Monthly Archives: August 2024

Moses Rothschild, Part I: When Did He Die?

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This summer’s posts up to now have all been devoted to the John Nusbaum photo album, but now it’s time to return to the Blumenfelds and my more traditional genealogy work. When last I wrote about the Blumenfelds back on May 29, 2024, I wrote about Levi Rothschild, the third child of Gelle Blumenfeld Rothschild. To refresh everyone’s recollection (including my own), Gelle was the third child and only daughter of Moses Blumenfeld. And Moses was the older brother of my three-times great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld Katzenstein. Here’s a chart showing where I am in my research of the Blumenfeld family

But now it’s time to turn to Gelle Blumenfeld Rothschild’s next child, Moses Rothschild, and he has a far different story from those of his other siblings. Unlike his two older brothers Seligmann and Levi, he left Germany as a teenager and came to the United States.

Moses was born on August 30, 1848, in Zimmersrode, Germany. He immigrated to the United States as a young man, but I cannot be certain exactly when because there are two ship manifests for men named Moses Rothschild and both could be the one I am looking for. One manifest has a Moses Rothschild arriving in New York at age fifteen in 1865, meaning he was born in 1850.1  Another Moses Rothschild arrived on July 31, 1868, at twenty-five, meaning he was born in 1843.2 Neither of those two Moses Rothschilds was born in 1848, assuming their ages were accurately reported, but both are pretty close.

I could only find one man named Moses Rothschild living in New York on the 1870 census, and he was 22, so born in 1848 in Germany like “my” Moses Rothschild. He was living on the Lower East Side; unfortunately the census does not provide any occupational information.3 But it seems likely that this was the right Moses Rothschild.

On December 8, 1872, in New York City, Moses Rothschild married Mathilde Seligmann, the daughter of Ludwig Seligmann and Therese Rosenthal.4  Her death record says that she was born on February 19, 1849, in Germany,5, but I have no birth record to back that up. Based on various records including census records and records for her siblings, I believe she was born in Darmstadt, Germany, but I am not certain because some trees claim she was born in Mainz, Germany, and emigrated from there. I have yet to resolve that conflicting information. 

Moses and Mathilde had six children. Their first was Samuel Seligmann Rothschild, born July 21, 1873, in New York, New York.6 Second born was Rudolph Rothschild, born in New York on March 17, 1875.7 The third son was Albert Rothschild, born January 2, 1876, in New York.8 Finally, a daughter was born on August 22, 1878, in New York.9 She is identified as Theresa (presumably for Mathilde’s mother) on almost all records, but on the 1880 census, she is listed as Betsy. I assume that was a mistake on the part of the census enumerator. On February 10, 1880, Moses and Mathilde’s fifth child was born; her name was Grethe, but she was later known as Gertrude.10

In 1880, the family was living at 322 East Third Street on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. In addition to Moses and Mathilde and their five children, two of Mathilde’s brothers, August and Carl were living with the family as well as a servant. Moses was working as a butter dealer, and his brother-in-law August was working as a grocer.

Moses Rothschild 1880 US census, Year: 1880; Census Place: New York City, New York, New York; Roll: 881; Page: 20c; Enumeration District: 307, Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census

One more child was born to Moses and Mathilde after the 1880 census—their son Aron. He was born on August 17, 1881, in New York.11 If the transcribed birth information on Ancestry is correct, it appears that the family had moved from lower Manhattan to 344 East 78th Street uptown when Aron was born.

Trying to find Moses in the New York City directories during the 1880s was tricky because there were multiple men with that same name. For example, in 1880, the year Moses is listed as living at 322 East Third Street in Manhattan in the 1880 census record, there were three men named Moses Rothschild in the NYC directory, none of whom were living at that address: one was an agent living at 340 East 77th Street, closest to where Aron would be born in 1881, one was a milliner living at 622 Fifth Avenue, and one was a “pedlar” living at 284 Third Avenue, almost two miles from 322 East Third Street where the family was in 1880.

