One of my most recent obsessions is the show Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC. It's the American version of a staple program currently in its ninth season in England. Each episode follows a celebrity on a quest to discover information about his or her lineage. Kim Cattrall learned that her grandfather had abandoned his wife and young daughters and become a bigamist, eventually moving his new family to Australia while he was still legally married to his first wife. Tim McGraw found out that in the early days of our nation, his ancestors gave shelter to a 16-year-old boy named George Washington.
It's fascinating.
I have dabbled in some genealogy "research" in the past (by which I mean I have typed "Margoshes" into Google and perused the first few pages of results), but this show makes me want to construct my family tree from scratch--to discover long-lost relatives and scandalous family secrets and in turn find out more about myself.
No offense to my mom and her lineage (I'm sure some pretty juicy things went down over there in Labrador), but I've always been extremely interested in my dad's side of the family: a long line of Jews.
I thought I might use my blog as a means of chronicling my research. To illustrate just how much I will learn about who I am, I will detail what little I know as of right this second. (Just a warning: Most of this will be me gushing about how I'm related to famous people.)
1. I am two degrees of separation from my idol, Fran Drescher. How, you may ask? My uncle wrote the music to Fame, and Fran Drescher starred in the TV series adaptation. We're practically sisters.
2. Joseph Margoshes, a writer for a Yiddish newspaper in New York in the 1900s, wrote a book called "A World Apart: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century Galicia." I was able to read a few excerpts thanks to Google Books. Even if I hadn't known this man's name, I would have known he was a relative just by the first sentence of the Author's Forward: "I have not recorded these pages because I consider myself a great and important personage who has accomplished all sorts of great things." I would know that trademark Margoshes "I'm nothing special" humility anywhere.
3. In a different excerpt, I learned that the name "Margoshes" used to be "Margolis." As I was typing "Margolis" into Google, the quick search suggested "Margolis Edelstein." My heart stopped. For those who don't understand the significance of this, it means that I am possibly related to Lisa Edelstein: Lisa Cuddy on House.
4. My last name is Spanish-Polish-Jewish. Accounts differ slightly on where exactly my family originated, but the gist is this: We were forced from Spain during the Spanish Expulsion after a royal edict demanded that all Jews--a community of 200,000--be expelled from the country.
I know a few more things, but I think I'll leave it at this for now. If anyone is still reading, stay tuned for more updates about my genealogical search!
No comments:
Post a Comment