Thank you for sharing this with us. A bit of info about some records of Jewish people being destroyed during WWII: sometimes this was done to keep people safe. My Roman Catholic great-uncle was involved with the destruction of government records that would have identified non-practicing Jews of having Jewish heritage. This was in the occupied southeast Dutch town of Roermond. My mother remembered her uncle and his son hiding in my mother’s family’s house to evade the German soldiers looking for them. I’m fortunate that my mother shared many family stories with me before she passed away.
When you travel to New York City, do stop by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. They have a lot of information about NYC Jewish history, including Yiddish and Ladino speaking communities. The last time I visited involved a tour of one apartment recreated to represent one family's home/sweatshop, and how operating this tiny business allowed family and employees to observe the Sabbath. We also saw the recreated apartment of a different Jewish family whose employers had them work Saturdays, and their kids were much more assimilated.
Get the cookbook they have from there too- 97 Orchard : An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement. I found the part about bacon and Jewish immigrants very interesting and the part about the huge Italian loaves of bread.
@@SnappyDragon You might want to check out the Red Star Line museum in Antwerp, Belgium. About six or seven years ago a dear friend of mine found out that her great-grand-parents went through Antwerp to get to New York. It was a great discovery.
Odd tip as you embark on your journey to connect-I always knew my grandmother made most of her clothes but I never found any commercial patterns. Years after she died, I asked my aunt who had inherited her house. My aunt told me that my grandmother used to open the newspaper ads and say what do you want and would then pull out her rulers and things and draft the pattern-often on the same newspaper. She then told me she had thrown all those away-they had no use. After my aunt dies, we found folded up inside something of my grandmother's my aunt had saved, a newspaper pattern of a bolero and skirt. My daughter's size. as I started working with it, I found a most of a movie review of "It Happened One Night" anyway, as you embark, maybe draft onto a newspaper or use some other restriction/opportunity your great grandmother would have worked with.
This makes me so happy for you! My family is from King Island/Ugivak and where displaced by laws requiring native children to attend BIA schools and the lack of teachers willing to travel to our island. King Islanders/Ugivangmiut maintain a strong sense of unique, personal identity, even though we were made to perminantly relocate to our summer restocking spot in Nome and our dialect of the inupiaq language being perhaps the most obscure. I managed to track down and order an out of print collection of King Islander stories that my great grandmother, who i knew very little about, contributed to before her death. There was a description of her in the front that called her a "tireless berry picker" and mentioned her helping to reconstruct the Wolf Dance. There's a tv special from the 80s someone uploaded on youtube showing the King Island Wolf Dance and going into how it was reconstructed. My great grandma contributed to that. We didn't have any photos of her, but there's one in the book. She's holding my great uncle Michael who i never got to meet and he was just a year old in the photo. One of the guys in my polycule says he can see a family resemblence. I have an old photo, a picture taken of a xeroxed picture taken back in like the 60s, of my grandmother, who i got my eskimo name from, in a fancy traditional parka. I'd love to make a kuspuk based on it one of these days
@@SnappyDragon it's quite a legacy ^-^ The thing that surprised me most about the story my great-grandmother contributed, though it really shouldn't have, was that in it she recalled her uncle referring to her as "Ullaaq", short for her eskimo name "Ullaaqham Quliapyungnikua". The few times my mom mentioned her, she called her "your great grandma Clara" and legally her name was Clara. It shouldn't surprise me; the stories were originally told and written down in Inupiaq (with English translations provided) and my mom's generation was the first to have English as a first language instead of Inupiaq, but I was never told that my great grandma Clara spent her youth and early adulthood being Ullaaq to her family. It felt like learning for the first time that something precious was stolen from the family, you know? Like it was there, and it just stopped being there one day, but you only remember it not being there
@@seraphinasullivan4849 My mother's family has a related story about speaking Yiddish! My great-grandparents spoke it as their first language, as they were the ones who emigrated, and my grandparents were fluent. But they specifically chose not to teach my mother or her brothers, for the same reason it was tricky to find out where the "old country" was. It was safest to be as "American" as possible. My mother said her parents would speak Yiddish to eachother when they didn't want the kids to understand.
@@SnappyDragonin my family's case my grandma not only chose not to teach my mom or uncles Inupiaq, she also treated "stupid" like a swear word and wouldn't let them say it around her. Hard to say if it was the BIA school in Nome or living in the US as a small brown woman who spoke English as a second language One of these days i wanna publish stories and art under my eskimo name, because it was my grandma's before it was mine and if it's associated with knowledge and creativity maybe the word "stupid" won't hurt her anymore. It should have never been used to hurt her in the first place
as a descendent of enslaved people on both sides of my family, i can relate to this video far more than i expected to when i tapped on it. especially w| how much i love + appreciate fashion + style in the framework of culture + history. thank you for this one. for me, it’s up there w| the one about vikings + locks in terms of impact. i appreciate you + your channel! 🖤✊🏾
This makes me so happy, my grandma passed before she could be persuaded to tell me Anything. They told me I "passed" and didn't need to worry about our ancestry. I'm piecing our history together too, so this was relatable as heck. I am excited for you and the next videos. ^-^
Thank you, Viv!!! I'm sitting here crying as I understand your personal history. I lost my grandparents at 8, as well. At 19, I moved far from home. My life with my parents was not good, especially for my mother and her family. By 2005 my father could trace one side of his family back to their coming to America in 1776. My mom's side, my Native side, always ends at the 1880 census. My great-great-grandfather, George, was adopted out of a Boarding School and, legally, became white. Yet, in 1945 my mother was born on the reservation in Oklahoma. Five years later, the Court house burned down to ashes. I want to do DNA testing, but I have reliable results that if one is less than 10% American Native, the American DNA companies will not list Native heritage. I understand and dislike this. Too many people would try to use it for undeserved benefits, but it screws over those of us who want to know about the cultures that got left behind. Best of luck with this auspicious project, and may God grant you nothing but good days.
The role of DNA testing can definitely be fraught! I'm glad the technology exists but of course how it's used is going to be just as full of issues as all the human systems managing it.
@@SnappyDragon my father may not be my biological father. So I don't want my DNA tested. I did get both my parents DNA tested from their hair. They both died in 1990. My mother was 90% Ashkenazi Jewish, and my father was mostly northern Indian, Sindhi, Punjabi and Rajput, with Irish, Gulf Arabic, Ethiopian, Portuguese and Armenian.
I would love to have a resource/statement on the 10%. My great-grandmother was Cherokee; my mother met her and she was noticeably Native. However, my sister and I had our’s done by a company that touted their American Indian database and we came back all European. We are still scratching our heads.
@@nightfall3605 Happened to both my cousin and my son's grandmother. We know the dates that our people left their respective reservations, and the tests came back ALL European and Scandinavian.
@@nightfall3605 Unfortunately DNA analysis of this kind seem to still have a ong way to go. I know there was a video or two on here where identical twins tested themselves and they didn't have the exact, 100% same output in percentages. I know another person (or twins, I can't remember) took tests with more than one company to compare them all as well, and the companies did not return the exact same percentages either. Slight differences here and there. I'm wondering if that's an error. Alternatively, for twins, if you can look alike but still not have all identifiers in common on a genetic level. Like how you can look like your siblings (if you have any) but still not be 100% alike on a genetic level. But unless it's down to 1-2%, that shouldn't just disappear into thin air. Sorry to hear about your trouble with the testings, both you and My Mid-Victorian Crisis.
I am not jewish or part of any minority where I live, but seeing you with your uncle in the living room holding the picture made me sob because I know exactly how it feels to talk with the last person to have all those memories (my dad) and try to match it with my own research with the pictures we have - and the joy when it comes together and we fill the gaps. It's amazing, although a hard work. Thank you for sharing such a personal moment.
I love that you share your story! As an adoptee with no knowledge of my biological family heritage, I'm envious of people who have knowledge of their ancestry and family stories. I get it ❤️
A beautiful video. I am a Jew-by-choice. I know so much more about my ancestry than my husband did about his - the Mayflower, 14th century baptismal records, the fading letters in beautiful script, the whole deal on both sides. But everyone had ancestors in the 14th century. Knowing the names and dates, belonging to the family societies, does not make you a better or a more interesting person. How you live, what do you with the knowledge of your heritage, is what honors their efforts and sacrifices.
I know that my great-great grand father was a tailor, and he was an apprentice under the man who later became his father-in-law. one of my aunts did a bunch of digging and found this out several years back, and she mentioned it because she thought it funny with my interest in sewing. I also know that my great-grand father was a veterinarian, that worked with a lot of butcher houses on how to make sure that the animals that were sent there were healthy and that they died in as humane a way as possible (we have so many stories about how mad he got at people that didn't treat animals with respect).
My great grandfather was also a tailor and my mother was always amazed at me sitting cross legged on the floor while handsewing. She said I was moving like him. He was also a hands on healer and after I took some shiatsu and I worked on her she swore she could feel his hands. I never met him and know very little about him because as usual there was a family split.
If you ever want help translating any documents from German/old German into English, I’d be more than happy to help you with that ☺️ Thank you so much for sharing your fascinating journey with us 🥰
Your ancestors might have bought their first “new” clothes used and (anachronistic term) up cycled them. Tailoring was a tough way to make a sometimes meager living. I think a lot of families tried to get their children upwardly-mobile by deliberately not passing on these jobs and the result was the Origen of “my son, the doctor” and similar tropes. My great-grandmother was a seamstress, but she didn’t even teach her daughters to sew. I imagine she might have resented the profession. My grandmother was a waitress, though-so not really upwardly mobile! This was a great video!
Quote possibly, yes! I'm going to have to do a reconstruction from scratch, but it'll be interesting to take a look into the secondhand trade in NYC. Most of the research I've done on historical thrifting used material from the UK.
The sheer pride in your eyes and strength in your words. 🤗 I'm in awe and currently sitting here in tears and goosebumps all over my body. I'm so looking forward to the next chapters of this story and what you will be discovering along the way
I am so inspired to recreate my great grandmother's handmade dresses from when she survived the great depression. Such strength was required to keep a family of 10 alive and together during the hardest times in recent history. Thank you for this gift.
You should do it! I went in a different direction for this series, but I also found out a lot about my maternal great-grandmother who supported her family through the Depression by running a yarn store. When I go to NYC to shoot Karolina's history, I might try to track down where great-grandma Ida's yarn store was!
