Janis Family

A Primary Source Jackpot

danaejanis — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:02:09 +0000

Monday evening, Blair’s dad stopped by our home. Earlier, I was about to order a couple of vital records from the state of California or the county of Los Angeles or both or who knows. I was confusing myself. Blair set up a fund from which I am to make all my genealogy purchases and I was about to dip into it for these records. Then, I thought, why don’t we just take a look at what Joel has. Blair didn’t even have a best guess as to what Joel might have. So, Blair phoned him to see and Joel said he’d swing by Monday evening and show us. When he got here, he said, “I’m just going to leave this all with you for a while so you can go through it.” We sat and visited and we took black and white copies of some old group photos and Joel wrote names on the copies so we could have some fun browsing the photos. After Dad left, Blair and I sat and looked through his documents. There were about 15 certified primary sources and about 15-20 funeral notices and newspaper clippings and many more research notes and correspondences from relatives. I spent about 3 hours scanning yesterday and have about 2 hours left to do today. I felt like I was on my very own episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” If I had ordered all of the documents that Joel gave us, I would have spent about $250. So, that was a great visit! I’m very thankful.

A Flaxman Picture?

danaejanis — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:01:01 +0000

I’m pretty sure this is a picture of a Flaxman. I need to check with Vivian to see where on the tree he belongs and what stories he has to tell us. I love looking at old family photos.

Sam-Sid-Sam’s Available Census Images

danaejanis — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:56:40 +0000

I’ve attached a snap of the 3 census years that are available for Sam-Sid-Sam. For now, we have 1910, 1920, and 1930. In the next months, we’ll be able to see 1940. Here they are:

1910:

1920:

1930:

Sidney (Sam) Janofsky Death Notice

danaejanis — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:51:31 +0000

Here is a reprint of the obituary for Sidney (Sam) Janofsky (1909-1992).

Sidney Janofsky Obituary, The Fresno Bee, (newsbank.com), 7 Jun 1992.

This is why obituaries are such a great genealogical resource. There are several names mentioned that I have never heard and I look forward to placing them on the family tree. There is no doubt I would have come across these names in talking to family members who have been around longer but if we were in a previous century I would not have that luxury. They are also a great way to find the death date of a person and are fairly reliable as they are printed right around the time of death. Interestingly, this obituary does not indicate the death date but it would be possible to find the burial date with a calendar of 1992.

Beth Israel Cemetery

danaejanis — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:33:15 +0000

I have to disclaim here that the following photos are from www.findagrave.com. I haven’t been there personally but I’ll try to get verification from Joel and Vivian that these are correct since I don’t see a trip to Fresno in the foreseeable future. Findagrave.com is a community based effort to put photos of, well, graves online. They have a few really quirky employees but most photos are uploaded by volunteers. Or so I understand.

The following photos are from the Beth Israel Cemetery in Freso, California and mark the burial places of Sidney (Sam) Janofsky and his second wife, Shirley. I think they give great insight into their personalities!

Beloved Husband to Great Grandfather

The kindest man I’ve ever known

and will live on in our hearts forever

Sidney Janofsky

July 17, 1909 – June 5, 1992

French Dipped Sandwich King

A closeup of the picture on Sidney’s (Sam’s) headstone.

Beloved Wife

Mother Grandmother

and Great Grandmother

Shirley Janofsky Lev

Nov 21, 1924 – July 18, 2001

The song is ended

but the melody lingers on.

A closeup of the picture on Shirley’s headstone.

The entrance to Beth Israel Cemetery in Fresno, California.

Sam/Sid Birth Record

danaejanis — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:12:14 +0000

I call him something different every time I talk about him. If I am thinking about him as a person then I am thinking “Sam Janofsky.” If I am thinking about him in relation to where he is in the family tree then I am thinking “Grandpa Sid.” I never think “Grandpa Sam” and I never think “Sid Janofsky.” Is that weird? I missed meeting Grandpa Sid but Blair has a lot of fun stories to tell about him… my favorite ones are the Hawaii stories.

I’ve added ~~Sam~~ ~~Sid~~ Sam Janofsky’s birth record to the tree. I’m still mainly working on data entry but I’ve also been trying to organize my documents and get a better grasp on citing online sources so I thought I’d add a few documents here and there.

