After extensive research that resulted in finding the Hirsch family, we decided to try and understand why Celia Porudominskaite was never mentioned in our family before. We assume it could be from a disapproval of the marriage of Celia to William in such a short time frame, or maybe it was because Celia left her family in Palestine and immigrated to America after less than 18 months of arriving to Palestine. This will remain an unknown story, as no one really knows what happened between the Porudominskaite sisters.

Celia (Tziva/Zivian/Civi) Porudominskaite & Chava Porudominskaite

With the help of the Hirsch family, who sent us a copy of Celia’s Lithuanian passport, we tried to organise the timeline of events. This information helped us understand how long Celia spent in Palestine before she migrated to America.

We don’t know exactly when Celia arrived in Palestine. Her Lithuanian passport indicated that she received a visa to Palestine on the 12th of February 1934. It also indicated that she was allowed to stay in Palestine for two years from the 25th of September 1935 to the 17th of October 1937. During her time in Palestine she met an American citizen named William Hirsch. They got married on the 21st of May, 1935 in Tel-Aviv. Chava and Leonas Korbrinas arrived in Palestine only after this event took place, on the 29th of December 1935. Celia received her American Visa on the 22nd of April 1936 and on the 30th of July 1936 she left Palestine from the port of Haifa to Napoli. From there she embarked on the Vulcania passenger ship to America on the 4th of August 1936. She arrived to Ellis Island on the 18th of August 1936 and stayed with her brother in law Max Hirsch in Long Branch, New Jersey. She was 31 years old and pregnant. William remained in Palestine and joined her in February 1937.

Could it be that the family in Palestine disapproved this marriage, and therefore the sisters were not in touch all those years? According to the letters we found, the Hirsch couple sent letters to Leonas and Mina Kobrinas and asked how Chava was, suggesting that they might have been in touch in 1945, though we don’t know if Chava and/or Leonas responded to those letters. We could not find any evidence of letter exchange before or after 1945.

Chava Kobrinas died on January 29th, 1948 from cancer. She was 55 years old. Celia did not attend her sister’s funeral. However, her son Irving still remembers that she was very sad of her sister’s passing when she heard about it. Did the family lose touch after that? This will also remain a mystery. Celia Porudominskaite died January 25th, 1974 at the age of 69.

While searching for more unknown family stories, we decided to send a DNA sample to My Heritage thinking it might increase the chance of finding lost/new family members. We also filled in our extensive family tree online and discovered an incredible amount of documents from archives including passports, letters and photos.

This year, after discovering the Hirsch family, Irving and his daughter Ziva, both had their DNA samples sent to My Heritage. In March 2019, we all received the results that indeed confirmed that we are all family members. What an amazing discovery to have found new family members we never knew existed before.

We also discovered more information about the Porudominskaite family which included five additional siblings, which we never heard about: Ber (DOB 1893), Tzodik (DOB 1899), Golda Frieda Minker (born Porduminski, DOB 1895), Dveira (born Porduminski, DOB 1897), Riva (born Porduminski, DOB 1898). This information was given to us by Carole Vogel, who claims that they were all part of our family. Is it true? If yes, where did they all disappear? Are they really related to our family? We are currently researching this information and hope to find some new insights soon.

The search continues…

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