Research Roots

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Research Roots

"Every family has a secret. And the ones that don't think they do have not scratched the surface hard enough yet."

Research Roots is a boutique family history consultancy based in Brighton. We provide specialist research support for anyone interested in unravelling the stories and puzzles in their family tree. We also provide probate research and genealogical fact-finding services for the legal profession and support authors, academics film- and programme-makers with a wide variety of factual and fiction/drama

projects. To find out how we can help with you research project, large or small, please visit our website www.researchroots.co.uk or email us at info@researchroots.co.uk.

19/07/2019

Who Do You Think You Are? episode uncovers story of Samuel Gershon, the Harry Potter star's great-grandfather, who killed himself amid police suspicion he had staged a robbery of his business

31/05/2019

I look at birth, marriage and death certificates virtually every day of my working life so it’s funny to be on the other side of the window, registering the birth of my own daughter this week.
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It is a good reminder to me, as a genealogist, of the humanity of my subjects; behind every certificate is a family and a story and a web of relationships and emotions.
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(Semi-) Normal service will resume soon(ish)... 🤱🏼👶🏼 👣
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15/05/2019

There’s nothing quite like handling old letters and original family memorabilia. And they are often unmatched resources for the family historian, providing information that no other source could offer.
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Even if they are in another language, there are now lots of genealogical Facebook groups in which good-hearted members will help with translations, often free of charge.
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It breaks my heart to see bundles of letters in vintage shops, or to hear about photos and letters simply being thrown out or burnt.
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Never throw this stuff away, or at least find the person in your family for whom it is meaningful! I guess chances are, if you are following this account, this is you!
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11/05/2019

The Yiddish Word Of The Day is:
….. mishpocheh, meshpokha, also spelled as mishpocha, or mishpokhe (pronounced mish∙pokh’∙eh / mish∙pookh’∙eh)
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This Yiddish word means family, but not just family as most people would think of that English word. Mishpocheh includes all a person’s relatives or kin. Mishpocheh means the extended family, like spouse, parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins, second-cousins, and so forth.
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09/05/2019

Old wooden house, Suzdal, May 2014.
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05/05/2019

I’m currently two weeks off giving birth to baby no.2🤰🏼 and at my least mobile ever! To stave off the cabin fever, I’m planning new adventures...⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Planning to get back to NYC next year and pound those Lower East Side streets I spend such a lot of time working on. Top of my to-do list is the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street, a refurbished 19th century walk-up that shows what living conditions were like for the average immigrant around the turn of the C20th. I’ve never been before - an egregious omission for someone like me! ✈️ 🇺🇸🗽What’s on your hit list over the next few months?
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03/05/2019

Five years (and one and three quarter kids) ago this month I was setting off on a trip to Russia, taking in Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Suzdal (amongst other places), travelling by bus and sleeper train in the footsteps of my forebears! Good times!

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02/05/2019

Today is Yom HaShoah. Remembering my grandfather’s 120 immediate relatives and all those who were murdered by the N***s and their collaborators. Never forget.

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01/05/2019

Just finished a project about a young man who emigrated to New York in 1890 from the countryside around Tarnow, in what is now Ukraine and what was then Austrian Galicia.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Although a large proportion of the regional records had been destroyed during the First World War, when the area was on the Austrian-Russian front, and subsequently during WW2, it was possible to piece together a considerable amount of detail about this man’s history using surviving Galician snippets, US immigration, census and vital records and Yad Vashem testimony.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It helped that the surname was distinctive, of course and that there were discernible naming patterns running down different branches of the family which helped me to join up the dots. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It looks like the surname was adopted by a single individual or family c.1800 and so my client is probably related to every individual sharing that name and the spelling variations adopted in the “new country”. Pretty cool when that happens!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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29/04/2019

“Every time an one person dies, it is as if a library has burned down.” Ask the questions now, people! 🙏🏼⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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28/04/2019

Planning new adventures...⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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25/04/2019

research trip, Warsaw, Summer 2018.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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21/04/2019

“I marvel at the resilience of the jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.” - Elie Wiesel 🙌🏼⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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19/04/2019

