Lukovsky, Paola

  General Notes:

Dear cousin Paola,

I will first tell you about myself so as to introduce myself to you and to let you know about me as your cousin.

I live in the metropolitan area of the city of Detroit, Michigan in the United States. I was born in the suburb of Oak Park on January 1, 1966. My family then moved to the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield where I grew up for most of my life. A nd now I live back in the same Detroit suburb of Oak Park that I was born in. Kinda full circle. I have worked in the automotive industry as an automotive designer, mainly for General Motors and also for 2 supplier engineering companies. Everyt hing I did was for the automotive industry. As you might know, Detroit is the home of the automotive industry and where all of the big three companies General Motors, Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler are headquartered. Detroit is also where the automotiv e industry started back 120 years ago. Detroit has historically been an industrial city with most companies and corporations being related to the automotive industry. People like to call Detroit, "Motown" which means the Motor City. I have als o very recently retired. I have two college and university degrees. One is an Associates Degree in Computer Aided Design with an advanced specialty in auto body design. I also have a second Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice.

My parents are Selden Allen Tachna and Deanna Ruth Jonas. I have 2 older sisters Sue Lynn Tachna and Nancy Ann Kaufman. They are both married and from them I have 2 nieces and 2 nephews. My sister Sue Tachna is married to Steven Alan Fram and m y sister Nancy is married to Steve Warren Kaufman. Sue and her husband Steve have 2 sons, Daniel Ari Tachna-Fram and Avi Benjamin Tachna-Fram. Nancy and her husband have 2 daughters Rebecca Elise Kaufman and Madeline Faye Kaufman. I am not marr ied and I don't have any children.

You and I are related to each other from my father Selden Allen Tachna's side of my family, the Tachna family. And it has been my father's side of my family that I have been researching all along.

The origins of the Tachna family as far as I have been able to trace is from Poland. The farthest back that I have been able to trace, the Tachnas were from the city of Ostroleka, That is where the 2 oldest sons of Boruch Baer Tachna were born , Judka Laybe [Blumenfelt] Tachna in 1750 and Mejer Tachna in 1776. That information comes from Polish records. Also, Judka Laybe's wife Sosia Gitla was also born in Ostroleka in 1758.
Here is information on the history of Ostroleka:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostro%C5%82%C4%99ka

But after Jukda Laybe and Mejer Tachna, the family then seemed to all move to the tiny village of Zareby Koscielne. Why cannot be definitively said, but they seemed to move there with the wedding of Lejbke [Blumenfeld] Tachna to his wife Cipa Sza iówna Zarember in 1822. The family surname "Zarember" actually means, "someone who was from Zareby Koscielne. I also have Cipa's grandfather's name as being Gerszon Zarember. That means he was from Zareby Koscielne also.

So the Tachnas were not originally from Zareby Koscielne but all seemed to move there around 1822 or so. So that means both of our mutual Tachna ancestors became from there as the entire family moved there.

Here is information on the Jewish history of Zareby Koscielne:
https://bloodandfrogs.com/compendium/poland/masovian/zareby-koscielne

Our oldest common ancestor is Boruch Baer's son Judka Laybe [Blumenfelt] Tachna (born 1750 in Ostroleka, died about 1830 in Zareby Koscielne) and his wife Sosia Gitla (born 1758 in Ostroleka, died September 28, 1828 in Zareby Koscielne). I am the n a descendant of their son Jakub Szayka Leib Tachna (born about 1780, died about 1833 in Mlawa) and his wife Dworja (born about 1780, died before 1847 in Mlawa) and you are a descendant of their son Abram Tachna (born 1780, died January 21, 184 3 in Zareby Koscielne) and his first wife Szeyna Boruch (born 1801, died June 25, 1827 in Zareby Koscielne).

My ancestors Jakub Szayka Leib Tachna and his wife Dworja moved to the Polish town of Mlawa at least at the time of their daughter Malka's death in 1821. From then on, all of my ancestors, ending with the birth of my grandfather Harry Nathan Tach na in 1902, lived in Mlawa.