Yes! I love this video!! I think I might have been one of the people who originally replied to your original question about why I do this, because I’m VERY proud to be from a long line of Jewish garment workers and it’s a huge part of what drew me to historical clothing making. I’m very lucky that since my great grandmother owned her own millinery shop from the 1910s all the way up until the 1960s when she retired, that we have many beautiful photos from the early days of the business she used to advertise her hats of her in her gorgeous lingerie gown (always the same one, obviously her “best”) modeling some very extravagant Titanic era hats. My great grandmother’s millinery supplies that I inherited are some of my most treasured possessions. Her husband was a master tailor, and he died young, while my Nana was pregnant with my Mimi, so literally the only connection I had for years was the fact that I’m a tailor too. We have none of the stories from that side of the family, only that we know they came from the Russian empire, and went to England before coming to America. I was always told Great Grandpa’s family mostly stayed in Russia, as opposed to Nana’s family, my many cousins who all still live in the same vague area of New York State. For ages ran into the same mentality that “it was all lost in the Holocaust.” It was only this past year that I found more. And it was…. Well what I found was wild to say the least. My great grandfather’s family DIDN’T all stay in Russia, a good number of them actually moved to New Zealand, which apparently was an incredibly common. Long story short, this is how I found out, as a mixed Jewish Indigenous person myself, that my distant cousin is probably the most famous mixed Jewish Indigenous person currently living and that I’ve cosplayed as my own cousin, Taika Waititi 💀 But being DISTANTLY related to a famous person aside, I also found out that being a tailor was apparently the family trade even before leaving the “old country,” and that was just such an amazing discovery for me. We often get told as the living descendants of Jewish immigrants to America from the late 19th/early 20th century that our ancestors turned to garment work because unskilled sweatshop jobs were all they could get, not that we have such a long and storied Jewish history of working with textiles and creating clothing for the communities we lived among. So now every time I’m pad stitching, I can literally feel the memory of my ancestors in my needle, and it makes me so proud. Being proud and loud and VISIBLY Jewish is so important to me, and it brings me so much joy. I’m glad you are finding this joy as well. I’m so looking forward to your upcoming creations and trip to New York. I hope your Hanukkah celebrations filled with light, resilience, joy, and laughter, and so, SO much tasty food!
Thanks for articulating the outsider feelings so well. My grandmothers refused to talk about their lives in Ukraine. I have a few photos of them in the US soon after their arrival.
As someone who has a lot of breaks in my family history, researching has been the only way I've been able to fill in some of those breaks. Listening to you talk about being your own history researcher had me nodding A LOT in understanding. I can't wait to see the upcoming videos.
My Great-Grandmother Eliza Marilla Cole (1857-1934) worked as the cook for a large foothill cattle ranch for many years (until she had children). That was three large meals in the ranch's dining hall for very hungry cowboys. She was born in California before the railroads even got here, to put this in perspective. She taught her young daughter in law, my Grandma, all her cooking and baking secrets! We have 4 photographs of Grandma Eliza through about 2 periods of her life, and in all but 1 of them (which was a shopping trip with her sisters "to town") she was in an apron. Not in the kitchen, but still had an apron on. I remarked about this to my Grandmother when I was a teen, and her eyes lit up! She went on to explain how Great Grandma Eliza loved herself some aprons. Not just a fresh white one when she started a meal, but she had a whole drawer full of different colored ones, some were 'better' ... for company or family holidays. Different aprons for cleaning, aprons for packing fruit (they raised citrus), etc. Sadly, none survived to be handed to my Grandmother, so the family has only the photos to cherish. In my head, she always had a warm smile and an apron on as a result of this. I can picture her changing aprons as she stepped out of the house to go feed the chickens. It's a silly thing, but pretty precious to me for a Grandma I never knew. Thank you ever so much for reminding me of this all over again. ❤
This was so great!! Yes yes connection to our ancestors! Connections to the works and joys and ordinary details of their lives and the lives of their neighbors and communities. I especially like what you said about finding a way to connect.that is about more than tragedy and trauma and connects to resilience and ordinary joys. .
Your voice shows your excitement about recreating Karolina's dress as well as your reasons for loving history. Happy Hanukkah and keep shining the light in our weird universe.
Thank you so much for sharing ❤️ I'm also estranged from my family of origin and it feels like having my roots cut off. And even though I belong to my country's (Sweden) majority population and probably most of my ancestors lived here I struggle with this sense of rootlessness and it hurts so much. Hearing your story inspires me to maybe do something similar (or something different, but at least something) to try and connect to my roots. Again, thank you very much for talking about this ❤️ I rarely hear about others not being in touch with their biological family, and that makes the loneliness even harder... Looking forward to follow your journey, 💕💕 you're awesome 🥰
Ooooof I feel this. My g. grandfather was dead set in his belief that we were Irish til my grandmother actually did the work and traced our roots across the ocean. Nope! We're Scottish! Unfortunately due to actions of her daughters all the genealogy records of my grandmother's life work was lost. It's frustrating to not know anything about our family. Having to work with scraps and sew them together to get any sort of big picture of understanding.
This all resonated on SO many points. My family is problematic and I had to walk away and not interact. I only know snippets and a few stories about anyone on either side. I can't ask for more now because I choose not to re-engage. Family on both sides based in New England, with all (?) great-grandparents off the boat immigrants. Irish and Nova Scotia French on my mother's side, Irish and Swedish on my father's. It's sad and kind of hurts to not know more and be able to celebrate some of it. Social isolation came from being raised Unitarian Universalist Pagan. We had our own family holiday traditions that were not shared by my peers - growing up or even now. I live far away from those people now in the greatly homogeneous Midwest bible belt, where I often feel (and am reacted to) like a foreigner. Yay you for being able to be a relative and/or a researcher to put your family pieces together. Inspired by your work and ooking forward to what you have to share! BTW, I'm a cultural anthropologist, my thesis was a cultural textile exhibition, and I love making garments 🙂
What a wonderful project! It's sad how many people don't know their roots, but dress history really is a good way to connect. I'm from an area in Sweden that up until the mid-19th century had very specific costumes - looking at a woman wearing one, you could pinpoint where she was from quite accurately. It's a great privilege to have such well documented clothing, even if nothing survived from my own family. Folk costumes were originally worn more or less exclusively by ethnic Swedes in the countryside, but nowadays you can see Swedes of every ethnicity wearing them - it was a Jewish woman who, leading by example, made me realise that I too could have one.
Your story reminds me of my mom. She fought so hard to discover our heritage, and even got to visit some relatives she discovered in Ireland before she passed. She was fascinated by her Polish heritage, because her own mother had been horribly racist in general, but towards Polish people in particular. We will never know why my family left Poland, but we know they buried their culture because they felt they needed to to survive in America. I feel like diving into Polish folk art helps me connect to my mother even though she's gone now.
My Great Great Grandmother on my biological father's side came from somewhere in Wales. She landed in New York, crossed the Great Plains & the Rocky mountains. On foot pushing a handcart with her few worldly possessions. Till she reached the area that is now St George Utah eventually settling down there. She was from what I understand from a lower class mining family. In contrast my Mother's family were members of the lower English aristocracy. They not only had a house in the country, but also town house in London (think a slightly less wealthy Downton Abbey lifestyle). They were merchants who helped found the East India company. Unfortunately they lost the majority of their wealth in the Great Depression. & eventually had to sell off both their country house. & town house as well as most of their possessions. My Grandmother has the few remaining items stored in her attic. My Great Grandmother on my Mother's side was a nurse & served in London during WWII. & my Great Grandfather was a jeweller who had a shop in London. My Grandmother like most children was evacuated to the countryside during the war. My Grandmother has told me stories about how the Yanks had an airbase near where she was. & the area had a *LOT* of grass snakes. The US pilots were terrified of these snakes thinking they were poisonous (they weren't). & would 'pay' the local children (my Grandmother included) in chocolate, gum, Spam & tins of pineapple to get rid of the snakes around/on the base. The kids would catch the snakes, & 'take them to the river to drown them'. aka walk about 5 miles down the road, set them loose in the grass. & they'd be back at the base two weeks later. 🤣 Where the kids would then be called to catch the latest. Lot of snakes invading the base & 'take them on down to the river.' 😉
NGL this was my journey too. I only had my paternal grandparents names and not my paternal grandmother's first name. Traced that side back to 1495 through a free person. I was SHOOK! Great video!
This whole video resonates so much with me. I was born in Germany as a child to serbian immigrants and I relate a lot to feeling alienated during the christmas season. And not being able to ask one's own family about their history. I know which regions my family grew up in but I barely speak serbian so I literally can't ask them. There are a few garments from the early 20th century from my family that my mom managed to uncover for me but I honestly wish I could sit down with my great grandma and ask her about living in rural yugoslavia in world war ii. I want to hear how my grandpa grew up and what stories he was told. Maybe some day I'll have the time to travel back to serbia and ask them, but who knows how much will be left once I get the chance
I think Saturnalia is a perfectly good holiday, great for hedonists! Not sure if i like what Christians have done with it (usurped?). Love your video - warm, kind and well balanced. Being able to understand history through clothing is a superpower. Thank you / great vid.
I'm so glad you are able to track your history! I'm starting on the same journey. My mom's side is Armenian 🇦🇲 and came over because of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. All I know is that my grandmother's mom and my grandfather's mom were both from Constantinople, and both were widows and remarried to men who already had jobs and houses in America in order to get them out. I'm having trouble doing any tracking as my grandma didn't want to teach us Armenian, and it's not the easiest to learn. My older family appreciates my eagerness to learn though, and I've been collecting the little bits and pieces different people know into a full narrative.
V, this video is so incredibly wonderful. It really warms my heart to see you reconnecting with your family history through costuming. As a Jewish convert, I do feel some detachment from the community at times, but costuming and dressing in traditional Jewish wear helps me feel as if I am part of the tribe. My family is from Finland, and it is my absolute dream to recreate a traditional Finnish dress. We likely came over during Finland’s civil war and started our lives in the Midwest. I am so excited to see you go around the streets of New York in your new dress! Hearing you say that brought tears to my eyes. As a historian, I have so much respect for you and the heartfelt research that you put into each video. Chag sameach! 💕
I‘m from Hamburg and hearing you reconnecting with your ancestors through my city really brings me joy. Hamburg is known as a more left leaning town nowadays and I feel like often we forget that I could take a nice afternoon stroll from my house and end up at a former children’s hospital where gruesome experiments were performed and an actual concentration camp, now turned commemoration site. As much as we pride ourselves today in being „the gate to the world“, historical Hamburg has been a horrible place for many marginalized communities, and I wish we‘d learn and talk about it more. One thing I do really like is this thing called „Stolpersteine“ (tripping stones). They are everywhere in the city, little golden squares in the sidewalk meant to make you metaphorically trip over them. They’re placed in front of living houses or office spaces and showcase name, date of birth, date of death, and the fate of jewish people, and really helps to visualize just how impactful the entire time was. Sometimes there are a dozen of them in front of just one building.
