Stories That Live In Us

Marry a Genealogist (with Irene Hantman) | Episode 55

• Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist • Season 1 • Episode 55

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💕 When a stranger asked Irene Hantman about Arthur Kurzweil's lecture at a Jewish genealogy conference, she never imagined it would change her life forever...

In this heartwarming episode, I talk with Irene, an accomplished genealogist and longtime editor of Avotaynu journal, about her 40-year journey through Jewish family history. She shares how receiving the book "From Generation to Generation" sparked a lifelong passion that ultimately led to love when she met Jerry at a conference in Los Angeles.

Irene's story weaves through her early discoveries at the National Archives, uncovering the mysteries of her grandmother's citizenship, and navigating the complexities of Jewish surname changes. But what makes her journey truly special is how genealogy brought her not just family connections, but unexpected romance at age 60.

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Irene Hantman:

We discovered that he knew my college roommate who had lived around the corner from him in Columbia, and when I told him the name of a friend from summer camp in New York when we were kids, who had raised her family in Columbia, his jaw dropped.

Crista Cowan:

She was the sister of Jerry's first wife spent my whole life discovering the power of family history, and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. At a genealogy conference in Philadelphia this last summer, a familiar face walked up to me and handed me a piece of paper. On it she had written a genealogy story that she wanted me to read. My guest today is Irene Saunders Goldstein-Hantman, and she has been at most of the Jewish genealogy conferences that I have attended over the two decades that I've been involved in that community, but her story that she shared with me that day was a little bit unique.

Crista Cowan:

Now she's going to share that story with you today, but I have asked her to also share her 40-year journey in family history and a little bit about some of the other discoveries that she made, because she wrote it down. She's going to read part of it, and I think that that's lovely, because she was a journalist as her career, and so she understands the power of both storytelling and the written word, and so you get to hear a little bit of both today in my conversation with Irene. Irene, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to have this conversation, I'm excited to hear your story and I would love to just dive in with at the beginning, like what is it that got you into family history?

Irene Hantman:

Well, what got me into family history first of all was the gift from good friends who had met each other and later got married. Through the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington. They gave me Arthur Kurzweil's book From Generation to Generation, and although I had been to college, I had never stayed up all night studying, I'd never pulled any all-nighters, but I did with this book and it set the stage for many decades of learning and meeting my family. And how long ago is that? That's about 40 years ago or so.

Crista Cowan:

Wow, okay, and where were you in your life? Were you working? Were you starting a family? What was going on in your life Doing both.

Irene Hantman:

I was working as a journalist, I worked for a small wire service that wrote about business for overseas publications, and I had a young child at home, so it was fairly difficult to find the time to do what I wanted to do, but I made the time. My precious hours were at the National Archives scrolling microfilm, and my first real discovery was the passenger manifest for my maternal grandma, and as everybody else did in this enormous room with 400 microfilm readers, I whooped and what I had found was her passenger manifest, and on it I was so surprised to see that she was a US citizen already and this manifest was from 1912. She apparently had gone back to visit her family in Romania. So that was the first surprise. I had to keep looking. I hadn't found automatically the document that I was really looking for that would give me the basics of her background. So I had more work to do. I still have more work to do.

Crista Cowan:

Always. That's quite the first discovery, though, right? So did you know all four of your grandparents?

Irene Hantman:

No, I was named for my maternal grandfather, so I knew everybody else.

Crista Cowan:

Did they ever share Like did you grow up in a storytelling family?

Irene Hantman:

Not at all.

Crista Cowan:

So this was a big deal to find this information because they didn't talk about it.

Irene Hantman:

That's right. It had never occurred to me really to find out anything beyond what I had. I was pretty satisfied with what I had. I had a good family.

Crista Cowan:

And when you found that discovery of your grandmother, how did that story unfold? What else did you find about her as years went on?

Irene Hantman:

Over the years I found a lot of information and most of it was an exercise in scrolling. I did find her original passenger manifest. Find her original passenger manifest, but then I couldn't find her in any censuses in New York. So what I did was to broaden my scope and I started looking at her sisters who had come to the United States before, and I found my grandmother living with them, with one of them, in Philadelphia in 1900. They had come to New York and went off to Philadelphia about six weeks before the 1900 census.

Crista Cowan:

And had you ever heard from her that she had ever lived in Philadelphia, or was that also brand new information?

Irene Hantman:

No, no. She and her sister and her father came together and then lived with their sister.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. So you've spent this time as you're starting your career and starting your family and starting your family history, making some of these discoveries, as often as you can get yourself down to the National Archives and the microfilm available there. But then, over the ensuing decades, of course, like the accessibility of records has changed. Things have gone online, genealogy, societies have become more entrenched. So how did you like, as your life and your career and your family grew, how did your involvement in family history grow or change?

