It all started with an old photo album. Marcia Kaufman was helping her mother (Lois Sipe) clean out the attic of Lois’ home, when she found an old velvet covered photo album that was in the pile to be thrown away. The album was falling apart, but quite unique. It contained a small mirror on the front and was sitting on a stand as household decoration. But when it was unlatched and unfolded, it opened into a photo album filled with old black and white photos and tin-type pictures of people Marcia didn’t know. Lois didn’t know who many of the people were either, but she agreed to give the album to Marcia. The hunt was on, and she began talking to the older generation, beginning with her grandmother, Katherine Lehman. She began to fill in the blanks and discover the names and relationships of people in her family’s background, and her interest only increased from them.

Later, her sister Joyce gave Marcia a blank Family Tree book and began to work with her to fill in the gaps in their family’s story. The more they learned, the more questions they asked and Marcia became hooked on finding out more information. She spent many long days at the New Castle public library looking through the microfilm and searching for old deeds, marriage licenses, death certificates and census records. She began to track down older relatives to ask them what they remembered and to preserve those memories before they were forgotten. Marcia spent many an afternoon in cemeteries hunting for the old headstones of relatives that few people even remembered any more. And the more she uncovered, the more she wanted to know. She was hooked.

This site is an attempt to make Marcia’s work available to anyone who needs it.  It contains the stories, pictures and dates of hundreds of her ancestors, but it is far from a complete collection.  If you would like further information about any of the people you read about here, please contact Marcia by email at familygenie@hotmail.com.

Stan and Marcia Kaufman, 2007

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