Im Jewish too:) i can 💯 relate. My family suffered trauma from WW2 and not in a good head space, no one really talks about how fallouts from wars can have very fractured families and lives, those that survive. I have only a handful of family members and they are so emotionally brutal to be around I have to keep a safe distance. I have old stories but not much else except random old quilts etc., i wish I had more to work with. Even my Hebrew is very rusty now. Its like a shadow I am barely holding onto. The old quilt I have is made with stars of davids and from clothing from family members that passed away. I hang this very old beautiful quilt on the wall behind my bed, it comforts me
I feel this so hard. I'm also estranged from my family of origin, and what family history I do know about is that some of my non-Jewish ancestors were enslavers. 🤮The way you're describing historical costuming as a way to reach into the past and find meaningful connection is so moving; I'm so glad you have that! I've had a similar experience with fanfiction - I've dabbled in writing over the years but recently I fell in love with a pairing where one of the characters is perfect for a Jewish headcanon and has been alive for over 250 years. I had no idea how healing it would be for me to spend so much time researching for and writing the perspective of a character for whom pre-Holocaust European Jewish life is still *living memory*. Questions like what would be on a Hanukkah table during the French Revolution (answer: probably cheese pancakes!) are probably not relevant to my personal family history as far as I know, but it sure is relevant to our shared Jewish heritage, and having this one fictional character to focus on when my own family tree is so full of landmines and the entirety of our people's history is so overwhelming in scope and tragedy has brought me so much connection to heritage that for so long felt like I would never be able to have. Or tldr, you're very very much not the only one who's rediscovering joyful specifics of Jewish heritage through a seemingly unrelated hobby. Mazel tov on your Lower East Side dress history project! So excited for you and to get to learn from what you share about it!
As a patrilineal Ashkenazi Jew, this video made me almost cry like eight times. I have a complicated relationship with my father's family, one that is made more complicated by the fact that their English is not great (my family is from Odessa), so trying to piece together family history can be difficult, especially with the constant record destruction of the USSR. I wear tichels/headscarves sometimes to feel connected with my Slavic Jewish ancestry. Even thought it's something small, it means a lot to me.
I know my family history back to my great great grandparents. It's nice to know who these people were, and why and how we ended up in this country. It's nice to practice your traditions and remember your ancestors. I feel really happy for you that you're able to make this connection to your past.
This was so sad and so hopeful at the same time. Just the meat of this, of finding a way to physically feel your history was so visceral and I loved it.
I just wanted to say how powerful I found this video. I attended a virtual funeral this week for my great uncle, he was the last member of that generation to go, so I've been experiencing many of the same feelings you talked about. He and my grandfather escaped Germany on the Kindertransport in 1938, and both settled here in the UK after the war. Not quite the distance of your ancestors but no doubt terrifying for a pair of kids. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your project and what you get up to!
I recently started researching 15th-16th century Romani costuming, like you thanks to the "wonders" of assimilation I don't know as much as I would like about my Romani heritage, and so I'm hoping it will give me some little connection to the past.
This was awesome! I think there is a fascinating awakening happening among millenial and Gen Z folk where we are trying to reach back beyond the forced or coerced assimilation of the early to mid 20th century to actually find our roots. We live in a world where what makes you distinct-your background, your traditions, your story, is part of what you bring to the table. For many of us, we inherited scraps, if we were lucky. I did not find out about my grandmother's Rusyn heritage until I was 29. When I asked her why she never told me, she replied "You never asked. Plus we are American. I was raised American." She then went on to list a bunch of traditions that she claimed were American but were very much not known outside of her small Rusyn community in Upstate New York. I am so glad that I pressed and asked the right questions because I might never have known. My Italian American paternal grandfather and Appalachian maternal grandparents passed away before I was aware enough to ask their stories. I wish I knew as a teenager what I know now and had asked. I am lucky to have photos and documents to start my research and technology to continue the journey but I know those stories would have been just as illuminating. My particular interest is in language and holidays so I am learning Italian and trying to integrate certain traditions and recipes from my ancestral cultures into my own celebrations. Thank you for bringing this up!
Did I cry listening to this? Yes, yes I did. I have the luck of knowing my family on both sides nearly 400 years back- in that they landed in Québec, retreated into a mountain valley and stayed there, getting more and more inbred, for the next several centuries in relative isolation. It's not glamorous, to say the least, and we have three unique diseases, but, uh, it is interesting? But the absolute yearning in your voice to know those people, it's beautiful. I'm so glad you've found a way to connect to them.
Census records often have lots of information and were done door to door. You might be able to find out her old address or addresses, her income/salary may be listed, whether her younger brother lived with her, her profession, and who else was in her household? You might be able to find a synagog she attended and they may have records. You may be able to find her burial place. The stories you can find even without "stories" are fascinating. Enjoy your travels.
Hi V! My story is similar to yours as I too moved at 18. Country to the big city in the bay, having to reinvent myself and adapt to a new life. After some prying, my great aunt told me about our Czech Roma family who lived around the late 1880s/90s and learning about that culture and what they had and made due with was absolutely beautiful. Also, lacis is the best place I've ever been for research books and extant garments. So magical! Happy Hanukkah!
Both of my parents were products of abusive families, so my interactions with the grandparents when they were living was always very careful and limited. It also meant we got disconnected with the greater family. And lastly, it meant that any story we did hear was often not at all truthful. So I’m absolutely with you on the being envious of others with passed-down stories.
Happy hannukah! Maybe 40 years ago a cousin of my mother's published a family tree book and there's a photo of my great-grandmother's sister taken in 1892. The peplum of the bodice of the dress she wearing is what tutu makers call "dagged" - sort of zigzagged. When my mother was making my sister's Deb dress, she hacked a wedding dress pattern to have the same sort of waistline! I wish I could share photos here!
Love your words and so excited about this project! I'm an archaeologist working on a series of projects that use creative making to help people discover themselves in the past, tell stories about that past, and challenge interpretations that have always marginalised and ignored people outside of the very limited, very white, very male story. This resonates so strongly with my research and work so I am really looking forward to how your narrative unfolds! My father, after retiring from academia, became a professional genealogist so I know a great deal of the names and dates and things of his side of the family, but much less about the small, intimate details of their lives as it's all done through records. My mother's side of the family, on the other hand, is absolutely crackling with stories, but the 'truth' of those is always questionable. Hers also comes heavily laden with a twisted and troubling American Christian heritage rooted in the 2nd Great Awakening. It is hard to want to physically connect with a family past that I understand, but very thoroughly reject.
My mother went to college with a woman who had escaped from Russia during WWII, traveling any way her family could across Europe. She and her parents made it, but they lost her brother, also a child, along the way. I never met this woman. My mother died last year, having lived a very full life, so it's been decades since she first told me her college friend's story. But it had such an impact on her that it was a story she retold multiple times, and made its own impact on me. It's hard to convey what this taught me about the permanence of loss, or the bleak but amazing ability to survive it. History is more than our own stories, or the stories of the rich and powerful. It's the stories we share with each other. Thank you so much for sharing some your stories with us.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful Jewish story. Much success as you carry on your family tailoring heritage in your on unique way, enriching us along the way
I feel like I thank you for every Jewish video you do (and I hope I do) because it's so meaningful for me to see this representation. And it's the second Hanukkah video you've done that made me cry, but this time I'm not even pregnant. I so appreciate you sharing your story. The details are completely different and yet so relatable as an Ashkenazi American "mutt". Finding our heritage through historical costuming has been a big challenge for me (especially living in a climate so different from Poland). In the last several years, I'd realized that I was only going to have so much time to record her and her family's stories. And yet, after she passed away, we still discovered that she'd written to the red cross to try and find out what happened to her mother's family that had stayed in Europe, and there was still no information in the 90s at least. My friend who loves geneology also took a look and the trail goes dead in the early 20th century. It's also been poignant to me that so much of my family's heritage was tied up in the garment industry. My grandmother's fathe owned a garment factory after he came to America, and my grandfather (her husband) also owned a sweater factory in downtown Williamsburg. I started sewing and knitting with my grandma, and I'm the only one in the family to carry on this legacy. I wanted to also suggest to you the book The Jewish Wardrobe based on the collection at the Israel Museum. It doesn't go particularly far back overall since it's all extant pieces, but it's such an incredible collection of Jewish dress traditions from around the world.
This is so moving. I have just recently started looking up some of our history, especially the two grandparents who were illegitimate. Found one father but can’t find either parent of the other, nor anything about her husband. So far. I got started by listening to “the photo detective.” Highly recommended. CZcams or podcast.
I’m tearing up in excitement for you. You deserve to have this knowledge, and I’m excited to find out if perhaps our great-grandmothers were neighbors. You’ve also inspired me to recreate a garment from my other great grandmother, photographed at Angel Island. An excellent 5783 and 2023 to you!
I love this, V! I am fortunate that I knew my great grandparents (some of them) and grandparents (all of them). A few years before my Poppy died, I recorded an oral history interview about his memories of “the old country”. It’s uploaded here on CZcams! I love the photos I have, and it is interesting to think about the prospect of recreating some of the clothing. It is harder to get this information for my father’s side of the family since he was the sole immigrant to America - everything else is left behind in Spain!
Thank you so much for making this. One of the things that motivates me to watch your videos is how you share yourself. Your heart is on display. I appreciate that so much. The feeling of otherness during major Holidays. The disconnect from a person's roots. There are so many who have lost that connection to their ancestors. My family is so mixed. My family is also rife with trauma. American History favors colonialism so bad. Sharing honest history with my daughters helps. It has a lot of tragedy and also hope. Working from scraps and being a historian can be rough. There is such a yearning. Thank you for making this. This message is vital. It speaks to me so deeply.
I’m a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. Some of my relatives were early church pioneers, and along about 1860 they became interested in the dress reform movement (not to be confused with the aesthetic dress movement, these clothes were ugly 😂). I don’t have any photographs of my ancestors wearing reform dress but I’d love to make a complete outfit because I’m pretty sure it’s plausible that at least one grandmother might have worn reform dress.
Love love love love love this video! Would love to do this kind of research for my own family. I’m still close with my ashkenazi family, but we rarely ever talk about it and don’t know much. No photos (we were too poor when first immigrating) or anything. I know we come from somewhere that was “sometimes Russia sometimes Poland” and that our last name got changed into something Scottish by immigration officers when we arrived in Boston rather than whatever Polish name we used to have. I’d like to work up the nerve to ask to interview my family members that are still alive now, even though they don’t really think it’s worth researching or talking about. I’m excited to see your explorations continue!
@@Ladyknightthebrave high praise, from you! Also hi, I'll just be over in this corner reminding myself that sometimes people whose work I love also know I exist 😅
@@SnappyDragon oh that's lovely to hear! I recently discovered your channel because somebody was recommending more Jewish creators to me. I'm happy there's more of us on the platform than I thought 😁
Wow. what a great intro. Looking forward to your future vlogs. The pandemic (and working at home) gave me more time to work on my family history. Like you, I have very little in terms of family stories. Conflicts in their home countries (Ireland and Poland) meant that 19th and early 20th-century government documents were destroyed. My family settled in Chicago, and reaching out to the local historical/genealogical organizations has been very helpful. I am building my family tree on a US site, but I have a membership in an Irish ancestry group - their professionals know what to use as good substitutes for missing documents. Academic articles describe events my family faced; an article in Demography suggested the motivation for my family to leave Poland. Historical books from Ireland and Western European publishers also filled in details. Finally, having a newspaper subscription has been really useful. Back in their day, major newspapers like the Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune were seriously into local gossip. My family members were working-class people, yet the papers include stories about them. I only wish that more was written about women at that time.
