The theme for this week back in January was So Far Away. As an American Jew all of my ancestors immigrated to the US as early at the later half of the 1800's. Since my ancestry is from the Netherlands, Germany, the Ukraine side of Galicia, non-Galicia Ukraine and Belarus - I guess you could say the furthest place a group of ancestors game from would be my Jaron/Yurovsky branch. So lets focus on my great grandfather Karl/Kisel. This will be mostly based off of my father's research into his ancestors as I have spent the better part of the past 12 years working on mother's side. Only recently have I really started working on his branch as he has already done most of the work.
Kisel was born about 1867 in the town of Zolotonosha, Cherkassy, Ukraine to Kusya Moisey and Ester Avram. At some point before 1896 he married a woman named Maryasha Chebotorev who was from the nearby town of Kamenka. They had two children - Benjamin (Barouch) and Nat (Gerschon). Unfortunately she passed when they were very young. He then went on to marry my great grandmother Rizel/Rose Wernick from Khudyaki. My father theorizes that Maryasha and Rizel were related and has been working on proving this. While still in Zolotonosha they had two additional children - Morris (Moshe) and Rizel was pregnant with Anna when he set out on his jouney.
It was at around this point in time that my Yurovsky ancestors began to come to the US. As shown below Kisel arrived in Philadelphia on June 29, 1904 to meet up with his brother in law Louis (Levie) Antonoff, the husband of his wife's sister Anna Wernick. It also appears that he travelled with two other Wernicks. I inverted the colors to make it easier to read.
(click the image to view the whole thing on Ancestry)
The next year his three sons joined him, having travelled with his wife's sister law Rachel Tolchinsky (nee Wernick) and her children Herman (Chaim) and Bessie (Baschewa). They arrived in New York on March 28, 1905 all listed as going to meet up with their father and Louis Antonoff in Philadelphia.
According to my father Rizel attempted to come over three times - and on the third time it was a stowaway dressed as as man carrying Anna. Unfortunately we cannot find the correct ship manifest (if he/she even appears on one) but we have a few ideas.
Subsequent to her arrival in Philadelphia they had three more children - Esther, Sam (born Israel which confused my father), and Sophie.