Bat Levi - Claiming My Birthright

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025: Week 42 (FIRE)

January 2025 I decided to test my father's yDNA in the hopes of breaking down the brick wall that is the Pellack Family.

My great grandparents:

Alexander (Alex) Pellack 
B: 17 Apr 1873 Skoryky, Скорики, Ternopil's'ka Oblast, Ukraine
D: 22 Oct 1955 Gronlid, Saskatchewan, Canada
and
Marya (Maria) (Mary) (Marinka) Maximiw 
B: 24 Dec 1875 Ukraine/Galicia/Austria - Unknown
D: 12 Aug 1946 Gronlid, Saskatchewan, Canada

I had been unable to find any documented proof for the family before they sailed to Canada in 1909 leaving all they knew behind in Ukraine.

In the years since we received autosomal results, showing Ashkenazi Jewish, I had made a guess that Alexander was the Jewish grandparent who passed 26% to dad, and then 13% to me. 

With this in mind I went right to the BigY test, not bothering with the cheaper smaller versions at FamilyTreeDNA, hoping that would provide the clarity we were looking for.

When the initial results came in I received the message below from a researcher, Meir Halevi Gover, who I discovered is a professional with a strong research background. 

"I confirm that his paternal male line is both Jewish and Levite.

Reckon that you did know it. My assessment is that his Y line
resided in the 17th Cen. CE Jewish Prague Ghetto."

Knowing he was a professional I felt comfortable continuing the conversation outlining what we did and didn't know about dad's paternal line. 

We agreed to await the BigY results knowing they would be along shortly.

After 2 failures (May & August) Dad's BigY results finally arrived last week.

Y-DNA Haplogroup:     
Previous: R-M198      
Updated: R-BY24975

I received more information about my paternal line from Meir Halevi Gover.

"Welcome to the R1a-Levite Haplogroup. It is now confirmed at close to
100% certainty that your patronymic male line, genetic son after genetic son
 is both Jewish and Levite."

"At this stage I can tell you that plusebly at the 14th-15th Cen. CE., your
patronymic male ancestor Pellack-Pollak, resided in the
Prague, Czech, Jewish Ghetto. From there he immigrated eastwards to Poland where he picked up his surname and thereafter to Ukraine."

"From within the cadre of men who undertook the BigY test, Your father ... 
shares a circa 15th Cen. C.E. Common Ancestor with: .... 
I put the venue of this Forefather-Grand Zeide of all you above 6 (you included), 
in the Prague, Czech Jewish Ghetto, or vicinity. In the middle of the 18 Cen.,
this line was expelled eastwards due to the anti-Jewish Deportation Decree, 
of antisemitic Austrian Queen Maria Theresa."

I now have a place and time to research looking for more information on my father's paternal line. 

I haven't yet spent any real time looking at dad's yDNA results.

I have spent a lot of time looking at our autosomal results trying to place the close connections we have that are 100% Jewish. 

One of those matches (last name Render) Ancestry predicts as 1st cousin 1x removed, 2nd cousin, or half 1st cousin 1x removed. 

This person descends from Edenbridge - the Jewish community near the homestead of my great grandparents.

I had been wondering if the connection could be a female relative of Alexander's not yet identified, but noticed a Render match of mine on 23&Me had an ancestral yDNA in the correct ancestral family.

This leads me to look at the male to male family lines in that tree in relation to mine and not the maternal lines.

23&Me has placed 2 Render cousins in my family tree as the great grandchildren of Alexander's parents.

The Render family trees I have found do not place Mikihor or Mary anywhere in their trees

At this time I can not place the matches exactly, but have created a floatiing tree within my own tree on Ancestry awaiting the connection.

With all this new information I decided it was time I understood where my family originated from so began researching.

The Jewish Ghetto of Prague was not a part I had ever known as my family story.

