Levinson/Reuben/Caplan Family Tree

This is the extended family tree of the Levinson/Reuben/Caplan families who immigrated from what is now Lithuania to Pittsburgh in the late 1800s. It also includes my children's ancestors on my father's side and via my wife (Seltman, McIntyre, Stewart, MacLeod and Huggins).

The information shown comes from family lore (including Aaron Levinson's book, If Only Now Could Be Forever) and various public record searches. It is very incomplete! If you can fill in maiden names, birth dates and cities, death dates and cities, marriage dates and cities, divorce dates and cities, immigration dates and ports of exit and entry, naturalization dates and cities, photos, missing parents or children or siblings, etc., please email the additions (or corrections) to hseltman@stat.cmu.edu. Please include the source of the information.

Please do not create any public links to this web page. It is intended for use only by the people listed in the tree.

Note: As you navigate away from these instructions, you will find a "home" link to return to them.

On the left side, you can see a hierarchical list of all people on file, but this is not a true family tree. Everyone can be found somewhere on the left side, but each person is listed under only one ancestor by the program I am using (in a manner that is not very obvious). Click the "plus signs" on the left to expand the tree. As you do, the "tree" will expand along that branch (and other expanded branches will collapse again), and you will see information on the right side about an individual.

From any person's record on the right side you can move to their parents, spouse, or children by clicking on the dark red links. You can use also use the Name Index or Surname Index as alternate ways to find people. Use the Contact link to get my contact information.

Note that I am using the "genealogy standard" form in which women are listed under their maiden names. Unknown maiden names are replaced by married surnames in parentheses. When two people have the same name I've put the birth year in parentheses, with father's first initial if they are in the same generation.

A true tree view is available if you have the the Adobe Flash Player loaded on your computer. Try opening it in a new window (right-click option).

Latest additions:
1905 Incorporation Agreement between Levinson, Schubb,and Caplan (under James) 3/15/06
Samuel Levinson recollections by Jeannie Miller 10/31/06
More census records for Sam, Rose, Aaron, June Levinson 10/31/06
Herskovitz family 10/18/06
Grollman/Steinbach families 10/14/06

Have fun getting to know your Ancestors!

Howard Seltman

Name Index Surname Index Contact

Here is some information about data sources:

• Census records are (copies of) handwritten tabulations of information obtained by census takers when they talked directly to our relatives at home in 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930. By law census records are released 72 years after the census, so we will be able to see the 1940 census in 2012. Unfortunately the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire. And our ancestors all immigrated after 1880.
  Census records are great sources of birth year (and month for the 1900 census), address, family relationships, immigration year and status, occupation, education, and others. Looking at the names, nationalities, and occupations of the neighbors is fun and informative! Certainly census records are not perfect, but, for example, I trust the month and year of birth that James or Rachel Levinson gave for James in 1900 better than the age written on his death certificate by his son S.M. in 1917.
  The biggest downside to census records is the fact that they are handwritten, and the existing computer indices are based on human (mis)reading of these handwritten records. This means that the best way to find census data is to look directly at the microfilm after finding out which enumeration district our ancestor lived in at the time of the census.
  Look in the public library for microfilm or computer access or purchase a subscription to http://www.ancestry.com.
• City Directories were published yearly by a few different companies for most cities in the US from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. They contain listings of heads of households, addresses, occupations, and some company information. They help to establish relationships based on who lived at the same address, and they give the addresses needed to find the census enumeration districts. The classified listings are useful for learning about the Company and its competitors. The Pennsylvania Room of the main building of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has microfilm of all of these.
• Phone Directories were published beginning around 1900, often two to three times per year. They are most useful because they give the addresses needed to find the census enumeration districts. The classified listings are useful for learning about the Company and its competitors.
• Immigration records like those at http://www.ellisisland.org tell who immigrated when, on what ship, and possibly occupation, city or country of origin, US contact person, number of pieces of luggage, etc. Records before 1897 are often unavailable or destroyed. Other immigration records can be found at http://www.ancestry.com, either by subscription or through your public library. A nice free search page is http://stevemorse.org.
• You can order Pennsylvania birth and death certificates for a small fee at PA Vital Records. For all states you can use the alternative, computerized service vitalchek.com,
• Estate records can be located using microfilm in the Pennsylvania room, then the originals can be examined at the City County Building, Registrar of Wills.
• Another useful source for Jewish genealogy is JewishGen.

Technical notes:
This web page is created from Legacy genealogy software plus GedTree (freeware from Mark Lawrence). The true tree view is created with GreatFamily software,

Detail easily forgotten: To export from Legacy to GedTree, choose Export, then change "Produce file for" to "GEDCOM 5.5 Only", then click "Customize" and select "Break note lines between words (old style)". Then click the "START EXPORT" button.

To create the files for the web pages, Run Gedtree, use the File menu to open the gedcom file, then click the "Generate HTML" button. Copy these files to the appropriate web space (remembering to refresh the source file directory).

I have several useful customizations of the Gedtree output: