Jakov Gershowitz

The paternal grandfather of George and Ira Gershwin. Believed to have married Mrs. Gershovitz (b. 1850) in 1869.

He was an inventor and mechanic who had served in the Russian artillery since being drafted at the age of ten. His 25 years of compulsory military service gave him and his children, as Jews, the right of free travel and occupation. He moved near St. Petersburg from the Pale of Settlement, a Jewish ghetto along Russia's western border.

George Gershwin is thought to have said, "The only creative ancestry that I have seems to have been my father's father who, he tells me, was an inventor. His ingenuity had something to do with Czar's guns."

By some accounts, Yakov's father was a rabbi, but little else is known. Even his wife's name has been lost.