Subject: Genealogy #82
Reply-to: IsraelP@pikholz.org

Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 13:49:56 +0300

Dear Cousins,

I am sending this as a Word attachment because my email has been doing strange things to 
my punctuation and paragraph breaks.

I have been blogging weekly about matters of genealogy for over two and a half years. Some 
of you follow - at http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.com - and bits of what I write below may be 
familiar. For those who do not, I'll add blog addresses which will give you additional detail on 
specific subjects.

In both my last pre-holiday summaries, I discussed the small Pikholz family that lived in 
Husiatyn, not far from Skalat. It had been my theory that the head of that family Gabriyel 
Pikholz (~1822-1852) was the son of Nachman Pikholz (1795-1865) many of whose 
descendants are living. It has also been my theory that the son Moshe born to Gabriyel and 
Sara in 1851 is the head of the TONKA family. DNA would be useful here, but no one from 
the TONKA family has agreed to test. (We have a few tests from Nachman's decendants, 
plus one who keeps promising...)

Unfortunately, we had no living descendants of the Husiatyn family to bridge the gap. But that 
was then.

There is a Pikholz whom I have known slightly for years, almost a neighbor, who has refused 
to cooperate with me. He says "We are not from Galicia. WE are from VIENNA!"  I have 
identified his grandmother with absolute certainty as Brana the daughter of Chanzie Pikholz  
of the Husiatyn family and her husband Joel Halpern. She was born in Podwoloczysk in 1893. 
I wrote to my former neighbor and his two sisters when I made this discovery in June, but 
have received no reply. I included them in my Hebrew holiday summary which went out last 
week. I haven't asked them for DNA yet, but that could help demonstrate that my theory is 
correct.

For more on this, see 
http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/were-not-from-galicia-were-from-vienna.html

Years ago, my father told me that his grandfather Hersch Pickholz had an uncle named Selig 
Pickholz. This Uncle Selig has been critical to my research and I have mentioned him several 
times, in articles, in talks and in my blog. The one thing I did not have was an indication that 
he has living descendants. That has changed, thanks to a single document and some DNA 
testing. I am sure that the head of the MIGDEN family, Josef Pikholz, is in fact Izak Josef 
Pikholz, the son of Uncle Selig. I would like to get one more piece of evidence to make that 
official, but I have very little doubt that I am correct.

One member of the MIGDEN family had done a DNA test for our project last year. He had no 
match with me and is a suggested third cousin to my aunt and to my father's cousin Herb, but 
few Pikholz matches overall. When we made our new discovery, I rechecked the DNA 
against the people who tested more recently. This MIGDEN descendant showed as a 
suggested third cousin to my double cousin Lee and a suggested fourth to my sister Amy and 
to my father's brother. That looks a whole lot better.

See more at http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.co.il/2014/09/uncle-seligs-dna.html

Note that his connection to Amy is way closer than to me. Two of my sisters have tested and 
our matches to many of our relatives are not at all the same. (Siblings are a 25% match on 
average. That means they are 75% different!) So much more for first and second cousins. So 
the next time you say to yourself "Why do I need to test? My cousin already tested!" keep in 
mind that we have demonstrated benefit from DNA tests from several fairly close relatives.

This does not mean that I can answer the question "If I test, what exactly will that prove?"

So please, friends and cousins, if you are thinking about testing but haven't yet - do so. And if 
you haven't thought about it, please give it some consideration. For most of you, what I want 
is the $99 Family Finder test which can be ordered at 
https://www.familytreedna.com/products.aspx#/shoppingCart?pid=215 . 
It's a simple do-it-yourself cheek swab and if you wish, you needn't even use your real name.

