Rivka Goldblatt of Manchester, England, is a professional genealogist, meaning she spends a lot of time studying her own and other people’s family trees, and even getting paid to do it
Rivka was bitten by the genealogy bug early in life, at age 15, when she started asking around in her own family to find out who her great-grandparents were and more details about her ancestors’ lives. Her family couldn’t understand her obsession, which has only grown since then.
Why does Mrs. Goldblatt find genealogy so fascinating when lots of other people might just yawn?
“The funny truth is that I’m not good at names,” she says. “I focus more on the family stories. When people talk about family trees, they aren’t just referring to the names on the tree, they’re talking about those stories. I call it ‘mishpachology.’”
Family trees don’t reveal much about how people lived. “Most documents say the what and the how and the where and the when, but don’t actually say the why,” she says.
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