I'm really looking into filling in the historical blanks! It'll be interesting to try to find out if there were larger historical events that affected them, or if it was something more simple like losing their parents. There's someone on my mother's side who either ran away with or traveled to the US with her eventual husband-- we're not sure, they were from the same region but didn't marry until they'd been in the US for 3 years!
@@captnflint V is correct. Not sure if other companies do this, but Ancestry uses the information from members' trees to offer hints (you can restrict Ancestry from doing this if you wish). It is good to validate the hints, but they have been very useful.
@@nidomhnail2849 i was asking about the specifically irish site you mentioned! we have enough to go off of there with the one irish great grandda i have to get further if we take it to the right people :3 but yeah, i'll look more into ancestry
This really touched me. I'm in a similar process with reconnecting to estranged but more recently immigrated history. Different backgrounds and different areas of interest. It can be a difficult and painful process to wade through. Anyway I found a little snippet about my great grandma that loved to weave and knit everyone slippers. I am an avid knitter and also weave. This without any knowledge of the connection. Though I certainly understood that my family likely did these things in the past. I have chosen to dig into the region that they are from and see what traditions they might have participated in. Perhaps I should also look at those weaving and knitting traditions. Eventually I want to travel to these places and walk those places though.
I'm so happy for you that you're able to connect with your great-grandmother despite the disconnect with your living family. My mother's father's parents (my great-grandparents) came from Bavaria when my grandfather's (whom I called Papa) older siblings were young, but before he was born. Through some records my uncle (mom's brother) tracked down, we were able to find the villages in which they were born and lived, and even the baptism records showing the names of their parents. I haven't gone looking at the 19th century clothing from Bavaria, but I have looked at German 16c clothing because of this research (I'm in the SCA), even though my usual focuses are 15c Italian and 16c English. I've also got some records from my father's side of the family--my dad moved to the US from the UK after he married my mother, and his father was born and raised in Waterford, Ireland (I've been to the address of the house where he was raised, though not inside). I haven't traced that side back any further. My mom's mom's (whom I called Amma) side of the family I haven't done much research on, but one of Amma's sisters did research, and I know at least one branch of that family goes back to the American Revolution, as my great-aunt joined DAR at some point. So I'm first-generation natural-born American citizen on one side of my family, and DAR on the other side, which is an interesting contrast.
As a historical costumer I have my great grandmother’s Edwardian walking suit made of teal velvet. She then made it over in the 40’s to wear to a wartime wedding. My mother wore the suit in the 60’s during the height of the Gunsmoke phase. In the 80’s my oldest sister used it as her leaving suit when she got married. Since both mom and sissy passed away I now have the suit. I never had children so I will pass it to my cousins daughter who is interested in historical dress studies.
Sending you light this season! My mother has a jacket/ bodice from ~1900-1910 that belonged to my great-great-grandmother; it's a black wool tweed with narrow sleeves and a slight pigeon front, plus black ribbon trim. I have a strong connection to my bio family/ ancestry, and I'm so glad you are able to connect with yours!
I loved this video. I'm Ashkenazi on my mother's side. Im lucky enough to know that my great grandparents fled the Russian and Prussia from the pogroms. I also know that one of my great grandmothers had her name changed to Catherine (she was about 5 so it wasn't her choice) when she arrived at Ellis Island... because her true name, Chava, was too Jewish and her parents didn't want to stick out too much. They were afraid that it would ruin her future.
I know this is a 3 month old video but wanted to comment that I actually wear my great great grandma's wedding ring as my own and my sister wears our great grandmother's. I've always felt it to be such a privilege we still have these pieces in the family.
I was lucky enough to know three of my great-grandmothers when I was small (one very shortly, but still). And as I now learn about fashion history, I've also been revisiting my memories of them and it dawned on me that "omg, they definitely wore corsets for a substantial part of their lives or at least their youth!" (my grandma confirmed one of them kept wearing them in old age, which explains her ever dignified posture). Just to realize that not only I've actually known authentic corset wearers, but they were my relatives, they bottle fed me, I sat on their laps... wow!
I don’t know too much about my family history either as my grandad has always been like a closed door when you ask about that kind of thing. All I have to go on is my aunt’s work on the family history before her chronic illness stopped her from working on it more. She found some really interesting details, like that we’re related to a Yiddish theatre actor from the 1930s (unfortunately I did not receive the acting talent genes). I’ve wanted to carry on her work for a while but I don’t know where to start so I hope your research through clothing history will inspire me!
I love this video so much! I became Jewish by choice in part as a way of connecting to a heritage that was forcibly disconnected and erased through displacement and assimilation, and by the time I was ready to do that reconnection I was (and still am) estranged from my family of origin. I felt really daunted at first to start my Jewish education, and I still feel grief about the answers and details I’ll never get from my family. But there’s so much beauty and creativity and inspiration in the ways that we find to see ourselves in our histories, and our histories in ourselves! Learning about Jewish historical clothing, music, food, art, writing, even social movements (Ask Me About Jewish Anarchism In The Late 1800s) have all helped me step into my Jewishness with pride and confidence where I once felt alienation and fear. And, as I’ve done that, I’ve also gained a new appreciation for seeing how other people explore and connect to their own histories. Thank you so much for opening up about this. It means so much, especially from another Jewish person who has experienced family estrangement. 💕🧿
Oh, wow, so many warm heart feelings here! I will look forward to your journey in Grandma Carolina's steps! This is always an incredible experience. Much love to you!
Yay! I look forward to what you find out! I love that you're going to be making her first outfit, that's a great idea! My family has done a TON of research on our history. To the extent my dad has written 2 books! I have been to the graveyards my 3x and 4x great grandmothers are berried in and it was an experience. Best of luck with your research! (I also love the Nesstea
My great great grandfather ran a draper's shop during the Gaelic Revival and Irish War of Independence. He was very involved in teaching the Irish language, though tragically he was the last of my ancestors to use it as a primary language. I like to think his shop would have been popular amongst those who wore the Gaelic Revival style - a really beautiful blend of Art Nouveau and Iron Age! I've dreamed of recreating some of these dresses for a while. Super excited to follow your journey!
What a wonderful project! My mother has done a lot of genealogy for our family, but very few customs from our ancestors survived assimilation. Your work is inspiring and makes me want to dive into what I can learn from my family. Thank you. Have a very warm and happy winter season, and good luck on your projects!
Thank you so, so much- this made me really emotional in a good way. I'm in contact with my family of origin, but our relationship has always been complicated, partly by queerness and religion (my family is Very Catholic). I'm starting to take steps on a similar journey through grad school- I'm in my last semester of library school, and I decided to take a genealogy and local history class as the last course in my archives coursework. I'm hoping I can really dig down and find out more about my family's immigration stories, and learn how to help other people find theirs-- this is super inspiring to see and I can't wait to hear more about your journey!
This is beautiful!! I never thought about using historical costuming to connect to my actual ancestors before. Fun coincidence: my Jewish ancestors (I’m a halfy) came over around the same time as Carolina, in 1895. They came from Lithuania and Austria to Galveston TX. I’m very fortunate to have a bit of their story written down by their grandson, but there’s not much about their life before they came to America. But we do have a hand drawn map of the village my great great grandmother grew up in! So excited for this project!
I wanted to comment again because Im actually crying at everything you said about reconnecting and why do we like historical costumes. I myself never have sewn a garment and Im not sure if I ever will, but I love researching and studying and this video reminded me of why I do that, why I got here in the first place. Thank you again 💙 Happy Hannukah for you
This is such a powerful video! I have only a vague idea of my family history as well, and I yearn for some sort of connection to the past especially when it comes to historical fashion. As a half-black American, I can only assume a good bit of my genealogy was lost to the horrors of slavery. I am lucky, however, to have one picture of a great-great-grandmother from that side of the family that may one day lead me to some answers. Thank you so much for sharing your story! It gives me hope that someday I’ll find the connections and stories I seek as well.
Watching with my adblock off because I saw your community post :) I appreciate you so much & hope you recoup every penny you would've made & then some!
This video really resonates with me. I am decended from indigenous roots, but have been completely cut off from them, and I'm trying to reconnect those lines. I'm no longer Mormon, but genealogy is a big part of that culture, and most local congregations have trained members and resource centers and love helping people. If you have no idea where to start I'd highly suggest reaching out.
@@angryhistoryguy5657 I don't love the baptisms for the dead in general. My grandfather has been very specific in that he doesn't want his mother baptized, and I found out they randomly did it in Africa. There's a lot I don't like about the church, but they're still a good resource for family history work.
This sounds like it's going to be an awesome project to work on! I can't wait to see it progress! As for my family... all of the pictures I have/have seen were taken in the US, even those of family members who immigrated here. The most recent branch to have arrived was my maternal grandfather's parents, and even in those pictures my great-grandmother is wearing 40s/50s style shirtdresses. And my maternal grandmother's paternal line has been traced back here in the US to time of the colonies. LIke you, I have less info on my paternal side. My paternal grandfather was into genealogy, but his side was a lot of dead ends (mother had been adopted as a baby, and he had questions about his paternity) so he focused on my p-grandmother's side for his research... but I've only got names to go off of. I didn't spend nearly as much time with them as I did my maternal grandparents and that extended family. And by now there's pretty much no one left to ask.
Thank you for sharing this with us. A bit of info about some records of Jewish people being destroyed during WWII: sometimes this was done to keep people safe. My Roman Catholic great-uncle was involved with the destruction of government records that would have identified non-practicing Jews of having Jewish heritage. This was in the occupied southeast Dutch town of Roermond. My mother remembered her uncle and his son hiding in my mother’s family’s house to evade the German soldiers looking for them. I’m fortunate that my mother shared many family stories with me before she passed away.
Oh, for sure! It's another side to why the myth that all records were lost, is a problem.
When you travel to New York City, do stop by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. They have a lot of information about NYC Jewish history, including Yiddish and Ladino speaking communities. The last time I visited involved a tour of one apartment recreated to represent one family's home/sweatshop, and how operating this tiny business allowed family and employees to observe the Sabbath. We also saw the recreated apartment of a different Jewish family whose employers had them work Saturdays, and their kids were much more assimilated.
Get the cookbook they have from there too- 97 Orchard : An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement. I found the part about bacon and Jewish immigrants very interesting and the part about the huge Italian loaves of bread.
I'm already in touch with some people at the Tenement Museum-- no spoilers!
@@SnappyDragon You might want to check out the Red Star Line museum in Antwerp, Belgium. About six or seven years ago a dear friend of mine found out that her great-grand-parents went through Antwerp to get to New York. It was a great discovery.
