My maternal grandmother, Kate Weisberg, was born in Lomza, Poland. She died when I was only nine years old, so I never had the chance to ask her about her family. From my mother, aunts and uncles, I learned the following: Kate was born in about 1875 as Gittel Laznicky to Aron Tovah Laznicky and Raisel. Raisel was married three times. Her first husband died young and left her a widow with two small girls. Her second husband was my great-grandfather, Aron Tovah Laznicky, who died in Lomza before Raisel came to the United States. The third was a man named Greenberg whom Raisel, now known as Rose, married in New York.
Armed with this information I began my research. In order to search LDS (Mormon) microfilms of vital records from Poland, I needed Rose’s maiden name. My uncle knew that his mother (Kate) married Morris Weisberg in 1892. I wrote to the County Clerk for New York County and got a copy of the original application for their marriage license. On it was Rose=s maiden name: Wopinski.
I ordered four rolls of microfilm with Jewish records from Lomza at the Mormon Family History Library and rushed to look at them when they arrived at my local LDS center. As soon as I saw the first film on the screen I knew I needed help. The records were in Polish, and they weren’t in neat columns, but were written out in one long paragraph. I used this resource in 1978Clong before Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, before Judith Frazin’s translation guide and before I knew that anyone else was interested in Jewish vital records from Poland. Luckily for me, Mike, a man in my husband=s office, had recently moved to San Diego from Poland. Mike came with me to the Mormon center, and we put the first roll in the microfilm reader, whereupon he commented, “This is very interesting. Is your family from Old Lomza?” Up to that minute I had no idea that there was an Old Lomza. Mike explained that the records were written in old Polish, and he showed me how to look for names using certain key words and phrases in the text. He also wrote the surnames I needed in old Polish script.
As I searched the records, I realized that Wopinski actually was Wapniewski and/or Wapniewicz. I found many documents, including the marriage records for the first two of Raisel’s marriages, birth records for the two girls she had with her first husband and the death record for her first husband. I found marriage records for several of Raisel=s siblings and birth records for many of the siblings= children. I learned that Raisel’s parents were Moszk Szlomowicz and Fruma z Leyzor. The z after Fruma indicates that Leyzor is the name of her father.
When I told my family that Wapniewski was Raisel’s maiden name, my aunt commented that someone named Wepner, who was related somehow, had a delicatessen in Manhattan. On the 1900 federal census for New York, I found a Joseph Wepner, listed as a butcher. He appears again in the 1910 census, this time as a delicatessen owner. Joseph also was listed in the New York City Directory for 1911 and 1913 as being in the deli business. A Morris Wepner, delicatessen owner, also appears in these records. I thought that one or both must be the relatives my aunt reported. All I needed was a link from my family to Joseph and/or Morris.
In 2000, The Gatherers, the newsletter of a newly formed Jewish Genealogical Society in New Jersey, included a notice that Paul Lewis was searching for information about Wepner from Lomza. It turned out that Morris Wepner was Paul’s grandfather. Joseph was Morris’ brother and, indeed, they did have a deli in New York. Paul had Wapniarz as the original surname, while I had Wapniewicz or Wapniewski. We both knew that the spelling difference is not important, but we still could not find anything in our documents that linked the two families.
In the summer of 2005 at the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies conference in Las Vegas, I listened to Bennett Greenspan talk about DNA testing. One of Greenspan’s examples of a successful DNA was for Myrna Lewis’ (Paul’s wife) family. Intrigued by the idea of the DNA tests, I asked my brother to do one so I could have data on both my father’s line and my mother’s line.* I do not have a living direct-line Wapneiwicz male in my family tree. Even though the connection, if there were one, appeared to be on the male line, I wrote to Paul and told him about my brother getting the mtDNA (maternal line) test. After all, in genealogy, “you never know.” Paul asked a direct-line female relative of his grandfather=s sister to do the test as well. When the results came in, we had an exact mtDNA matchCon the female and not the maleCline!
Although we had been searching for a link through the surnames Wapnairz, Wapniewicz and Wapnieski, the link was not through the male line at all, but rather through the female line.
Paul then sent me the results of the research he had done since we first met in 2000. As I studied his family chart, I noticed that his great-grandmother=s name was Chana Moszkowna, Chana daughter of Moszek. I knew that Moszek was the name of my great-grandmother Raisel’s father, but I needed to know the name of Chana’s mother. Raisel’s mother was Fruma. Paul had birth records for some of Chana’s children, but none of them had Chana’s mother=s name on them. The last document I studied was Chana’s death record from 1872. There it was, Chana, daughter of Moszek and Fruma. Paul’s great-grandmother, Chana, and my great-grandmother, Raisel, were sisters! Joseph and Morris Wepner were Raisel=s nephews, and Paul Lewis and I share common great-great-grandparents, which makes us third cousins.
Paul=s grandfather, Morris, and great-uncle, Joseph, had a deli in New York, but if my aunt hadn’t told me about A someone named Wepner who had a deli, I might have filed away Paul’s information, and that would have been the end of it. This was a small clue that led to great results.
It may be that there is also a connection through the male line, but I think that finding Paul Lewis was just an extremely lucky coincidence. Wapno is the Polish word for “lime” and most likely anyone with the surnames Wapniarz, Wapniewicz, Wapienski and variants had some connection with the lime business, probably as a worker in a lime quarry. I learned this from several sources, including the head of the archives in Lomza when I was there in 2000. He also told me that there were many families in Lomza gubernia and the northeastern part of Poland with the surnames Wapniarz, Wapniewicz, Wapniewski. In my research on this branch of my family, I found many documents that I cannot tie to either my line or Paul’s.
Note
*Females can only be tested for mtDNA, which can determine a direct maternal line. Males can be tested for both Y-DNA and mtDNA, showing both their paternal and maternal direct lines.
Roberta Wagner Berman is a volunteer librarian and the founder of the San Diego Jewish Genealogical Society. She is a former US Update Editor of AVOTAYNU and has contributed articles previously. A highlight of her life as a family historian was visiting Lomza and walking in the footsteps of her great-grandmother after whom she was named.
Avotaynu 2007; 23(4):31-32
DOI: 10.17228/AVOT20070431
Copyright © 2008 Avotaynu, Inc.
