Gen-erocity

Another greatest hit: Photo shakes up the family tree

2008-01-06T21:19:25-06:00

I have ransacked archives in three countries looking for relations and often have felt that I have no more to find.
And time and again, I am proven wrong again.
In the latest incident, a chance photo I shot in Kaunas, Lithuania in September 2007 turned up some relatives I knew nothing about.

I took the photo on a rainy evening along a pedestrian mall, once the main street in Kaunas, or Kovno. I wanted to walk where my family had once walked. I wasn't looking for relatives or their traces.

I posted my photos at Kodakgallery.com and shared them with my cousins.

My Israeli cousin Avi Lishower was stunned to report I had shot a photo of a place where his mother Dina had lived. Dina, my father's first cousin, a cousin he knew nothing about, had immigrated to Palestine in 1936, a couple years before the German invasion.

Thirty years ago, I connected with branches of the family,through researching the surname Schrogin (our family name from the early 1800s), in phone directories for major cities. I constructed a family tree, which I shared with my newly discovered cousin Maxim Schrogin.

Years later, Maxim shared the tree with Avi. Avi came through Chicago, maybe 10 years ago, and tried to find me. But he didn't have a handle on our phone system and couldn't find me.

When the Internet came along, Avi found my phone number online and cold called me.
After that, we became co-conspirators in family research. I taught him how to do e-mail using the @, which he calls a strudel. Together, we obtained loads of records from the Lithuanian Archives. We even held a family reunion in Boston, a few years back, bringing together in the same room several branches of our family that had not been together since the 1880s.

It turned out Avi had a few surprises. After he looked at my photo, he told me that his 85-year-old aunt Helen Kessler was alive and well in Los Angeles. She had just been a name on a family tree. I called her up and caught up with her story.

Helen told me of how she escaped from Kaunas two days after the Germans arrived and ended up heading to Moscow. She became separated from her young brother, Lova. She went on to Uzbekistan, where she spent the World War II years, unaware of the death of her family in Lithuania. Lova found his way to an adopted family in Moscow. A friend of Lova's went to Israel in the 1970s and found Avi's mother and the family was reunited.

Helen shared a photo with me of family from almost 80 years ago. In it was her grandfather, my grandfather's brother.

Family researchers should never figure their work is done. It never is. You never know what you'll turn up, just walking down a street and shooting photos.

SnapGenie narrates the slideshows of your life at MyFamily.com

2008-01-02T18:16:52-06:00

MyFamily.com has been a popular Web site for family historians and their families. It was a place to gather to share news, family trees and recipes. It offered social networking before social networking became a Web 2.0 buzzword.

I was a MyFamily member a decade ago when the site was free. I also paid for a few years, $29.95 a year, when the company decided it need to charge for the service. I quit after awhile for a variety of reasons.

Now MyFamily.com is back with a 2.0 revamped free version with light doses of ad as well as ad-free sites with more storage and frills for an extra charge.

The thing that grabbed me at the site is SnapGenie, a feature on free and for-pay versions, that enables users to add narration to their slideshows.

Photo galleries are hugely popular at newspaper Web sites. I also know that friends, family and even strangers are hooked on slideshows and galleries I have done with my photos at Kodakgallery and Flickr.

Clearly, narration adds another dimension. One of my cousins, Marcia Wolinski, always goes over my images seemingly with a magnifying glass and then serves up tons of questions. My narration seems to fill the information hole.

It's easy to pull together a SnapGenie slideshow.

You upload your photos and arrange them in the order you wish. Then, you call a toll-free number and narrate the slides as the software records your voice. You push an on-screen button, add comments, and repeat the process until you finish telling your story.

Then, you invite people to view your the slideshow or post it your blog.

Check out my SnapGenie on a visit to Lithuania at

My Trip to Lithuania

One of my great geneaology finds: My Cousin Chaya the Commie

2008-01-01T23:44:23-06:00

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings and Craig Manson GeneaBlogie tell what their greatest finds were.
Now it's my turn. My case related to my cousin Chaya Slivkin.

We didn't know Chaya. But her name showed up on family trees done by the Latvian Archives and researcher A. Feigmanis.

I barely paid attention.