"In 1096, the community was attacked by Crusaders, and hundreds of Jews were murdered. The community as a whole was again attacked during the siege of the Prague Castle in 1142 when the oldest synagogue in Prague and sections of the Jewish Quarter were burned down.
After the siege, Jews were required to live on the right bank of the Vltava in an area that eventually became Prague's Jewish ghetto, the Josefov. During this time, Jews were very limited in their movements. By day the doors to the ghetto were open, but in the evening and on festivals, the gates of the ghetto were locked.
The situation did not improve in the early 13th century. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council mandated that Jews must wear distinctive clothes, were prohibited from holding public office, and were limited in the amount they could charge for interest on loans. Catholic antisemitism was the norm for the Jews of Prague.
Things began to change at the end of the 13th century under King Otakar II. He issued a Royal Charter in 1254, which stated that the Jews were protected as money lenders and servants of the king and were required to pay high taxes and occasional supply loans to the royal treasury. More importantly, regarding the prevalent Christian antisemitism, the Royal Charter protected the Jews from persecution. It refuted the blood libel myth, prohibited violence against Jews, their property, synagogues, and cemeteries, and outlawed all forced baptisms in the kingdom...........
As was so often the case for the Jews of Europe, there were times of stability and times of horrific antisemitism. Jews knew not to get too comfortable, for history had shown them that expulsion or attacks could be just around the corner.
Prague was devastated by a pogrom in 1389. On Easter that year, which coincided with Passover, Jews were accused of “vandalizing the eucharistic wafer” and, as a result, 3,000 Jewish men, women, and children were cruelly murdered in the streets, homes, and synagogues of the ghetto. One of the few survivors, the great Torah Scholar Rabbi Avigdor Kara (whose tomb is preserved in the Old Jewish Cemetery), saw his father murdered. He wrote a moving prayer, "Es kol ha-tela'ah" describing the attack, which is read yearly in Prague on Yom Kippur. In the aftermath of the pogrom, many Jews fled Prague for Poland and Hungary........
The devastation of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) brought mixed fortune for the Jews of Prague. On the one hand, Emperor Ferdinand II, desperate for economic support in the war, took great pains to ensure the safety of the Jews. Although his troops ransacked Prague after the Battle of White Mountain, the emperor prohibited them from harming the Jewish Quarter and even had guards posted outside their homes. To the Jews of Prague, this was nothing short of a miracle. To commemorate this momentous event, they established the 14th of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan - the day the invasion began - as a Purim of Prague....
After the Thirty Years' War, measures were taken by the state authorities to reduce the number of Jews and to segregate them more strictly in a ghetto. Implementation of these measures was prevented in 1680 by an outbreak of plague, which took the lives of more than 3,500 Jews."   1  

"In 1729 there was a census of the Jewish population and of the buildings of the ghetto. 333 dwelling houses inhabited by 2,335 families and 30 public buildings were registered. One of the unpleasant restrictive measures of the period prohibited anyone other than a first-born son to start a family, as the permitted number of Jewish families in the whole country was strictly limited and was not to be exceeded.
During the reign of Maria Theresa, in December 1744, there was a new attempt at dealing with the problem of the Jewish population in a radical way by means of their expulsion from Prague and the entire Kingdom of Bohemia. An alleged cooperation of the Jews with the enemy during the Prussian occupation of Prague in the autumn of that year was the pretext for the above plan. The exodus, however, did not prove to be easy due to various financial and business connections. Nevertheless, by mid 1745 all inhabitants of the Jewish ghetto had to leave Prague. Some of them settled in the nearby Libeň Quarter and other hamlets in the vicinity of Prague. There they lived until 1748, to witness the revocation of the expulsion order. They found their houses in the ghetto, which had been vacant for two years, looted. Soon after the renovation had been completed and life in the Jewish Town started to function normally again, a fire of 1754 destroyed 190 houses of the ghetto. The synagogues, the Town Hall and the hospital also burnt down."  2

It was the information quoted above that led to this week's blog with the prompt FIRE.

In addition to the actual fires impacting my family of origin, yDNA has lit a fire under my need to focus on this part of the Bramble Bush.

Receiving yDNA results was the first time I heard the term Levite Jewish.

"Levites are descendants of the tribe of Levi, one of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel. The Levites served as ritual caretakers of the Temple. ...

Levitical status is passed through the male line. A boy is a Levite if his father was, and a girl whose father was a Levite is called “bat levi.” In American Conservative Judaism, a bat levi performs the same roles a levite would in a synagogue service. Although the children of a bat levi are not considered levites, they are still exempt from pidyon haben."  3

Even though we would have been exempt - I present my firstborn 

The Jewish Levite descendency ends with me - I can't pass it to my children.

When you find a missing part of your family history that comes to a end just when you find it!!! 

This is why I search - 

Cause ... 

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!

