The senator searched phone books and the Internet and quizzed his cousins, but he was only able to learn fragments of family history. The story, it turns out, began in a small town in the Czech Republic that once was part of the Austrian empire. Birth records there show that Frederick A. Kerry was born as Fritz Kohn to Jewish parents, according to a genealogy specialist hired by the Globe. Kohn changed his name to Kerry around 1902 and emigrated to the United States in 1905, eventually moving to Boston.
In 1921, Frederick Kerry went to the Copley Plaza Hotel, entered a washroom, and shot himself in the head. It was front-page news. His filing in Probate Court listed him as practically broke. While Senator Kerry said he knew his grandfather had committed suicide, he said he knew no details until he was shown a copy of a 1921 article last week. ''How many times have I walked into that hotel ...'' said an emotional Kerry, his voice trailing off. He said it was the first time he had talked publicly about the suicide.
Kerry said he learned about 15 years ago that his grandmother was Jewish. That led to years of unsuccessful efforts to learn more about his grandfather's roots and his own. ''This is amazing; that is fascinating to me,'' Kerry said, in reference to the ancestral records. ''This is incredible stuff. I think it is more than interesting; it is a revelation.''
As Kerry runs for president, he is in many ways on a voyage of self-discovery. He said he had expected there would be intense interest in his life, going beyond the usual curiosity about his Boston Brahmin maternal roots in the Forbes and Winthrop families, two of New England's most prominent clans.
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