Your ancestors started living in the village of Nur with the marriage of Abram Tachna and Szeyna Boruch's son Boruch Tachna to Sora Kur in Nur on October 24, 1846. But with the marriage of their daughter Chaja Bejla Tachna to Wólf Hersz Gersz Mon karz, they started to live in the nearby village of Czyewo. Nur and Czyewo are very close to one another.

Here is a history of Nur:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur,_Poland

Here is a Jewish history of Czyzewo:
https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/czyzew/czy0069.html

This is my Tachna Ancestry:
Robert Howard Tachna - Selden Allen Tachna + Deanna Ruth Jonas - Harry Nathan Tachna + Rose Perlmutter - Shimon Alter Tachna + Zysla Kohn - Icek Jankief Tachna + Chani Lai Cytryn - Judka Tachna + Pesah - Jakub Szayka Leib Tachna + Dworja - Judka L aybe [Blumenfelt] Tachna + Sosia Gitla - Boruch Baer Tachna

From the information you first gave me as you being a descendant of Abram Beniamin Monkarz and his wife Sura Glina (and I know you have some questions about it) from your grandfather Jacobo Monkarz, this is how I have recorded your Tachna family a ncestry:
Paola Lukovsky - Elena Moncarz + ? Lukovsky - Jacobo Moncarz + Juana Cukier - Abram Beniamin Monkarz + Sura Glina - Chaja Bejla Tachna + Wólf Hersz Gersz [Makarz] Monkarz - Boruch Tachna + Sora Kur - Abram Tachna + Szeyna Boruch - Judka Laybe [Blu menfelt] Tachna + Sosia Gitla - Boruch Baer Tachna

You can see again that our closest common ancestors go way far back in history to Judka Laybe Tachna and his wife Sosia Gitla.

From the oldest Polish records that I have, our eldest generations of ancestors each worked as a sofer, or were "soferim", or Torah scribes. That is what is stated as their professions in the texts of the records. The exact English translation f rom the original Polish is, "Scribe of the Jewish Prayers." That means they were Jewish scribes who wrote Torah scrolls and other religious documents such as parchments for mezuzahs and tefillin.

This is a good article on what is a sofer, or Torah scribe:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/339595/jewish/Sofer-The-Torah-Scribe.htm

From after the oldest Polish records and the oldest known family ancestors, no exact or common professions are named for the following generations of ancestors and family members. Various basic trades are named, such as peddlers and shoe makers t hat were common at those times. However my ancestor Jakub Szayka Leib Tachna, as stated in the death record of his daughter Malka in Mlawa, seemed to have been a merchant. His daughter Malka's death record states that his home's address in Mlaw a was, "on the market square." The market square in Mlawa, as with other cities and towns, was were allot of the selling, trading, and buying of goods and properties were done. Typically in a town or village, there was a central square located i n the center of the town. People with things to sell would gather in those market squares with their items and merchandise and buyers would come from the town and often sometimes other locations, to buy from the merchants. The merchandise woul d often be food, clothing, and other regularly needed items. That was how trade was typically done. Jakub Szayka Leib Tachna being a merchant probably sold many types of merchandise that he acquired both on his own and as a distributor for other s. That was the role that merchants played. It was also why his home was located on the market square.

After Jakub Szayka Leib Tachna's profession as a merchant, the professions of his descendants, skipping his son Judka Tachna for whom I have no record stating his profession, became more varied and typical. His grandson, and my great great grandf ather, Icek Jankief Tachna seems to have started out as more of a basic peddler. Yet later, as I was told by my grandmother and other older relatives who I talked to, Icek Jankief Tachna later established himself in more permanent businesses even tually leading to him establishing himself as a leather tanner. His son, and my great grandfather, Shimon Alter Tachna was a leather tanner. Leather tanners were manufacturers and not traders like peddlers. My grandmother and other older relati ves described my great grandfather Shimon Alter Tachna's house as having his leather tannery located in the back yard. There there were vats of chemicals in which the animal hides were processed into leather. The work was done by my great grandf ather himself, undoubtedly with the help of his sons. He did not own a large factory or tannery. My great grandfather, like all of the other Jewish leather tanners, did the work himself. His son and my grandfather Harry Nathan Tachna stated hi s profession on his original emigration document as being a leather tanner. Of course he inherited it as a trade from his father and had my grandfather stayed in Poland, it would have stayed as his permanent work. Only my grandfather leaving Pol and for the United States changed his career.

