One interesting fact about the wedding site (the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee) is the relationship between the Williams in the "Williams - Zapolsky" wedding and the Lee in "Robert E. Lee."

David's Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, Robert Hendry, married Ann Lee, sister of "Light Horse" Harry Lee and Aunt of Robert E. Lee. That relationship, we think, makes David a cousin of Robert, making the wedding site "Cousin Bobby's." (For a different take on this see the history of Ann Lee, which agrees with all the details (and fits well with other Hendry family history) save one: no mention of Ann's father or her relationship to "Light Horse.")

Robert Hendry, son of the hatter John Hendry of the Isle of Arran in Scotland, immigrated to the U.S. in 1770 after being on the wrong side of the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" uprising. While serving under "Light Horse" Lee during the American Revolution, he met Lee's sister Annie (OK, I'm assuming he met her during his time in the army).

--Courtesy of Leland Williams (typos and misconceptions by David)

A 5 minute history of Robert E. Lee.

The above version is backed up by A Brief History of the Hendry Family in the South by Rev. John Littleberry Hendry (1854-1934). However, I contacted Ruth Hendry who received a letter from Henry N. Lee of Lumberton, NC in 1985 stating "We think your Ann (Lee) Hendry is really of the line of a Thomas Lee who received a land grant of several thousand acres in Onslow County." Mrs. Hendry also sent along a copy of the Lee family linage from Tidewater Dynasty, a Biographical Novel of the Lees of Stratford Hall which shows a sister to Light Horse Harry named Anne, but being born in 1776 (making her 2 years old at the marriage in 1778.

The Anne Lee who married Robert Hendry was born December 26^th, 1753 (or 1752) and died in 1857. But Mrs. Hendry goes on to state, "I'm sure she was kin because of the stories that have been passed down, but not as close as a sister." More investigation is clearly needed.

All of this forebears talk got Sarah interested in seeing if she could find her Grandfather Isadore on the web. At " The American Immigrant Wall of Honor® at Ellis Island" web site, she found her Grandfather Isadore listed correctly as having immigrated from Russia. Rumor has it that the name Zapolsky is an "Ellis Island name" coming from the name of the town from which he came.

Her grandfather came through Ellis Island from Russia with his father in 1906 at the age of 3 with the help of a relative in Chicago. True to the American dream, Isadore went on to become a well educated prominent doctor, who interrupted his medical career in the late 1940s to serve in the US Army in Europe as one of the original M*A*S*H type doctors. Bojnice, Slovakia may offer some history of the area from which they might have come, but it is extremely doubtful that the American Zapolsky's are in any way related to the conquering 1500's family of aristocrats lead by Jan Zapolsky. (The leap from Russian orthodoxy to Judaism is a bit too far, and in an unlikely direction to be seriously considered as a possibility.)

A sad update to this page: Sarah's mother Lois has died.