Relationship to Rabbinic Families
I responded to the following post on facebook: “ Through family trees that I found on Ancestry.com, I am related to many famous Rabbinic families from the 15th and 16th centuries: for example, Shaul "King for a Day" Wahl Katzenelenbogen is my 14th great grandfather; Rabbi Meir Katzenelenbogen Maharama of Padua is my 16th great grandfather; Rabbi Yechiel-Michel "Martyr of Nemirov" is my first cousin 13 x removed; etc. My concern is that nobody has actual documentation on Ancestry.com of how they are related to these ancestors, so how can I know that I am related? I can't even find my paternal grandmother's ancestors a few generations back, so how can I know these are my ancestors? ” I too am interested in better documentation of these relationships, but …. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought since I discovered this post. 7, 8, 9 generations are the best you can do with documentation available through JewishGen, LitvakSIG, and JRI Poland. This takes you b