Back in late October 2025, I wrote in two blog posts about my attempts to learn more about Bertha Katzenstein, my grandmother’s third cousin. Bertha, as I wrote then, was born in New York on April 23, 1892, and her mother (also named Bertha) died shortly thereafter. Bertha and her father and stepmother moved to Europe, and in 1913, Bertha married Hermann Nathan in Harburg, Germany. They divorced six years later in 1919. For seven years that was all I knew about Bertha.

Then last fall I was contacted by Ines Weber, who had located a second marriage for Bertha. On January 14, 1921, Bertha married Friedrich “Fritz” Wilhelm Langebartels in Hamburg, Germany. They left Germany for the US in 1926, and in 1927 Bertha applied for naturalization.¹

Bertha Katzenstein Nathan marriage to Friedrich Wilhelm Langebartels, Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Heiratsregister, Register Year or Type: 1921 (Erstregister), Ancestry.com. Berlin, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1940

On her naturalization form, I learned that Bertha had had a daughter Lotte during her marriage to Hermann Nathan and that that daughter was still living in Germany. Lotte was born on May 1, 1915.

Bertha Katzenstein Langebartels Weber petition for naturalization, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Petitions For Naturalization From the U.s. District Court For the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 542
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1882-1944

As I wrote back on October 22, I had and still have had no luck locating Bertha after that 1927 petition for naturalization. But I had more luck locating her daughter Lotte. As I wrote on October 29, 2025, Lotte Nathan married Emil Fischbein, and on September 8, 1936, they left Germany and immigrated to Palestine. Their son Hanan was born on August 11, 1937, in Haifa. I learned from Hanan’s grandson that Lotte left Emil and Hanan when Hanan was a child and went to England with an English soldier. Other records showed that Lotte married Ronald Francis George Buchanan and died in England in 1971.

That was all I knew when I posted Lotte’s story on October 29, 2025. Then a woman named Jutta posted a comment in German on that post on December 7, 2025, saying that her mother was a half-sister to Lotte Nathan. She explained that Hermann Nathan had remarried after he and Bertha Katzenstein divorced in 1919 and that he had two daughters with his second wife, one of whom was Jutta’s mother.

Jutta and I have now emailed numerous times since then, and she has even shared some photographs of Lotte. Here are two photographs:

Lotte’s half sister, her stepmother, Lotte, and her father Hermann Nathan
Courtesy of the family

Lotte Nathan (left) and her two half-sisters. Courtesy of the family

Jutta also knew that Lotte had ended up in England where she died in 1971 from multiple sclerosis. Teresa of the Writing My Past blog encouraged me to send away for Lotte’s death certificate, which I did. It confirmed what Jutta said and what I’d seen on other trees: that Lotte Buchanan was born Lotte Nathan on May 1, 1915, in Germany, that she died on November 21, 1971, in Aspley, Nottingham, England. Her cause of death was respiratory failure and “disseminated sclerosis,” which Google tells me is another name for MS.²

From Jutta I learned that her grandfather, Lotte’s father, Hermann Nathan committed suicide in early 1945 rather than be sent by the Nazis to the concentration camps. His second wife and his daughters were Christian so did not feel as endangered by the Nazis, but Jutta said that her grandmother stood by Hermann until his death.

Although I still haven’t found any further evidence as to what happened to Bertha Katzenstein, Lotte’s mother, I feel I do have some closure on Lotte herself, thanks to the genealogy village: Ines, Teresa, Gil, and now Jutta.