There is no 1881 NYC directory, but in 1882 there were now only two men named Moses Rothschild, both “pedlars,” and one was still living at 284 Third Avenue uptown, the other at 25 Rutgers Street all the way downtown.12 The 1883 directory has two men named Moses Rothschild, one an agent, the other a meat dealer at 281 Second Avenue.13 I don’t know if one of those is my Moses.

The 1884 NYC directory is even more confusing. Now there are FOUR men named Moses Rothschild: two meat dealers, one grocer, and one insurance agent.14 I have no way of knowing if any of them were my Moses. And this continues. In 1886 there are three Moses Rothschilds, a driver, an insurance agent, and a meat dealer at 284 Second Avenue.15

I would have thought that my Moses was most likely the meat dealer, who was at 284 Second Avenue. But in the 1888 directory, there is a Matilda Rothschild, listed as the widow of Moses, living at 163 East 104th Street, and there are still three other listings for Moses Rothschilds: the insurance agent, a clerk, and the meat dealer at 284 Second Avenue.16 So either 1) the directory listed my Moses after he was dead or 2) Moses the meat dealer was not my Moses or 3) there were two men named Moses Rothschild married to women named Matilda/Mathilde. Later directories include listings for Matilda, widow of Moses, at various addresses.

The 1900 census does show Mathilde is listed as a widow and Moses is missing from the family, but the children are there, meaning this is the right Rothschild family. They were now living at 49 West 114th Street.

Matilda Rothschild 1900 US census, Year: 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1154; Page: 9; Enumeration District: 0841, Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census

So Moses does seem to have died sometime between 1886 and 1900. But I have not located a death record for Moses. I have searched The New York City Municipal Archives as well as Ancestry and FamilySearch, but with no luck. There is a FindAGrave listing for a Moses Rothschild at Union Field Cemetery in Queens,17 but it has no gravestone photograph nor any dates for birth or death, so I do not know whether that is for my Moses Rothschild, and even if I did, it provides no useful information. It does appear that Mathilde’s brother August was buried at the same cemetery in 1916, however, so perhaps that is a useful bit of circumstantial evidence.18

Because I couldn’t find a death record for Moses, I began to wonder whether Mathilde was not really a widow, but a woman whose husband had abandoned or divorced her. There is, however, other circumstantial evidence suggesting that Moses had died by 1898 and had not divorced or abandoned Mathilde: the names of his grandchildren.

Moses’ third son Albert was the first to marry. On May 4, 1895, he married Rosie Katz, for whom I have little background information except that she was born in Germany in 1875.19Their first daughter, Rachel, was born in New York in March 1896, but more to the point of this post, Albert and Rose named their second child and first son Milton, born on September 26, 1898.20

Moses’ next child to marry was his second oldest child Rudolph. He married Rebecca Schlossberg on April 17, 1898, in New York. Rebecca was born in North Carolina in about 1877 to Max Schlossberg and Fanny Otterbourg.21 Rudolph and Rebecca’s first child was named Mortimer Maxwell Rothschild; he was born on October 28, 1899, in New York.22

Samuel, Moses’ first-born, married Sallye Livingston on September 4, 1898, in Chicago, Illinois.23 Sallye was the daughter of Aaron and Magdalena Livingston, and she was born in Missouri on October 14, 1868.24 Sallye and Samuel’s first son was named Milton Samuel Rothschild. He was born on March 5, 1906.25

Do you see a pattern here? The oldest son of all three of Moses’ oldest three children had names that began with an M. In fact, as we will see, the three younger children of Moses and Mathilde also named their oldest sons with names that start with M. So I am inferring from this that Moses had died before that first M grandson was born on September 26, 1898, and probably died before 1888 when Mathilde is listed as a widow in the NYC directory.

But why is there no death record for Moses? If anyone has any suggestions for where to find it, please let me know.

I will be back with more on the family of Moses Rothschild in September. My children are all arriving today and so I will be focusing on them until Labor Day!