Irene Hantman:

It grew. I went to a meeting of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, which we fondly called JGSGW, and I put my hands on a new journal that one of the members had begun called Avotenu, and it was very new, it was crowdsourced and there were no staff on this effort. And I'm an editor, I'm a writer, so I said I'll edit this for you. More authoritative source of information on resources and techniques, and I have been doing that until well. It was about 35 years that I did it.

Crista Cowan:

Wow, I have been a reader of Avotenu for years and I had no idea you were involved in that.

Irene Hantman:

And then Avotena started publishing very significant research books and they called on me and employed me to edit many of those books.

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing. What a great use of your skills and your education and your talents. I think that's incredible that you chose to contribute in that way. In the middle of all of that, have you made any other really meaningful family history discoveries, or is there a particular story or ancestor that stands out to you in all your years of research there?

Irene Hantman:

was one day when my son was six months old. There was one day when my son was six months old and my mother and I went to Florida to visit with my great aunts and uncles and I interviewed them for maybe 45 minutes, all the usual questions of all the usual suspects, and Aunt Toby sat back in her big chair and said you know, the name wasn't always Saunders, it was Sandovich. And when I asked her if there were any other people that I should know about, she said oh, there was Uncle Silverstein from Chicago and they were brothers and I always knew that there was a Samuels connection. One of my great aunts married her first cousin, Sam, so this was three brothers who had come from what's now Poland, with three different surnames.

Crista Cowan:

So the original surname was what? I have no idea. Oh, okay, and then what are the three surnames that they landed on in the US?

Irene Hantman:

Silverstein, based in Chicago, samuels in New York and Sandovich Samuels in New York and Sandovich, which was my great-aunts and uncles, or my grandparents' original name.

Crista Cowan:

And Sandovich sounds like it could be the original surname.

Irene Hantman:

No, Well, it's the original. I don't know. It could have been Silverstein.

Crista Cowan:

So you're not sure what the original surname is then. So how does that work?

Irene Hantman:

It works like a brick wall.

Crista Cowan:

Well, you know we do the best we can. Right In the Jewish genealogy community in particular which you know I'm very, very connected to even though I am not Jewish is the fascination that I have with the amount of name changes, and not just surname changes, but given name changes. You know you have a Polish name and a Hebrew name and an Americanized name, and then you do the same thing with the surname, and so for three brothers to end up with three different surnames is not unusual at all, but it does create unique brick walls. And as you go back in time and you start to look at some of that, it's fascinating because Jewish people didn't always have surnames. And do you know a little bit of that history? Can you share that with us, how that works?

Irene Hantman:

Jews have typically used patronymics. Now this is Ashkenazi Jews and, going back several centuries, the ruling powers decided that they need to keep track of their Jews better and they required them to adopt hereditary surnames and they had to register for them. In various empires, the dates change and, as you can imagine, the rulers needed to keep track of the Jews for two really important reasons to them taxes and conscription. So the Jews really didn't care to be identified so closely and they procrastinated doing what they were required to do. So the name adoption process in various areas extended 20 years, 30 years Small potatoes in terms of history, but it complicates the research. But it complicates the research.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, for sure it does. So you had this opportunity to interview your aunts and uncles in Florida. I think that's amazing that you did that, because every genealogist I talk to, if I ask them if they have a regret, the regret they have is that they didn't talk to their family members before it was too late, that they didn't gather those stories. But you, as a young mom, took the opportunity to do that. Why?

Irene Hantman:

My parents lived in Florida, so I went to visit them and then I said, let's go visit the aunts, and I brought a pen.

Crista Cowan:

Maybe it had something to do with your journalistic background or your curiosity that was inherent in you.

Irene Hantman:

Maybe it's all connected.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, it sounds like maybe it is. So you have been involved in the genealogy community for your entire you know career, your entire life, essentially With the Jewish Genealogical Society. There was involvement with, you know, the Avotenu editorship. There was involvement with your own research. You've been involved. Genealogy conferences play an interesting role in family history education for everyone. I've been attending conferences for decades and understand how important it is to gather together as a community, but also to have those very unique learning opportunities. Tell me about when you started attending conferences and maybe one or two of your favorite things about them one or two of your favorite things about them.

Irene Hantman:

I can't remember when the first one was. I think it was in New York in the 90s and we stayed downtown and had dinner one night in the Twin Towers, so that later events made that particular conference very poignant as the towers came down. But through the years I tried to go to as many as possible and in 2010, the conference was in Los Angeles. I remember that conference. I was there. Well, I remember you at every conference. I saw you for every time you ever spoke. Oh yes, that's how I learned Krista from you. One thing happened that really changed the course of my life, and that was in the lobby of the hotel where the conference was set. I was walking through after just having met new cousins and having lunch with them, but this man came out of the elevator towards me and said are you going to the lecture where Arthur Kurzweil is speaking? And yes, I was. So let me pick up my narrative in the story that I wrote for Avoteno.