My grandfather Harry Nathan Tachna was the 2nd youngest of the 12 children of his parents Shimon Alter Tachna and Zysla Kohn. Of their 12 children, half of them emigrated from Poland and the rest stayed. Of the 6 who left Poland, 4 of them move d to the United States and the other 2 moved to Mexico. One of the sons who settled in Mexico married his wife there but never had children with the remaining 5 having children and descendants who today live in the United States, Mexico, and Isra el. The other 6 children of Shimon Alter Tachna and Zysla Kohn never left Poland. One of them died as an infant soon after being born and another died before being married from the disease Cholera during the first world war. The rest of them we re married to their spouses in Poland and they and their families all died in Poland. One of them was murdered by the Poles in a pogrom along with her husband before the Holocaust. I don't know if they had any children or not. The remaining 3 a nd their families were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. I know of only 1 member of the Tachna family from Mlawa who survived the Holocaust. His name was Marcel Tachny who survived Auschwitz and after the war married his wife and lived i n France. His father Juda Nyson Tachna was my great grandfather Shimon Alter Tachna's 1st cousin. Marcel Tachny and his wife never had any children. Of all of the Tachna's who I know were still in Europe at the start of World War Two and the Ho locaust, none of them survived; except for Marcel Tachny. Only those Tachna family members who left Europe before the start of World War Two and the Holocaust survived.

The oldest of my grandfather's siblings was his sister Bessie. She married Sam Perlmutter who was from the town of Nasielsk. They had 3 children in Poland, their oldest daughter Rose - who is my grandmother, their son Al, and their daughter Anni e. Once they immigrated to the United States, they had their youngest son Jack who was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As I have just written, my grandmother Rose was Bessie and Sam Perlmutters daughter as well as the wife of my grandfather Ha rry Nathan Tachna who was also Bessie's younger brother. Jewish law allows for an uncle to marry his niece and for cousins to marry each other. It comes from the Torah and for all of Jewish history, even up to my grandparents generation in Europ e, it was very common. Actually, it was far more common for relatives to marry than for people from non-related families. However, with modern science and the understanding of genetics and genetic diseases and disorders, this Jewish practice o f relatives marrying is no longer done or allowed. So my father's parents were also related as uncle to niece, and my grandfather's oldest sister was also his mother in law. It is something that is outrageous today but was common and normal in t he past. Some of your family, from your grandfather and his family in Europe, may very well be married as relatives as well like my grandparents. It is very likely. Only someone like your parents or other older relatives might know or also yo u might be able to discover it from old Polish records. It is something definitely worth investigating.

My grandfather Harry immigrated to the United States in 1923. He already had 2 sisters and 1 brother who had immigrated to the United States before him. They were his oldest sister Bessie Perlmutter who I just wrote about, his sister Lizzie wh o was married to Henry Silverstein, and his brother Marvin Tachna. Other than them, my grandfather had 2 uncles and 1 aunt that immigrated to the United States also. They were my grandfather's uncle Joseph Tachna, his uncle Salomon Tachna, and h is aunt Yetta who was married to Israel Mishne. They all immigrated with their wives and husband who they married in Poland and their children who were born in Poland as well. Joseph Tachna arrived with his wife Ida Noreck and 2 sons and 2 daugh ters in 1920. Salomon Tachna and his wife Bessie and their 3 sons arrived later in the early 1930's, and I'm not sure exactly when Yetta and her husband Israel and their children arrived in the United States. Joseph Tachna and his family settle d in Detroit, Michigan. Salomon Tachna and is family settled in New York City, and Yetta and her family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. They all have descendants living today in the United States. One of Yetta's grandsons, Keith Mishne, lives in Th ailand where he is married and has a daughter. He was born and raised in Cleveland and he fought in the United States Army in Vietnam during the Vietnam war in 1968. After he returned back home and got out of the Army, he moved to Thailand wher e he has lived until this day. He did go to University after he returned from the war and in Thailand he has taught at a University as his career. In more recent years, he married a Thai woman in Thailand and they have a young daughter together . They still live in Thailand. So you also have relatives in Thailand.

