Yet Another Abraham Mansbach: More Twists in the Tree

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As I mentioned in my last post, my three-times great-grandparents Seligmann Goldschmidt and Hincka Alexander had seven children.

Their oldest child was Sarah, born December 1, 1818, in Oberlistingen. Sarah married Abraham Mansbach on October 31, 1843. Abraham Mansbach was a name I’d encountered before when researching my Katzenstein relatives, so I knew I had to dig deeper to see if there was a connection.

Marriage record of Sarah (Sarchen) Goldschmidt and Abraham Mansbach
Trauregister der Juden von Gudensberg 1825-1900 (HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 386)AutorHessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Wiesbaden, p. 14

Back in November, 2016, I wrote a post entitled “Will the Real Abraham Mansbach Please Stand Up?,” in which I described my attempts to distinguish five different men (all related to each other) named Abraham Mansbach.  The first Abraham Mansbach (Abraham I) died around 1808; the other four included one of his grandsons and three of his great-grandsons.

Abraham I had three sons: Isaac, Leiser, and Marum I.  Leiser in turn had two sons, Abraham II and Marum II, both of whom married into my family. Abraham II married my three-times great-aunt Sarah Goldschmidt, as seen above.

Leiser’s other son, Marum II, married one of my other three-times-great-aunts, Hannchen Katzenstein. Thus, the Mansbachs are related to me both on the Katzenstein side and the Goldschmidt side. (And the Goldschmidts and Katzenstein lines also merged with the marriage of Gerson Katzenstein and Eva Goldschmidt, my great-great-grandparents.)

Marum Mansbach II and Hanchen Katzenstein also had a son named Abraham, whom I labeled Abraham Mansbach III.[1] The fourth and fifth Abraham Mansbachs were other great-grandsons of Abraham I not directly entangled with my relatives.

 

 

Anyway……all you need to know for this post is that Sarah Goldschmidt married Abraham Mansbach II, who was born January 12, 1809, in Maden, Germany.  Sarah and Abraham had ten children: Breine (1844), Hewa “Hedwig (1846), Leiser “Louis” (1849), Jacob (1851), Merla “Amelia” (1853), Berthold (1856), Hannah (1858), Meyer (1860), Kathinka (1862), and Julius (1865). In other words, Sarah gave birth to ten children over a 21 year period. All the children were born in Maden.

Thanks to my recently-found cousin Art Mansbach, a great-grandson of Abraham and Sarah, I have a number of photographs of Abraham and Sarah and their children. This one is of Abraham, Sarah, and their youngest child, Julius, Art’s grandfather. Julius appears to be about five years old in this photograph, so this would have been taken in around 1870:

Abraham Mansbach, Julius Mansbach, and Sarah Goldschmidt Mansbach c. 1870
Courtesy of the Mansbach family

Here is one of Sarah with her two youngest sons, Meyer and Juilus. From the ages of the boys, I would estimate that this was taken in the mid-1870s:

Julius Mansbach, Sarah Goldschmidt Mansbach, and Meyer Mansbach c. 1874
Courtesy of the Mansbach family

This was the Mansbach home in Maden, Germany:

Home of Abraham and Sarah Goldschmidt Mansbach, Maden, Germany
Courtesy of the Mansbach family

Remarkably, only one of those children did not grow to adulthood.  Jacob, the fourth child, who was born on June 23, 1851, died on September 13, 1853. He was just two years old.

Jacob Mansbach death record
HHStAW Fonds 365 No 387, p. 47

 

Two other children of Sarah and Abraham II predeceased one or both of their parents, but did live to adulthood: Hedwig and Kathinka.  Kathinka died in the US, so her story will come in a later post. But Hedwig died in Germany.

Hedwig was born on November 20, 1846.

Hedwig/Hewa Mansbach birth record HHStAW Fonds 365 No 384, p.43

 

On February 16, 1875, she married David Rothschild of Zierenberg, Germany.

Hewa Mansbach and David Rothschild marriage record
HHStAW Fonds 365 No 386, p. 40

Sadly, Hedwig died nine months to the day later on November 16, 1875. Had she died in childbirth? I don’t know. She was only 28 years old when she died. If there was a child, I have not found any record of him or her, and I checked all the births and deaths in Zierenberg in 1875.

Death record for Hedwig Mansbach Rothschild
Description: Geburten, Heiraten Tote 1874-1875
Source Information
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1730-1875

 

Not long after Hedwig’s death, many of her siblings began to leave Germany for the United States. In fact, all but one of the remaining siblings and their parents Sarah and Abraham themselves eventually emigrated. I will continue their stories in subsequent posts.