Irene Hantman:

I cannot count how many times over the years I have expressed how much I love genealogy. The pleasure of the genealogical chase and the joy of getting to know cousins and fellow researchers along the way would have been gratification enough. But genealogy has also brought me love. So good friends gave me a copy of Arthur Kurzweil's From Generation to Generation way back in the late 1980s. I could not put the book down, as I said, and I immediately plunged into Jewish genealogy. Little did I know what this pursuit held in store for me a quarter of a century later.

Irene Hantman:

As a veteran of many international conferences on Jewish genealogy, I looked forward to the start of the Los Angeles conference in 2010. The day finally arrived and as I walked through the conference hotel lobby, as I just told you, a man stepped out of the elevator, smiled at me and asked if I knew where Arthur Kurzweil would be speaking in just a few minutes. Would I want to look for the lecture room together? Well, krista, even if I had not planned to attend that presentation, something was so attractive and compelling about this man that I likely would have accompanied him anyway and anywhere. In a split second I knew this stranger was someone special. Against all odds, especially at an international conference, jerry and I discovered that we lived just an hour's drive from each other in the Washington DC area. As I often say when I recount this story, he could have lived in Johannesburg. As we found our way together to the lecture room, we played a bit more Jewish geography. Do you know what Jewish geography is, kristen?

Crista Cowan:

I do. Why don't you explain it for those who are listening?

Irene Hantman:

Okay, jews dispersed everywhere when they came to America and everywhere. So it's really a need, need to find out are we part of this community? So when he says I'm from Columbia, maryland, and I say I know people in Columbia, and he says I know people, well, it's that kind of exchange yes, do you know? Where are you from? Who do you know? Okay, so we discovered that he knew my college roommate who had lived around the corner from him in Columbia. And when I told him the name of a friend from summer camp in New York when we were kids, who had raised her family in Columbia, his jaw dropped. She was the sister of Jerry's first wife.

Irene Hantman:

Naturally, each of us had come to the conference with our own genealogical research agendas, but as the week progressed we ran into each other occasionally and made plans to meet for a meal here and a computer class there. Throughout the conference I could not stop grinning and I could not catch my breath. It was visceral. I felt 16 years old, not 60 plus. The only problem was Jerry's intermittent but severe back pain and he disappeared frequently to lie down and rest his discs.

Irene Hantman:

I had secured crack of dawn airline reservations to leave for New York the morning after the conference banquet in order to attend a high school reunion. In anticipation of my early bedtime, I had planned to skip the banquet, the dinner, and had not purchased a meal ticket. But when Jerry asked if I planned to attend, I lied. I said yes, but then I had to get busy. I literally ran to the conference message board where I found one single notice of one single ticket for sale for the sold-out banquet. I called its owner. It was still available.

Irene Hantman:

We sat side by side at the dinner, though Jerry had to move his chair to face the stage for the evening's entertainment. At one point he turned around to me with a soft, broad smile on his face and we locked eyes. The moment is difficult to describe, but the message was clear. We both knew that something really special was happening. As we walked together after the banquet, jerry asked me if he could call me when we got back home. Of course, but once back at home, no call, nothing.

Irene Hantman:

One week passed, yeah. One week passed. Week passed, yeah. One week passed. Another week passed. I became sadder and sadder, waiting for Jerry to follow through. But I began to consider the plot line of the classic movie An Affair to Remember, in which a serious auto accident prevented Deborah Carr from keeping a rendezvous with Cary Grant at the top of the Empire State Building. Aha, I thought to myself sort of tongue-in-cheek. Jerry must be in the hospital. Why else would he not have called? We had made such a good connection. I convinced myself that that was a plausible enough reason for me to try to reach him. I finally placed the call. In fact, jerry told me on the phone he was recovering from two back surgeries. Since he had returned home from Los Angeles A week or so later, when he felt up to receiving company, I brought him some of my homemade chicken soup.

Crista Cowan:

That's such a Jewish move.

Irene Hantman:

My gesture was well-intentioned, but we discovered at dinnertime that I had brought with me just the broth. I'd forgotten the chicken in the refrigerator. Nevertheless, after five years of sharing genealogy quests and so much more in our lives, in July 2015, we shared our wedding day with our dear family and friends.

Crista Cowan:

Oh, that's lovely, Irene.

Irene Hantman:

Thank you for sharing that I have a tissue.

Crista Cowan:

I cry all the time at everything. I love that. I love that so much that you shared a passion and a love and a community and a history. I think that that's really, really beautiful and that it was sparked at a genealogy conference, I think, is just perfect for your story.

Irene Hantman:

It is.

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing. So how long did you and Jerry have?

Irene Hantman:

We had 12 years together. Okay, unfortunately, two years ago he succumbed to the Parkinson's that I knew he had had when I married him, and I miss him all the time I'm sure, and did the two of you have an opportunity to continue that genealogy quest together while you were married?