My grandparents Harry Nathan Tachna and Rose Perlmutter were married in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1931. They both lived in Pittsburgh with my grandmother Rose's parents Bessie and Sam Perlmutter and their other children Al Perlmutter, Annie, an d youngest son Jack Perlmutter who was born in Pittsburgh. Also living in Pittsburgh was my grandfather and Bessie's brother Marvin Tachna. He married Bella Baseman in Pittsburgh and they had 2 children there. Marvin Tachna and his wife Bell a have grandchildren and great grandchildren living today all throughout the United States. Soon after my grandparents marriage in 1931, they and my grandmother's parents and siblings moved to Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit, my grandfather had hi s uncle Joseph Tachna and his family and also his sister Lizzie who was married to Henry Silverstein living in Detroit as well. Joseph Tachna and his wife Ida had 4 children, who were all born in Poland but immigrated with him to the United State s, and they permanently lived in Detroit. They were his son Albert Tachna, daughter Nettie who married Eli Freeman, daughter Annie who married Maurice Figoten, and son Maurice. They all have grandchildren and great grandchildren living today i n the United States. My grandfather's sister Lizzie married her husband Henry Silverstein in Poland and they immigrated to the United States in the early 1920's. In New York City their son Arthur Milton was born. Soon after his birth, they move d to Detroit. Lizzie and Henry Silverstein had just 1 child, their son who we all always called Archie. He married Rhoda Nemeth in Detroit in 1948. Soon after their marriage, Archie changed his surname from Silverstein to Sills. He did it beca use of antisemitism. He and his wife Rhoda had 4 children and today have 4 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. They all live in the Detroit area.

My father has an older sister Rachel. She was born in Detroit in 1935. My father was the youngest child and he was born in 1937. My grandparents did have a daughter born in 1933 but she died the same day she was born. So their daughter Rache l is the oldest surviving child. She has no family. Both she and my father were raised in Detroit and my father passed away in Detroit in 1983 and my aunt Rachel is still living in Detroit today.

My father met my mother Deanna Ruth Jonas when they were in High School together in Detroit. My mother is the 9th child of her parents Louis Jonas and Lenke Ungar's 12 children. My grandparents were Hungarian Jews who immigrated to the United St ates in the very early 1920's and lived in Detroit. They were also very religious Orthodox Jews and were very prominent in the Detroit and Miami, Florida Orthodox Jewish communities. My parents dated as boyfriend and girlfriend all throughout th eir remaining years of high school and all through College and married in 1960 in Detroit. I have 2 older sisters and I am the youngest of 3 children. We were all born in Detroit, Michigan. Both of my sisters are married and each have 2 childre n. We all live in the United States.

