Researcher 356066 contacted me through my registry at JewishGen, a website billed as “The Global Home for Jewish Genealogy.” Unbeknownst to me, that researcher named Yury was the great-grandson of my Granduncle Shmuel Murovanny.

In the infancy of JewishGen, I posted my ancestral family names and locations on the website. Only 349,990 researchers came between Yury and me.

On May 17, 2022, I posted a blog, “Here We Go Again,” at sharonmarkcohen.com. While reading it in preparation to send the written proof of our relationship to my newly surfaced cousin Yury, I choked up reading one particular paragraph, thinking that it must have been a premonition.

“Ten letters from Shmulik [Shmuel] and one from his son Leib, all penned 100 years ago, will certainly be something to discuss when we find their offspring. They’ll have a descriptive narrative of their ancestors … our ancestors, and their impoverished existence before WWII.”

While skeptical that this day would materialize, my motto, “patient perseverance,” paid off. The answer to my prayers for finding one of the two lost branches of our family began with that unexpected email I received from Yury in 2023.

The day Yury’s first note arrived we were in Ohio celebrating our granddaughter’s fourth birthday. Fortunately, my emails came along on my iPhone.

After the party, and tucking our granddaughter into bed, I sat reviewing my emails when suddenly I gulped. Never before in all the years listed on JewishGen have any questioners been able to make a firm connection. This time was different.

Yury posted all the matching details I had been seeking for decades. For over 35 years, I researched, found and met members of all but two branches of my grandfather’s large family.

An old cookie tin, stashed at the bottom of my aunt’s food pantry, held our family history. Included were letters from my Granduncle Shmuel, Yury’s great-grandfather, who remained in Ukraine for his entire life.

The background of the original family name “Murovanny,” which Shmuel used when signing that treasure chest of letters, was only explained by my cousin Alexey within the past year. Alexey, born and bred in Charkov, Ukraine, and now residing in Germany, had a close relationship with his paternal grandmother—a first cousin to my father.

In 1935, Alexey’s grandmother, whose parents, as my grandparents, were first cousins before marriage, changed the family name to be less Jewish-sounding. They took the name of Muravin for the men and Muravina for the women.

My grandfather Nathan and his brother Louis emigrated from Chudnov, Ukraine, within the first 14 years of the 20th century. Nathan settled in Newark, New Jersey, and Louis in Philadelphia. Later, joined by their wives and children, they all Americanized the family name to Mark.

Minimalists beware: Correspondence from relatives in the old country, dated before 1935, which my aunt so intuitively saved, confirmed the original family name as Murovanny. Knowing that name, a far cry from “Mark,” was how I made the connection to Yury when he first wrote that coveted email to me at 11:55 PM:

“From researcher code 356066

“To researcher code 6076

“My grandmother was from Polonnoye, Ukraine. Her maiden name was Murovanny. Her parents were Samuil and Bracha. She lived in Starokonstantinov, Ukraine after the war. My mother remembers going to Chudnov to visit my grandmother’s uncle. Please share any information you have.”

Imagine my shock and thrill when reading those words.

Our email conversation continued in rapid-fire. In the past, mutual relatives with knowledge of others from our clan gave me clues for my research. Often, finding one long-lost cousin led to finding another. Unlike other cousins I’ve met since 1994, who emigrated from Ukraine, this time, none of us had any idea the other existed. Shmuel’s family is the only branch I never expected to meet when, miraculously, our contact came through social media.

The letters saved by my aunt held the key. After hand-delivering them to my cousin Harry Langsam, z”l, in Los Angeles to translate, we learned that Bronya’s mother existed. Unfortunately, there was no living relative to make the introduction to any of her possible descendants. Instead, with no idea there were relatives in America, Yury found me.

The true beauty is that the correspondence my aunt saved survived. Amazingly, letters from every branch of my grandparents’ large family exist. Because of those heart-wrenching letters, we can tell the direct descendants more about how their ancestors … our ancestors, lived.

The greatest gifts I could ever give newly found cousins include letters from ancestors and awareness of our family history. A gruesome occurrence that happened before Bronya was born is that Shmuel’s eldest son Leib (aka Lev) survived the war, but his wife and three children, Shmuel’s grandchildren, perished. Bronya knew her aunt and female cousin living in Israel, but not that they were his “new” family. What I learned is that Shmuel’s next two sons went missing in action in WWII.

Yury learned about our family in an 18-part blog post series on my website. After reading that, he wrote, “I’m reading your blogs over and over to get a better understanding of our family. It’s a lot to take in!”

Along with the email, Yury attached two handwritten notes his grandmother wrote in Russian that he thought may interest me. Those notes, with names and addresses of Bludoy relatives, were our matching link. About 25 years ago, after contacting the Bludoys, we drove to their home in North Carolina, where they invited us to stay a few days.

One of the younger Bludoy cousins was in medical school in New York. While we never met, we spoke on the telephone. Decades later, Yury, also in the medical field, met Dr. Bludoy at work and wondered if he could be a cousin.

Almost magically, Yury first contacted me on our granddaughter’s 4th birthday, and it was on our grandson’s 4th birthday, 15 months later, back in Ohio celebrating, when Yury contacted me to firm up a date to meet in early August.

Allowing us to get the most out of our meeting, Yury, his mother and brothers arrived without their spouses or children. As much as I wanted to meet the entire crew, it was a wise decision. They could immerse themselves in the memorabilia I was eager to share.

As I watched my cousins leafing through the notebook of letters from their direct ancestors, plus those from our extended family from Chudnov and the surrounding area in Ukraine, I was filled with emotion. I then pointed to the wall in our dining room where pictures of the ship my father arrived on with my grandmother and uncle, along with various documents and family photographs, are hanging. It’s an added thrill when relatives from abroad read the documents in their native language.

Upon sharing the news of that special day with members of the Chudnov Children Facebook Group, one of the first people to “like” the note was our cousin, who still lives in Chudnov today. Emailing cousins around the world brought meaningful replies.

After sending the pictures of our meeting to our cousin in Sochi, Russia, she wrote, “I was very excited to look at the photos of your meeting with Shmuel’s family. I will tell you honestly, I was upset that I was not with you at that moment.” She added, “How I want to find the Roytmans!” That discovery will connect our final link of the family of seven children from my great-grandparents who married in Chudnov, Ukraine, on October 30, 1863.

About our meeting, Yury wrote, “It was really amazing seeing you and Arnie today. My mother was so happy as well. It meant a lot to her. I think she’s still in disbelief seeing her mother’s and grandmother’s letters.

“I realized we have something very important in common that is directly responsible for us finding each other. When you were explaining to Roman how you got so interested in your ancestry, you said it was because you felt something missing since you did not get to meet any of your grandparents. I have had the same empty feeling since I was a child because I did not get to see any of my grandparents either. That void left by our grandparents resulted in a lifelong interest and research. Thank you for being so welcoming and thank you for filling part of that void today.”

I could not help but reply, “Yury, I’m filled with emotion. I know we only met today but I love you all so much. The letters, our family history, being together … it’s a miracle. May we share many happy times. There must be dancing going on in heaven. Maybe that’s what the thunderstorm is about!;-).”

That’s the way long-lost cousins weaved their way into my life. To think—I hold the Murovanny family history. It’s truly a miracle, but we were destined to be together. It only took a century.

Sharon Mark Cohen, MPA, believes everyone deserves a legacy. Follow her at sharonmarkcohen.com