Visiting the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, inspired me to find out more about my ancestors. In the past, I’ve always come up empty — Ellis Island, Yad Vashem, every database all those millions of names, and I’d never found so much as one forebear.
Irving Berlin’s descendants at the Red Star Line Museum, Antwerp. PHOTO BY JILL SCHENSUL
Just before going to the museum for the second time, I put my Grandma Julie’s name into google, along with “Irving Berlin.” I knew that my grandmother had been an accomplished pianist and had played with either Berlin or the Gershwins. Since the descendants of Berlin, who had come to America on the Red Star Line, would be speaking at the museum that day, I thought I’d try to find something — anything — that might refer to Juliette Schensul and one of the famous musicians. Maybe an old newspaper item, or an anecdote in an obit.
I didn’t, but I did find Grandma Julie in ancestry.com. I can’t tell you how excited I was, after so many years of looking, to find her – find our name — listed somewhere. I realize some of you are old hands at your genealogy, that you may have put together family trees extensive enough to qualify as forests. Me? My parents were always vague, most of my grandparents died when I was little, and I had few clues. But I’d wager ancestry-tracking neophyte or veteran, the thrill of unearthing those tangible connections to the past is pretty much the same.
I didn’t find out if Grandma Julie ever played “Chopsticks” or “Heart and Soul” with Irving, Ira or George during that quick Web search before coming to the museum. But once I got there, armed with evidence that Grandma Julie was in the records, and the name Schensul was spelled then the way it’s spelled today, I hoped to find out more via the database at the Red Star Line Museum.
Several people were already sitting at computer stations in the research room, typing in their family names and hunting through passenger lists. While waiting for one of the stations to open up, I noticed another interactive exhibit, showing an old-fashioned, grainy-style film loop of the emigrant experience.
One of the museum staff encouraged me to sit down, and showed me how it worked. A built-in camera takes a photo of your face, and after choosing male or female, your face gets plugged into an avatar clad in men’s or women’s clothing. Then off you go, up the gangplank, boarding a RSL ship, waving goodbye to life as you knew it, and embarking on a journey to the New World.
Kind of like traveling in the footsteps of your ancestors — though I trust no matter how awful the conditions, they looked better than I do in this little video. Check it out here.