“My brick wall was overwhelming and Adam knocked it down as if it was butter.”
Audrey believed that the grandparents of her late husband emigrated from Kiev to New York around 1905. She believed their names were Sam and Hannah or Nechama Horowitz. Audrey had researched for five years, trying to find historical evidence of this, but her searching ended in frustration and to no avail of finding sources to support what she had heard. She had tried just about everything she could think of, including hiring a genealogist in Kiev.
In her own words, she says, “I nearly gave up when I came across your site in an e-mail, so once again I grasped at the last straw and struck gold!”
The Request
Audrey started by posting a detailed request on AncestorCloud, and included the following purpose for her request:
“I would like to know which of the towns within the Kiev Governia Sam and Hannah or Nechama came from and anything more you can tell me.”
Adam Kanciper came across this request on AncestorCloud, and quickly submitted a proposal.
She said, “I wasn’t really expecting a return from him for several weeks as had been my experience with several well-known and popular sites in the past, but Adam told me so much more than I expected in just a few days that I was absolutely shocked and amazed.”
The Results
“Within a few days, DAYS mind you, not the months and years with no information, Adam Kanciper was able to give me the records needed to verify where the family lived in Russia, dates they died, where they were buried in New York and the all important facts on the spelling of the Horowitz name: Gurevitch, Gurvich, Jurevich and Gurevich depending on whether the person interpreting the name was Russian, Polish, German, British or American. Sam hadn’t even settled on a spelling himself until 1910 and he arrived in 1906. Hannah’s name wasn’t Hannah, but Nechame and referred to by family and on documents as Annie.”
“Adam found me ships manifests, naturalization papers, identified where various family members are buried. He provided me with information telling me what town they were born and raised in before the revolution, the exact dates my husbands’ grandparents were married/ as well as the dates they died, and what was on the death certificates as a cause of death. He interpreted the Hebrew and Yiddish on Headstones. Our family thought their forbearers came to New York together, so I was surprised to find out from Adam that my husbands’ grandmother joined her husband in New York the year after he arrived.”
The two pictures above were the only evidence that Audrey had of Sam & Hannah.
“I had to ask myself what my time was worth those thousands of hours I searched to find nothing. It was so worth it to go to someone who truly knew what they were doing and it put me out of my misery! Thank You Adam and thank you AncestorCloud for matching Adam to me perfectly!”
