We are a family with at least eight branches and various surnames.  Each branch was told the almost identical story of our relationship to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain).  This website was begun to investigate the veracity of this claim and particularly to find the truth about the birth of one member of this extended family, Susan.  She grew up knowing Mark Twain's daughter, Clara. Her uncle was Clara's cousin, Ira Clemens Lucia.  She was actually taken out of school by Nina (Mark Twain's granddaughter) without her family's permission when she was about seven years old.  We have reason to believe that she is Nina's daughter and therefore a direct descendant of Samuel Clemens.  The Mark Twain Museum in Hartford, Ct., has been helpful to us in our endeavor to find out the truth about her relationship and we welcome public input.  If you have any information about Nina, or have been told you are related to Mark Twain yourself, please send us an email so we can investigate further.  And please look at the picture below to see the remarkable family resemblances between Susan's family and the Clemens-Gabrilowitsch family. Each image set below was taken between 75 and 100 years apart!

As a child Susan was told she was related to Mark Twain but was not told the specifics. She met his granddaughter, Nina Gabrilowitsch, only one time, when she was seven. After that she spent time with Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch in Detroit on several different occasions between age 7 and 11. (Click Susan Bailey link to read about her memories of Clara) Susan always believed that her connection to Mark Twain was as far back as the 1800s and was through her Uncle Ira Clemens Lucia who lived in Detroit and who she believed to be Clara's cousin. However, when she started comparing picture of Nina and her grandsons and pictures of herself and the Clemens females she was astonished at the similarities. When she realized that her son, Greg, had a remarkable resemblance to Clara's husband and Nina's father, Ossip Gabrilowitsch who was not in the Clemens bloodline, she had to look for a closer connection that the one she had always assumed. Susan and her cousin, Deb, an expert in Mark Twain research and genealogy, www.ancestryhelper.com recently visited the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut. There they were given access to some collections that had been donated from Nina's personal effects. They are now sorting through copies of many letter and pictures to shed further light on this connection. If you have comments or further knowledge that would help, please email marktwainonline@gmail.com