How is that possible, you say? Well, here is brief explanation.

I had four grandparents (duh!), three of whom were born in Europe, and one of whom was born in the U.S. Of the three from Europe, one was from today’s Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), and two from today’s Ukraine (one from part then in the Russian Empire, and the other from part the in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire). My American grandmother’s parents were also from what was then part of Austria-Hungary.

It was my father’s father, Abraham Hessel, who was from today’s Lithuania, so, although everyone we are talking about here was Jewish and therefore not ethnically Russian, Austrian, Hungarian, Ukrainian or Lithuanian, when asked, I would say I am one quarter Lithuanian, with that definition meaning, both to me and my typical questioner, one quarter Lithuanian Jewish. And that has been part of the way I identify myself.

Now, however, that it is so easy to find your ancestors using the various computer tools available even on your smartphones, tools including Ancestry.com, as well as several highly detailed Jewish genealogy sites, I have learned much more about my ancestry than, say, my father knew, and am in the process of learning more than that. My father could have told you that his father was born in Lithuania (I think he could tell you that; I never asked him), but I don’t think he could have told you much about his grandfather (whom he never met), but I can.

I am still an amateur here, but can tell you that when you join Ancestry.com, and enter a name in their search engine, and say that you want to look for a particular individual in family trees that have been posted on the site for public viewing, you have a quick two step process to follow. The first is to make sure you are identifying, say, the correct Abraham Hessel and, once you do that, the sky is the limit…..if you are lucky.

I say “if you are lucky” because so far, for example, when I look up my father’s maternal grandparents, Leo and Toby Dicker who lived near Lvov (Lviv, Lemberg), I come up blank. I have read that my great grandfather Leo came from a wealthy family and was an educated engineer killed in his 30s in an industrial accident, but I haven’t located that family. And, as for my great grandmother, I don’t even know her maiden name. They had three children, obviously long gone. One lived in San Francisco and had no children. The other disappeared from my grandmother’s view when he was young and moved to study in Budapest; she never heard from him again. I don’t even know his first name, whether he married or had children, whether they left Europe, perished in the Holocaust, or if I still have relatives in Hungary. No clue.

(My grandmother, Helen Hessel, is listed as my grandfather’s wife, with “unknown” parents.)

But when you locate Abraham Hessel, the Abraham Hessel born in Zagare, Lithuania in 1869, and begin to look for published family trees that have his name, you strike pay dirt. And then, with every generation, you have choices to make. Do I trace his mother or his father? Then you choose one of four grandparents, wondering if you will ever have time to come back and trace the others (again, assuming they also can be traced).

You find that one of his parent was Meier Hesselson, who was born in the Lithuanian town of Anyksciai, near Kaunas (or Kovno). And you find that Meier’s father was another Abraham, but then you see something you weren’t expecting. You see that your great great grandfather Abraham Hesselson was not born in Lithuania at all, but in a Ukrainian town called Khmelnystskyi, near Lvov.

This gives you an idea.

How did your Lithuanian born grandfather meet and marry a young girl from the outsides of Lvov? Was it because his grandfather was also from outside Lvov, and there was some sort of connection? Perhaps.

At any rate, as you go back generation after generation, you see that your ancestors on this one “Lithuanian” line, were born in various places in Europe, not only in Lithuania. And you realize of course that you are only following one line of ancestors, and that there are many many, some of which you can find, and others of which there appear to be no trace.

But why is this particular Hesselson line available in such detail? You seem to ne following random people (you certainly don’t have time to try to research every generation) who were born in various parts of  what today are today’s Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Then for a few generations on this line, many of your ancestors seem to have from Prague, now in the Czech Republic.

But then, for more than 100 years, this line becomes Italian. We are, interestingly, talking about the time when Colombus was born in Genoa, that my great, great, great, great, great, great, great  great, great, great, great grandfather Abraham Mintz (himself born in today’s Germany, in Maintz – you see the progression of 15th century Ashkenazic Jews out of the Rhineland into other parts of Europe), moved to Padua, then part of the Serene Republic of Venice. There, he became the head of the major yeshiva in Padua.

Padua, by the way, at the time, was a Jewish education center, and Mintz a very well respected educator. You can Google him. He was first assisted by, and then replaced by, another German born man, my great great great great great great great great great great grandfather Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, born in the German principality of that name, and educated in Prague.

(You see two things from all of this. First, as today, Jews moved around, and second, as last names were not yet common, Jews were often referred to by their places of birth.)

Rabbi Meir married Abraham Mintz’ daughter, and, aa they say, the rest really is history.

Known as the Maharam of Padua, and also as the chief Rabbi of Venice, during much of the 16th century, and starting a continuing rabbinic legacy that is still alive today, the Katzenellenbogen family stayed in Padua a few generations before moving elsewhere. I think they were there long enough to make me Italian.

By the way, these were fascinating times for Jews in Venice. Strong scholarship, wealth and poverty, ghettos open in the day but locked at night, odd restrictions on what Jews could and could not do. Remember, too, that in 1492, Jews were expelled from Spain, with many Sephardic Jews winding up on the Italian peninsula, creating a mix of cultures within a mix of cultures.

Much more to be said about this…one day.