Odd tip as you embark on your journey to connect-I always knew my grandmother made most of her clothes but I never found any commercial patterns. Years after she died, I asked my aunt who had inherited her house. My aunt told me that my grandmother used to open the newspaper ads and say what do you want and would then pull out her rulers and things and draft the pattern-often on the same newspaper. She then told me she had thrown all those away-they had no use. After my aunt dies, we found folded up inside something of my grandmother's my aunt had saved, a newspaper pattern of a bolero and skirt. My daughter's size. as I started working with it, I found a most of a movie review of "It Happened One Night" anyway, as you embark, maybe draft onto a newspaper or use some other restriction/opportunity your great grandmother would have worked with.
I love this! It literally places a garment in its historical context! Wonderful!
This makes me so happy for you!
My family is from King Island/Ugivak and where displaced by laws requiring native children to attend BIA schools and the lack of teachers willing to travel to our island. King Islanders/Ugivangmiut maintain a strong sense of unique, personal identity, even though we were made to perminantly relocate to our summer restocking spot in Nome and our dialect of the inupiaq language being perhaps the most obscure.
I managed to track down and order an out of print collection of King Islander stories that my great grandmother, who i knew very little about, contributed to before her death. There was a description of her in the front that called her a "tireless berry picker" and mentioned her helping to reconstruct the Wolf Dance. There's a tv special from the 80s someone uploaded on youtube showing the King Island Wolf Dance and going into how it was reconstructed. My great grandma contributed to that.
We didn't have any photos of her, but there's one in the book. She's holding my great uncle Michael who i never got to meet and he was just a year old in the photo. One of the guys in my polycule says he can see a family resemblence.
I have an old photo, a picture taken of a xeroxed picture taken back in like the 60s, of my grandmother, who i got my eskimo name from, in a fancy traditional parka. I'd love to make a kuspuk based on it one of these days
That's so wonderful that your great-grandmother was part of that work!
@@SnappyDragon it's quite a legacy ^-^
The thing that surprised me most about the story my great-grandmother contributed, though it really shouldn't have, was that in it she recalled her uncle referring to her as "Ullaaq", short for her eskimo name "Ullaaqham Quliapyungnikua". The few times my mom mentioned her, she called her "your great grandma Clara" and legally her name was Clara. It shouldn't surprise me; the stories were originally told and written down in Inupiaq (with English translations provided) and my mom's generation was the first to have English as a first language instead of Inupiaq, but I was never told that my great grandma Clara spent her youth and early adulthood being Ullaaq to her family.
It felt like learning for the first time that something precious was stolen from the family, you know? Like it was there, and it just stopped being there one day, but you only remember it not being there
@@seraphinasullivan4849 My mother's family has a related story about speaking Yiddish! My great-grandparents spoke it as their first language, as they were the ones who emigrated, and my grandparents were fluent. But they specifically chose not to teach my mother or her brothers, for the same reason it was tricky to find out where the "old country" was. It was safest to be as "American" as possible. My mother said her parents would speak Yiddish to eachother when they didn't want the kids to understand.
@@SnappyDragonin my family's case my grandma not only chose not to teach my mom or uncles Inupiaq, she also treated "stupid" like a swear word and wouldn't let them say it around her. Hard to say if it was the BIA school in Nome or living in the US as a small brown woman who spoke English as a second language
One of these days i wanna publish stories and art under my eskimo name, because it was my grandma's before it was mine and if it's associated with knowledge and creativity maybe the word "stupid" won't hurt her anymore. It should have never been used to hurt her in the first place
@@SnappyDragon My paternal grandparents did the same to my father and uncles; except they were in the USSR. But same deal - safer not to know yiddish.
as a descendent of enslaved people on both sides of my family, i can relate to this video far more than i expected to when i tapped on it. especially w| how much i love + appreciate fashion + style in the framework of culture + history. thank you for this one. for me, it’s up there w| the one about vikings + locks in terms of impact.
i appreciate you + your channel! 🖤✊🏾
Thank you so much 💚
This makes me so happy, my grandma passed before she could be persuaded to tell me Anything. They told me I "passed" and didn't need to worry about our ancestry. I'm piecing our history together too, so this was relatable as heck. I am excited for you and the next videos. ^-^
Thank you, Viv!!! I'm sitting here crying as I understand your personal history. I lost my grandparents at 8, as well. At 19, I moved far from home. My life with my parents was not good, especially for my mother and her family. By 2005 my father could trace one side of his family back to their coming to America in 1776. My mom's side, my Native side, always ends at the 1880 census. My great-great-grandfather, George, was adopted out of a Boarding School and, legally, became white. Yet, in 1945 my mother was born on the reservation in Oklahoma. Five years later, the Court house burned down to ashes. I want to do DNA testing, but I have reliable results that if one is less than 10% American Native, the American DNA companies will not list Native heritage. I understand and dislike this. Too many people would try to use it for undeserved benefits, but it screws over those of us who want to know about the cultures that got left behind. Best of luck with this auspicious project, and may God grant you nothing but good days.
The role of DNA testing can definitely be fraught! I'm glad the technology exists but of course how it's used is going to be just as full of issues as all the human systems managing it.
@@SnappyDragon my father may not be my biological father. So I don't want my DNA tested. I did get both my parents DNA tested from their hair. They both died in 1990.
My mother was 90% Ashkenazi Jewish, and my father was mostly northern Indian, Sindhi, Punjabi and Rajput, with Irish, Gulf Arabic, Ethiopian, Portuguese and Armenian.
I would love to have a resource/statement on the 10%. My great-grandmother was Cherokee; my mother met her and she was noticeably Native. However, my sister and I had our’s done by a company that touted their American Indian database and we came back all European. We are still scratching our heads.
@@nightfall3605 Happened to both my cousin and my son's grandmother. We know the dates that our people left their respective reservations, and the tests came back ALL European and Scandinavian.
@@nightfall3605 Unfortunately DNA analysis of this kind seem to still have a ong way to go. I know there was a video or two on here where identical twins tested themselves and they didn't have the exact, 100% same output in percentages. I know another person (or twins, I can't remember) took tests with more than one company to compare them all as well, and the companies did not return the exact same percentages either. Slight differences here and there. I'm wondering if that's an error. Alternatively, for twins, if you can look alike but still not have all identifiers in common on a genetic level. Like how you can look like your siblings (if you have any) but still not be 100% alike on a genetic level.
But unless it's down to 1-2%, that shouldn't just disappear into thin air. Sorry to hear about your trouble with the testings, both you and My Mid-Victorian Crisis.
I am not jewish or part of any minority where I live, but seeing you with your uncle in the living room holding the picture made me sob because I know exactly how it feels to talk with the last person to have all those memories (my dad) and try to match it with my own research with the pictures we have - and the joy when it comes together and we fill the gaps. It's amazing, although a hard work. Thank you for sharing such a personal moment.
I love that you share your story!
As an adoptee with no knowledge of my biological family heritage, I'm envious of people who have knowledge of their ancestry and family stories. I get it ❤️
A beautiful video. I am a Jew-by-choice. I know so much more about my ancestry than my husband did about his - the Mayflower, 14th century baptismal records, the fading letters in beautiful script, the whole deal on both sides. But everyone had ancestors in the 14th century. Knowing the names and dates, belonging to the family societies, does not make you a better or a more interesting person. How you live, what do you with the knowledge of your heritage, is what honors their efforts and sacrifices.
I know that my great-great grand father was a tailor, and he was an apprentice under the man who later became his father-in-law. one of my aunts did a bunch of digging and found this out several years back, and she mentioned it because she thought it funny with my interest in sewing.
I also know that my great-grand father was a veterinarian, that worked with a lot of butcher houses on how to make sure that the animals that were sent there were healthy and that they died in as humane a way as possible (we have so many stories about how mad he got at people that didn't treat animals with respect).
My great grandfather was also a tailor and my mother was always amazed at me sitting cross legged on the floor while handsewing. She said I was moving like him. He was also a hands on healer and after I took some shiatsu and I worked on her she swore she could feel his hands. I never met him and know very little about him because as usual there was a family split.
It's wonderful how things like that can show up again after a few generations!
If you ever want help translating any documents from German/old German into English, I’d be more than happy to help you with that ☺️
Thank you so much for sharing your fascinating journey with us 🥰
Your ancestors might have bought their first “new” clothes used and (anachronistic term) up cycled them.
Tailoring was a tough way to make a sometimes meager living. I think a lot of families tried to get their children upwardly-mobile by deliberately not passing on these jobs and the result was the Origen of “my son, the doctor” and similar tropes.
My great-grandmother was a seamstress, but she didn’t even teach her daughters to sew. I imagine she might have resented the profession. My grandmother was a waitress, though-so not really upwardly mobile!
This was a great video!
Quote possibly, yes! I'm going to have to do a reconstruction from scratch, but it'll be interesting to take a look into the secondhand trade in NYC. Most of the research I've done on historical thrifting used material from the UK.
The sheer pride in your eyes and strength in your words. 🤗 I'm in awe and currently sitting here in tears and goosebumps all over my body. I'm so looking forward to the next chapters of this story and what you will be discovering along the way
It's so amazing that these pieces landed you a job!
I am so inspired to recreate my great grandmother's handmade dresses from when she survived the great depression. Such strength was required to keep a family of 10 alive and together during the hardest times in recent history. Thank you for this gift.
You should do it! I went in a different direction for this series, but I also found out a lot about my maternal great-grandmother who supported her family through the Depression by running a yarn store. When I go to NYC to shoot Karolina's history, I might try to track down where great-grandma Ida's yarn store was!
Yes! I love this video!! I think I might have been one of the people who originally replied to your original question about why I do this, because I’m VERY proud to be from a long line of Jewish garment workers and it’s a huge part of what drew me to historical clothing making.
I’m very lucky that since my great grandmother owned her own millinery shop from the 1910s all the way up until the 1960s when she retired, that we have many beautiful photos from the early days of the business she used to advertise her hats of her in her gorgeous lingerie gown (always the same one, obviously her “best”) modeling some very extravagant Titanic era hats. My great grandmother’s millinery supplies that I inherited are some of my most treasured possessions. Her husband was a master tailor, and he died young, while my Nana was pregnant with my Mimi, so literally the only connection I had for years was the fact that I’m a tailor too. We have none of the stories from that side of the family, only that we know they came from the Russian empire, and went to England before coming to America. I was always told Great Grandpa’s family mostly stayed in Russia, as opposed to Nana’s family, my many cousins who all still live in the same vague area of New York State. For ages ran into the same mentality that “it was all lost in the Holocaust.”
It was only this past year that I found more.
