Category Archives: Genealogy

Pennsylvania, I love you!

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OK, perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but yesterday morning I woke up to read online that the Pennsylvania death certificates up through 1944 were now available on ancestry.com.  (Previously, only those up through 1924 were available.)  As soon as I’d had my breakfast, I started searching for all my previously researched Cohen relatives who died between 1925 and 1944 to find their death certificates.  Within a half an hour I had found eleven of them.  Although they did not contain any amazing revelations, I was able to learn when and why several of my relatives had died.

I have updated the relevant blog posts for Hannah Cohen, Lewis Weil, Rachel Cohen, Martin A. Wolf and his wife Marie Morgan, Laura Wolf, Harry Frechie, and Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr.  I also have certificates for Reuben Cohen, Sr., Emanuel Cohen, and Abraham Cohen which will be discussed in later posts.  The only one of these that I was particularly interested in was that of Samuel Rosenblatt, Jr., who had died when he was only twenty and was his parents’ only child; he died of leukemia.  Laura and Martin A. Wolf, siblings and the children of Hannah and Martin Wolf, also died at relatively young ages—in their 40s, Laura of diabetes and Martin A. of ulcerative colitis.

If you are interested in seeing the certificates, I have posted them at the relevant blog posts as linked to above.

It was good to put some closure on some of those lives, although sad to be reminded again of how many of my ancestors died so young.  Thank you to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for opening up your records so that family histories can be told.

A Distributed Denial of Service Attack on Ancestry.com and other Genealogy Sites

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Ancestry.com

There was an attack on ancestry.com by hackers yesterday, taking down the entire site and all of its associated sites including FindAGrave, newspapers.com, and many of the databases shared by JewishGen.  That means I could not access my tree or do more research except on the FamilySearch website.  Although I have my tree backed up on my computer, I had not backed it up in the last week or so (stupidity on my part), so it was not up to date.

What have I learned from this?  I am too dependent on ancestry.com for storing my family history information.  Yes, I do download copies of all the photographs and most of the documents to my computer, and they are also accessible through FamilyTreeMaker, the family tree software I have on my computer.  All my blog posts are also stored in Word format on my computer as well as on WordPress, the host of this blog.  But what if my hard drive is destroyed? What if WordPress is attacked?  How do we protect our photographs and documents as safely as possible?  I can’t imagine losing everything that I have worked so hard to find and collect, so if others out there have suggestions, please let me know.

Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ancestry.com was up very briefly this morning, so I was able to update my hard drive version of my tree with Family Tree Maker.  But it is down again now, and I am just wondering how much at risk my saved files and research are and will be in the future.

 

 

 

An Important Clue Buried in A Wedding Announcement

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As I was finishing up my research on Sallie R. Cohen and her life, I found this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about her wedding:

Sallie R. Cohen and Ellis Abrams wedding story

Sallie R. Cohen and Ellis Abrams wedding story

(“Matrimony Notice,”  Tuesday, May 22, 1900,Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA) Volume: 142 Issue: 142 Page: 2)

Not only does this provide further evidence of the social and economic success of Reuben and Sallie Cohen, it also provides a very important clue to one of my biggest questions about the Cohen clan.  Remember the two Hart Cohens that had me confused a few weeks ago—one in Philadelphia and one in Washington, DC? After much searching and thinking I had developed a strong hunch that they were first cousins and that Jacob Cohen of Philadelphia and Moses Cohen, Sr., of Washington were brothers, both sons of my great-great-great grandparents Hart Levy Cohen and Rachel Jacobs.  I am in touch with Moses Cohen’s descendant Scott, and we are awaiting DNA test results to see whether he and my brother share enough DNA to conclude that we are all in fact descended from Hart Levy Cohen.

