Early Inspiration: How It All Began
My favorite and most meaningful experience at an IAJGS conference took place in Warsaw in 2018. But to explain why it was so special, I need to go back—way back—to the summer after seventh grade.
That was when I first started exploring genealogy. I had been dabbling in it for about a year by then—not yet very knowledgeable, not sure what was right or wrong—but I was already taking the time to ask family members questions.
I remember sitting with my grandmother. She was a natural storyteller, though not always a precise historian. Her narratives were a mix of truth, half-truths, and colorful embellishments.
She told me she had been born in Warsaw. Her mother, Bracha Kiejzman, was said to have been born in Garwolin in 1902, the daughter of Jacob (Yankel) Kiejzman and Bracha Mandelbaum (or Mandelbojm).
And Bracha Mandelbaum? According to my grandmother, she was born in Kozienice to Ben Zion Mandelbaum and Sara Yaffe. She also added that this was the same Yaffe family for whom streets were named in various parts of Israel.
That was my starting point.
I would later meet a distant cousin visiting from Argentina. She added another layer to the story: Bracha Mandelbaum had a sister named Miriam, who married a man named Feldfeber. Their son moved to Argentina, where—unaware of the family connection—he fell in love with and married a woman named Bella Mandelbaum.
As it turned out, Bella was his cousin, the daughter of another Mandelbaum brother named Abraham.
Sadly, no records were found concerning this family, and so the work on this branch came to a grinding halt.
A Research Dead End: Warsaw, 2017
In June 2017, I was in Warsaw for a family reunion and made sure to schedule an extra day to visit the Jewish Historical Institute.
By this point, I had been researching for over twenty years—but I had never found any documentation about the Mandelbaum family.
I met with one of their genealogists and explained what I knew. Could we find anything for the Mandelbaum family in Kozienice? The answer: no. Not a single record.
The researcher asked if I was sure about the information. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe the family didn’t exist in that location.
It was disheartening. I went home and didn’t touch that branch again for a while.
The Game-Changer: IAJGS 2018 and the Discovery That Followed
As the 2018 IAJGS conference in Warsaw approached, I scanned the list of lectures. One caught my eye: Patrik Atlas, the Kozienice town leader for JRI-Poland, was giving a talk about books of residents.
The title intrigued me, so I reached out. Patrik replied with more information, and I decided to attend the session.
It turned out to be a breakthrough moment. There was just one problem: the books were handwritten—in Russian—and I don’t read Russian.
Now, as an actuary, I’ve had exposure to Cyrillic through statistical markup—but reading handwriting was another story.
Right after the lecture, I walked straight to the resource area where translators and mentors were stationed. I approached a Russian speaker and asked him to write the name “Mandelbaum” in Cyrillic on a sticky note.
Armed with that, I went back to my room, opened the Polish State Archives website, and started looking at the list of books Patrik had mentioned.
Instead of opening the book for Kozienice itself, I selected one for a nearby rural community called Wojtostwo, just outside of town. I reasoned that if Bracha’s daughter was born in Garwolin in 1900, the family would have moved there before that date—and might still appear in an earlier Kozienice register.
I flipped through about 150 scanned pages. Eventually, I came across a name that looked like Mandelbaum.
I posted a link to one of the Jewish genealogy Facebook groups, asking:
“Can anyone confirm if this is the name Mandelbaum?”
The response came quickly:
“Yes. Do you want the first names as well?”
Here’s what they found:
Father: Shaja
Mother: Sura nee Rechthand
Children:
- Khana Shifra
- Yakub Moshek
- Khaim Baruch
- Abram
- Gerszek Kelman
- Brucha
- Maria
- Pessa
Next to Brucha’s name, a comment read:
“Moved in 1897 to the city of Garwolin to husband Yankel Kiejzman.”
That matched almost perfectly. Bracha—married Jacob Kiejzman and had children in Garwolin around 1900. But wait, the father and mother are not an exact match and neither is the place of birth.
I need to keep working
A few weeks later, I found a website of Zelechow Jews with an index based on the local book of residents. It listed Miriam Mandelbaum, daughter of Shaja Mandelbaum and Sura Rechtant, marrying Naftali Feldfeber. They had children, including one named Naftali Feldfeber, after his father.
I contacted the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, which helped me get in touch with descendants of the Feldfeber family. They confirmed this is their ancestor and the story about the marriage with his cousin, Abraham’s daughter.
A few months later, I returned to Poland, this time headed to the Radom Archive where I reviewed as many records as possible.
After this trip I confirmed this is the correct family as Szaja signs his name in Hebrew as בן ציון ( Ben Zion).
Why This Conference Mattered
This story captures everything I value in a good genealogy conference experience and a good lecture.
Patrik didn’t tell me a story. He introduced me to a record type I had never used before and gave me insight into how to use it.
I walked out of that session with clear action items to implement.
With the help of mentors and translators on location, I could move ahead right then and there.
About 25 years of standing still were solved by one session.
HOW AMAZING IS THAT?