  1. Moses Rothschild, ship manifest, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897; Microfilm Serial or NAID: M237; RG Title: Records of the U.S. Customs Service; RG: 36, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  2. Moses Rothschild, ship manifest, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897; Microfilm Serial or NAID: M237; RG Title: Records of the U.S. Customs Service; RG: 36, Description Ship or Roll Number: Ariel, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  3. Moses Rothschild, 1870 US census, Year: 1870; Census Place: New York Ward 11 District 23 (2nd Enum), New York, New York; Roll: M593_1028; Page:  787B, Description Township: New York Ward 11 District 23 (2nd Enum), Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census ↩
  4. “New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CN-VN8G : Fri Mar 08 21:51:45 UTC 2024), Entry for Moses Rothschild and Matilda Seligmann, 8 December 1872. ↩
  5. Mathilda Rothschild, [Mathilda Selizmann], Gender Female, Race White
    Marital Status Widowed, Age 82, Birth Date 19 Feb 1849, Birth Place Germany
    Years in US 63 Years, Death Date 7 Nov 1931, Death Street Address 2033 Morris Ave
    Death Place New York City, Bronx, New York, USA, Cause of Death Chronic Myocarditis and Nephritis, Arterial Hypertension, Burial Date 9 Nov 1931
    Burial Place Mount Carmel Cemetery, Occupation House Wife, Father’s Birth Place Germany, Mother’s Birth Place Germany, Father Louis Selizmann, Mother Theresa Selizmann, Executor Sam Rothschild, Executor Relationship Son, Certificate Number 9230, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Death Certificates; Borough: Bronx; Year: 1931, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Death Certificates, 1862-1948 ↩
  6. Samuel Rothschild birth record, “New York, New York City Births, 1846-1909,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27BV-JW5 : 11 February 2018), Samuel Rothschild, 21 Jul 1873; citing Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, reference cn 114503 New York Municipal Archives, New York; FHL microfilm 1,322,065. ↩
  7. Rudolph Rothschild birth record, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Birth Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1875, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909; Rudolph Rothschild, Birth Date 17 Mar 1875, Birth Place New York, Claim Date 3 Apr 1940, SSN 111071339, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  8. Albert Rothschild birth record, Gender Male, Race White, Birth Date 2 Jan 1876
    Birth Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, USA, Residence Address 7th Street 256, Certificate Number 198376, Father Moses Rothchild, Mother Mathilda Rathchild, Mother Maiden Name Seligman, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Birth Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1876, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909 ↩
  9. Theresa Rothschild birth record, Teresa Rothschild, Gender Female, Race White
    Birth Date 22 Aug 1878, Birth Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, USA, Residence Address 7 Street 244, Certificate Number 239687, Father Moses Rothschild, Mother Matilda Deligman Rothschild, Mother Maiden Name Seligman, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Birth Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1878, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909 ↩
  10. Grethe Rothschild birth record, Grethe Rothschild, Gender Female, Race White
    Birth Date 10 Feb 1880, Birth Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, USA, Residence Address E. 5 Street 622, Certificate Number 277695, Father Moses Rothschild, Mother Matilda Seligman Rothschild, Mother Maiden Name Seligman, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Birth Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1880, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909 ↩
  11. Aron Rothchild, Gender Male, Race White, Birth Date 17 Aug 1881, Birth Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, USA, Residence Address E. 78th St. New York 344, Certificate Number 318749, Father Moses Rothchild, Mother Matilda Rothchild, Mother Maiden Name Seligmann, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Birth Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1881, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909 ↩
