My name is Robert Chapin and I am the author of this website.
Our family tree is posted online on this site! There are 1658 names in our family tree. The earliest event is the birth of Patrick Kelly
(1783). The most recent event is the birth of Necunoscut Schuraytz
(Oct 8 2009). Newest research added on Nov 18 2009.
There is a wealth of information available to you in the menu above. I suggest starting in the Family Tree, or the Summary section under Family Tree. I have provided a few links to get you started there. I have also created a Website Map with quick links to the major areas of this project.
This website also acts as a central contact point for all family members, including 42 registered users. News, announcements, and private messaging are possible. To contact me directly, click here. Dacă doriţi să deveniţi membru, vă rugăm faceţi clic here. You may find more about me at my personal website: Miqrogroove
My current goal for this project is to create a genealogy in book form by the end of 2009. In my spare time, I am researching all of my ancestors and their descendants. I am collecting biographical information and requesting family photos of all relatives so that I can include as many names and faces as possible. Public information about living persons is limited to surnames on the website, and to full names and photos in the book. This book will be available at-cost to family members.
Two weeks ago I began the few remaining tasks on my research checklist. I had already visited several cemeteries, libraries, and relatives. All that was left to do was to buy the Ancestry subscription and make sure I could take full advantage of their database services. Coincidentally, the Albion College library returned to winter hours this week, giving me easy access to their enormous and rare collection of microfilm.
All of a sudden, I am finding more census records, naturalization records, death records, draft registrations, and obituaries than I ever expected. I am going over the entire family tree one person at a time to leave no stone unturned.
While reviewing the mysterious photo of William Chabensky with a tombstone that said CHOPINSKY on...
LESSINGER--Leslie, age 65, died peacefully at home March 13, 2009 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. Professor of Chemistry at Barnard College and resident of Brooklyn. He is survived by his wife Hanna, his mother Minnie, his brother Eric and by nephews and a niece. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Barnard College Scholarship Fund. A memorial will be held at a later date.
With the help of our great aunts and great uncles, we added 32 members of the Kelly family in my generation! This fills one of the largest missing pieces of the known tree. Our immediate aunts and uncles are also helping to fill in details, photos, and more distant relatives. Thank you everyone for helping. What we still need the most are group photos of our 2nd cousins, our ancestors, and all newcomers to the tree. Kelly relatives, please continue going the extra mile to find family photos and help complete this project.
This mother's day, the Chapin family visited the resting place of my great-great grandmother. Her name appears in the Michigan Jewish Cemetery Index as Rose Chabensky. This transliteration was also found at the Hebrew Memorial Society, but is apparently incorrect. The tombstone reads:
CHABENSKY Beloved Mother, grandmother & great-grandmother RUCHEL July 4, 1953 - Age 84
Mysteriously, her husband did not appear in the online index, nor in the new database of Michigan death certificates. We knew he was buried near Ruchel in the Detroit cemetery, now open only a few hours each year. The trip to see this place was rewarding both personally and for the sake of research. We found Shlomo's tombstone two rows directly behind Ruchel's.
Here lies My husband and our dear father Shlomo Ya'akov, son of Avraham Chabensky, who passed away the first day of Shavuot 5677 At the age of 50. May his soul be bound in the bundle of the living.
Photos and family tree updates will be posted this weekend. Special thanks to the volunteers at JewishGen for the Hebrew translations.
Jack Stone, 87, of West Bloomfield, died March 27, 2009. He immigrated from Lublin, Poland, in 1928.
He graduated from Cass Tech in Detroit and with a bachelor of electrical engineering degree from Lawrence Technological University in 1943. He served in World War II as engineer on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.
Mr. Stone was an electrical engineer at Ford Motor Company for 36 years in research and development of manufacturing processes. He received an award from the Roon Paint Society for an invention. He was actively involved in the American Technion Society as a founder and board member and was also a member of many Jewish and community charities and organizations. He was a member of Temple Kol Ami and the Torah Study Group.
Beloved husband of Edith Stone. Loving brother of Marcia (the late Howard) Parven, Dr. Sidney (Betty) Stone. Dear brother-in-law of Marvin (Donna) Berman and Gerald (Vered) Berman. Also survived by loving nieces and nephews an...
The Library of Michigan has entered into an agreement with The Generations Network (Ancestry.com) to digitize the Michigan death records microfilm set, 1897 to 1920. Funding from the Talbert and Leota Abrams Foundation is making this digitization project possible. The death records will be loaded into a database that will be indexed and easily searchable. All scanned images will be provided for FREE on the Library of Michigan's Web site. Users from across the country will be able to access the database and download death records from the comfort of their home computer.
More sleuthing at the Albion College library turned up some interesting clues!
A couple days ago I had an opportunity to find and photograph the tombstones of Hymen Kramer and Kate Chabensky. I knew this would be helpful because the dates on the tombstones can be used to find obituaries in the Detroit Free Press microfilm.
When I returned home from the library this evening, I discovered I had already gathered enough information to find and contact one of the Kramers' children. And with one phone call, success.
I hope to welcome Kramer descendants to the website soon. :) We are excited about comparing family tree branches and seeing photos of my 4th-cousins.
Today's update is the accomplishment of several small efforts.
Many names were added to the Spindel branch of the tree thanks to a telephone interview with Mr. Fred Spindel.
A photo of Minyah Chabensky's family was discovered after it was mistaken for a post card from the Plischuk family. In the translation of her handwritten caption, I learned Minyah's married name was Kaminsky.
This weekend, I traveled to the Hebrew Memorial Park cemetery with my aunt and grandmother. We were able to locate and photograph more than 30 tombstones of our relatives there. These tombstone images are added to the family tree using a feature that MyHeritage calls the "virtual cemetery". I remain skeptical about the usefulness of this feature, but I do find it helps illustrate the source of Hebrew engravings and inset photographs.
The helpful people at JewishGen allow me to submit up to 5 images per week for translation requests. I uploaded the most important-looking tombstones (esp. close relatives or those with unknown parents). Now I wait eagerly to see what new clues might be revealed.
In the meantime, there were some discoveries I already added to the tree. For example, on the tombstone of aunt Rose's husband, Benjamin Schuraytz, there is an inset photo. My photo of the photo is the first one of him in this project.
Next to the tombstones of Phillip and Becky (Chabensky) Bernbaum, we found two more Bernbaums unexpectedly: Morris and Minnie. Using the article How to Read a Hebrew Tombstone as a guide, I was able to match the phrase that begins with "בר אבי" on the tombstones. So without expert help, I confirmed Morris and Phillip had the same father.
At this time, the website version of this project does not have a virtual cemetery feature in the menu, but registered family members may click this link to view it privately.