Growing up we were very close to my mother's parents and her side of our family. My father was very close to his in-laws too. All of our relatives from my father Selden's side of our family that we knew were only the ones who lived in Detroit . They were my grandmother Rose, her brother Al Perlmutter and his wife Eva Robiner, her sister Annie and her husband George Jerris and their family, Jack Perlmutter and his wife Gloria and their family, and Archie Sills and his wife Rhoda Nemet h and their family. Yet other than my grandmother Rose, my grandfather Harry Nathan Tachna died on January 25, 1960 so me and my sisters never knew him, we never had any contact with them and we never visited them either. There were other Tachn a relatives who lived in Detroit. Namely Joseph Tachna's daughter Nettie Freeman and his son Maurice Tachna. Growing up we used to see Nettie allot with her husband Eli and their daughter Harriet who was married to Ernie Pollack and their 2 son s Adam and Jamie. When I was very young, Harriet used to babysit us and also me and her son Adam were very good friends and used to visit each other allot. Yet around the time that I was in 2nd or 3rd grade in Elementary school, Harriet and he r husband Ernie got divorced and we never had contact with Harriet and her sons anymore. Nettie Freeman used to visit allot and I remember her husband Eli very well. Elie Freeman died in 1974. It was soon after that their daughter Harriet go t divorced and we stopped seeing them. Also, Maurice Tachna and his wife Pauline Gershtenman had a daughter Helene and a son Milford. Helene has never married and Milford, or Mel as he was called, was married to Catherine Kryczynski and they hav e a daughter Nicole. Helene Tachna for many years when I was very young was a school teacher at the same school where my father was also a teacher. So my father always saw her but rarely did we visit her as a family. We never used to visit he r parents Maurice Tachna and Pauline or their son Mel and his family. Outside of the my father's relatives who lived in Detroit, we never visited or had contact with any Tachna relatives other than those in Detroit. So I never knew them or eve n knew about them. All of our family association was with my mother Deanna's Jonas family, my grandparents Louis and Lenke Jonas and all of my Jonas family aunts and uncles and their families. With them we were always very close and visited an d spent time with them allot for all of my years, even to today. Only one day a year did we ever see my father's relatives. That was on Yom Kippur. For all of my life, it has been tradition that every Yom Kippur Archie Sills and his wife Rhod a always held a breaking of the fast at their house and they invited all of our relatives from my grandmother Rose's family, the Perlmutters and the Jeriss's. We would drive straight from the end of Yom Kippur services in Shul to Archie and Rhod a Sills's house. All of the relatives used to be there. We would stay for about 2 to 3 hours and as it was already late, as Yom Kippur ends at sun down, we used to leave soon. So only for about 2 to 3 hours every year did we ever see my father' s relatives. Of course I always knew them, but we never had any contact or visits with them. All of my family contact and relationships were with my mother's side of the family. My father too was always very close to his in-laws and all of my m other's family. He also never used to talk or visit his relatives and he too only ever saw them one day a year on Yom Kippur. That is with the exception of my Grandmother of course.

My father died from lung cancer on January 2, 1983. He was first diagnosed with it in 1980 when I was 14 years old. When he died I was 17 and still in high school. As years went by, and as I contemplated my fathers memory very heavily, I realiz ed that there was nothing that I knew about his side of my family - and I wanted to know more. As I wrote, I only knew the family in Detroit, and we never had any contact with them. I never knew my father's father, my grandfather Harry Nathan Ta chna because he died before I was born. My father never used to really talk about him. So I became wanting to know about my grandfather as well. The person I knew to start asking was my grandmother Rose. And because I knew absolutely nothing a bout the Tachna family - and only knew of my own family, I had a strong desire to discover who they were and what they were like. I began asking my grandmother about my grandfather Harry and the Tachna family in October of 1988. I was 22 years o ld. She was very focused on the Perlmutters, but I kept trying to direct her about the Tachnas. Remember, her mother Bessie was a Tachna, my grandfather's older sister, and also my great grandmother. I only knew the name of my great grandfathe r that was Shimon Alter and that was because my father was named after him in his Hebrew name. I knew nothing more. There were Tachna relatives living in Detroit as I mentioned. Most known to me was my grandfather's cousin Nettie Freeman who wa s the daughter of Joseph Tachna who was my great grandfather Shimon Alter Tachna's younger brother. But as I knew nothing about the Tachna family, I never knew that Nettie Freeman was a Tachna. I certainly never heard of her father Joseph Tachn a and that he lived in Detroit. I didn't remember thinking of knowing about Helene Tachna because I never saw her but once I recalled her I knew nothing of how she was related or that other than her that there was anyone else who was a Tachna. H elene is Nettie Freeman's neice and as I wrote, her father Maurice Tachna was Nettie's brother and also a son of Joseph Tachna. But I never knew or knew about Maurice Tachna and his family. I always knew Archie Sills and his family as we alway s visited them on Yom Kippur, but I never knew and had no idea what so ever that he was a Tachna relative and I didn't know at all about his mother LIzzie and that she was my grandfather Harry's sister. About those connections was the first item s that my grandmother Rose talked about.