  12.  New York, New York, City Directory, 1882, Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, p. 1385. ↩
  13.  New York, New York, City Directory, 1883, Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 ↩
  14.  New York, New York, City Directory, 1884, Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, p. 1523. ↩
  15.  New York, New York, City Directory, 1886, Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, p. 868. ↩
  16.  New York, New York, City Directory, 1888, Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, p. 1706. ↩
  17. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131249188/moses-rothschild: accessed August 17, 2024), memorial page for Moses Rothschild (unknown–unknown), Find a Grave Memorial ID 131249188, citing Union Field Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens County, New York, USA; Maintained by Athanatos (contributor 46907585). ↩
  18. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/127067956/august-seligmann: accessed August 17, 2024), memorial page for August Seligmann (unknown–1916), Find a Grave Memorial ID 127067956, citing Union Field Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens County, New York, USA; Maintained by Athanatos (contributor 46907585). As we will see in later posts, Mathilde and several of their children are buried elsewhere. ↩
  19. Albert Rothschild and Rosie Katz marriage record, “New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CN-Q2R3 : Sun Mar 10 19:42:31 UTC 2024), Entry for Albert Rothschild and Rosie Katz, 4 May 1895. ↩
  20. Milton Rothschild birth record, Milton Rothschild, Gender Male, Race White
    Birth Date 26 Sep 1898, Birth Place Manhattan, New York City, New York, New York, USA, Residence Address Third Avenue 2068, Certificate Number 40264, Father
    Albert Rothschild, Mother Rosie Rothschild Mother Maiden Name Katz, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Birth Certificates; Borough: Manhattan; Year: 1898, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909 ↩
  21. Rudolph Rothschild and Rebecca Schlossberg marriage record, “New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24ZZ-QWH : Tue Feb 20 21:40:11 UTC 2024), Entry for Rudolph Rothschild and Rebecca Schlossberg, 17 Apr 1898. ↩
  22. Mortimer Rothschild, World War I draft registration, Mortimer Maxwell Rothschild
    Birth Date 28 Oct 1899, Residence Date 1917-1918, Street Address 645 W 160st St
    Residence Place Manhattan, New York, USA, Draft Board 147, Relative Rudolph Rothschild, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 ↩
  23. Samuel Rothschild and Sallye Livingston marriage record, Samuel S. Rothschild
    Age 25, Gender Male, Birth Year abt 1873, Marriage Type Marriage, Marriage Date 4 Sep 1898, Marriage Place Chicago, Cook, Illinois, Spouse Name Sallie Livingston
    Spouse Age 24, Spouse Gender Female, FHL Film Number 1030288, Ancestry.com. Cook County, Illinois, U.S., Marriages Index, 1871-1920 ↩
  24. Sallye Rothschild death record, Sallye Rothschild, [Sallye Livingston], Gender Female, Race White, Marital Status Married, Age 77, Birth Date 14 Oct 1868, Birth Place Missouri, Clarkville, Residence Street Address 1900 Grand Concourse
    Residence Place New, Death Date 14 Nov 1945, Death Street Address 1900 Grand Concourse, Death Place New York City, Bronx, New York, USA, Cause of Death Adenocarcinoma of Ascending Colon, With Metastasis, Burial Date 16 Nov 1945
    Burial Place MT Carmel Cemetery, Occupation Housewife, Father’s Birth Place Germany, Mother’s Birth Place Germany, Father Aaron Livingston, Mother Magdeline Livingston, Spouse Samuel Informant Thomas Rothschild, Informant Gender Male
    Informant Relationship Husband Executor Samuel Rothschild Executor Relationship Husband, Certificate Number 10938, New York City Department of Records & Information Services; New York City, New York; New York City Death Certificates; Borough: Bronx; Year: 1945, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Index to Death Certificates, 1862-1948 ↩
  25. Milton Rothschild birth record, Milton Rothschild, Birth Date 5 Mar 1906
    Birth Place Manhattan, New York, USA, Certificate Number 28041, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Birth Index, 1878-1909 ↩

