This site was created using MyHeritage.com. This is a great system that allows anyone like you and I to create a site for their family and even publish their family tree on the Internet.
My name is Jessica Milne-Kahn
and I am the Site manager of this site. However, this does not mean that I know what I am doing. I had no idea what I was doing when I started the site, and it was given the dafault name "Milne-Kahn Web Site". I don't know how to change it, but this is intended as a family tree for my immediate and extended family, and yours.
My hope is that this will become a complete, extended family tree. Please add information, photos, etc. If I have posted incorrect information and you are unable to correct it, or if you have information you do not know how to post, please send it my way here to contact me, or e-mail me at jessica.milnekahn@gmail.com) and I will give it a shot.
Our family tree is posted online on this site! There are 1959 names in our family site. The earliest event is the birth of Jehan Terriot
(1601). The most recent event is the birth of <Private> Ashby
(June 7 2011). The site was last updated on May 17 2012, and it currently has 83 registered member(s). If you wish to become a member too, please click here.
I am often asked whether I am related to the celebrated (and, alas, recently deceased) cancer researcher Dr. Judah Folkman. At one time, Dr. Folkman’s (Cleveland) branch of the family were on visiting terms with my father’s first cousins in Philadelphia, and both clans always assumed that they were related. Any connection, however, is very distant, because the Cleveland Folkmans are not descended from any of the twelve sons of my great-great grandparents Mendel and Esther Volkmann.
The Cleveland Folkmans did, however—like my branch of the family—originate in Galicia (a Polish province ruled by Austria). They trace their ancestry back to one Josef Volkmann, who apparently belonged to Mendel’s generation and may have been his brother. Josef’s son Hermann (1833-1911) was born eight years before my great-grandfather Nussen (Nathan) Volkmann. Hermann married twice, siring nine children by his first wife and four children by his second wife. It is this second marriage from which Judah was descended: Hermann Volkmann and Rosa Goldman Folkman’s son Benjamin (b. 1882) married Rose Tronstein, and their son Rabbi Jerome Folkman (b. 1907) was the father of Judah. After Hermann came to America in 1888 or 1889, he changed the spelling of the name to Folkman (as did all the members of my branch).
The map shows the region of Galicia from which both clans hail. Hermann Volkmann’s children were born in Nowy Sacz (marked with a red star); Nussen Volkmann was born in neighboring Tuchow (some 22 miles to the northeast), and most of his children were born in the Tuchow-Tarnow area (both shtetls marked with red arrows). Eventually, Nussen's parents Mendel and Esther moved to Nowy Sacz, and Nussen's youngest brother Adolf was born there.
The founder (and CEO) of the MyHeritage company noticed our tree is at full memory capacity (from pictures) and gave us a free upgrade to the maximum level (PremiumPlus) so we won't run into any capacity limits! What a wonderful and generous surprise. This man is named Gilad Japhet and he is a relative of ours through Zarra (Mirski) Kahn's mother's side of the family. I had recently decided I needed to find a way to reduce the resolution of the photos I posted, so this is a relief to me! (In other words, this news made my day). I hope you are all well, and hope you will post information on this site. =) Jessica
