Paul Edmund King’s family genealogical research commenced in 2000 focusing upon ancestors in Bohemia and the Rhineland. His interests turned to historical contexts and events touching directly on the lives of ancestors such as participation in Napoleon’s Moscow Campaign (1812) and the American Civil War encounter (1863) between the Monitor and the Merrimac.

Paul has also written on the role of serendipity in genealogical research and the onomastic significance of a family name.

He is a fourth-generation Canadian, now four decades in Jerusalem, married with two married children.

“Indians, Metis and Jewish Fur Traders: Shaping the North American Frontier” (Sun-159), 1:30-2:45 P.M.

The early North American Jewish fur trader was a pioneer in pushing the frontier westward by drawing upon the traditional ancestral trades of military provisioning, rural peddling, and urban merchandising.

This presentation, combining the micro-history of family genealogy and the macro-history of continental expansion, illustrates the dynamics of religious survival and assimilation among three would-be family dynasties: the Solomons and Harts of Quebec and the Gratzes of Pennsylvania.

Patriotism and partnerships often fluctuated with patents for land access or purchase; large families, with widespread intermarriage, inevitably disconnected, but some retained the memory of the stem ancestor over the generations.

This paper draws not only upon an ample and expanding literature about Jews engaged in ‘the Indian trade’, but also upon the author’s recent correspondence with descendants of two of these families.

Topics: Immigration and migration over the ages, Jewish history and culture