Saturday, February 13, 2010

Shael Efron of Amdur, Samuel Lowenstein of Frankfurt

Are there any living descendents of Shael Efron? He was born in 1823 and his story is told by his son, "Lazar Shael's," in Lazar's book, Khamishan Alfin . Lazar, more formerly known as Aharon Eliezer, tells how his father was put in the Grodno prison because he dealt in gold, which was forbidden by the Russian authorities.

Shael escaped from prison and went to Germany with his wife, Sarah. There, he settled in Frankfurt with the alias "Samuel Lowenstein." From the information in Lazar Shael's book, plus some information from Yedidia Efron's Amdur, Mayn Geboyrn Shtetl and a reference in Sam Effron's genealogy, I feel I've got to know this family pretty well.

I was thrilled to find the gravestones of Shael and his wife in the collection of photos of the Rat Beil St. cemtery in Frankfurt, posted by the JewishData.com folks. The photo requires a subscription to JewishData.com . The lengthy Hebrew text on the imposing monument erected for Shael "Samuel" is not legible, but it is transcribed in his son's book!

Publishing The Efron Genealogy -- The Game Plan

I am working hard to publish the research I've collected for the past 20 or so years. The Efron Genealogies will be published as a book, on DVD, and online. There will be Four parts:

Volume I -- The Efron Family of Amdur
Volume II -- Other Efron Families: Origins Other Than Amdur
Volume III -- Descendency Charts and Index
Efron Genealogies Appendix

I have just completed a review of all ship arrivals in Volume I, and in the process found about 40 additional ship manifest. I also reviewed Volume I to remove all confidential information about living individuals.

There are several more steps needed before Volume I will be ready for publication:
Moving reference information from the body of Volume I to the Appendix
Getting more family photos
Incorporating some interesting documents in Volume I, instead of just as part of the Appendix
Making the text more readable
Focus on interesting individuals