Here's how Grandmom's family left Russia for a new life in the U.S. fifteen years before she was born.
The Tulbowitz/Ratner family originated in the Vitebsk region, lived for decades near Rostov-on-Don, and finally settled in Albany, New York.
That story about our Rabinowitz family's tie to a famous rabbi is tenuous at best. Here is the true genealogy of Yitchak Elchanon Spektor.