Search for Lost Relatives

Recently went for a routine doctor's visit, and once again was reminded of the gaping holes in my family history. I'm asked the usual questions, about family history of such and such or this and that, and I always have to remind them that, on my mother's side, I have little family to give a history of. My mother, her three brothers and her parents came to this country just before Poland was invaded by Germany at the onset of World War II.

They were the Rand family of Stryj. They were Jewish. As far as we know, those 6 people were the only members of the Rand family of Stryj, Poland that survived the holocaust.

My cousins and I have discussed this, and it seems to be true. No one has ever met anyone else from that family; no cousins, second cousins, cousins once removed, great aunts or great uncles. My grandmother and grandfather, their three sons and one daughter, they were the only ones who made it. They are all deceased now, so we 8 cousins and our children, now we are it. We are the only descendants of the Rand family of Stryj, Poland.

Or are we? That is the story of holocaust survivors. There's always that question in the air; did anyone else make it? You always hope to hear of a long lost cousin in a remote town in another country. My cousin Martha grew up hearing two rumors: one, that we were originally English (Rand is indeed an odd name for a Jewish Polish family), and two, that relatives of my grandmother made it out of Poland and ended up in Argentina.

We've never had any way of checking the truth of these rumors until now.

Right here in Tucson there exists an organization called the DNA Shoah Project. Their goal: to collect DNA samples form holocaust survivors and their children from all over the world and form a DNA databank. The staff of the project will keep information on file: names, family histories, etc. The DNA samples themselves are bar coded so the databank will see them only as a bar code, keeping individual identities anonymous. A computer will look for a match based not on names or pedigree but simply on DNA. If a match is found, the staff will inform the participants.

Wow!

I called the project and told them the story of the Rand family. The staff said, yes, we are exactly the kind of story they are looking for. I immediately sent an email to my cousin Martha in New York, daughter of my mother's brother Arthur. She was as enthusiastic as I was, and agreed to take a sample and talk to our other cousins (the more samples the better).

That's where we stand right now. I'm hoping to get at least 3 of the Rand cousins' DNA into the database immediately, with more to follow as we try and contact the other cousins (our family is not close and some members are estranged, which is oddly typical of families who survived the holocaust).

I hope one day I'll be writing a post about meeting another descendant of the Rand family of Stryj, Poland. That would be a lovely, lovely gift.