family reunions

Our first reunion was in Newport, RI in 2001. In 2003 we met in Los Angeles, and in 2005 in Cleveland.

In 2000, after a Pokross family reunion, my wife Vicki suggested I investigate my father's family. I began with the family of my father's mother, Dvorshe Kusinitz Ginsburg. A family tree had been prepared by Joe Adelson, probably in the early 1960s.

Around 1995 or earlier, Zelda Kusinitz Feldman had advertised in a Jewish newspaper in Providence looking for her Newport relatives. Zelda was part of our Waterbury family, which was represented on Joe Adelson's tree by two or three names. Zelda filled me in with a several e-mails about her branch, and put me in touch with her cousin Myron Kusnitz.

Myron and I spent a lot of time putting together the other two Waterbury branches, which consisted of two sisters who had both married Shapiros... it is not known whether the Shapiros were related. This involved some cliff hanging situations. In one case a letter was mailed to someone who had just died; fortunately her daughter replied. Myron racked his brains and recalled interactions with relatives in Los Angeles where his branch had moved. He had to use rocords of real estate transactions to track down one family member.

Meanwhile, Zelda mentioned that we had relatives in Cleveland. They were descended from three brothers, but the families had drifted apart. When I reached out, a Clevelander suggested a family reunion in Cleveland. I anticipated the suggestion, and pounced. I thought it best to locate the reunion in Newport, where more people were in driving distance. This forced me to reach out to the Newport branch, whether or not I knew them well.

Myron mentioned a rumor of a branch in the family in Memphis, Tenessee. He had found someone in the 1920 census, although it was not clear that there was a relationship. I sent a message to several Dokshitsy researchers thanks to Joel Alpert, who started a Dokshitz website on jewishgen.org. One reply mentioned the Kusinitzs in Memphis. The information referred to the same person in the census but was dated. I found an obituary online. After thinking about it for a few days, I paid $1.25 for a look. This had enough information to track down descendants, and it only took a few phone calls to get in touch with this family. It turned out to be partly in Memphis, Brooklyn, and eastern Connecticut. Two family members recalled visits to Newport to see the family. One family member was living in Cleveland knew members of the Kusinitz branch there. When I told her about the family she commented, "Now I have more relatives in Cleveland than my Cleveland born husband!"

See the pictures from our reunion in Cleveland in 2005 and from Los Angeles in 2003.