How Many Raddings are There?

Many of you have been very helpful in forwarding information about your families to Pearl Carpenter, Cathy McElligott, or me. I have compiled an extensive family tree that will be available to all at the reunion, and by email for those who can’t come. In the meantime, just how many of us are there?

The earliest known ancestor that we share is Wulf (Zev) Rakishki, who lived near Riga, Latvia. As far as we know he had three sons and probably two daughters. The children of his sons Joseph and Jerome—seventeen cousins in all—emigrated to the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century, taking the name Radding, and eventually brought their parents (Joseph died before he could come, but his wife Ida, and Jerome and his wife Dora, came). There was a third brother who came to the U.S. and took the name Racusin, and we don’t know what became of the sisters.

From the information we have been able to gather so far, here’s the count of Wulf’s descendents, through Joseph and Jerome:

Original immigrant generation: 17 Radding cousins
Their children: 54
Their grandchildren: 104
Their great-grandchildren: 128
Great-great grandchildren: 58
Great-great-great grandchildren: 2

Grand total, from Wulf, Joseph and Jerome through the latest generation: 366!

That count, which includes only descendents (not spouses) will surely grow as more and more cousins are identified. We know there are more out there!

See you in August,

Eva Radding