PAGE 4
Lisa's search unearthed the tragic, final moments of her great-grandmother's life, but that wasn't all. Miraculously, she discovered that Yuri, the distant relative they'd assumed was dead all these years, was alive and well.

After surviving the Holocaust, Lisa says her father thought Yuri joined the Polish Navy. Then, he traveled to New York to tell Lisa's father's family that everyone they loved had been murdered by Nazis. "They begged him to please stay, and he didn't," Lisa says. "They never heard from him again and had heard he died."

Lisa says she thought she was going to find out how Yuri died. Instead, she found him.

After tracing her roots back hundreds of years and learning more about the men and women who came before her, Lisa says she felt a sense of pride. "I'm delivering their story to people, and they're not forgotten," she says. "Now, there are witnesses."

Emmitt Smith traces his family history

Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. on starting your ancestry search

NEXT STORY

Next Story