***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***

Footnotes:

1  The Jewish History of Prague. Aish Jerusalem. Leving, Rabbi Menachem. Retrieved October 15th from 
https://aish.com/the-jewish-history-of-prague/

2  The Jewish Town - Josefov.  Old postcards of Prague. PhDr. KATEŘINA BEČKOVÁ. Retrieved October 15th from
https://www.old-prague.com/history-prague-jewish-town-josefov.php

3 Levites Today. Even after the Temple's destruction, Levites enjoy some unique ritual privileges. My Jewish Learning. Retrieved October 15th from
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/levites/

Sources:

A Beginner’s Guide to Y-DNA testing. By Al McLeod and Mark MacLeod. Associated Clan MacLeod Societies.  Retrieved October 15th 2025 from
https://www.clanmacleod.org/genealogy/dna-project/a-beginners-guide-to-y-dna-testing/

The Jewish History of Prague. Aish Jerusalem. Leving, Rabbi Menachem. Retrieved October 15th from 
https://aish.com/the-jewish-history-of-prague/

The Jewish Town - Josefov.  Old postcards of Prague. PhDr. KATEŘINA BEČKOVÁ. Retrieved October 15th from
https://www.old-prague.com/history-prague-jewish-town-josefov.php

Levite. Ancient Israelite history. Encyclopedia Brittanica. Retrieved October 15th 2025 from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Levite

Levites Today. Even after the Temple's destruction, Levites enjoy some unique ritual privileges. My Jewish Learning. Retrieved October 15th from
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/levites/

MEIR Halevi GOVER, Genetic Genealogist. Retrieved October 15th 2025 from 
https://buffalo.academia.edu/MeirGGover

Y chromosome DNA tests. International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki. Retrived October 15th 2025 from
https://isogg.org/wiki/Y_chromosome_DNA_tests

Photos:

Personal

Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

______________________________________________________________

Father & Son ~ Explosion At Work

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020 Week 15 (FIRE)


It was a Thursday.
January 19th 1905 when Michael Aspden went to work at the sawmill in Cultus, Ontario, Canada. He, like many of the local farmers, made extra money during the winter at sawmills. 

Whitehead's Sawmill, 1905

That day, like any other winter day, he probably said goodbye to his wife & children. Maybe he kissed his wife Maggie goodbye?  

Michael & Maggie (nee Murphy) Aspden
My husband's X2 great grandparents

Maybe his kids chased after him?  Maybe he left with a full heart?  Maybe he left worried about things?  What exactly he was thinking about we don't know.  

What we do know is that Michael went to work at the sawmill. He was working that day with his oldest child John, and third oldest child Tom.  He likely met them at work. 


By 1905 Tom likely was not living at home. In the 1901 census he was listed as  living nearby with the Fleming family. By 1905 he may have moved back home since he was not married. 

Oldest son John had gotten married just a few weeks before on December 28th to Jessie Burger. He and Jessie likely lived nearby as was typical of that era. Maybe John met up with Michael & Tom to go to work, or maybe he met them there.


The day likely began & progressed just like any other work day. Just before quitting time John bent over to pick something up off the floor. That moment would save his life. 


At about 5:00 p.m. the boiler at the sawmill exploded. Tom and coworkers Charles Hainer, and George McCallum were killed instantly.  Michael & Freeman Moffatt critically injured. 

Simcoe Reformer, January 27th 1905 

An Aspden family member wrote the following after hearing the stories at a family reunion. 
"We can imagine the horror of John when he straightened up and gaped at the wreckage around him. His younger brother, Thomas, was dead. So too was the hired help, Charles Hainer. At first glance, Michael was in shock, badly burnt, but looked like he was going to make it."1


It was 6 days later that Michael succumbed to the injuries he sustained that day. 

Thomas Aspden & Charles Hainer died instantly
Michael Aspden died from inernal injuries 6 days later

When I decided to write about Michael & Tom Aspden for this week's blog, using the prompt, FIRE I thought I knew the story well having heard it from my husband's aunt who had heard it from her father who was 21 at the time of the explosion that killed his father and brother. 


I found researching fairly difficult because of the errors and misspellings in the past. There were a lot of media articles that listed Tom as George Aspden. The name Aspden was spelled as Ashben, Aspben, and Ashpen, and other ways. Once I finally figured out the sawmill wasn't owned by Michael as the family believed, but was owned by a gentleman named George Whitehead, researching became a little easier. 


It was known as Whitehead's Sawmill. The family story only included two killed, and one injured. There was much of the tale that we didn't know.