Cousin Meetings: Richard and Max Meet in Merano, Max and I Meet on Cape Cod

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One of the greatest gifts I’ve received through my genealogy research is connecting with and getting to know new cousins. Some are as close as second cousins, some as distant as fifth or even sixth cousins. But none of that seems to matter once we have connected.

Sometimes these connections are only through email. Sometimes they are by phone. And sometimes I have been able to connect with cousins and get to see their faces and get to know them through Zoom. There are cousins from all over the US and the world with whom I have emailed, phoned, and/or zoomed—some as far away as Israel, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, and Australia, some as close as right here in Massachusetts.

I’ve been especially blessed when I’ve gotten to meet and spend time with a cousin in person. And that has happened far more times than I’d ever, ever have predicted. I have had meals with cousins in all kinds of places—in western Massachusetts where I once lived and on Cape Cod where I now live, in Florida and in New York City, in Boston and in Philadelphia, and even overseas—in Germany and in London. Each time it has been a truly joyful experience. Even though we had never met before and even though our connection may go back several generations to an ancestor we never knew, there was still something magical about meeting a cousin.

So I was somewhat envious but also thrilled when I learned that two cousins I’d found through my research and then connected to each other—Richard Bloomfield and Max Bermann—were able to meet in Merano, Italy, this past spring. Richard is my fifth cousin through his 3x-great-grandfather Jakob Blumenfeld, a younger brother of my 3x-great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld; Max is also my fifth cousin, but through his 3x-great-grandfather Moses Blumenfeld, an older brother of Breine Blumenfeld, my 3x-great-grandmother. And Richard and Max are fifth cousins to each other; we are all the 4x-great-grandchildren of Abraham and Geitel (Katz) Blumenfeld.

Although I had zoomed and emailed with Max and Richard many times, I had never met either of them—until last Thursday, that is, when my husband and I had dinner with Max and his wife Glenna here on Cape Cod. Again, it was a magical and joyful experience. The warmth and connection were authentic and immediate, and we found so much to talk about in the three hours we sat at Fin, an amazing restaurant in Dennis. When we looked around at 10 pm, we realized we were the only ones left in the restaurant; the staff were all sitting around the bar politely not disturbing us, but obviously waiting for us to leave. After repeated promises to get together again, we all hugged goodbye, leaving as not just cousins but four new friends.

At dinner Max and Glenna told us about their trip in May, 2024, to Merano and meeting Richard and his wife Irma there. Why, you might ask, did they meet in Merano, Italy, a town not far from the Austrian border when Richard lives in Switzerland and Max in Massachusetts?

Well, that requires some background about Max’s life. I’ve shared Max’s story before on the blog, and I hope you will go back to the earlier blog posts for more details and photographs as well as for my sources for the information below. Also, Richard wrote a comprehensive biography of Max’s family.

But here is a very brief overview of why Max was visiting Merano:

Max’s mother was Edith Blumenfeld, daughter of Max Blumenfeld and Anna Grunwald. She married Joseph Bermann, Max’s father, in 1935.1 Joseph was born in Merano, Italy, where his father Max Bermann was a doctor and the director of the Waldpark Sanitarium. Joseph also became a doctor and worked there as well. After marrying, Edith and Joseph settled in Merano.

My cousin Max, grandson of both Max Blumenfeld and Max Bermann and named for both, was born in Merano a few years after his parents’ marriage. His father Joseph left Merano for the US in 1939 to escape from the Nazi and Fascist persecution and the impending war, intending to send for Edith, Max, and Max’s older sister Margherita once he was settled. But World Was II intervened, and Edith and the children could not get out of Europe.

They soon left Merano for Milan and then for the countryside of Italy where they hid their Jewish identity while Edith worked for the resistance as a courier. Once the war ended, Edith brought the children to the US, and they were reunited with Joseph. The story of how Edith kept herself, her mother, and her children safe during the war is a remarkable one and is described here on my blog and in Richard’s biography of Max’s family.

Max had never been back to Merano, his birthplace, after immigrating to the US in 1946, and he and his wife Glenna decided to visit there this year. The visit was motivated in part to see a painting of Max’s paternal grandfather, Max Bermann, a painting that Joseph Bermann had brought with him to the US in 1939 and that had been in Max’s parents’ home in New York City. It had then hung in Max and Glenna’s home for many years. Because he wanted to be sure that the painting was preserved in a safe and appropriate place in perpetuity, Max decided to donate the painting to the Jewish Museum in Merano, his birthplace and his father’s family home for many years. After shipping the painting there last year, Max and Glenna wanted to see it in its new home in Merano.

