Maternal Side |
My mother's last name is Forman and on that side of the family I have some interesting history. My mother's side of the family has been in the Americas (predominantly Rhode Island) since before the Revolution.
Going through the male line on my mother's side we go from her father Barry Forman, to his father David A Forman, his father Morris Forman, and his father David Forman. During the American Revolution there was a battle in their town and everything was burnt down except for my family's house because it was too close to the church and the soldiers didn't want to endanger that. Later George Washington went to my family's synagogue where he wrote a letter still hanging there today. Barry Forman's (my grandfather's) mother was named Helen Gereboff who was born in Rhode Island to parents Myer Gereboff and Bassie Grabofsky. Both of her parents were born in Russia in the 1870's. Through her I also have ancestors who lived in the Czar palace as servants until the Jews were expelled from Russia later. |
Paternal Side |
My father is named Sidney Vidaver but his mother Marthe's maiden name is Kanner. Both of her parents were Holocaust survivors.
Her mother Ilona Mayer, lived in a shtetl named Csenger and her father Shlomo Kanner was from Zmigród, Poland. They met in Belgium where my grandmother was born and departed from Bremerhaven to Canada. Ilona lived in Csenger, and her grandfather was Mayer Salamon (see artifacts page), which is where her last name comes from. My paternal grandfather had some sort of falling out with his family, making it difficult to find connections. At some point the Vidavers were not religious and when they began practicing Judaism didn't know their tribe. Through my research I tracked down that I have a direct male ancestor named Rabbi Henry Vidaver, who was a Levi. This is how I know I am a Levi. My grandfather's sister Judie married a man named Robert Heuman whom I found while researching family on ancestry.com and got some information from. At some other point there was also a schism in the Vidavers with some converting to Christianity in-between the Civil War and WWI. |