Having told the stories of my four-times great-uncle Meyer Goldschmidt’s two oldest children, Ella and Sarah, I now turn to his oldest son and third child, Jacob Meier Goldschmidt. Jacob was born on October 26, 1824, in Grebenstein, Germany. We saw that Jacob married Jettchen Cahn on July 6, 1853.
Jacob and Jettchen had five children.
Helene Goldschmidt was born on April 4, 1854, in Frankfurt.
Helene Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8804, Year Range: 1854, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
Regina Goldschmidt was born July 31, 1855, in Frankfurt.
Regina Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8806, Year Range: 1855, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
Julius Goldschmidt was born on March 20, 1858, in Frankfurt.
Julius Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8812, Year Range: 1858, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
Mayer Goldschmidt (obviously named for his grandfather and later known as Marcel) was born on July 12, 1860, in Frankfurt.
Mayer Goldschmidt birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8816, Year Range: 1860, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
And finally, Helmina Goldschmidt was born in Frankfurt on October 23, 1863.
Helmina Goldschmidt birth record, Certificate Number: 1368, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8824, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
But Jacob Meier Goldschmidt did not live to see those five children grow up. He died January 20, 1864, when he was only 39 and his children were all younger than ten years old. Little Helmina was only three months old and never knew her father.
Jacob Meier Goldschmidt, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10258, Year Range: 1864, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958
Losing their father at such a young age must have been traumatic for the family. Fortunately, Jacob’s family continued to grow and become his legacy—his five children, twenty-two grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren, as we will see.
The rest of this post and the set that follow will focus on his oldest child, Helene Goldschmidt Fuld, and her family.
Helene married Salomon Fuld on January 23, 1874, in Frankfurt.
Helene Goldschmidt I marriage to Salomon Fuld, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland, Year Range: 1874, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930
Salomon was also a Frankfurt native, born there on February 5, 1836, making him nineteen years older than Helene. He was the son of Herz Salomon Fuld and Caroline Schuster and the older brother of Clementine Fuld, wife of Selig Goldschmidt, who was Helene’s uncle, her father Jacob’s brother.
Helene and Salomon had four children, Clementine, Minna, Harry and Hedwig.
Clementine Fuld was born December 3, 1874, in Frankfurt. At first I thought she’d been named for Salomon’s sister, but his sister Clementine was still alive when her niece was born. If the baby was named for her living aunt, that would have been unusual, given Jewish naming patterns. She could have been named for the same deceased relative for whom Clementine I was named. But it seemed to happen a few times in this branch of the family that children were given the names of living relatives. I will refer to Helene and Salomon’s daughter as Clementine Fuld II.
Clementine Fuld II birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8859, Year Range: 1874, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
Helene and Salomon’s second daughter Minna Fuld was born on December 13, 1875, in Frankfurt.
Minna Fuld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8867, Year Range: 1875, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
Harry Fuld was born on February 3, 1879, in Frankfurt.
Harry Fuld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8927, Year Range: 1879, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
And finally, Hedwig Fuld was born in Frankfurt on February 21, 1880.
Hedwig Fuld birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 903_8941, Year Range: 1880, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901
Then, just as Helene had lost her own father when she was just nine years old, her children lost their father as young children when Salomon Fuld died on May 27, 1882 at the age of 46. Helene was only 28, a widow with four children ranging in age from two year old Hedwig to seven year old Clementine II.
Salomon Fuld, death record, Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 903; Signatur: 10353, Year Range: 1882, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958
Helene managed to raise those four children on her own, perhaps with the help of her extended family, as we will see in the next post.
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 
Your post brought up the issue with the naming pattern in your family. It prompted me to look into my own family. I found that the first-born child was usually named after the living parent. But all the subsequent children were named like in your family after a dead uncle or aunt. I was never aware of this pattern until I read your post this morning.
Best wishes and stay safe, Amy!
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I find naming patterns fascinating and often helpful in figuring out family relationships. I’m glad I inspired you to check into this!
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I love the little half-circle graphic for the family of Jacob and Jettchen.
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Thanks, Cathy. I finally decided I need to find more options for family charts than FamilyTreeMaker provides, and so I downloaded the Charting Companion plug-in. You will see more colorful charts in some posts going forward.
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Nice. Looking forward to them. I love charts.
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Hi Amy. I agree with Cathy that the half circle chart is an attractive alternative. It reminded me, just a little, of a sunrise. It was easy to understand, too. Were you able to get the causes of death for Salomon amd Jacob? I agree their deaths created big challenges for their widows. Will we learn more abput them?
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Thanks, Emily. Unfortunately, German death records (at least from that era) do not include cause of death. And I have no access to other information unless a descendant knows the answer. So far I’ve not found a source for that. My ability to put together much beyond BMD records for those who lived and died in Germany before World War is very limited unless someone wrote about the person and those writings still exist.
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Well you have done a great job with what you do have. I always am curious about causes of death in terms of hereditary illnesses. The more important elements in this posting such as the historical and cultural events are well explained.
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Thanks, Emily!
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I liked the chart as well. But such a sad story.
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I wonder how strong the bond was between mother and daughter. Do you know if they lived near each other through their life times? I just keep feeling, life seems to be as uncertain then as it actually is today. Facing this pandemic certainly brings our ancestors closer. Hugs stay well and safe – I saw you had a lovely zoom Passover from Luannes blog, and that made me smile!
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Thanks, Sharon—I will be blogging about the zoom seder tomorrow. It was memorable.
Unfortunately, I don’t know much more about the people in this post in terms of their lives in Germany. But they did both live in Frankfurt and thus I think it’s safe to assume that they saw each other often.
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In my dad’s family, children were named with the first initial of a recently deceased grandparent. So my dad was Gordon after his paternal grandmother Goldie, his older brother was Robert after his maternal grandmother, Rebecca.
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Sounds right to me.
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My question was the same as EmilyAnn’s: what were the causes of death. But I see your response that the records didn’t record that detail. Italian death records of that period didn’t either. I wonder if there are newspapers that have those details.
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I have not seen any online German newspapers database. And my limited German might make it a real challenge anyway, but I suppose if it existed, I could always search by name and date. I should probably check to see if there is such a thing. Thanks, Michael.
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