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Hannah's grandfather always said their family was related to Boris Pasternak. The Genealogy Detective digs for proof, and teaches herself the Cyrillic alphabet.  Credits The Genealogy Detective is written, researched, produced, edited, mixed, and hosted by Mary Duffy. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to the Portland Public Library of Portland, Maine. 

Mariel never knew her grandmother Ilona, a Holocaust survivor, or about Ilona's parents, siblings, and extended family. But she's in a place in her life where questions about her family and their history have begun to take on new importance. In this episode we find some answers.  Credits The Genealogy Detective is written, researched, produced, edited, mixed, and hosted by Mary Duffy. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Doree Shafrir, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, JewishGen.org, Ekkies and Squish. Interviews of Rose Ringel (1996) and Albert Rosenthal (2000) are from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation. For more information visit http://sfi.usc.edu.

Most of us live securely in the knowledge of who our parents are, our uncles, aunts, cousins, our grand-parents and great-grandparents. How can we define who we are, unless we know where we came from, and who we came from? Some of us are still searching for those answers. And every family has their own legends, stories, myths, and also, mysteries. Solving family mysteries is what I do. I’m Mary Duffy, and on each episode of The Genealogy Detective we’ll hear a new case and how it got solved. Please join me and subscribe to The Genealogy Detective. And if you have a family mystery you’d like solved, email me, the genealogy detective at detectivegenealogy@gmail.com The first episode drops on Halloween.