Then, My cousin Avi Lishower in Israel, who actually is related to the other side of my family, told me how the Latvian Archives had photos. So I bought copies of all of all photos relating to the Slivkin family. They cost $7 each, a great investment.

Most were passport photos. The Slivkins were decked out in their Sabbath best, smiling.

But Chaya's photo was different. She looked grim, not smiling. She looked roughed up. Her photo looked like a police mugshot.

My brother Gary and cousin Yevgeny Slivken, who now teaches Russian language and Russian lit at the U. Oklahoma and grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, pressed me to find out more.

I asked the Archives if perhaps Chaya had been arrested. I hit the payload. It turns out she was a Communist revolutionary, who disrupted the Latvian parliament. She was arrested and spent three years in jail. I got her rap sheet prepared by the Secret Police.

But the story didn't end there. As a result of Yad Vashem records going online in Israel and some breakthroughs from records in Latvia, with Avi's help on the ground, I was able to get the full story on this family, showing how we can can leave our footprints as we march through history.

Chaya's niece in Israel, through Avi, told me that Chaya had a son in the United States, Arnold Cinman.

I found Arnold, a transplant surgeon in LA, by digging up his biography and e-mail address online.

He told me how his mom had migrated to South Africa, where he and his brother Stanley (named for Stalin) and sister had been born and grew up. He told me how his mom, who died in her 90s a few years ago, had fought apartheid and how his family sheltered an African National Party who was on the run.

Chaya also had a sister who help found a kibbutz in Israel. One of her sons was killed by a sniper during a major battle in Israel. Chaya also had a brother who survived World War II in Siberia.

I recently met Arnie in Chicago, where he was attending a medical meeting.

Here is an article I wrote on this find for a Jewish gen publication: Download Chaya.pdf

One picture can yield previously unknown relatives.

Knome Thyself: The ultimate in self-knowledge

2007-12-03T17:34:54-06:00

In this season of giving, why not give the ultimate gift in self-knowledge: A whole genome scan--without being a research subject.

Big-name geneticists Jim Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, and J. Craig Venter have been fully sequenced. Now you can, too.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Knome is offering a complete peek at the genes (www.knome.com/Recent%20News/tabid/58420/Default.aspx)

According to Knome, "Whole-genome sequencing decodes the 6 billion bits of information that make up an individual’s genome. Unlike existing genome scanning or 'SNP chip' technologies that provide useful but limited information on approximately 20 conditions, whole-genome sequencing allows for the analysis of up to 2,000 common and rare conditions, and over 20,000 genes – numbers that are rapidly growing."

Jorge Conde, CEO of Knome, told EYE on DNA the advantage of Knome's approach over the competition: "We’re focusing on whole-genome sequencing now because we believe that this is the approach that will drive personal genomics forward. An advantage for us to being first is that, from inception, we’ve built our platform and services specifically around whole-genome applications. And because we’re initially focusing on a limited number of clients, we can provide first-in-class service – customized and personalized to each individual client."

(www.eyeondna.com/2007/11/30/exclusive-interview-with-knome-ceo-jorge-conde)

We've been hearing a lot lately about the $1,000 genome, which would make scanning affordable for the mass audience.

Knome co-founder George Church, the Harvard and MIT geneticist, told Gen-erocity he is still moving ahead with the non-profit Personal Genome Project (PGP) (www.personalgenomes.org).

Church said "The PGP is alive. We are in the process of cautiously expanding to 100,000 volunteers." The two projects may dovetail.

Knome is starting off more modestly in size, but not in price.

Meanwhile, Knome is looking for 20 people to kick off this effort. This is definitely for people who have everything and want the ultimate in self-knowledge Watson- and Venter-style.

Church said: "The Knome price is $350K for >95% of the genome. The PGP is separate and has different goals -- a non-profit aiming at research correlating questionnaires on environment ad traits with sequence data on 1% of the genome. The hardware, software, wetware and human data develop in the PGP are intended to be “open access” for anyone (including companies) to see."

So don't be a holiday gnome. Knome knowledge is priceless.