And it was…. Well what I found was wild to say the least. My great grandfather’s family DIDN’T all stay in Russia, a good number of them actually moved to New Zealand, which apparently was an incredibly common. Long story short, this is how I found out, as a mixed Jewish Indigenous person myself, that my distant cousin is probably the most famous mixed Jewish Indigenous person currently living and that I’ve cosplayed as my own cousin, Taika Waititi 💀
But being DISTANTLY related to a famous person aside, I also found out that being a tailor was apparently the family trade even before leaving the “old country,” and that was just such an amazing discovery for me. We often get told as the living descendants of Jewish immigrants to America from the late 19th/early 20th century that our ancestors turned to garment work because unskilled sweatshop jobs were all they could get, not that we have such a long and storied Jewish history of working with textiles and creating clothing for the communities we lived among. So now every time I’m pad stitching, I can literally feel the memory of my ancestors in my needle, and it makes me so proud. Being proud and loud and VISIBLY Jewish is so important to me, and it brings me so much joy. I’m glad you are finding this joy as well.
I’m so looking forward to your upcoming creations and trip to New York. I hope your Hanukkah celebrations filled with light, resilience, joy, and laughter, and so, SO much tasty food!
Thanks for articulating the outsider feelings so well. My grandmothers refused to talk about their lives in Ukraine. I have a few photos of them in the US soon after their arrival.
As someone who has a lot of breaks in my family history, researching has been the only way I've been able to fill in some of those breaks. Listening to you talk about being your own history researcher had me nodding A LOT in understanding. I can't wait to see the upcoming videos.
💚💚💚
My Great-Grandmother Eliza Marilla Cole (1857-1934) worked as the cook for a large foothill cattle ranch for many years (until she had children). That was three large meals in the ranch's dining hall for very hungry cowboys. She was born in California before the railroads even got here, to put this in perspective. She taught her young daughter in law, my Grandma, all her cooking and baking secrets! We have 4 photographs of Grandma Eliza through about 2 periods of her life, and in all but 1 of them (which was a shopping trip with her sisters "to town") she was in an apron. Not in the kitchen, but still had an apron on. I remarked about this to my Grandmother when I was a teen, and her eyes lit up! She went on to explain how Great Grandma Eliza loved herself some aprons. Not just a fresh white one when she started a meal, but she had a whole drawer full of different colored ones, some were 'better' ... for company or family holidays. Different aprons for cleaning, aprons for packing fruit (they raised citrus), etc. Sadly, none survived to be handed to my Grandmother, so the family has only the photos to cherish. In my head, she always had a warm smile and an apron on as a result of this. I can picture her changing aprons as she stepped out of the house to go feed the chickens. It's a silly thing, but pretty precious to me for a Grandma I never knew. Thank you ever so much for reminding me of this all over again. ❤
This was so great!! Yes yes connection to our ancestors! Connections to the works and joys and ordinary details of their lives and the lives of their neighbors and communities. I especially like what you said about finding a way to connect.that is about more than tragedy and trauma and connects to resilience and ordinary joys. .
Your voice shows your excitement about recreating Karolina's dress as well as your reasons for loving history. Happy Hanukkah and keep shining the light in our weird universe.
Thank you so much for sharing ❤️ I'm also estranged from my family of origin and it feels like having my roots cut off. And even though I belong to my country's (Sweden) majority population and probably most of my ancestors lived here I struggle with this sense of rootlessness and it hurts so much. Hearing your story inspires me to maybe do something similar (or something different, but at least something) to try and connect to my roots. Again, thank you very much for talking about this ❤️ I rarely hear about others not being in touch with their biological family, and that makes the loneliness even harder... Looking forward to follow your journey, 💕💕 you're awesome 🥰
It's more common than folks think! Probably because there's so much pressure not to talk about it. 💚
Ooooof I feel this. My g. grandfather was dead set in his belief that we were Irish til my grandmother actually did the work and traced our roots across the ocean. Nope! We're Scottish! Unfortunately due to actions of her daughters all the genealogy records of my grandmother's life work was lost. It's frustrating to not know anything about our family. Having to work with scraps and sew them together to get any sort of big picture of understanding.
This all resonated on SO many points. My family is problematic and I had to walk away and not interact. I only know snippets and a few stories about anyone on either side. I can't ask for more now because I choose not to re-engage. Family on both sides based in New England, with all (?) great-grandparents off the boat immigrants. Irish and Nova Scotia French on my mother's side, Irish and Swedish on my father's. It's sad and kind of hurts to not know more and be able to celebrate some of it. Social isolation came from being raised Unitarian Universalist Pagan. We had our own family holiday traditions that were not shared by my peers - growing up or even now. I live far away from those people now in the greatly homogeneous Midwest bible belt, where I often feel (and am reacted to) like a foreigner. Yay you for being able to be a relative and/or a researcher to put your family pieces together. Inspired by your work and ooking forward to what you have to share! BTW, I'm a cultural anthropologist, my thesis was a cultural textile exhibition, and I love making garments 🙂
What a wonderful project! It's sad how many people don't know their roots, but dress history really is a good way to connect. I'm from an area in Sweden that up until the mid-19th century had very specific costumes - looking at a woman wearing one, you could pinpoint where she was from quite accurately. It's a great privilege to have such well documented clothing, even if nothing survived from my own family. Folk costumes were originally worn more or less exclusively by ethnic Swedes in the countryside, but nowadays you can see Swedes of every ethnicity wearing them - it was a Jewish woman who, leading by example, made me realise that I too could have one.
Your story reminds me of my mom. She fought so hard to discover our heritage, and even got to visit some relatives she discovered in Ireland before she passed. She was fascinated by her Polish heritage, because her own mother had been horribly racist in general, but towards Polish people in particular. We will never know why my family left Poland, but we know they buried their culture because they felt they needed to to survive in America. I feel like diving into Polish folk art helps me connect to my mother even though she's gone now.
My Great Great Grandmother on my biological father's side came from somewhere in Wales. She landed in New York, crossed the Great Plains & the Rocky mountains. On foot pushing a handcart with her few worldly possessions.
Till she reached the area that is now St George Utah eventually settling down there. She was from what I understand from a lower class mining family.
In contrast my Mother's family were members of the lower English aristocracy. They not only had a house in the country, but also town house in London (think a slightly less wealthy Downton Abbey lifestyle). They were merchants who helped found the East India company.
Unfortunately they lost the majority of their wealth in the Great Depression. & eventually had to sell off both their country house. & town house as well as most of their possessions. My Grandmother has the few remaining items stored in her attic.
My Great Grandmother on my Mother's side was a nurse & served in London during WWII. & my Great Grandfather was a jeweller who had a shop in London. My Grandmother like most children was evacuated to the countryside during the war.
My Grandmother has told me stories about how the Yanks had an airbase near where she was. & the area had a *LOT* of grass snakes. The US pilots were terrified of these snakes thinking they were poisonous (they weren't). & would 'pay' the local children (my Grandmother included) in chocolate, gum, Spam & tins of pineapple to get rid of the snakes around/on the base.
The kids would catch the snakes, & 'take them to the river to drown them'. aka walk about 5 miles down the road, set them loose in the grass. & they'd be back at the base two weeks later. 🤣 Where the kids would then be called to catch the latest. Lot of snakes invading the base & 'take them on down to the river.' 😉
NGL this was my journey too. I only had my paternal grandparents names and not my paternal grandmother's first name. Traced that side back to 1495 through a free person. I was SHOOK!
Great video!
This whole video resonates so much with me. I was born in Germany as a child to serbian immigrants and I relate a lot to feeling alienated during the christmas season. And not being able to ask one's own family about their history. I know which regions my family grew up in but I barely speak serbian so I literally can't ask them. There are a few garments from the early 20th century from my family that my mom managed to uncover for me but I honestly wish I could sit down with my great grandma and ask her about living in rural yugoslavia in world war ii. I want to hear how my grandpa grew up and what stories he was told. Maybe some day I'll have the time to travel back to serbia and ask them, but who knows how much will be left once I get the chance
I think Saturnalia is a perfectly good holiday, great for hedonists! Not sure if i like what Christians have done with it (usurped?). Love your video - warm, kind and well balanced. Being able to understand history through clothing is a superpower. Thank you / great vid.
While the Christians have changed Yule quite a bit, at least it’s still normal in my country to celebrate Yule and not Christmas.
I'm so glad you are able to track your history! I'm starting on the same journey. My mom's side is Armenian 🇦🇲 and came over because of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. All I know is that my grandmother's mom and my grandfather's mom were both from Constantinople, and both were widows and remarried to men who already had jobs and houses in America in order to get them out. I'm having trouble doing any tracking as my grandma didn't want to teach us Armenian, and it's not the easiest to learn. My older family appreciates my eagerness to learn though, and I've been collecting the little bits and pieces different people know into a full narrative.
V, this video is so incredibly wonderful. It really warms my heart to see you reconnecting with your family history through costuming. As a Jewish convert, I do feel some detachment from the community at times, but costuming and dressing in traditional Jewish wear helps me feel as if I am part of the tribe.
My family is from Finland, and it is my absolute dream to recreate a traditional Finnish dress. We likely came over during Finland’s civil war and started our lives in the Midwest.
I am so excited to see you go around the streets of New York in your new dress! Hearing you say that brought tears to my eyes. As a historian, I have so much respect for you and the heartfelt research that you put into each video. Chag sameach! 💕
I‘m from Hamburg and hearing you reconnecting with your ancestors through my city really brings me joy.
Hamburg is known as a more left leaning town nowadays and I feel like often we forget that I could take a nice afternoon stroll from my house and end up at a former children’s hospital where gruesome experiments were performed and an actual concentration camp, now turned commemoration site. As much as we pride ourselves today in being „the gate to the world“, historical Hamburg has been a horrible place for many marginalized communities, and I wish we‘d learn and talk about it more.
One thing I do really like is this thing called „Stolpersteine“ (tripping stones). They are everywhere in the city, little golden squares in the sidewalk meant to make you metaphorically trip over them. They’re placed in front of living houses or office spaces and showcase name, date of birth, date of death, and the fate of jewish people, and really helps to visualize just how impactful the entire time was. Sometimes there are a dozen of them in front of just one building.
Im Jewish too:) i can 💯 relate. My family suffered trauma from WW2 and not in a good head space, no one really talks about how fallouts from wars can have very fractured families and lives, those that survive. I have only a handful of family members and they are so emotionally brutal to be around I have to keep a safe distance. I have old stories but not much else except random old quilts etc., i wish I had more to work with. Even my Hebrew is very rusty now. Its like a shadow I am barely holding onto. The old quilt I have is made with stars of davids and from clothing from family members that passed away. I hang this very old beautiful quilt on the wall behind my bed, it comforts me
I feel this so hard. I'm also estranged from my family of origin, and what family history I do know about is that some of my non-Jewish ancestors were enslavers. 🤮The way you're describing historical costuming as a way to reach into the past and find meaningful connection is so moving; I'm so glad you have that! I've had a similar experience with fanfiction - I've dabbled in writing over the years but recently I fell in love with a pairing where one of the characters is perfect for a Jewish headcanon and has been alive for over 250 years. I had no idea how healing it would be for me to spend so much time researching for and writing the perspective of a character for whom pre-Holocaust European Jewish life is still *living memory*. Questions like what would be on a Hanukkah table during the French Revolution (answer: probably cheese pancakes!) are probably not relevant to my personal family history as far as I know, but it sure is relevant to our shared Jewish heritage, and having this one fictional character to focus on when my own family tree is so full of landmines and the entirety of our people's history is so overwhelming in scope and tragedy has brought me so much connection to heritage that for so long felt like I would never be able to have. Or tldr, you're very very much not the only one who's rediscovering joyful specifics of Jewish heritage through a seemingly unrelated hobby. Mazel tov on your Lower East Side dress history project! So excited for you and to get to learn from what you share about it!
