These Family Trees serve two purposes:
- To record Craig's story.
- To kindle a flickering flame of remembrance for those family members long since forgotten and for whom there is nobody left to grieve. Many lie in desecrated tombs or in mass graves in the killing forests and ravines on the outskirts of their towns and villages in Eastern Europe.
To view the Family Tree diagrams, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader if you don't already have it installed.
The links below lead to family tree diagrams which have been condensed so to read them you will have to increase their size using the drop down box.
In due course, the full family tree will be available on the website with details and many photographs of Craig's ancestors as well as, in some cases, their houses and gravestones.
Paternal Family Tree
Craig's Ancestors
This diagram traces Craig's ancestry through the different Paternal branches. Craig's father, Graeme, with his sister Linda and wife Helen made three journeys to Latvia and Lithuania to uncover the family roots, each time making new discoveries.
It was on the second last day of the third visit, after 300 relatives had been identified, that Craig was tragically killed in the motor accident.
He takes his place on the family tree but was never able to see it himself.
The more detailed family trees of each paternal branch can be accessed by using the links below.
Levin
Craig gets his name from the Levins of Telz (Telsiai) in Western Lithuania. Records were traced back to 1745. Many Levins managed to escape the Russian pogroms at the end of the 19th Century and are now scattered throughout the world. Jankel (Jack) Levin, Craig's great grandfather, escaped to South Africa.
Hillman
Craig's grandfather's mother, Yetta (Gertie) Hillman came from a poor family in Kurland in West Latvia (Sabile, Telsas, Kuldiga). Some of the family lived in Libau (Liepaiya) on the Latvian coast before leaving Eastern Europe for South Africa where they prospered. Selig, Hirsh and Wolf Hillman were successful in business and became great philanthropists.
The graves of Craig's great-great grandmother, Basha Hillman, and her daughter, Hanna, can still be found in the Libau cemetery. The Hillman house is still standing at #6 Staraya Prudovoya Street, now called Diku Street.
Kapelovich
Craig's grandmother's father, Shalom Aron Kapelovich (Arthur Cooper) came from a small village, Pokroy (Pokrojas) in Northern Lithuania. He stowed away on a ship at the age of 14 and ended up in Cape Town, South Africa. Of his entire family, only he survived. All others remained in Lithuania and perished in the Holocaust.
Margolis
Craig's grandmother's mother, Rebecca (Ray) Margolis, came from a wealthy family in Riga, the capital of Latvia. She went to South Africa as a young woman in 1914 where she married Arthur Cooper.
Her sister Dveira Margolis also left Riga before World War II, but the rest of the family perished in the Holocaust. Dveira married Itska-Hirsh Katz, and later with their son Selig and his wife Abigail, escaped to Kyrgystan returning after the war to Riga with their baby, Isaak Katz who now lives in Calgary Canada. In 2005, at the age of 61, Graeme discovered the existence of Isaak who was also 61. They met in March 2006 in Calgary for the first time. Isaak's son, Lee, lives in Ottawa.
Two homes and a number of commercial buildings of Reuven Margolis, Rebecca's brother, still stand in Riga.