But now I have another fairly persuasive bit of evidence linking the Moses Cohen family in DC to my Philadelphia Cohens.  If you can read the announcement, you will see that one of the bridesmaids is Grace Cohen of Washington, DC.  Grace Cohen was the daughter of Moses Cohen, Jr., and his wife Henrietta.  She was born in 1877, two years before Sallie R. Cohen, daughter of Reuben Cohen, and was  thus her second cousin, assuming that Jacob and Moses were brothers and thus their respective sons, Reuben and Moses, Jr., were first cousins.

This is the kind of almost accidental discovery that just makes my day.  It’s the kind of thing that I could easily have missed or read and not thought about carefully.  Although the DNA test results may provide more scientific evidence that DC Moses and my great-great grandfather Jacob were brothers, this little tidbit in a wedding announcement is certainly fairly persuasive evidence on its own.

Maria Cohen 1856-?: A Hard Story to Find, A Harder One to Tell

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It took me a long time to find the story of Maria Cohen, the seventh[1] child of my great-grandparents, Jacob and Sarah, and once I did, I wished I hadn’t. Things started easily enough, as I was able to find a record in the Philadelphia marriage index identifying her husband as William Levi. They married on December 15, 1875.  I was able to find them on both the 1880 and 1900 census reports with their sons Lewis, Jacob, and Isaac, but on both there were entries that were inconsistent with the facts I know about Maria.  On the 1880 census, it says her parents were born in Germany, and in 1900 it says her parents were born in Russia, when I know that her parents were in fact both born in England.

Had the census taker received erroneous information or did I have the wrong Maria?  Certainly her sons’ names, Lewis, Jacob and Isaac, were all names that ran in the Cohen family.  The age given for Maria on the census reports seemed close enough.  In 1880 Maria would have been 24; the census says she was 21 with two sons ages two and one.  If she really married in 1875, that means she would have been only 16 when she married, which seems unlikely.  In 1900, Maria would have been 44; the 1900 census reports it as 40.  I am accustomed to census errors, and these were not any worse than others I’ve seen.

So this could be the right Maria Cohen, but I cannot be absolutely sure because after 1900 she and her husband disappear from the records.  I cannot find Maria or William Levi on the 1910, 1920, or 1930 census.  Perhaps they both died between 1900 and 1910, but I also cannot find any death records or burial records for either of them. At first I thought perhaps they all changed their names, but after a lot of looking I was able to find death records for three of their four sons, and that is where this story gets harder to tell.

The first record I found was for their oldest son Lewis, who died on May 4, 1915, from heart disease at age 38.

Lewis C. Levy death certificate

Lewis C. Levy death certificate

His wife Emma Fogle, whom he had only married five years before in 1910, lived another almost 50 years, but was buried beside him at Adath Jeshurun cemetery and apparently never remarried.  Since the headstone is marked “father” and “mother,” there must have been at least one child born during that brief marriage, but so far I have not been able to locate that child.

Lewis and Emma Levy headstone

Lewis and Emma Levy headstone

This morning, after much looking, I found a death certificate for Maria and William’s second son Jacob, who also died at a young age.  He died only a year and half after his brother Lewis on December 22, 1916, from tuberculosis. He also was 38 when he died.  The death certificate reveals that he had been residing at the Norristown State Hospital for the Insane when he died and had been there for just over ten years.  He also was buried at Adath Jeshurun.

Jacob Levy death certificate

Jacob Levy death certificate

I was already feeling sad for Maria and William for losing two sons before either reached forty years of age when the story got even worse.

In searching for records for Maria, William and their sons this morning, I was surprised to see a death record for a Benjamin Levy, son of William Levy.  It was the first time I knew that Maria and William had had a fourth son, Benjamin, born in 1881.  Since he was born in 1881, he was not on the 1880 census.  Since he died in 1897, he was not on the 1990 census.  I had missed him completely in doing my initial research of Maria and her family.  I gasped when I found his death certificate and saw his cause of death: “found drowned.”

Benjamin Levy death certificate

Benjamin Levy death certificate

I looked to see if I could find any other information and found this story, quoted in its entirety from the Philadelphia Inquirer dated March 18, 1897.