As a patrilineal Ashkenazi Jew, this video made me almost cry like eight times. I have a complicated relationship with my father's family, one that is made more complicated by the fact that their English is not great (my family is from Odessa), so trying to piece together family history can be difficult, especially with the constant record destruction of the USSR. I wear tichels/headscarves sometimes to feel connected with my Slavic Jewish ancestry. Even thought it's something small, it means a lot to me.
I know my family history back to my great great grandparents. It's nice to know who these people were, and why and how we ended up in this country. It's nice to practice your traditions and remember your ancestors. I feel really happy for you that you're able to make this connection to your past.
This was so sad and so hopeful at the same time. Just the meat of this, of finding a way to physically feel your history was so visceral and I loved it.
I just wanted to say how powerful I found this video. I attended a virtual funeral this week for my great uncle, he was the last member of that generation to go, so I've been experiencing many of the same feelings you talked about. He and my grandfather escaped Germany on the Kindertransport in 1938, and both settled here in the UK after the war. Not quite the distance of your ancestors but no doubt terrifying for a pair of kids. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your project and what you get up to!
Yes, that's still an incredibly intense journey! May his memory be a blessing.
I'm currently in "Austria-Hungary" (Vienna) and the story of Karolina gives me goosebumps. 1880!! Thank you so much for this ❤
I recently started researching 15th-16th century Romani costuming, like you thanks to the "wonders" of assimilation I don't know as much as I would like about my Romani heritage, and so I'm hoping it will give me some little connection to the past.
This was awesome! I think there is a fascinating awakening happening among millenial and Gen Z folk where we are trying to reach back beyond the forced or coerced assimilation of the early to mid 20th century to actually find our roots. We live in a world where what makes you distinct-your background, your traditions, your story, is part of what you bring to the table. For many of us, we inherited scraps, if we were lucky. I did not find out about my grandmother's Rusyn heritage until I was 29. When I asked her why she never told me, she replied "You never asked. Plus we are American. I was raised American." She then went on to list a bunch of traditions that she claimed were American but were very much not known outside of her small Rusyn community in Upstate New York. I am so glad that I pressed and asked the right questions because I might never have known. My Italian American paternal grandfather and Appalachian maternal grandparents passed away before I was aware enough to ask their stories. I wish I knew as a teenager what I know now and had asked. I am lucky to have photos and documents to start my research and technology to continue the journey but I know those stories would have been just as illuminating. My particular interest is in language and holidays so I am learning Italian and trying to integrate certain traditions and recipes from my ancestral cultures into my own celebrations. Thank you for bringing this up!
Did I cry listening to this? Yes, yes I did. I have the luck of knowing my family on both sides nearly 400 years back- in that they landed in Québec, retreated into a mountain valley and stayed there, getting more and more inbred, for the next several centuries in relative isolation. It's not glamorous, to say the least, and we have three unique diseases, but, uh, it is interesting? But the absolute yearning in your voice to know those people, it's beautiful. I'm so glad you've found a way to connect to them.
Census records often have lots of information and were done door to door. You might be able to find out her old address or addresses, her income/salary may be listed, whether her younger brother lived with her, her profession, and who else was in her household? You might be able to find a synagog she attended and they may have records. You may be able to find her burial place. The stories you can find even without "stories" are fascinating. Enjoy your travels.
Chag Hanukkah Sameach! I can totally relate - on all levels. I hope you all have peace, joy, warmth and health. Now, and in the coming year. 💖🕎💖
Hi V! My story is similar to yours as I too moved at 18. Country to the big city in the bay, having to reinvent myself and adapt to a new life. After some prying, my great aunt told me about our Czech Roma family who lived around the late 1880s/90s and learning about that culture and what they had and made due with was absolutely beautiful. Also, lacis is the best place I've ever been for research books and extant garments. So magical! Happy Hanukkah!
Both of my parents were products of abusive families, so my interactions with the grandparents when they were living was always very careful and limited. It also meant we got disconnected with the greater family. And lastly, it meant that any story we did hear was often not at all truthful. So I’m absolutely with you on the being envious of others with passed-down stories.
Also, just saw your menorah. We have the same one! It’s so pretty. (Full disclosure: I’m not Jewish, but my partner is.)
Happy hannukah! Maybe 40 years ago a cousin of my mother's published a family tree book and there's a photo of my great-grandmother's sister taken in 1892. The peplum of the bodice of the dress she wearing is what tutu makers call "dagged" - sort of zigzagged. When my mother was making my sister's Deb dress, she hacked a wedding dress pattern to have the same sort of waistline! I wish I could share photos here!
Love your words and so excited about this project! I'm an archaeologist working on a series of projects that use creative making to help people discover themselves in the past, tell stories about that past, and challenge interpretations that have always marginalised and ignored people outside of the very limited, very white, very male story. This resonates so strongly with my research and work so I am really looking forward to how your narrative unfolds!
My father, after retiring from academia, became a professional genealogist so I know a great deal of the names and dates and things of his side of the family, but much less about the small, intimate details of their lives as it's all done through records. My mother's side of the family, on the other hand, is absolutely crackling with stories, but the 'truth' of those is always questionable. Hers also comes heavily laden with a twisted and troubling American Christian heritage rooted in the 2nd Great Awakening. It is hard to want to physically connect with a family past that I understand, but very thoroughly reject.
My mother went to college with a woman who had escaped from Russia during WWII, traveling any way her family could across Europe. She and her parents made it, but they lost her brother, also a child, along the way. I never met this woman. My mother died last year, having lived a very full life, so it's been decades since she first told me her college friend's story. But it had such an impact on her that it was a story she retold multiple times, and made its own impact on me. It's hard to convey what this taught me about the permanence of loss, or the bleak but amazing ability to survive it.
History is more than our own stories, or the stories of the rich and powerful. It's the stories we share with each other. Thank you so much for sharing some your stories with us.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful Jewish story. Much success as you carry on your family tailoring heritage in your on unique way, enriching us along the way
I feel like I thank you for every Jewish video you do (and I hope I do) because it's so meaningful for me to see this representation. And it's the second Hanukkah video you've done that made me cry, but this time I'm not even pregnant. I so appreciate you sharing your story. The details are completely different and yet so relatable as an Ashkenazi American "mutt". Finding our heritage through historical costuming has been a big challenge for me (especially living in a climate so different from Poland). In the last several years, I'd realized that I was only going to have so much time to record her and her family's stories. And yet, after she passed away, we still discovered that she'd written to the red cross to try and find out what happened to her mother's family that had stayed in Europe, and there was still no information in the 90s at least. My friend who loves geneology also took a look and the trail goes dead in the early 20th century.
It's also been poignant to me that so much of my family's heritage was tied up in the garment industry. My grandmother's fathe owned a garment factory after he came to America, and my grandfather (her husband) also owned a sweater factory in downtown Williamsburg. I started sewing and knitting with my grandma, and I'm the only one in the family to carry on this legacy.
I wanted to also suggest to you the book The Jewish Wardrobe based on the collection at the Israel Museum. It doesn't go particularly far back overall since it's all extant pieces, but it's such an incredible collection of Jewish dress traditions from around the world.
This is so moving. I have just recently started looking up some of our history, especially the two grandparents who were illegitimate. Found one father but can’t find either parent of the other, nor anything about her husband. So far.
I got started by listening to “the photo detective.” Highly recommended. CZcams or podcast.
I’m tearing up in excitement for you. You deserve to have this knowledge, and I’m excited to find out if perhaps our great-grandmothers were neighbors. You’ve also inspired me to recreate a garment from my other great grandmother, photographed at Angel Island. An excellent 5783 and 2023 to you!
I love this, V! I am fortunate that I knew my great grandparents (some of them) and grandparents (all of them). A few years before my Poppy died, I recorded an oral history interview about his memories of “the old country”. It’s uploaded here on CZcams! I love the photos I have, and it is interesting to think about the prospect of recreating some of the clothing. It is harder to get this information for my father’s side of the family since he was the sole immigrant to America - everything else is left behind in Spain!
Thank you so much for making this. One of the things that motivates me to watch your videos is how you share yourself. Your heart is on display. I appreciate that so much. The feeling of otherness during major Holidays. The disconnect from a person's roots. There are so many who have lost that connection to their ancestors. My family is so mixed. My family is also rife with trauma. American History favors colonialism so bad. Sharing honest history with my daughters helps. It has a lot of tragedy and also hope. Working from scraps and being a historian can be rough. There is such a yearning. Thank you for making this. This message is vital. It speaks to me so deeply.
Chanukah sameach! Happy chanukah!
I'm so happy that you found some leads!
I’m a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. Some of my relatives were early church pioneers, and along about 1860 they became interested in the dress reform movement (not to be confused with the aesthetic dress movement, these clothes were ugly 😂). I don’t have any photographs of my ancestors wearing reform dress but I’d love to make a complete outfit because I’m pretty sure it’s plausible that at least one grandmother might have worn reform dress.
Love love love love love this video! Would love to do this kind of research for my own family. I’m still close with my ashkenazi family, but we rarely ever talk about it and don’t know much. No photos (we were too poor when first immigrating) or anything. I know we come from somewhere that was “sometimes Russia sometimes Poland” and that our last name got changed into something Scottish by immigration officers when we arrived in Boston rather than whatever Polish name we used to have. I’d like to work up the nerve to ask to interview my family members that are still alive now, even though they don’t really think it’s worth researching or talking about. I’m excited to see your explorations continue!
Was not expecting such a huge mood about connecting with Jewish history
Sorry? (Not remotely sorry 💚💚💚)
@@SnappyDragon it was a whole vibe honestly
@@Ladyknightthebrave high praise, from you! Also hi, I'll just be over in this corner reminding myself that sometimes people whose work I love also know I exist 😅
@@SnappyDragon oh that's lovely to hear! I recently discovered your channel because somebody was recommending more Jewish creators to me. I'm happy there's more of us on the platform than I thought 😁
Wow. what a great intro. Looking forward to your future vlogs. The pandemic (and working at home) gave me more time to work on my family history. Like you, I have very little in terms of family stories. Conflicts in their home countries (Ireland and Poland) meant that 19th and early 20th-century government documents were destroyed. My family settled in Chicago, and reaching out to the local historical/genealogical organizations has been very helpful. I am building my family tree on a US site, but I have a membership in an Irish ancestry group - their professionals know what to use as good substitutes for missing documents. Academic articles describe events my family faced; an article in Demography suggested the motivation for my family to leave Poland. Historical books from Ireland and Western European publishers also filled in details. Finally, having a newspaper subscription has been really useful. Back in their day, major newspapers like the Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune were seriously into local gossip. My family members were working-class people, yet the papers include stories about them. I only wish that more was written about women at that time.
might i ask what that site is? i would like to recommend it to my father
I'm really looking into filling in the historical blanks! It'll be interesting to try to find out if there were larger historical events that affected them, or if it was something more simple like losing their parents. There's someone on my mother's side who either ran away with or traveled to the US with her eventual husband-- we're not sure, they were from the same region but didn't marry until they'd been in the US for 3 years!