After initially interviewing my grandmother a few times, my mother Deanna told me that the person who I should be talking to who knew all about the Tachna family and my father's ancestry was Nettie Freeman. My grandmother Rose never kept in touc h with her Tachna relatives, so she was less forthcoming with information. Nettie Freeman was always close to her family and kept in touch with as many relatives as she knew, which were many. So at my mother's suggestion, I called Nettie - wh o I hadn't seen in years, and I went to visit her. From her I learned beyond what I thought ever existed. She told me that not only did she know about my great grandfather Shimon Alter Tachna, who was the only ancester I knew of, but she told m e that she knew his parents Icek Jankief Tachna and Chani Lai Cytryn too. I was astounded! She started telling me about them and all of their children, and that their son Joseph was her father, and about so many of their descendants as well ! I was amazed. I visited and talked to her that once but she landed me with allot of information! I started learning about my grandfather's siblings and their descendants in Pittsburgh and Mexico too. I also started learning about more descen dants of Icek Jankief Tachna and Chani Lai Cytryn children too - and that they had a total of 3 of their children that lived in the United States including her father and that she knew and knew about their descendants living today. She also tol d me that she knew the descendants of their daughter Rojzla Ruchla Tachna who was the wife of Chanoch Nutkevitz and that she knew their daughter Esther who lived in Brooklyn, New York and that her daughter and grandchildren lived in Salt Lake City , Utah. She also told me that Rojzla had a son she knew who lived in Israel and that he had family still living there. She also told me that Rojzla Ruchla Tachna was killed in the Holocaust and about other Tachnas who were killed in the Holocaus t as well. I learned about Nettie's two brothers Albert Tachna and Maurice Tachna and her sister Anne who was married to Maurice Figoten and their families and descendants. That is when I learned that Helene Tachna, who I knew about, was the dau ghter of her brother Maurice Tachna and that she had a brother named Milford Tachna and of his family. And very importantly I learned that Harriet Freeman and her sons Adam and Jamie were Nettie's daughter and grandsons. I never knew that as muc h as I always knew them when I was young! That's how I knew nothing about the Tachna family.

I kept going back to my grandmother and she started telling me about other Tachna relatives from the past and all about the Tachnas in Mexico,Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. She also told me more about my grandfather's and her mother Bessie's sibling s and my great grandparents. Early into my starting to research, my grandmother Rose gave to me her entire collection of old family photographs. She started identifying everyone in the photos and where they lived, immigrated to, and about thei r families. From those photos I started knowing more and more. She started telling me about my grandfather's 2 uncles Joseph and Salomon and his aunt Yetta who immigrated to the United States and their families. I already started learning alllo t about Joseph Tachna from his daughter Nettie Freeman but my grandmother added more. She began telling me about Tachna relatives who lived in New York. Their names were Max Tachna, Isidore Tachna, and their sisters. She started mentioning Ma x Tachna's 3 children Ruth Candace, Edith Muriel, and his son Lionel Judah Tachna. She told me that Lionel Judah Tachna was killed in World War Two while he served in the United States Navy. She also told me that before the war and before he wa s in the U.S. Navy that he went to collage at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the late 1930's and that at that time he used to visit her and the family in Detroit.