Breakthrough in genetic testing: $0 exam detects heart disease, cancer, diabetes

2007-11-29T18:40:09-06:00

You've heard all about the just under $1,000 tests from Google-backed 23andme and deCODE, combining genetic results along with some genealogy and social networking. And then there's the $1,000 full genome tests, a ala James Watson and Craig Ventor, for the masses that are coming soon. (www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n10/full/7401070.html)

Now a geneticist, from the National Institutes of Health, no less, is offering a test that will have detect heart disease, cancer, diabetes and more. In the December issue of the American College of Physicians Observer, W. Gregory Feero, Md, PhD, says: "Genetic testing is already available, practical—even reimbursable. Primary care physicians don't have to wait for a huge leap in biotechnology for an inexpensive and non-invasive genetic test that can today detect a two- to threefold risk increase for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, colorectal cancer, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. In some individuals, the test can detect much higher disease risk for less common disorders like hemochromatosis, thrombophilia, and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency." (acponline.org/journals/news/nov07/feero.htm)

Plus, he says the test is available for free online. That's nada, zip, zilch, And the results can be turned around in 20 minutes. The U.S. Surgeon General is offering it at familyhistory.hhs.gov

Feero says: "In a time of microarrays and talk of full genome sequencing, family history remains a cornerstone of the concept of truly personalized medicine, and seems likely to become even more useful in the near future."

If you can afford the $1,000 genetic tests and have a need to know, by all all means, have at it. Meanwhile, the free family health portrait is a good starting point. If you need to social network, send a friend an e-mail.

Haplo-hype? This family researchers' dilemma in being found to be Viking, Norseman, Jew

2007-11-25T01:48:47-06:00

I not only was one of the first people to undergo testing for genetic genealogy, I also probably among the most tested.

I have been tested by Family Tree DNA, Oxford Ancestors, the old Relative Genetics, Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, DNATribes, EthnoAncestry, Trace Genetics, DNAAncestry, DNA Print Genomics. I hope haven't forgotten anybody.

One of the more shocking things to me was I found to be in three haplogroups. FTDNA found I was in the G group, a rare one but one linked with Ashkenazi Jews. That made sense.
Oxford found I was in the R group with the Vikings. Relative Genetic found I was an I1a, among the Norsemen.

Viking. Norseman. Jew. I'm sure my Lithuanian and Latvian ancestors encountered people from Scandinavia back when.But these results did not resonate. (Wikipedia explains the terms Viking and Norseman at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen)

It turns out that genetic companies typically predict your haplogroup rather than testing specifically for specific SNP markers.
I asked Relative Genetics and a year ago they ran a SNP they found I indeed was a G. Specifically, they found I was G1. But again that seemed wrong. The G SNP, EthnoAncestry and FTDNA eventually all put me in the newly discovered G5 group, a sort of lost tribe of undetermined origin primarily with other Ashkenazi Jews from the Lithuanian hood.

Oxford did not respond to my queries.

Maybe most people may not run into this problem because the predictions work for them. On the other hand, most people are probably not tested by multiple organizations so they don't know the difference.

Scott Woodward, director of Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, while in my Chicago office recently.told me such discrepancies are not unheard of. He said he has a staffer who has received different results from each genetics companies.

Consumers have a hard enough time understanding these results without coping with this issue.

And New York Times reported Nov. 25 "DNA Tests Find Branches But Few Roots (www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/business/25dna.html?ref=business) about African Americans who have received conflicting results. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who helped popularize DNA testing and now is involved in AfricanDNA, a collaboration with Family Tree DNA, told the Times about how he received conflicting results: one company informed him that his maternal ancestry went back to Egypt, with a Nubian ethnic group, while another company told the Harvard prof later that his maternal roots were European.

Likewise, CBS' 60 Minutes recently reported on a similar case when a woman was tested by three different companies.

(www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/05/60minutes/main3334427.shtml)
Stanford professor Hank Greely told 60 Minutes he thinks the problem is hype, rather than fraud: "You know, beer commercials imply that drinking their beer will make beautiful women fall all over you. I think the genetic genealogy companies don't go below the normal standards of the marketplace. But they don't go above it either. Some do a better job than others, but there's not one that couldn't improve. And that bothers me because they're using science to sell their product. And science is about the whole truth."

The genetic companies need to do a better job of explaining what the results mean and what they don't mean. Consumers deserve no less. Eventually, the haplo-hype could come to be considered fraud.

