik and all those families connected. A Family Tree that was compiled by Mrs. Phyllis Rybak (nee Maresky) in 1980, arrived from South Africa and reading it together with the Encyclopedia Judaica reviled that the Family Roots go as far as the beginning of the 17^th century.

Now came the time to up-grade the mass of information gathered and making out of it a proper document. Computers and genealogy software were at their early stages, and I was “playing” with all the data trying to produce a decent document. I have to admit that a big push to the project came few years ago from Harris Green who devoted himself to the  Ex-Korelicze  (the little Shtetl in what is now a part of Belarus) side of the family and contributed a great deal to the information gathered.

Given-names (first names) and Surnames variation along the years especially during the 20^th century is another cause of difficulty in creating the genealogy database and a special part in the site is dedicated to this subject.

The Internet and its numerous genealogy web sites, pushed the matter one step foreword and brought the project to the present stage. I know that not all the data presented here is 100% correct nor complete, therefore I do ask to treat it as such and send my corrections and amendments using the Family Group Sheet (FGS), so that I will be able to update the database in the near future.

A GUESTBOOK facility is also provided here so your signing up will be most welcome. You can view it too to see what other members wrote.