After a few months of talking to my grandmother again and again about more and more information, a friend of my mother who learned that I started researching my family history told me about the Mormon's Family History Library and all of the inform ation that I could find from them. The Mormons are a Christian group who as part of their religious beliefs research their family ancestry as far back as possible. They have accumulated information from all over the world. They make the informa tion available at the Church located family history libraries located all throughout the United States. I was lucky that they had one such family history library located near where I lived. So I went there. I knew from my father that the name T achna was spelled the same way in Europe as it is in English. I also have known that it is very rare. I knew that my grandfather and ancestors lived in the Polish town of Mlawa so that when I went to the Mormon library I looked for information o n Jewish records that they had for Mlawa. I found that they have a few microfilms full of copies of old Polish census records for the Jews of Mlawa spanning many years in the 1800's. So I ordered their copies of those microfilms to look at. Whe n they came into the local library I was at, I knew it was going to be easy to just look for any record that had the name Tachna and I knew that would be for my family. Fortunately, I started finding many Polish records for people in Mlawa name d Tachna. So I made copies of all of them from the microfilm. I needed a translator to translate the old Polish into English and a local Orthodox rabbi I knew told me that he knew someone who was a Holocaust survivor and that she was very fluen t in the old Polish and she could translate the records for me into English. I called her and asked for her help and she was very friendly and willing to help. I took to her the first records I made copies of and she translated them into Englis h for me. The information was incredible! I was learning about the births, marriages, and deaths of so many Tachna family members from Mlawa from so long ago. I was very excited. I had just bought a new computer, and this was still the late 19 80's, and I began recording all of the names and information that I was learning on the Tachna family and from what people such as my grandmother was telling me and also from the old Polish records I started trying to connect everyone in how the y were related. I also started going back to the Mormon family history library to look at other types of documents such as passenger ship arrival manifests for immigrants to the United States. I found not only them not only for the people I kne w about, but for also other that were new to me. The information started to grow and grow.

As I learned about more members of the family both past and still living, I was able to get a number of present relatives contact information. For instance I was able to go to the city of Detroit's main library that kept telephone books from al l over the country to look up names that I had found and had been given. I started calling people. I introduced myself to them as their relative in the Tachna family and that I was doing research about us and to ask them questions and also to te ll them of my desire to share my information with them. As I had a computer by now and I had bought a program called Family Tree Maker that is made for the purpose of doing family history research, I was able to print from my printer copies of th e Tachna family tree. I would make enough copies to send to all of the people who I made contact with and whose addresses I had discovered. I was also sending them copies of records that I was still finding. I kept repeating sending informatio n as I learned and recorded more and more. From them I learned of more and more family members. I was even able to contact Tachna family relatives in Mexico. For all of my efforts in sharing my research, the information that I was learning wa s starting to expand very fast. Most of all I was very excited to begin knowing so many relatives that I never knew or ever knew about. Everyone enjoyed my efforts. For a few years I was mailing updates to everyone that I knew, which started t o become more and more everyday.

The invention of the internet in the mid 1990's was a great thing for me! On the internet I could find more information for more relatives and then eventually more archives and databases began being accessible on the internet. The number of thes e internet sites were growing all the time. Best of all was the creation of the JRI-Poland database on the internet that started in about 1996. It started listing information for Jewish records in the Polish archives that existed on Mormon famil y history library microfilm. That is how I found more Tachna Polish census records that I could get copies of from the Mormon library that I was already going to. Very significantly, these were family records from Polish towns other than Mlawa a s when I started, the only town I knew about was Mlawa. I found records from other places and also from allot farther back in time. Now my information that I gathered and was recording began to explode! I was still always regularly mailing ou t all my informatoin to all the relatives as I gained more information and records and as I was still discovering more and more relatives. It became an awsome amount and the workers at the local post office got to know me very well. Now not onl y did I know of relatives in the United States, I was also discovering more in Mexico and now too relatives in Israel. Most of that was coming form family relatives who were putting me in contact with more relatives that they knew. I was very ha ppy at how my information was growing. It was beyond anything that I started with or that I ever knew before I started my research!