The only surviving child of Sarah and Abraham who did not emigrate was their first-born child, Breine.

Breine was born on September 27, 1844:

Breine Mansbach birth record
HHStAW Fonds 365 No 384, p. 39

 

She married Jacob Bensew on February 3, 1870; Jacob was born on January 15, 1840, in Malsfeld, Germany, the son of Heinemann Bensew and Roschen Goldberg.

marriage record for Breine Mansbach and Jacob Bensew
HHStAW Fonds 365 No 386, p. 35

 

Breine and Jacob had six children—five sons and one daughter: William (1872), Julius (1875), Siegmund (1877), Heinemann (1879), Max (1882), and Frieda (1886). All six of their children would eventually immigrate to the United States, but Breine and Jacob stayed behind and lived the rest of their lives in Germany.

Breine died in Melsungen, Germany, on May 31, 1922, and her husband Jacob in Kassel, Germany, on April 25, 1925.

Death record for Breine Mansbach Bensew
Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 4684

Because so much of the rest of the story of the the family of Sarah Goldschmidt and Abraham Mansbach II took place in the US, I will stop here and address the history of the Goldschmidt family’s migration to the US in my next post.

But first one final photograph, this one of Abraham with the four sons who grew to adulthood: Leiser/Louis, Berthold, Meyer, and Julius. I do not know which is which, but all four appear in this photograph with their father. They were all my first cousins, four times removed:

ABraham Mansbach with his four surviving sons: Meyer, Berthold, Louis, and Julius. (Not necessarily in that order.)

 

 

[1] Thus, Abraham II was the uncle of Abraham III, my first cousin-three times removed on my Katzenstein line, and he was the husband of my three-times great-aunt Sarah Goldschmidt.

26 thoughts on “Yet Another Abraham Mansbach: More Twists in the Tree”

  2. I can now fully understand the difficulty of finding the real Abraham among so many with the same last name, who is directly related to you. In the past it was customary to name one’s children after close relatives in the family thus proliferating the identical name within the family. This gave all members a sense of belonging. Today it seems to me that we have gone to the other extreme and name our children with whatever strikes our fancy. Very interesting post, Amy!

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Thanks, Peter! The old naming traditions did make genealogy research both more challenging and in some ways easier as they help to link later generations to earlier ones. Many Jews still follow the tradition of naming for a deceased relative, but rarely use the original name—just a first initial. And girls now may be named after men and boys after women. So it’s a lot harder to trace the chain of ancestors.

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  4. Wow. Very intricate twists and turns Amy. I am still continuing my journey and just found a relative who traced our connection back to William the conqueror, kings of early Scotland, and swedes and Danes, so guess it goes back to the vikings and early tribes. Even the Spainish connections from the Iberian Peninsula. Waiting to hear more from you-very exciting to find more relatives!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • That’s incredible, Patricia! Wow! Good for you. And thanks for continuing to read the blog. If you’re in touch with our mutual cousin Jim, please give him my best.

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  5. Wow! Intricate, and thorough research as always Amy. We Scots had a very precise set of “rules” for naming children, as I’ve talked about before, and obviously had no qualms about using living people’s names. The thing I have found strange is when children are given the same name as a dead sibling. I find this web of inter-connected families you’ve uncovered absolutely fascinating. Despite about 80 percent of my ancestors originating from a very small area of Scotland, i’ve yet to find any such interconnectedness.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • My guess is that your relatives could marry anyone within their community because there were no religious differences. For my ancestors, they could only marry other Jews (both for civil reasons and for the rules of their own families and community), so there was a very tiny number of eligible partners. Obviously, for genetic purposes, a bigger gene pool would have been healthier!

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  6. “Anyway……all you need to know” had me LOL. Nice set of photographs for this family. You had me comparing the young boys with the young men. But since the man on the far right is not looking directly in the camera it is hard to tell. You may have the order correct but I thought Julius may be on the left (because of the ears).

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    • Yeah, I figured some people would get lost in my Abraham discussion, but I HAD to get it out there because it took so long to untangle! I also tried to do that comparison so that’s how I labeled them. I’ve asked Art Mansbach to help me because Julius was his grandfather. I am hoping he will get back to me.

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  7. I have fallen in love with the name Abraham through your post. I have such trouble following those vertical charts, the first one posted. I have fallen in love with Art Mansbach for all the fantastic pictures he has shared with you. I especially like the one of the house which really gives us a glimpse in to their lives, their home. I wonder if that is father ‘Abraham’ standing on the porch? Great post Amy –

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