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Health & Fitness

Good Day Beloved Man: A Genealogical Odyssey

My father was a WWII vet, a member of the silent generation. No characteristic rang more true for my father than being silent. He kept much inside, but one of the things he was most silent about was his past. Growing up, I knew nothing of his early life or much at all about his family of origin. He didn't care to talk about these things. His usual answer to any question was, "I don't know." So, you can imagine, being the very inquisitive person I have always been, I just had to know.

Quite sometime ago his elder cousin came to town. My father had never mentioned the existence of this cousin who had made his home in Texas, but they had met up during WWII in England. His cousin knew my father was stationed there and looked him up.

My father's cousin was filled with family lore, just the kind of thing I had hungered for since my youth. He was far from silent as was his father, who shared many stories about their paternal grandmother and even the root of our surname. He said our surname was an acronym for a much larger name. Later, from another source I also heard it was an acronym combining the first letter from the given names of 4 brothers.

Loving a good mystery, my genealogical expedition began. I had to know whether what my father's cousin said was true, so the first stop was the Family History Center at the Los Angeles Mormon Temple. This was prior to my familiarity with the online genealogical websites which came later on.

There was help everywhere; and it was thrilling to go through the process of finding the microfiche for the census showing not only my grandfather and his siblings, but my great-grandmother too. My great-grandfather had died in the old country, so his wife with her 4 sons and 1 daughter took a ship to the U.S. Later we learned the eldest son arrived first--having gone into the fur trading business with another cousin he met up with in the U.K.

My genealogical journey really began to take off years later when a cousin of mine answered a post I had written on Ancestry.com. He had by then compiled a family tree with 400 names, but he had barely begun. We became fast friends. He was the cousin who accompanied me to Uncle Bernie's grave.

As with any research project, there are always many twists and turns before you strike gold, but on the way other treasures are unearthed. This was no different in my research. I did not only want to discover the origin of ancestors but also connect with living relatives to expand my sense of family and to uncover more family lore. This was way before Facebook was on the scene, so I took to making phone calls. Some people responded positively; others did not.

However, somehow through all this work, we ended up having a big family reunion in Florida of relatives that had never met. My cousin met a first cousin he had never known, Bunny; and they both discovered that they owned the same photograph of their aunt and uncle. It was beautiful.

There were yet more treasures waiting to be found. Bunny's father also was not the silent type and shared much lore about his life in Lithuania, his passage to the U.S.--and in amazing detail. She felt that before her father died, she had to get these stories taped; therefore, she spent hours with him asking questions. There were nearly a half dozen cassette tapes she had compiled; and she let me borrow them to digitize and share with the rest of the family. This was truly a treasure beyond my wildest dreams.

In addition other treasures arose: letters, photographs, and many stories as well as relatives from around the world. It was healing for those who came to understand why family riffs had been in place for years and for others, like Bunny, who had very little connection to our family and suddenly had relatives in droves.

Through all this I did verify the story of our surname. It was a combination of both tales. We discovered there were four brothers--one of them my great-grandfather. My great-great grandfather was Lipman. During the time he lived there were no surnames, but later the government made a decree that surnames were to be created for the ease of census-taking. Surnames had many sources: family characteristics, place of origin, family trade, or based on a patronym, etc.

One day while browsing through Jewishgen.org at name origins, I discovered that the legal Hebrew name for Lipman was Yom Tov Lipman which means "good day beloved man." It all fit--Y'T'L were the consonants sounds for my maiden name. It blew my mind. The brothers had created a surname in honor of their father Lipman. The mystery had been solved. The cool thing is that anybody I meet who has that surname is unquestionably a relative, a genealogist's dream come true.

I no longer fault my father for his silence, because without it I would not have had this fascinating journey nor discovered new family. The healing experiences had by many family members would not have taken place. It was all perfect just the way it happened.  Had my father told me the stories all my life, unlike Bunny, I might have taken them for granted. Finding buried treasure can be just as satisfying.

In the end, with my findings I was able to honor my father. At his funeral, I stood up and told the story of our family's history and our surname. The family members were intrigued having been victims of grandparents and parents from the silent generation.

At the end of my speech I said good-bye to my father; and there were no more appropriate words than what brought me to the end of my genealogical journey, a journey motivated by my father's silence. It all came full circle when I bid my father farewell with these words: "Good day to a most beloved man."

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