Did you know that there were two Sam Janofskys born in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States in the year 1909? Well, it is true. Our Sam Janofsky was born 17 July 1909 to Jacob (a leather worker) and Eva, immigrants from Russia. “Baby Janofsky” was born 9 Sept 1909 to Hulbert Janofsky (a tailor) and Rosie Finkel or Fiukel, also from Russia. An amendment was later filled out to certify that baby’s name as Sam. If you search for Sam Janofsky, you could find the amendment (which includes no additional information such as parents to identify) and the DOB may lead you to believe that Sam/Sid/Sam Janofsky’s birth date was in your personal tree incorrectly. Not that I experienced this. I’m just speculating.

What about you? Do you have any fun stories or anecdotes to share about Grandpa Sid? I’d love to hear and record them if you have a minute to shoot an email to us.

A Minor Setback

danaejanis — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:31:47 +0000

We’ve had to take down our genealogy information. We’ll be manually re-entering the data. We are hoping this will solve the problem of the ancestor pedigree charts not loading. (Somehow, our data became muddled during the course of several gedcom imports/exports.)

Grandpa Sid

danaejanis — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:41:55 +0000

Late one Sunday, Blair and I were getting close to having all the functional pieces of this web site working well together and were beginning to tweak the appearance somewhat. I had the idea to have four short little bios of the grandparents and asked Blair to help me. He was stumped and suggested that I coerce Alissa into helping. So, I sent a text to Alissa and within 30 minutes she had supplied me with four drafts of exactly what I had in mind. Here is what she had to say about Grandpa Sid:

A rough, no-nonsense, cowboy with a sense of humor. Known to all as Sid, he was born in Southern California. He ran away as a youth for a life of horses, lassos and dusty ranch living. His first job as a cowboy was to clear the fields of gophers. Never missing a chance to impressively tell a story, he charmed Ada Kallin and they married. Father to two, he ran a restaurant/deli with famously delicious brisket sandwiches. The restaurant defined his early marriage years, he worked hard and long hours, feeding hungry travelers and locals alike. Later he left Ada and the children, to marry a younger woman. This was devastating for his children and Ada. Years passed, and he had two boys with Shirley. They lived in Northern California. Among many business ventures, they owned a jewelry store in San Francisco. He loved to tell the story of a would be heist, where he stood up to the thieves and kicked them out of his store. After retiring, he lived in Hawaii for many years, returning to Northern California to spend time with his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. He died in Northern California surrounded by three generations.

Alissa is still smoothing out some of her own kinks in the text but I thought she did a great job! In the meantime, here are two pictures from Sid’s life:

Eva, Sam, & Harry Janofsky Chicago, 1915

Wedding of Sam Janofsky & Ada Kallin

I look forward to hearing many more stories about Sam/Sid Janofsky. Do you have any? We’d love to hear from you!

First GEDCOM Import

danaejanis — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:08:12 +0000

Well, I did it. I imported what bare bones I have in my file of the Janis Family. I have no documentation. None! Luckily, the file is not large so the boys and I will begin working on verifying the present information before we start looking for new information. Mom and Dad Janis have documentation that we can scan and attach to people and events but I have never included it in my files.

I had really wanted to input all the info manually because the last time I did a GEDCOM import, either the exporting or importing program auto filled some blank dates and it really messed me up. As a result, I am gun shy from the experience. We’ll just comb through this and make sure that didn’t happen again. I am sure it was a setting that I missed because, really, computers generally just do what we tell them to do. We just have to pay attention to what we are saying. Kind of like parenting.

Progress?

danaejanis — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:28:57 +0000

We’ve spent several days now working on the basic setup of this site. It has been rewarding to work with together trying to do something that neither one of us has done before. But, between the two of us, we seem to be plugging along. We’ve shown the beginning stages with a few members of the extended family and received some positive feedback. Alissa has contributed with her colorful descriptions of Sam, Ada, Jacob, and Dora. It’s possible that I learned more about them reading those short excerpts than I’ve heard over the past years. I look forward to learning more.