The body of the young man which was found on Monday in the Delaware River at the foot of Callowhill street was that of Benjamin Levy, aged 16, who lived at 1580 Fontaine Street, and who has been missing since January 9. It is thought that he committed suicide.

Before going away, he said to his brother: “Good-bye, Jake, forever.  I’m going to jump overboard.”  He was not seen alive afterwards.  It is believed he drowned himself because he had been rebuked for drinking.

(“A Young Suicide,” Thursday, March 18, 1897,Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA)   Volume: 136   Issue: 77   Page: 10 )

Benjamin had been missing for two months when his body was found.  I cannot begin to imagine how his family felt.  Could it possibly be that just getting scolded for drinking led him to commit suicide? Or was there something else behind the story? Was there underlying mental illness, as was the case with his older brother Jacob?

Although the death certificate for Jacob said that he had been hospitalized since October, 1896, ten years, one month and 28 days before his death, this news story about Benjamin seemed to indicate that Jacob was still home when Benjamin committed suicide in March, 1897.  One has to wonder whether Jacob’s mental illness was precipitated or at least exacerbated by his little brother’s death and thus whether Jacob’s death certificate was off by a year in describing his stay at the state hospital.  Did Jacob feel guilty, knowing that his younger brother had talked about suicide but Jacob had not being able to stop him? How did Maria and William cope with these two traumas?

It was less than twenty years later that their son Lewis died in 1915, with Jacob dying a year later in 1916.  Only Isaac remained, their youngest son.  Fortunately, Isaac’s story is not tragic.  In 1909, he had married Rose Hicks, who was a few years older than Isaac and had a son William from a previous marriage. Although marrying an older divorced woman with a child might have been somewhat unusual back then, given what this family had been through, that must have been small potatoes to them.  In 1910, he and Rose were living at 133 Walnut Street in 1910 with several boarders, and Isaac, now using the name Harry, was working at a pawnshop.

Isaac "Harry" Levy and Emma Levy 1910 census

Isaac “Harry” Levy and Emma Levy 1910 census

In fact, it was his uncle Lewis Cohen’s pawnshop, as revealed in Harry’s World War I draft registration (and as confirmed by an address check for Lewis Cohen in 1917).

Isaac "Harry" Levy draft registration World War I

Isaac “Harry” Levy draft registration World War I

Harry, Rose, and Rose’s son William as well as her nephew were living on Reno Street in 1920, and Harry and Rose continued to live in Philadelphia at least until 1942 when Harry’s draft registration for World War II continues to provide a Philadelphia address at 222 North 52nd Street.  Harry was working for the WPA in Philadelphia at that time.

Isaac "Harry" Levy World War 2 draft registration

Isaac “Harry” Levy World War 2 draft registration

It does not appear that Harry and Rose had any biological children of their own.  I cannot yet find any record for Harry or Rose after 1942, nor have I yet had any luck locating any records for Maria or William after the 1900 census.   I plan to contact Adath Jeshurun cemetery in Philadelphia to see if they have records for Harry/Isaac, Rose, Maria or William Levy.  Since the other members of the family were all buried at that cemetery, I am hoping that I will be able to get at least some greater information about the others.

Genealogical research is filled with twists and turns.  I spent many hours this week, focused on Maria Cohen and her family with William Levy, and until this morning I had found almost nothing except their marriage record and  those two census reports.  I went to sleep feeling that I would never know the rest of the story.  Then with just a few lucky keystrokes this morning, I opened the door to a terribly tragic family story.  I almost wish that I hadn’t.  Careful what you wish for, as they say.  I hope I can put some closure on Maria’s life.  Only time, persistence, and lots of good luck will tell.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Reuben was the sixth child, but I am skipping over him for now as I wait to hear from one of his descendants.

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Isaac Cohen 1850-1914: A Harder Story to Tell

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The third child of my great-great grandparents was Isaac.  He was born on February 4, 1850, in Philadelphia, the first of their children both conceived and born in the US.  Until at least 1872 when he was 22 years old, he lived at home with his parents at 136 South Street and was working as a clerk in one of the family pawnshops.