Today, the first day of Passover, marks the 76th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the most significant act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Having spent a week last summer staying within the walls of the old ghetto and walking its streets, the anniversary holds special resonance for me now. Never forget 🙏🏼

16/04/2019

I don’t need much encouragement but this kind of testimonial is always very much appreciated! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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10/04/2019

Vergangenheitsbewältigung: "struggle to overcome the [negatives of the] past" or “working through the past”. German has so many useful terms for us historians...⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
More specifically, this term describes processes that since the later 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, society, and culture - "public debate within a country on a problematic period of its recent history—in Germany on National Socialism", referring to traumatic events that raise sensitive questions of collective culpability.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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06/04/2019

And breathe! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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05/04/2019

La Mur Des Noms (The Wall of Names), Memorial de la Shoah, Paris, 2013. This memorial includes the names of my cousin’s uncles and aunts, originally from Mogielnica, Poland. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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02/04/2019

I’ve been working with my cousin lately, trying to help her identify an extraordinary collection of photos in her grandmother’s album, and put stories to the names. Many of the stories are unfortunately extremely sad as this large family from present day Ukraine was almost entirely wiped out in a hail of bullets in the sandpits outside Kovel on a single summer’s day in August 1942. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Like most people’s family albums, it raises lots of unanswered questions. The story of this soulful-looking young woman, who we believe was called Pessel, remains - for the time being - elusive. We can only hope she was one of the lucky ones. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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27/03/2019

Today I’m working in Plock, on the beautiful Vistula river, researching a widow and her three children who emigrated to England at the turn of the twentieth century.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
When I say I’m ‘in Plock’, the truth is I’m actually sitting at my desk in the countryside outside Brighton, England. In the age of online research, a lot of my work doesn’t necessitate me going anywhere at all. Like so many other small businesses, the internet makes it possible to do my job, mostly without leaving my office. And where records are not available online, I work with a network of researchers and specialists across Eastern Europe and beyond to access and translate them. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
While I always recommend pounding the streets where your ancestors walked, immersing yourself in the history of a place at a particular time, for a few days or even hours, does nevertheless give you a feeling of physical exploration as well as time-travel. I often come back to earth with a bit of a bump when the phone rings or the door bell goes! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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03/03/2019

“Anyone meshugge enough to call himself a Jew is a Jew...”. (David Ben Gurion, via ’s wonderful BUT IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS?) **Discuss!** ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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25/02/2019

Monday: you sure do got a lotta nerve RT ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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23/02/2019

Back in my hood today and continuing work on a voluntary project to index the records of my local Orthodox shul 🤓. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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22/02/2019

I love this quote by the historian G.M. Trevelyan which grasps at the mystery of history, and in turn, family history. But I don’t fully subscribe to it because I believe we do live on - not in a spiritual sense necessarily - but in our stories. And it’s the stories that I’m interested in. They never fail to resonate - long after the subjects are dead. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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17/02/2019

Beautiful Kraków 🏰⛲️🕍. A frequent stopping point for my clients’ heritage trips. One of the things I most like to do is help my families plan a trip back to the ‘heim’ - to their ancestral towns and villages. There is no substitute for going and seeing where your family came from - walking the streets they walked, looking at vistas unchanged in 150 years, maybe even seeing the house they lived in. It’s cosmic. ⠀⠀⠀⠀

13/02/2019

Spring is in the air 🌱. Time for planning - new projects, trips and in my case, for a baby. What have you got in the pipeline? Anyone doing a heritage tour I can vicariously follow on here?!
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11/02/2019

Don’t tell anyone but I’d what I do whether I was paid for it or not! 🤫 I just can’t help it!
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09/02/2019

: 📽 THE STURGEON QUEENS, a wonderfully fond feature doc profiling 4 generations of the family (and the 1.8m lbs of smoked fish) behind the Lower East Side’s most famous shop, Russ and Daughters - 104 years old and still going strong. Well worth a look if you like your heimeshe culture, NYC legends and/or smoked fish! 🎥

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