Great Expectorations: Genome-tainment Part II

2007-11-23T09:59:18-06:00

Family historians love to find links to the famous and infamous.
They're thrilled to find themselves in the lineage of some royal family or a NAP (Native American Princess).
I guess I'm no different. But in my defense, and maybe yours, you can't control who you run into while pursuing your roots.
While I was completing my old-fashioned "paper trail" of family history years ago, going back to the early 1700s in Lithuania, my son Adam asked me if I had found any royalty. He was stunned when I said I had--a link, albeit tenuous, to Saul Wahl, a rabbi who was tied in with the Lithuanian royal, Prince Nicholas Radziwill.
Wahl (German for "election" Is there a Wolinsky/Wahl-insky tie?) supposedly was was named king of Poland for a day--Aug. 18, 1587--and improved the lot of Jews in the hood with various proclamations (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Wahl)
My research in the Lithuanian Archives and in talking to my grandmother in fact led to two connections with the Radziwills--in their towns in Keidan and Slobodka, where the liberal-minded Radziwill (remember Jackie Kennedy's sister married into the family, so we have Kennedy Camelot roots as well) treated the Jews well. He invited Jews skilled in weaving, which I guess must have included my family back when,to live on his estates and protected them.

(I took this photo of a statue of the Prince in Keidan in summer 2007.)

My DNA roots have shown a link in the G Haplotype (specifically G5) with prominent Chicago attorney Newton Minow, the head of the Federal Communications Commission under JFK (double Camelot) (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_Minow) and the late actor James Franciscus, whose opus includes a Jackie K biopic in which he plays JFK (www.imdb.com/title/tt0082572) (triple Camelot) and even better "Beneath the Planet of the Apes."
Not to forget the infamous: Christopher Knight, a distant genetic cousin, in a new book, "Son of Scarface" claims to be the grandson of Al Capone. (www.sonofscarface.com) Rat-a-tat-tat from my Chicago homeboy Scarface Al.
Now with the glitz of Google backing and very smart marketing, 23and me is starting to attract the rich and famous, and the famous and rich, to spit into a jar and have their genomes tested for potential disease and also for their family roots. The always entertaining VC Guy Kawasaki describes in his blog How to Change the World attending a "spitting party" (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/11/23andme-party.html, where actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell give up samples for the cause. Earlier this year, investor Warren "Berskshire Hathaway" zillionaire and singer entrepreneur Parrothead Jimmy "Magaritaville" "Let's Get Drunk and Screw" Buffett found they are not closely related, but do share ancient ancestors. (Check out postings on this from Blaine Bettinger's thegeneticgeneaologist at www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2007/05/30/warren-buffet-jimmy-buffet-and-23andme-continued/)
Celebrities and near celebrities are the new frontier in the increasingly competitive world of Genome-tainment: National Geographic's Genographic Project (www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic) landed comedian Stephen Colbert, as Spencer Wells, the Indiana Jones of popular genetics, explained discovering Colbert's apparently unknown Jewish roots. I could kvell. DNA Ancestry dnaancestry.com) landed Alex "Roots" Haley's nephew. (Check out guru Megan Smolenyak at www.rootstelevision.com/blogs/megans-rootsworld/2007/10/those_of_you_who_were.html) Haley found Irish roots on his paternal side (www.kutv.com/content/news/topnews/story.aspx?content_id=1a8ec79a-ed88-4f3f-9a0f-51b6c2941b15).
Historian Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr., who just launched African DNA www.africandna.com/?gclid=CKWmgJu1848CFRgXIwod1GVqFg), already has done Oprah's DNA and wrote "Finding Oprah's Roots" (www.amazon.com/Finding-Oprahs-Roots-Your-Own/dp/0307382389).
Star power can only help popularize and make mainstream the up-to-now admittedly nerdy world of genetic testing for family history.
But watch out who you match. Do any of the DNA firms have Britney's DNA? Or how about Paris'? Or Lindsay's? How about Hitler's? (Confession:I hear I match Stalin's grandson's DNA--very distant.)
And with family history and no doubt genetic material popping up in the political realm, such as the Cheney-Obama link, will people starting voting their genes? If you can't trust family, who can you trust?

Hunting the Killers In Us: Genome-tainment? Or lifesaver?