The insurance company released the information below. It doesn't list Charles Hainer who was included in the death registration above. Nor does it list Michael as dying from the injuries.I wasn't able to find Charles Penard so it's possible that the Charles listed below is the same Charles listed above. Which name is the correct one can't be determined, but likely the burial information is correct. The death registration isn't fully correct since Charles' age was not 18. Charles. This burial record appears to be accurate:

Source: Ancestry.ca

"(36.) — A boiler exploded, on January 19, in Whitehead's sawmill, at Cultus,
a small town near Langdon, Ont. Charles Penard, George Aspden, George McCallum, and Freeman Moffat were killed, and George Whitehead, Michael Aspden, and Charles Whitehead were injured. The property loss is estimated

at $15,000." 2

Below is part of an entry I found in a local history book: 
"Another incident occurred at the Whitehead sawmill east of Fairground on December 19, 1904, when a steam boiler ran dry and someone tried to replace the water with the result that four men were killed and a fifth died on January 25, 1905. Four other men were injured. Charles. Hanner and Thomas Aspden were killed instantly, the latter by a brick driven through his skull. Freeman Moffatt of Cultus lived ten hours and George McCollom lived just a few minutes after being carried to the nearby boarding house. Michael Aspden died later in Langton on January 25, 1905. The injured were John L. Gee, Wally Whitehead and Allan Moffatt. Aspden was blown out of the fire hole about thirty feet beyond the west end of the mill. Wally Whitehead, nephew of John Whitehead, the owner of the mill, had just arrived on the scene when the explosion occurred and was hit by a flying object in the shoulder and arm, disabling his arm. John Aspden and Walter Stansell were the first to gather up the dead. The latter was mistaken for a doctor as he came upon the scene carrying a satchel." 3

After the explosion
Lower right of the photo is a hat - believed to be Michael Aspden's

In the photo above you will see a hat in the lower right. The family had been told it is Michael's hat. The family was told that Tom was decapitated. In the excerpt above it was described that a brick was driven through Tom's skull. It must have appeared to the family member who identified him that he had been decapitated. 


John was first to gather up the dead which included his father, brother, and colleagues. If he wouldn't have bent over right at that moment in time he too would have been injured or killed. His wife left a widow after only 22 days of marriage. His first child born 11 months later would never have been.  Like Tom's family line John's would have ended that day at work. 



In the book excerpt above the date of the explosion is wrong. After reading it I realized I needed to research this story more. I was able to confirm the date with the registration of Freeman Moffatt's death. I was not able to find George McCallum's death registration, but did find his death information on Find-A-Grave (sourced in the section below). Death records for both confirm the date of the explosion as January 19th 1905. 

Once the details were correct it was possible to find articles about the explosion. 

The Daily News, January 21st 1905

The Ottawa Journal, January 21st 1905

Manitoba Morning Free Press, January 21st 1905 

Toronto Daily Star, January 20th 1905

The Buffalo Times,  Jan 23rd 1905

The Windsor Star, January 20th 1905

When considering all the details presented the story passed down to the family regarding this tragic accident are mostly correct. The family's belief that the sawmill was owned by Michael Aspden isn't correct. I can find no connection between the owner George (or John or Charles) Whitehead and the Aspden family. 


There were 10 men working at the sawmill on the day the explosion happened. 5 were killed, 3 recovered from their injuries, and 2 were uninjured. 


The lack of safe work practices in the past is why we now have rules & legislation around safety at work. Everyone should come home at the end of their work day. 





Taking a moment to remember those who didn't come home from work in our Bramble Bush Family Tree. 






This is why I search - 



Cause ... 





You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
















***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***





Footnotes:

1 Our Aspden Roots In Lancashire, England: A Tradition of Stationary Engineers and Sawmills, Aspden, Murray Bruce.  Self published eBook, 2016, pg 4

2 The Locomotive, Vol. 25, The Hartford Steam Boiler Insepction and Insurance Company, The Case, Lockivood & Brainard Company Printers, Hartford, Connecticut, October 1905, pg 213   Retrieved April 14th 2020 from
https://archive.org/details/locomotive25hart/mode/2up

3 Sims' History of Elgin County Volume III.  Sims, Hugh Joffre. Elgin County Library St. Thomas, Ontario,  The Aylmer Express Ltd., Aylmer, Ontario, Canada, 1988, pg 160.  Retrieved April 12th 2020 from

https://inmagic.elgin.ca/ElginImages/archives/ImagesArchive/pdfs/REF15_Sims%20History%20of%20Elgin%20County%20Book%203.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0Ujt5P2b81GpcST5fBqzx6FLc39j24nNTvgJALmnYw8l3xLJiBw3J8qDo


Sources:

McCallum, George Thomas. Find-A-Grave, Retrieved April 12th 2020 from
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/109151264

News Articles unsourced belong to the newspaper who published them.

Our Aspden Roots In Lancashire, England: A Tradition of Stationary Engineers and Sawmills, Aspden, Murray Bruce.  eBook, 2016

Vital statistics records, Ontario, Canada, Ancestry.ca


Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

___________________________________________________________