Meanwhile, Richard, born and raised in the United States, lives near St. Gallen, Switzerland, and thus about five hours from Merano. Richard had helped to connect Max with the Merano Jewish Museum, and when Richard learned that Max and Glenna were coming to Merano, he asked whether he and his wife Irma could meet them there. Max and Glenna were delighted.

Richard has generously shared with me some of the photographs of their meeting and an essay he wrote about the experience. I will quote parts of what he wrote rather than trying to paraphrase it.2 I am also going to include some of his photographs.

“Last Sunday we [Richard and Irma, his wife] stood on the balcony of our hotel room in Meran and looked across the Passer River at the Hotel Meraner Hof where Max and Glenna were going to be staying. It had been just two and a half weeks since Max had written me that he and Glenna were going to travel to Meran. Max had donated a painting of his grandfather [Max Bermann] to the Jewish Museum in Meran and wanted to have the experience of seeing it on display. When I asked Max if he would mind if Irma and I came to meet them there, Max wrote that he found that touching. Although we are 5th cousins, i.e. relatives, and had had email and Zoom contact, we didn’t want to intrude on Max’s first trip back to his place of birth since leaving it at age 2.

Our first live encounter took place when we waved to each other from our balcony to their terrasse. Shortly thereafter, we greeted each other with big hugs, sat down for a drink and exchanged the special, personal gifts we had brought for each other. We were joined by Sabine Mayr, researcher and co-worker at the Jewish Museum, and the museum’s director Joachim Innerhofer. Joachim and Sabine welcomed us like VIPs: Max, the long-lost son; I, the person who had connected Max with the museum in Meran and provided them with lots of information from my family research; Glenna and Irma as though they were long lost members of the Jewish community in Meran.

Remembering the adage that the way to the heart is through the stomach, we headed off to a restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately, Joachim had an appointment and couldn’t join us. Maybe we should have had an empty chair at the table for Amy, the person who had done the matchmaking between Max and me (and lots of other cousins!).

Richard, Sabina Mayr, Irma, Glenna, and Max

Monday morning we visited the synagogue and museum just behind Max and Glenna’s hotel. The first synagogue in Tirol was dedicated on 27 March 1901 and the interior has survived in its original form. When the Nazis removed the pews to use the room as a horse stall, the people of Meran saved them and returned them after the war. The very attractive Jewish Museum of Meran is located in the same building.

The sanctuary pictured below is warm – comfy – and inviting. Even with just seven rows of pews on the main floor, there is more than enough room for the 50 members of the community. Here is where Max’s family had worshipped. Today services with a rabbi are only held on holidays.

Merano synagogue

Irma, Richard, Max, and Glenna standing in front of the ark in the Merano synagogue

The name Bermann is embroidered into the parochet or curtain that covers the ark

At long last we descended the steps to the museum under the sanctuary. Just around the corner to the right of the entrance Max found his grandfather Max [Bermann]! …

Richard and Max standing in front of the portrait of Max’s paternal grandfather, also named Max Bermann

 This picture of [Max’s relatives’] wedding in 1926 hangs on the other side of the room to the right of [his grandfather] Max’s portrait. When Max saw it, he ex-claimed: “Look, there’s my father!” (1) (1898-1966). Joachim pointed to the right edge of the photo where Max’s grandfather with a long white beard is pictured (2) (1865-1933). “And there’s my grandmother next to him” (3) (1870-1958)….

…

A rather long and wet walk took us to the Waldpark Sanatorium where Max was born and lived for two years: In 1907, [his grandfather] Doctor Max Bermann acquired the Villa Paulista from John Stoddard and founded the Waldpark Sanatorium, which he ran as a specialist in internal medicine. In the early 1930s, two buildings were added, and in the following years the main building was renovated and enlarged. Claiming that the owners were indebted, the buildings and the large park surrounding them were sold at auction in 1941. (Source: Jewish Meran Walking Tour, Jewish Museum of Meran)

Although Max was only two when he left Meran in 1940, he thinks he remembers a white fence surrounding the Waldpark. Indeed, the fence is still white!

