Latest Update: Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua

This is the home page with the latest updates and links to new posts and pages on the blog.

Click on this link Ciudad Juárez (or alternatively click on the Our Towns tab from the Main Menu at the top of the page) and scroll down to the Mexico heading to check out the Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua page!  Ciudad Juárez is the largest city in the northern Mexican border state of Chihuahua and was the home to approximately ten generations of our Miranda and Vielma branches from approximately 1680 until 1904 when the last of our Vielma line moved permanently north of the Rio Grande to the United States.  Ciudad Juarez today may be more known for its concentration of factories (maquiladoras) and violence associated with drug cartels. but it is also a vibrant city with a proud history and claims as the originator of the margarita and the burrito.

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April 2020 Update: Sprinz – From Prussia to the U.S. Southwest

** With the benefit of additional research in early 2020, I’ve greatly expanded the Sprinz family page, which can also be accessed from the Related branches page!  

Sprinz, sometimes misspelled Spring, Springs, or Sprintz, is a minor branch that can be traced back to David Sprinz and Caroline Landsberg, who lived in a small Prussian Jewish community in the Posen region of Prussia (present-day Poznan in Poland) during the early to mid 19th century.  This was a challenging point of history for the region’s Jewish community, who were still not afforded the same rights as other citizens and were constantly caught between ethnic Germans and Poles.  As a result, many young Jewish men looked west for opportunities, and four of David and Caroline’s sons emigrated to the United States between 1874 and 1885.  Their son Rudolph was the first to depart, arriving in New York City on the ship Pommerania in February 1874.

Rudolph was a pioneer of the U.S. southwest and an early settler of the copper mining town of Clifton, Arizona Territory and later El Paso, Texas.  He owned dry goods and clothing stores in both cities during the 1880s and later was an accountant for several large businesses in El Paso.  He was also heavily involved in El Paso’s early Jewish community and contributed funds for the founding of the city’s first synagogue, Temple Mount Sinai.  Rudolph spent the last 30 years of his life in Los Angeles, California as an accountant and auditor for the Internal Revenue Service.  He died on June 24, 1934, and his descendants are scattered throughout the United States with last names as varied as Sprinz, Jacobs, Lucero, Palacios, and Miranda.