Inna Rajskaya's paternal grandfather, Iosif Shif

This is a picture of my paternal grandfather - Iosif Shif. It is a formal portrait made at the W. Borcttil photographic studio in Minsk, which is why grandfather was wearing a white shirt and a bow-tie. My grandfather was born in 1870, but where ? I don?t know. He lived his entire life in Minsk. I know little about his family, just that they were not very prosperous but tried nonetheless to educate their children. In 1890 Grandpa completed his education in pedagogy and became a teacher in a Jewish school in Minsk. He taught young children both in his own family and in other families, among them the Borishanskie children. And so it happened that my grandmother, Feiga-Tsipa Elkonovna Borishanskaya, and Grandpa Iosif fell in love and later got married.