Max’s birthplace in Merano

…

On Tuesday it did not rain, and the sun eventually came out. A chair lift carried us up to a place above Meran where we had a good view of the city and the surrounding countryside….

….

Before dinner we wanted to visit the New (1908!) Jewish Cemetery where members of the Bermann family are buried. After a stop at the memorial for the victims of the Shoah… we went to visit the graves of Max’s grandfathers, Max Bermann and Max Blumenfeld….

Max is standing next to Grandfather Bermann’s headstone, and both of us touched together the gravestone of our common relative Max Blumenfeld (1880-1936). The common roots that Max and I have that we have talked and written about became something living here in the cemetery.”

—————————–

I am so glad that Richard and Max were able to meet and share this moving experience together. It makes me appreciate how fortunate I have been to find so many cousins and to help them find each other.

And now I also have had the special opportunity to spend time with my cousin Max and his wife Glenna and to feel those common roots. His life and mine had such different beginnings—his as a small child hiding from persecution in Italy, mine as a middle class American child growing up in suburban New York after the war, never worrying about antisemitism.

But here we are so many decades later, both living in Massachusetts less than ninety miles apart. In so many ways our lives have taken similar paths despite those very different beginnings, and we have far more in common than those different beginnings would have predicted.

I am so lucky and so grateful for all the gifts that genealogy has brought to my life, especially all my amazing cousins like Richard and Max!

  1. I have seen records that spell his name Joseph, others that spell it Josef. For consistency purposes I have used the American spelling Joseph since he was born Giuseppe and kept that name until he immigrated to the US in 1939. ↩
  2. Merano was once under Austrian control, but after World War I it became part of Italy. The town uses both the German-Austrian spelling Meran, which Richard uses, and the Italian spelling Merano, which I use. Both are equally acceptable. ↩

The John Nusbaum Album: Some Final Thoughts

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So what is left to talk about regarding the Nusbaum album, you may wonder? Well, Ava Cohn aka Sherlock Cohn analyzed about a quarter of the photographs taken in Philadelphia, all of the Santa Fe photographs, and about a third of the photographs from Germany. Add to that the handful I discussed that had names on them plus the photographs from Peoria, and that means many but not all of the photographs in the album have been discussed or analyzed. What can I say about those others?

There are some that are more like postcards of famous places or people, e.g., a photograph of a painting of Goethe and one of “Baby Benson,” a child performer popular in the 1870s. But otherwise all the other photographs—at least another forty—are of people who have not been identified.

Goethe

I gave up on the ones from Philadelphia—too many possibilities! An infinite number now that I know that these CDVs could have been given to the Nusbaums by friends, acquaintances, even visitors from other states, as we saw with S.B. Axtell’s CDV left as a calling card. I posted on a Philadelphia genealogy group on Facebook, inviting people to send me photos of their ancestors that I would use to compare with mine, but I had no luck.

But I thought I could at least make an educated guess about the four photographs of children that were taken in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, all taken by a photographer named J.M. Wimer.

I have only one family on my family tree that lived in Lewistown in the mid-1800s—the family of Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum Pollock. Mathilde Dreyfuss was the sister of my three-times great-grandmother Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum. I at first thought it would be obvious who was who in these photos. As if…

Mathilde was married first to John Nusbaum’s younger brother Meier or Maxwell. They had two children together, Flora in 1848 and Albert in 1851. Tragically, Maxwell was killed in the San Francisco fire of 1851 while traveling there for business. Mathilde married Moses Pollock a few years later and had three children with him: Emanuel (1856), Miriam (1858), and Rosia (1870).

By 1860 Mathilde and her family were living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and by 1870 they were living in Philadelphia. CDVs were first seen in the US in about 1859-1860. Assuming the photographs were taken before Mathilde moved to Harrisburg and thus before 1860, that would mean these photos were taken no earlier than 1859 and no later than 1860, if they are of Mathilde’s children while living in Lewistown. In 1859 Albert Nusbaum would have been eight, Emanuel Pollock would have been three, and Miriam Pollock would have been a year old. Rosia wasn’t yet born, and Flora would have been eleven, but I don’t see an eleven year old girl here. So I thought maybe the older boy was Albert, the baby was Miriam, and one of the others was Emanuel.

