Welcome!

This website has been a labor of love. It includes all the information I have up to date on the following families: Leferson, Levison, Levisson, Leiwensohn, Samiljan, Spetter, Krakofsky, Kukawka, Wapnicki, Van der Linde, Wapnitsky, Simon, Handleson, and others! I hope you enjoy reading about our family. Please feel free to send any data that is missing or incomplete at this time and I will include it in the next revision. Please register for a user account through the link above in order to access all the information. I would love to know you’ve been here!

Our Histories

Meet Our Family

Josephine Weir 1878-1953

Our Pages

Below you will find our favorite resource pages.

• Find a Grave
• Ships
• Ancestry
• Coming to America
• Fold3 - Military Records

Discover Our Family

Nathan Leiwensohn

Born 20 August 1819 in Klykolai, Lithuania; Died 12 June 1894 in Amsterdam, Noord Holland, The Netherlands. Nathan was my paternal great-grandfather. Nathan and his wife Frama (Jetta) Kaplan (1834-1906) brought their children Anna, Mozes, and David to the Netherlands in 1888 and settled in Amsterdam. The youngest of the three, David Leiwensohn, was my paternal grandfather.

Joe and Pearl Leferson

Joe (1914-2011) met Pearl (1917-2015) on a blind date when she was only 15. Her friend “Red” Barrish “fixed her up” with her boyfriend’s buddy, who turned out to be Joe. They fell in love and married on 24 November 1938 by twin cantors on a very snowy day. They were married for nearly 72 years when Joe (my dad) passed away from heart disease and diabetes. I never heard them argue. They walked hand in hand to the candy store on the first snow of the year, every single year of their marriage. They were truly in love. They were my parents.

Etta Krakofsky (nee Kukawka/Kukofsky)

Etta (1897-1960) was born in Grajewo, Poland, & died in Stamford, CT, USA. She was the 4th of 12 children born to Jona (Jacob) Kukawka/Kukofsky (1872-1915) & Szejna (Jennie) Wapnicka/Wapnitsky (1876-1939). She emigrated to America (Ellis Island) on the ship s.s. Rijndam with her family in 1906 when she was 9 years old. Etta was my maternal grandmother. She and Jack Krakofsky married in 1916 when she was 19 years old, and Jack was 22. My grandma was an amazing cook. She made wonderful chicken soup and kreplach with her own noodles! I often watched her make them. Grandma stayed with us when she was dying of lymphoma. She was only 62 when she died. Grandpa was devastated. Hers was the first funeral I ever attended.

Rachel Levison-Levie

My paternal grandmother. Rachel Levie (1874-1937) was born in Etten Leur, The Netherlands. She met David Leiwensohn (1872-1941), my grandfather, when she was visiting Amsterdam and saw him in the Queen’s Guard. She offered him half her sandwich, and they married in 1897. They had 7 children before leaving the Netherlands for America. David left first, and then returned for Rachel & their 6 children. (Philip died as an infant) They lived in New York & then moved to Point Pleasant Beach, NJ, where the last 3 children were born. The second to the last was my dad Joseph, born in 1914.

The Bones of My Bones

The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943.

On the photo: 4th row: Jacob Leferson, Nickolas Leferson, 3rd row: Great-grandma Pearl Krakofsky Leferson, 2nd row: Benjamin Bernstein, Nathan Speert and front row: Abigail Bernstein, Hannah Speert