Irene Hantman:

We did. We attended any number of conferences during those years, including the Paris event, and my friends don't believe me, but you know, it's true. We did no sightseeing in Paris. We went out of the hotel for one meal. Yep, I think I did the same Because the draw was not the geography. Sorry, but it was the Jewish geography.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, absolutely so. As you think back and again, thank you for sharing that beautiful story about you and Jerry. I think that that's just lovely, and the way you've written it is lovely and witty and draws us in, which I think is also beautiful as you think back on your family history journey that started, you know, so many years ago. What are some of the things that you've learned?

Irene Hantman:

I'm always going to be surprised with the not only with the information that I discover, but with the history or sociology even behind it. This has been a huge exercise in Jewish education for me. I had a high school Jewish education before I began this work. I had a high school Jewish education before I began this work and I feel much more connected and much more emotional about my connection. So in that respect there's a certain element of deep emotion, if not spirituality, about this quest. That's surprising to me because I'm a very practical person. As I said in my opening, the ability to speak to cousins and other relatives who I had only known as a child was such an eye-opener. I spoke with my cousin Claire, who I guess was in her 70s when I was in my late 30s. She wasn't forbidding at all, she was warm and open. I also learned with the interview that I had with her in Philadelphia she was the granddaughter of my grandmother's sister. I also learned that you should check your batteries for your tape recorder before you go on a research trip.

Crista Cowan:

Yes, you should.

Irene Hantman:

So I wrote very fast.

Crista Cowan:

It's so interesting to me how the little threads of our lives kind of weave in and out of each other's experience.

Crista Cowan:

And you know, we kind of live our life on this singular track moving forward in time and you know, often don't pay really close attention to how those threads of other lives weave in and out of ours.

Crista Cowan:

But I think that's one of the things about family history that I love the most, which is those touch points where you know, I have a conversation with a cousin who knows things or remember stories about my grandparents and their lives and their experiences that I had no opportunity to know or experience, and those little pieces of restoration when we can have those conversations is a really beautiful thing. And it sounds like you've taken advantage of that by interviewing cousins and aunts and uncles, and I love that you've taken advantage of that by interviewing cousins and aunts and uncles and I love that you've made the effort to do that. I think that that's a really important part of family history that sometimes gets lost in the face of filling in pedigree charts and, you know, chasing back, you know family lines as far as we can go, but the just really diving deep into those relationships I think is important and meaningful just really diving deep into those relationships I think is important and meaningful.

Irene Hantman:

Well, especially in the days that I was doing that, before I became an elder, there were big barriers, not insurmountable. But there are big barriers for many Jewish genealogists and the main one was the language barrier. If we were to try to go back into Russia, or especially Russia, I would say, or Poland, the records are not in English, nor are they in the alphabet we use every day, so there would be a lot of learning. So for Jewish genealogists it has not been so much about the pedigree, but it has been collateral research, and maybe this is not genealogy, this is family history now. So going wide is the answer to many of the questions that we may have.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, it is Absolutely Well. Now that you are an elder, what is it as you think about the future? What is it that you hope for? The future of family history, of Jewish genealogy, of your own family stories? Any one of those things?

Irene Hantman:

The future of genealogy, everybody tells me, is in DNA, number one and now AI. Both of them I haven't delved into. Both of them I haven't delved into, perhaps I'll do finally, my own DNA. I had several relatives test their own and never pursued the results. Ai I think I have to go to several more conferences to learn as the people who use it learn how it can help keep track of and expand our stories and I am hoping I feel very strongly the responsibility to write these stories and get them out of my genealogy computer program and into some reasonable way to share them with my family. The family has completely changed now. The people I interviewed early on are no longer there. So these stories that I have to write need to engage younger generations.

Crista Cowan:

It's interesting because we become this bridge from the people who are no longer here to the people who we care about and love here and now. And to be able to transmit those stories in a way that sparks their imagination but, most importantly, helps them feel deeply connected to you and to the people who came before you, I think is an important task and I wish you all the best as you undertake that.

Irene Hantman:

Thank you. That's a wonderful segue to the end of this conversation, but I wanted to say, give one tip for how to double the size of your family tree, and that is to marry a genealogist.

Crista Cowan:

Well, now I have a hope for the future.

Irene Hantman:

Everyone should have hope.

Crista Cowan:

Irene, you are delightful. I appreciate you so much taking time out of your day to have this conversation with me. I especially appreciate you sharing your story, not just your family history journey, but that really lovely story of meeting and falling in love with Jerry. I think it's just beautiful and unique in this space. But maybe I will hold out a little hope for a serendipitous meeting at a genealogy conference.

Irene Hantman:

Just never know. Thank you, this has been wonderful for me too.

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Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist

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