But then I remembered that Ava had said that the fringed chairs were not introduced until 1864.

Also, it appears that in the 1850s until sometime after 1870, J.M. Wimer (sometimes spelled Weimer) was living in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, which is about thirteen miles from Lewistown. He doesn’t show up in Lewistown until the 1880 US census. Newspaper articles from 1871 show him as a resident of Mifflintown. Now thirteen miles doesn’t sound that far in today’s world, but in the horse and buggy era that might take three hours, not exactly a convenient commute.

So perhaps these photos were taken in the 1870s or 1880s. If so, I had no relatives living in Lewistown at that time. And thus, once again, I can’t be certain who these children are.

As for the remaining photographs in the album not taken in Pennsylvania, Santa Fe, or Germany, there are about twelve photographs in the album that were taken in New York City. I have no idea who could be in these photographs. As far as I can tell, assuming that these photographs were also taken some time between 1860 and 1890 like all the others in the album, there were no Nusbaum or Seligman relatives living in New York City during those years. Could they have visited and had photographs taken? Of course. Could these be friends of the family? Certainly. But unless someone comes up with a photograph to match these people, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack to try and identify them. Or even more impossible.

Then there are the CDVs from places where I cannot find any likely family connections, like Montgomery, Alabama, St. Louis, Missouri, and Wheeling, West Virginia. Sadly, I have no way of knowing who these people could be. They, like so many of the others in the album, will remain a mystery.

And thus, I come to the end of this chapter in my genealogy journey. Out of over one hundred photographs, I have a positive identification of Moritz Seligmann, my three-times great-grandfather, and a probable identification of Babette Schoenfeld Seligmann, his wife, my three-times great-grandmother, based on earlier photographs. I have positive identification of two babies who died as children (Milton Josephs and Eva Dinkelspiel) because their names are on the photographs. Same for two people who were distantly related to me by marriage, the Gardiners, the parents of Doris Gardiner who married Otis Seligman. And also I can identify some people who were not related to me at all—Louis Sulzbacher, Goethe, Baby Benson, and some mysterious visitor named S.B. Axtell.

Beyond that, I have some possible identifications—maybe there’s a photograph or two of John Nusbaum, maybe some of his sons in Peoria, maybe a photograph of Frances Nusbaum, maybe one or two of her sister Miriam—but nothing nearly definite enough to label them as such.

Nevertheless, this has been an exciting and worthwhile adventure. I’ve learned a great deal about CDVs, the dating of photographs, and the names of some Philadelphia, Santa Fe, and German photographers and when and where they worked. I’ve had the great pleasure of collaborating with Ava Cohn in trying to identify the people in the photographs.

I’ve also gained some insights into the lives of my Nusbaum-Seligman relatives from the overall collection of CDVs. They knew many people from many different places, and the photographs appear to be of people who were if not wealthy, certainly not poor. They are well dressed and distinguished looking. Someone was a fan of Goethe, someone was a fan of Baby Benson. And reviewing the album reminded me of one of the tragic realities of life in those times—many children did not live to adulthood, like Milton Josephs and Eva Dinkelspiel. Even if I can’t put names to most of the faces, I have had a glimpse into the lives of my ancestors.

And I have had my hands on a physical object that I know for certain was handled by my three-times great-grandparents John Nusbaum and Jeanette Dreyfuss, by their daughter Frances, my great-great-grandmother, and by her husband Bernard Seligman, and most likely also by my great-grandmother Eva Seligman Cohen and her siblings. Before it ended up in the hands of an antique dealer in Santa Fe, it was in the possession of Eva’s niece and Arthur Seligman’s daughter Joan, Joan’s daughter Adrienne, and Joan’s granddaughter Jhette. It is now back safely in Jhette’s hands. And I instead have the scans of all the photos and that sweet memory of holding the album lovingly in my own hands for several months.

May it stay safe and protected for at least another 160 years.