Genealogists have fun finding family
By Jay Nachman
Amateur genealogist Theodora Ashby has a problem. She can’t track down who were the parents of her great-grandfather William Henry Bell. The 76-year-old Overbrook Park resident will keep looking because of the joy and sense of purpose her hobby gives her.
Ashby enjoys family research because of the “positive impact it has on people – not only my family but the other people I do genealogy for,” she said. “I’ve had people cry, and I’ve had people figure out who owns the house or who owns the land. It’s just a positive impact.”
According to family lore, her father’s family lineage included one person who was enslaved, named Ann. Ashby learned that it was true. Ann married Matthew Ashby, who was the son of an indentured servant from England, Mary Ashby, and an unknown African man. They lived in Colonial Williamsburg. Matthew petitioned to purchase Ann, and once he successfully did, he set her free so that their three children would also be free.
Theodora Ashby’s mother was from the Richardsons of Monmouth County, N.J., descended from the Lenape Tribe of Delaware. They also had African, Dutch and Irish lineage. A family story was that great-great uncle William Thorn, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, left America around 1875 and went to Japan. Through her research, Ashby learned the story was incorrect.
One evening, while doing some online sleuthing, she received a pop-up message saying, “hello, cousin.” It turns out in 1887 William Thorn went to Australia. Ashby learned she has a lot of cousins in Australia, ranging in age from 3 months to 97.
Ashby, along with her sister Carol and daughter Phillipa, are the only Thorn family descendants living in the United States.
A lot of history can be found in family bibles. But to do genealogy right, Ashby said, “You’ve got to be a very curious person, self-motivated and organized. You have to think outside the box.”
Bibles are a good start, but genealogists also need to do deep dives on architecture, geography, state histories and more.
Ira Siegal, 71, who lives in the Spring Garden area, became interested in genealogy by happenstance. In 2009, he learned that the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies was having its annual convention in Philadelphia. He attended and the next thing he knew, he was researching the history of his grandfather, who was raised in Dublin, Ireland.
His grandfather, Isaac Schreider, was born in what is now Belarus and immigrated to Dublin’s small Jewish community at 2 with his father, stepmother and a sister. He immigrated to Philadelphia at age 25 in 1908. When Isaac’s father Moshe brought the family to Dublin, he came with a sacred Torah (Jewish written law, which consists of the first five books of the Hebrew bible).
After Isaac’s great-grandfather died and his sister married and moved to Glasgow, Scotland, he left for Philadelphia to join an older brother here. Isaac brought his Torah with him, and it is now housed at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel synagogue in Center City.
The Torah continues to play a significant role for the Schreider-Siegal family. Four of Isaac’s great grandchildren have read from the Torah during their bar or bat mitzvahs; and in 2015, Siegal read from it on the 50th anniversary of his bar mitzvah.
Since taking up genealogy, Siegal has traveled around the world to meet relatives. He went to Dublin in 2018 to meet his third cousin, Ian Edward Segal, who shared the history of Moshe Schreider, Ira’s great-grandfather.
In September 2019, Siegal visited Israel, where he met Israeli cousins. His cousin Ziva responded to the Family Finder database query by Siegal after he went to the 2009 conference. This was his first contact with a missing branch of the family tree.
While in Israel, Siegal found information about family members who survived the Holocaust. He also visited Glasgow and London in 2023 to connect with even more extended family members.
Siegal’s genealogy research has come full circle. “I met relatives, and I hope I sparked an interest in future generations in our family’s roots. For me, it’s not that I’m just finding documents. In the last few years, it was actually meeting the family members, which is the enjoyment I’ve gotten out of this.”
Genealogy resources
For people interested in researching their family histories, here are additional resources:
- Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania: https://genpa.org
- African American Genealogy Group: https://aagg.org
- Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of Greater Philadelphia: https://jgasgp.org
- JewishGen – The Global Home for Jewish Genealogy: jewishgen.org
Jay Nachman is a freelance writer in Philadelphia who tells stories for a variety of clients.