2007-11-21T18:36:51-06:00

Back in 2000, I was among the first to pay to have my DNA tested for genealogical reasons. Some of you may know me as Kit No. 65 at Family Tree DNA.

My only goal was tracking roots, sometimes very deep roots going back to Africa, where this whole modern human enterprise began tens of thousands of years ago.

It's been fascinating. I have learned a little bit about genetics and in recent years have started to match people with whom I shared a grandparent thousands, even hundreds, of years ago.

I wanted a sense of where my family came from, to trace the migratory pattern from Africa, through ancient Palestine, maybe Italy and Germany and then a right turn onto Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine and eventually on to the USA.

I have met and become friends with a number of people who share this interest, some might say an obsession, along with some common genes.
With this personal research, genetic diseases were lurking in the background, but were not center stage. Companies like FTDNA (www.familytreedna.com) avoided medical implications of DNA--it was all just family fun, so to speak. And loads of companies have piled on to go tell us about our ancestry.

But now new companies are entering the field, including Iceland-based deCODE genetics (decodeme.com)and Google-backed 2andme (23andme.com) to take genetics to a new level, combining the latest research genetic diseases and family history with a Web-based delivery system.

Will genetics be a new entertainment concept? How about a game show, Name Those Genes,hosted by James Watson, my South Side Chicago homeboy, where contestants have their genome and pedigree taken apart, really ripped apart, by a pro?

In fact, the Killer In Me, a UK TV show, looks at the genetic risks faced by a high-profile panel. (www.itv.com/Lifestyle/KillerInMe/default.html ) Will heart disease knock off a retired footballer turned commentatoe? Will a TV news reader develop early Alzheimer's? Inquiring minds want to know.

Sound like fun to you? That's genome-tainment in the age of reality TV.
And now everyday people with a $1,000 burning in their pockets can find out about themselves, including their Killers In Them. Will it save lives? Will the information be abused? What about genetic information ruining an individual's insurance rating, a major concern in these United States.

Plug a name into Google and you can get a phone number, an address and maybe even a Candid Camera-like photo of the person standing in front of his house or sitting in her window with her cat. Plug in a stock ticker and Google serve up the latest price. Will we soon plug in a gene marker into Google and find out what diseases we have or might get along with a listing of other people with the same condition so we can form an instant online support group? See you at MyGene at MySpace or Genebook at Facebook so we can "social network." Will the public overinterpret or misinterpret these tests?

Will gene-hate groups, or "fiscally responsible" insurance companies or employers, use that data in nefarious ways, to discriminate, fire, isolate, sterilize, euthanize? It can't happen, here, right?

In the San Jose Mercury News, Stanford law prof Hank Greely, who has been taking shots at the genetic testing companies, warns that the best of intentions with this testing could cause problems: "A lot of the genetic results are early, weak and preliminary. One worries that people will think the information is more powerful than it actually is and change their lives based on it."
(www.mercurynews.com/google/ci_7513189?nclick_check=1)

New York Times genetics beat reporter Amy Harmon was scanned by 23andme and got a glimpse at her personal genome and found:"My risk of breast cancer was no higher than average, as was my chance of developing Alzheimer’s. I was 23 percent less likely to get Type 2 diabetes than most people. And my chance of being paralyzed by multiple sclerosis, almost nil. I was three times more likely than the average person to get Crohn's disease, but my odds were still less than one in a hundred." (www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17dna.html?ex=1352955600&en=e7fcc2972b0a540c&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss)

Personally, I believe we should get as much information as we can to prevent what we can prevent. I also believe in sharing that data.

When I had a heart attack at age 57, despite being a non-smoking exerciser on a low-fat diet, it was a shock. But the steps I had taken to be healthy over the years no doubt help save my life and minimize the damage. At the suggestion of my cardiologist, I shared my story in a newspaper article in the Chicago Sun-Times, where I have worked for a quarter decade, with the hope it would help others.

But I also believe companies need to ensure that consumers understand the results they get and assure them that the data is protected. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050328/ai_n13507775) (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20040920/ai_n12561177)

We've are entering a Brave New World of genetic information. Let's hunt the Killers In Us, with our eyes open and the knowledge that while our fate in not only in our genes but in the way we live our lives.