For those so inclined, we have a fund at FTDNA to help cover costs and you can contribute 
to it at 	
http://www.familytreedna.com/group-general-fund-contribution.aspx?g=Pickholtz

Another significant new test result is from Ralph, my third cousin once removed. His 
great-great-grandmother Leah Braun is a sister to my great-grandfather Hersch Pickholz. 
Ralph's test results allow us to look at the DNA matches of the descendants of my 
great-grandparents and determine which of those matches are from my g-gf and which from 
my g-gm. It would be very helpful if we had some tests from additional descendants of Leah 
Braun or any at all from the other sister Bessie Franzos/Francis.

This particular experiment in analysis is not just for my own family, but for the rest of you as 
well. I'll explain that further on.

See more at 
http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/what-dna-came-from-which-ancestors.html

If it sounds as though I have become more than a bit enamored with the genetic aspect of 
genealogy, I plead guilty. It is not a magic pill in most cases and many times it is frustratung, 
but there is much to be learned and much to be done - the more testing the better. If I 
actually write The Book, it will be largely from the vantage point of genetics.

While in the US this summer, I spent a week at a course in Practical Genetic Genealogy at 
the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) mixing it up with some of the best in 
the field. This was not a Jewish group and in fact we often heard that "We don't know how do 
this for Ashkenazi Jews." This is due to endogamy - the propensity to marry within the tribe. A 
match that appears to be say a third cousin is very likely to be a sixth or eighth cousin several 
times over. It will never be easy, but I think that some of this is doable.

The course also gave me many contacts within the general genealogy community - people 
who until now were email addresses or blogs but who now are friends.

More on that at http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/breaking-with-tradition.html

The week after Pittsburgh was the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies 
conference in Salt Lake City. I gave a lecture, participated on a panel (representing the "anti" 
posit ion regarding online collaborative family trees) and mixed with a different crowd than at 
previous conferences. Less time with the older Galicianers and more time with the younger 
bloggers.

More on the conference at http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/salt-lake-city.html

I also spent a couple of hours with one of the stars of the DNA-analysis community, Kitty 
Cooper whose personal heritage includes Jewish and Norwegian. It is her chromosome 
mapping tool that allowed me to do the ancestor analysis I mentioned above. But since then, 
I came up with a new idea which Kitty is helping to bring to fruition. Rather than using her 
chromosome mapper to show how my DNA came from my various ancestors, I want to use 
the descendants to reconstruct parts of the DNA of the ancestors themselves. This is why 
cousins such as Ralph on my ggf's side and Bruce and Pinchas on my ggm's side are so 
important and why I want more of them to test.

If I can get a decent DNA picture of my individual great-grandparents, I can then take the 
DNA of the rest of you and see what kind of matches the other families have with mine, that 
would point us towards a common ancestry. And that's why I want to see tests from more of 
you. First I want to check the other Skalat families against my personal family, then the 
Rozdolers, and after that the non-Pikholz testers who seem to match many of ours.

I am working with Kitty and "her people" to make this happen for the Pikholz families.

This has the potential to be ground-breaking work, worthy of a book that is not just about a 
single family. May G-d give me the strength, the patience, the insight and the focus. And may 
the rest of you give me DNA.

Next year's conference is here in Jerusalem in early July. Five days instead of the usual six.

Steve Pickholtz in New Jersey continues his pursuit of some of our loose ends, most recently 
in Canada and UK. In both he has turned up some new Pikholz refences. I'm not sure that 
Stanley/Stanislaw (1916-1990) is actually one of ours. But there is a "new" Samuel with two 
UK records who surely is. His undated school record shows his father as Jacob and his birth 
date as 8 June 1888. I have no one who fits that date, but I have a guess re the father.Steve 
is working on some other loose ends as well, both in the UK and in NY.

A woman in Buenos Aires made an offer to photograph Jewish graves. I gave her my list and 
she is working on it.

While I was in Salt Lake City, someone asked me if we have a Rabbi Pickholtz who lived in 
Providence Rhode Island. She wasn't sure when - maybe fifty-sixty years ago.  Anyone?

I have said enough. If you are still reading, I want to wish you and your families the best for 
the new year. May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life and enjoy a year of good 
health and prosperity.

Israel P.

-- End --