Ancestry.com-- no professional relationship with the company, it's just the site I've had the best luck with.
@@captnflint V is correct. Not sure if other companies do this, but Ancestry uses the information from members' trees to offer hints (you can restrict Ancestry from doing this if you wish). It is good to validate the hints, but they have been very useful.
@@nidomhnail2849 i was asking about the specifically irish site you mentioned! we have enough to go off of there with the one irish great grandda i have to get further if we take it to the right people :3 but yeah, i'll look more into ancestry
This really touched me. I'm in a similar process with reconnecting to estranged but more recently immigrated history. Different backgrounds and different areas of interest. It can be a difficult and painful process to wade through.
Anyway I found a little snippet about my great grandma that loved to weave and knit everyone slippers. I am an avid knitter and also weave. This without any knowledge of the connection. Though I certainly understood that my family likely did these things in the past.
I have chosen to dig into the region that they are from and see what traditions they might have participated in. Perhaps I should also look at those weaving and knitting traditions. Eventually I want to travel to these places and walk those places though.
I'm so happy for you that you're able to connect with your great-grandmother despite the disconnect with your living family.
My mother's father's parents (my great-grandparents) came from Bavaria when my grandfather's (whom I called Papa) older siblings were young, but before he was born. Through some records my uncle (mom's brother) tracked down, we were able to find the villages in which they were born and lived, and even the baptism records showing the names of their parents. I haven't gone looking at the 19th century clothing from Bavaria, but I have looked at German 16c clothing because of this research (I'm in the SCA), even though my usual focuses are 15c Italian and 16c English.
I've also got some records from my father's side of the family--my dad moved to the US from the UK after he married my mother, and his father was born and raised in Waterford, Ireland (I've been to the address of the house where he was raised, though not inside). I haven't traced that side back any further.
My mom's mom's (whom I called Amma) side of the family I haven't done much research on, but one of Amma's sisters did research, and I know at least one branch of that family goes back to the American Revolution, as my great-aunt joined DAR at some point.
So I'm first-generation natural-born American citizen on one side of my family, and DAR on the other side, which is an interesting contrast.
I'm tearing up. This is so bittersweet as you are trying to piece together your history. It's a reclaiming of history from oppressive groups.
As a historical costumer I have my great grandmother’s Edwardian walking suit made of teal velvet. She then made it over in the 40’s to wear to a wartime wedding. My mother wore the suit in the 60’s during the height of the Gunsmoke phase. In the 80’s my oldest sister used it as her leaving suit when she got married. Since both mom and sissy passed away I now have the suit. I never had children so I will pass it to my cousins daughter who is interested in historical dress studies.
Sending you light this season! My mother has a jacket/ bodice from ~1900-1910 that belonged to my great-great-grandmother; it's a black wool tweed with narrow sleeves and a slight pigeon front, plus black ribbon trim. I have a strong connection to my bio family/ ancestry, and I'm so glad you are able to connect with yours!
I loved this video. I'm Ashkenazi on my mother's side. Im lucky enough to know that my great grandparents fled the Russian and Prussia from the pogroms.
I also know that one of my great grandmothers had her name changed to Catherine (she was about 5 so it wasn't her choice) when she arrived at Ellis Island... because her true name, Chava, was too Jewish and her parents didn't want to stick out too much. They were afraid that it would ruin her future.
I know this is a 3 month old video but wanted to comment that I actually wear my great great grandma's wedding ring as my own and my sister wears our great grandmother's. I've always felt it to be such a privilege we still have these pieces in the family.
I was lucky enough to know three of my great-grandmothers when I was small (one very shortly, but still). And as I now learn about fashion history, I've also been revisiting my memories of them and it dawned on me that "omg, they definitely wore corsets for a substantial part of their lives or at least their youth!" (my grandma confirmed one of them kept wearing them in old age, which explains her ever dignified posture). Just to realize that not only I've actually known authentic corset wearers, but they were my relatives, they bottle fed me, I sat on their laps... wow!
This is such a great idea. You are so passionate about this, I almost cried. A lovely end of year holiday to you
This is such a heartwarming video!
I don’t know too much about my family history either as my grandad has always been like a closed door when you ask about that kind of thing. All I have to go on is my aunt’s work on the family history before her chronic illness stopped her from working on it more. She found some really interesting details, like that we’re related to a Yiddish theatre actor from the 1930s (unfortunately I did not receive the acting talent genes). I’ve wanted to carry on her work for a while but I don’t know where to start so I hope your research through clothing history will inspire me!
Your project sounds absolutely amazing!! Thank you for this video. History and family are so important!
This warmed me through. A perfect video for the holiday.
You nailed why I do historical costuming. It's a tangible way to try and understand my ancestors & choices they made
I love this video so much!
I became Jewish by choice in part as a way of connecting to a heritage that was forcibly disconnected and erased through displacement and assimilation, and by the time I was ready to do that reconnection I was (and still am) estranged from my family of origin. I felt really daunted at first to start my Jewish education, and I still feel grief about the answers and details I’ll never get from my family. But there’s so much beauty and creativity and inspiration in the ways that we find to see ourselves in our histories, and our histories in ourselves! Learning about Jewish historical clothing, music, food, art, writing, even social movements (Ask Me About Jewish Anarchism In The Late 1800s) have all helped me step into my Jewishness with pride and confidence where I once felt alienation and fear. And, as I’ve done that, I’ve also gained a new appreciation for seeing how other people explore and connect to their own histories.
Thank you so much for opening up about this. It means so much, especially from another Jewish person who has experienced family estrangement. 💕🧿
I love this! So much ❤️❤️❤️
Oh, wow, so many warm heart feelings here! I will look forward to your journey in Grandma Carolina's steps! This is always an incredible experience. Much love to you!
This video moved me to tears. I’m so happy you’re able to connect with your past in this way.
Thank you for sharing this.
I love this, and I can’t wait to see what you make!💚
Yay! I look forward to what you find out! I love that you're going to be making her first outfit, that's a great idea! My family has done a TON of research on our history. To the extent my dad has written 2 books! I have been to the graveyards my 3x and 4x great grandmothers are berried in and it was an experience. Best of luck with your research! (I also love the Nesstea
This was beautiful ❤
My great great grandfather ran a draper's shop during the Gaelic Revival and Irish War of Independence.
He was very involved in teaching the Irish language, though tragically he was the last of my ancestors to use it as a primary language. I like to think his shop would have been popular amongst those who wore the Gaelic Revival style - a really beautiful blend of Art Nouveau and Iron Age! I've dreamed of recreating some of these dresses for a while.
Super excited to follow your journey!
What a wonderful project! My mother has done a lot of genealogy for our family, but very few customs from our ancestors survived assimilation. Your work is inspiring and makes me want to dive into what I can learn from my family. Thank you. Have a very warm and happy winter season, and good luck on your projects!
This is beautiful and powerful. I'm looking forward to see how your project progresses!
This is such a wonderful, beautiful take I never heard it before xx
You made me cry in a good way. Good luck!
Thank you so, so much- this made me really emotional in a good way. I'm in contact with my family of origin, but our relationship has always been complicated, partly by queerness and religion (my family is Very Catholic). I'm starting to take steps on a similar journey through grad school- I'm in my last semester of library school, and I decided to take a genealogy and local history class as the last course in my archives coursework. I'm hoping I can really dig down and find out more about my family's immigration stories, and learn how to help other people find theirs-- this is super inspiring to see and I can't wait to hear more about your journey!
This is beautiful!! I never thought about using historical costuming to connect to my actual ancestors before. Fun coincidence: my Jewish ancestors (I’m a halfy) came over around the same time as Carolina, in 1895. They came from Lithuania and Austria to Galveston TX. I’m very fortunate to have a bit of their story written down by their grandson, but there’s not much about their life before they came to America. But we do have a hand drawn map of the village my great great grandmother grew up in! So excited for this project!
I wanted to comment again because Im actually crying at everything you said about reconnecting and why do we like historical costumes. I myself never have sewn a garment and Im not sure if I ever will, but I love researching and studying and this video reminded me of why I do that, why I got here in the first place. Thank you again 💙 Happy Hannukah for you
This is such a powerful video! I have only a vague idea of my family history as well, and I yearn for some sort of connection to the past especially when it comes to historical fashion. As a half-black American, I can only assume a good bit of my genealogy was lost to the horrors of slavery. I am lucky, however, to have one picture of a great-great-grandmother from that side of the family that may one day lead me to some answers. Thank you so much for sharing your story! It gives me hope that someday I’ll find the connections and stories I seek as well.
This reasonates so much for me, thank you for talking about this
Watching with my adblock off because I saw your community post :) I appreciate you so much & hope you recoup every penny you would've made & then some!
15:22 This was my favorite of your videos so far! So much raw truth and honesty, so much vulnerability, and joy! Thank you!!
This video really resonates with me. I am decended from indigenous roots, but have been completely cut off from them, and I'm trying to reconnect those lines.
I'm no longer Mormon, but genealogy is a big part of that culture, and most local congregations have trained members and resource centers and love helping people. If you have no idea where to start I'd highly suggest reaching out.
@@angryhistoryguy5657 I don't love the baptisms for the dead in general. My grandfather has been very specific in that he doesn't want his mother baptized, and I found out they randomly did it in Africa. There's a lot I don't like about the church, but they're still a good resource for family history work.
Thank you for sharing. Beautiful video.
This sounds like it's going to be an awesome project to work on! I can't wait to see it progress!
As for my family... all of the pictures I have/have seen were taken in the US, even those of family members who immigrated here. The most recent branch to have arrived was my maternal grandfather's parents, and even in those pictures my great-grandmother is wearing 40s/50s style shirtdresses. And my maternal grandmother's paternal line has been traced back here in the US to time of the colonies. LIke you, I have less info on my paternal side. My paternal grandfather was into genealogy, but his side was a lot of dead ends (mother had been adopted as a baby, and he had questions about his paternity) so he focused on my p-grandmother's side for his research... but I've only got names to go off of. I didn't spend nearly as much time with them as I did my maternal grandparents and that extended family. And by now there's pretty much no one left to ask.
This was lovely to watch and hear. Also thank you for sharing.
This is such a cool project!