Eventually there was so much information to print and make copies of and there were so many relatives to mail it all too, it became very hard and more expensive to keep mailing it all to everyone. So now that the internet existed, I got the wonde rful idea to create my own internet website to display all of my information and records. With that I could keep everyone informed and updated allot easier and with far less cost and effort. We have a relative named Mark Tachna from Pittsburgh w ho was in college at the time and he was majoring in communications and as part of that he knew how to create a website to put on the internet. It is more than just the design and creating the pages put it is also necessary to know the technology . I was an automotive designer and not an internet expert so I needed Mark's help. I bought a computer program that was easy to use for beginners to design pages for a website and now I had Mark's expertise to be able to upload it onto the inter net. Mark was a great help. I bought and found more computer programs to create the family tree in a way to display on the internet. It is the same one that I still use today. It works with the program file that I use to record everything an d it is easy and fast to do, thanks to the power of computers. Finally, after designing all the pages with all the information and records and photographs that I had been gathering and collecting, I was able to put the "Tachna Family Web Album" u p and running on the internet in 1997. I printed out a notice on paper that I mailed to all of the relatives to tell them that on the internet they could look at the family website and see everything about our family. It was a huge success! Als o, soon after email was created and I was able to learn everyone's email addresses to communicate with them all that way much easier. With email I was also able to communicate with everyone at once in the same message. It was phenomenal.

With email more and more relatives started contacting me. These were family and relatives of people I had made contact with who were spreading the word on me and my research. With each of them more and more was being learned and the informatio n kept growing larger and larger. With the notice about the creation of the Tachna family website that I mailed out, people started looking at it and by it I was able to share all of the family information and and records that I had accumulated ; especially the Polish census records from the Polish archives with their English translations. I created the website so that all scans of all the family records can be downloaded by anyone with just a couple of clicks of their mouses. As I kep t obtaining more records, I kept adding them to the website and with people's email addresses I was able to alert everyone about updates. People started responding with great enthusiasm. The entire Tachna family tree is on the website for anyon e to view. You can go to look at it on the Tachna family website at anytime. I also began to gather more and more family photographs that I was uploading to. I wanted to make the website a full presentation of all of my research. It is absolut ely free for anyone to look at and they can download all of scanned records, documents, and their English translations for free as well.

As years have passed wit the website online, relatives who were doing their own internet searches for their own families and research were finding my Tachna website. On it they were able to recognize their family's information and other informati on that they were looking for and researching themselves. Since it was on the internet, anyone anywhere in the entire world can find it, and people were. As well as more relatives throughout the United States contacting me for the first times, r elatives in other countries started seeing the website and contacting me too. A relative in England found me and emailed me, with my email address being on the website, and told me about her being a Tachna family relative. She notified her othe r Tachna relatives in England and I started communicating with more of them. They all gave me information on their families and with that the family tree started growing and growing ever greater and greater. It was fantastic! The website was s o successful not only in being an easy and free way to share all of research with everyone, but it also started enabling other previously unknown relatives to find me and to contact me. The website has been like a magnet attracting Tachna relativ es from all over. The family tree information just get getting bigger and bigger and larger and larger. It was such a difference from when I started my research not knowing anything about the Tachna family and not knowing any Tachna relatives, t o finding relatives all over the Earth from different countries.

Over the continuing years, my database of relatives, records, and information has expanding so much. Thankfully I have the website to share it all.

Like many other Tachna family relatives, you too found the family website and have contacted me. I am overjoyed to hear from you. Meeting new relatives is so very, very important to me. Now I want to welcome you into the fold.

You asked me to help you with information on your grandfather Jacobo Moncarz's family so that you can get Polish citizenship. I hope that what I have already sent to you has helped? Anything more that I can do please ask, I am more than happy t o help �.

Also, now that we know each other, I hope that I can learn about you and your family in Argentina? It is something that I greatly desire to know. I want to ask if you can tell me about your family so that I can add it to the family tree informat ion? I have already recorded what you told me about your mother's name and your grandmother Juana Cukier, the wife of your grandfather Jacobo. Can you tell me more? Your information is priceless to me. Now I know more relatives from more place s in the world. Along with your family in Argentina, we have family in the United States, Israel, Mexico, and England. I am very happy to tell you about all of them. I know that they will be very happy to know about you.

I am sorry it has taken me so long to write this message to you. With the pandemic and other issues, my time has been kind of hectic, but I have greatly desired to write this to you all along. Now thankfully I can send it to you.

Please, please, ask me all questions that you have that you want to know! That is something that I love to do. I look forward to keeping in touch with you and getting to know your family more and more for may years to come.

All of my best wishes, your cousin,
Robert Tachna
PHON: PLAC Argentina