Edited by David Parry Rubincam

1 January 2000

INTRODUCTION TO THE RUBINCAM FAMILY ANCESTRY

Welcome to the Rubincam Family Ancestry.  My father, Milton Rubincam (26 March 1909 - 9 September 1997), felt that genealogy should be for everyone; accordingly, this copy of his genealogical collection is being made available to the public.  Milton  Rubincam was, at the time of his death, the countryís greatest genealogist; the only two who might have been better, Don Jacobus and John Coddington, having passed on before, Jacobus in 1970 and Coddington in 1991.  My fatherís uncle, Albert Rittenhouse Rubincam, got him interested in genealogy while he was still a teenager.  His interest flamed into an obsession, and Dad spent the next 70 years amassing a huge amount of genealogical information.  Naturally, he was most interested in his own family and that of my mother, Priscilla (Teasdale) Rubincam.  The following 30,000 pages are his extraordinary personal collection pertaining to his own and his wifeís families. 

ORGANIZATION OF THE RUBINCAM FAMILY ANCESTRY

Presumably you, the reader, want to look up families related to your own, in which case it is necessary to understand the organization of the Rubincam Family Ancestry. There are 165 volumes.  Each volume corresponds to the material in a three-ring binder in my father's original collection.   Families for the most part are listed alphabetically, regardless of whether they belong to my father's (Rubincam) side of the family or my mother's (Teasdale). Several families might be collected in a single volume.   Volume 2, for instance, gives 7 familes: Anderson*, von Biedenfeld, Blossom*, Broadwell*, von Bülzingslöwen, Buttall*, and Buzby.  The asterisk (*) means that that family is ancestral to Priscilla (Teasdale) Rubincam.  In this case, she is related to Anderson, Blossom, Broadwell, and Buttall.  Families without asterisks come in on my father's side; in Volume 2 these are von Biedenfeld, von Bülzingslöwen, and Buzby. 

Where there was a lot of material, one family might be spread across several volumes; Barnhurst* (volumes 3, 4, and 5) is an example, and there are many others.  A given family is divided into what I call books. Barnhurst*, for instance, is divided into 3 books:  Book 1 is subtitled "England," Book 2 "Pedigree and Genealogy," and  Book 3 "The United States."  Where a given book was too big to fit into a single binder it was divided into parts, which are labeled A, B, C, etc.  Book 5 of Teasdale* is an example: the material on my mother's father William Carey Teasdale, Jr. being divided into Book A and Book B (volumes 157 and 158).  Other books about the Teasdale* family are also divided into parts; so while there are 7 books devoted to the Teasdales, they actually occupy 10 volumes in all (numbers 151-160).  Most of the volumes are divided into chapters; these correspond to where my father used dividers in his three-ring binders.  The subject of each chapter is listed on the title page of each volume.  These are numbered and are in ordinary, non-bolded typeface.  Volume 25 on the Eckel family, for instance, has 2 chapters, with Chapter 1 entitled "Indiana Branch," and Chapter 2 "Wilmington Branch."  An aqua-colored page divides each chapter in all the volumes.  These colored pages were chosen to help the reader find the proper chapter, and to aesthetically break up the endless sea of white paper. 

Sometimes within a volume my father listed individuals alphabetically.  In the latter part of Volume 145, for example, he listed various Sutherlands: Alexander, Ann, Barbara, Benjamin, Donald, and so on. For each individual, I have tried to arrange the material in chronological order as the best way to get a coherent picture of that person's life. Hence the arrangement of material in the collection does follow a certain logic, and I would ask that anything removed from a volume be returned to its original place. 

While the overall arrangement of the collection is mainly alphabetical, my father often grouped related families together.  For instance, he grouped a number of female lines of the Rubincam-Revercomb family together, so that  Berkheimer, Bonner, Colliday, etc. will not be found in their strictly alphabetical place, but rather in Volume 117 under "Rubincam-Revercomb--Female Lines."  Likewise, the Phimisters, cousins to my father on his mother's side, will not be found among the "P's" in Volume 83, but rather under Haines, in volume 38 and in volumes 40-42.

Nearly all the volumes are paginated consecutively from 1 to whatever the final page is.  In most volumes, the logo "Rubincam Family Ancestry by Milton Rubincam" appears in the lower right corner of each page, followed by the page number, regardless of what the original page number of a document might be, or who the author of the document was.  The idea of consecutive pagination is that, in case the pages accidentally get disordered, they can be rearranged in their proper sequence.

YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY

Because of the way my father organized the Rubincam Family Ancestry, your search strategy should begin with the Index which appears in this volume immediately following this Introduction.  The Index does list in strictly alphabetical order all of the families listed in the Table of Contents, plus some other major families, together with where they can be found in the collection.   Your second choice is to page through the Table of Contents, also given in this volume.  The Table of Contents consists of the cover sheets for all 165 volumes.  Your third choice is to plow through the collection.

PERMISSION TO COPY MATERIAL FROM THE RUBINCAM FAMILY ANCESTRY

This collection was reproduced for research purposes only.  Since my father wanted his collection to be used by anyone interested in their ancestry, permission is hereby granted to reproduce those parts of the Rubincam Family Ancestry which the researcher needs, under the following stipulations: the material must not already be covered under previous

restrictive copyright provisions; and there is to be no wholesale copying of the collection, especially for commercial purposes, without permission of the Rubincam family.  Further, for the parts my father wrote, the logo at the right-hand bottom of the page should appear on the copy, so as to give him proper credit for all the hard work he put in on his collection. His portions are easy to identify: with the rarest exceptions, Dad numbered pages at the top, with the page number in between dashes; i.e., -2-, -3-, etc.  Almost no other authors in his collection use this system.  In addition, he used a typewriter with a small font in the 1940's; these pages are also simple to pick out.  And when quoting him, credit should be given to my father and the Rubincam Family Ancestry, preferably with the volume and page number.

THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT THE RUBINCAM FAMILY ANCESTRY

Unfortunately because of macular degeneration, my father was legally blind the last eight years or so of his life. He could read text only with the aid of a camera-television device, which enlarged the letters until they became several inches tall; Dad essentially read one letter at a time.

His blindness caused two problems.  One was that, toward the end of his life, he decided to change his collection to new binders.  This was a good idea: the new binder had a permanently attached sleeve for the label on the spine, unlike the old binder, from which  the sleeve was easily detached.  However, he could not see very well, and in the process of changeover some of the material got out of order.  Clearly he intended chronological order for each person, and I have endeavored to restore this order where necessary.  And some documents are maddeningly incomplete. While he may never have possessed some of the missing pages, he may have accidently have discarded pages during his period of blindness, while others were presumably lost during the changeover to new binders.  I have tried to indicate where I think material is missing or made explanatory comments where necessary; these are handwritten within square brackets.

The second problem was mistakes in typing; he simply could not see the keyboard.  Despite this handicap, Dad gamely carried on, for he was a genealogist right to the end.  But he made many typographical errors during this period.  Indeed, a reader not knowing of his blindness would wonder what kind of a researcher he could possibly be.  Milton Rubincam was, in fact, one of the greatest genealogists.  He just could not see during the last eight years.

Another difficulty was that, at the time of his death, there was much loose material which properly belonged in the Rubincam Family Ancestry.  This was buried in a tremendous amount of paper, much of it having nothing to do with ancestors, and all of it in an almost complete state of chaos.  My brother John and I spent an average of four sessions per week, between one and two hours per session, for over a year just sorting all these papers.   I thank my brother for his help; his sense of humor made the sessions bearable.  The material that belonged has been integrated into this collection; but not being a genealogist, I may have made some errors.  Some items, especially books, have been left out as being too lengthy to include in the Rubincam Family Ancestry.  So not everything my father owned relating to the family will be found here.

COPYING THE ORIGINAL COLLECTION

Copying the original collection was a real challenge.  In order to transfer large pages onto standard-sized sheets, I did not hesititate to reduce size without notice; hence sizes may not agree with each other even within the same document.  I tried to transfer page for page, but sometimes an original was so big it had to be spread over two or more sheets.  There was only a handful of cases where text was enlarged.  Also, I have usually not indicated whether a text was on the back of the preceding page.   And exposure was a difficult problem; I did my best, but the photocopier was not as discriminatory between lightness and darkness as I would have liked. In some cases I made two copies of the original at different exposure settings to bring out different features on the same page.  I tried to be mindful of edges, especially with text too near the left side (where it might be bound later.)  Often a copy is poor because the original was poor, especially if the  original" was a photocopy from the days of liquid toner in the 1970's .  In many cases I left out duplicates of the same document if it appeared elsewhere in the binder.  Because of fragility, odd sizes, tape, etc., I rarely was able to use the feeder on the copier; virtually every page was copied one at a time.

I checked my copies carefully to make sure I captured all the material in each binder.    The only major things left out are the magazine articles on President Richard Nixon (volume 141) and a document on low-power television written by my cousin Parry Teasdale (volume 160).  I felt there was so much information on President Nixon available to the public that it was pointless to reproduce the articles, while the document on low-power television was lengthy and technical.

Mistakes are of course inevitable, given the huge volume of material.  I did try hard to do justice to Dad's collection and give it, if not immortality, at least redundancy and longevity.  The thought of losing his original collection through fire or flood horrified me.

THE ORIGINAL COLLECTION

The original Rubincam Family Ancestry is being retained by the Rubincam family for now.  It will eventually be donated to a genealogical organization, perhaps the National Genealogical Society located near Washington, D. C.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RUBINCAM FAMILY ANCESTRY, ANCESTRY OF THE RUBINCAM FAMILY, AND RUBINCAM FAMILY PAPERS

Rubincam Family Ancestry differs from Ancestry of the Rubincam Family, which was microfilmed some years ago, by being more complete and better arranged.  Rubincam Family Ancestry also differs from Rubincam Family Papers.   Rubincam Family Papers deals more with my father's immediate family: his father, mother, wife, and children.  Much of that collection consists of my father's correspondence, especially the voluminous exchange of letters between his cousin and best friend Amos Haines Troth II and himself. Rubincam Family Papers is located in the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia.

AN APPRECIATION

My father, Milton Rubincam, wanted to live to see this day, to ring in the new century and the new millenium.  Alas, he fell two years and four months short of his goal.  But his legacy will live on in the professionalism he brought to his field, in his numerous publications, through the many students he taught, and in the Rubincam Family Ancestry.

Much of the material he researched himself; but much was sent to him by others, most of them now deceased.  On behalf of my late father, I wish to thank everyone, living and dead, who helped make the Rubincam Family Ancestry the extraordinary collection that it is.

This collection is dedicated to my mother, Priscilla (Teasdale) Rubincam.

David Parry Rubincam, 7500 Vanessa Court, Lanham, MD 20706-3778

Rubincam Surname Index