He was living at a different address as of 1873, 923 Parrish Street, which was two and a half miles north of his family home, continuing the northward movement of the family.  I assume that sometime in 1873 he had married his wife, Emma Cordelia van Horn, since he was no longer living at home.  Emma was born in 1853 in Pennsylvania, the daughter of William van Horn and granddaughter of I.B. Merkel, according to documents relating to her death, but so far I have not been able to find out more about her family or to locate a William van Horn with a daughter named Emma.  I was surprised to see just how many William H. van Horns there were in Philadelphia alone.

Like his older brother Joseph (as well as many of his younger brothers) and his father, Isaac was a pawnbroker.  For his whole career he worked at a pawnshop at 830 North 10th Street, a block away from his residence in 1873 on Parrish Street.   On July 9, 1879, Isaac and Emma’s son, Isaac Wilbert Cohen, was born, and in 1880 the family was living at 636 North 11th Street, only a few blocks away from the store on 10th Street.  The 1880s seem to have been fairly uneventful.  Isaac continued to work at the same location throughout the decade, according to the city directories.  Emma and little Isaac were at home.

Isaac Cohen and son living with Emanuel Cohen and family 1880 census

Isaac Cohen and family 1880 census

Then in 1893, tragedy struck, and Isaac’s life was never the same.  His wife Emma died on November 3, 1893, when she was only forty years old and her son was only fourteen years old.  Emma died from “Septic Peritonitis from Suppurative Salpingitis,” according to her death certificate.  As explained to me by my brother, suppurative salpingitis means she had pus in her fallopian tubes, a condition today known as pelvic inflammatory disease.  In Emma’s case it led to a septic condition in her abdomen which killed her.

Emma Cohen death certificate 1893

Emma Cohen death certificate 1893

Emma Cohen funeral notes 1893

Emma Cohen funeral notes 1893

It was from the funeral notes above that I learned Emma’s father’s and grandfather’s names.

When she died, Emma and Isaac had been living at 1606 Diamond Street, so the family had moved again, about two miles north from 11th Street and Isaac’s store on 10th Street.  After Emma died, Isaac and his son remained at 1606 Diamond Street, and as of 1895, Isaac’s much younger brother, my great-grandfather Emanuel, was also living at 1606 Diamond Street.  Emanuel was thirteen years younger than Isaac, 32 in 1895, and was himself married and the father of three sons, including my grandfather John, who was born in 1895.  On the 1900 census, Isaac and his son were still living with Emanuel and his family, with Emanuel listed as the head of household.

Isaac Cohen and son living with Emanuel Cohen and family 1900 census

Isaac Cohen and son living with Emanuel Cohen and family 1900 census

I found this somewhat puzzling.  Had Emanuel moved his family to Isaac’s home to help take care of his widower brother and motherless nephew?  Or had Isaac taken in Emanuel to help him out?  I assume it’s more likely the former—that Isaac need help with caring for his teenage son and that my great-grandmother Eva was willing to help raise him as well as her three sons, who would have been young boys during the 1890s.  Isaac had twelve siblings, some much closer to him in age.  Why would he have ended up living with Emanuel, his much younger brother and not one of the others?

Isaac was the first member of the Cohen family to marry someone who was not Jewish.  Emma had been buried in a non-Jewish cemetery, West Laurel Hill in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.  Had his other siblings been upset that he married outside the faith?

Isaac’s stay in Emanuel’s household continued for almost twenty years.  In 1910, he was still living with Emanuel, Eva, and their sons, now at 1441 Diamond Street, and still working as a pawnbroker.  His son Isaac Wilbert had married Gertrude Mann the year before and was living in his own place.  Why had Isaac stayed with Emanuel and not moved with his son?  To give the newlyweds their own space? Again, it does seem a bit strange, but I suppose that after fifteen years of living with his brother and family, Isaac at age 60 was content to stay put.

Isaac Cohen with Emanuel and family 1910 census

Isaac Cohen with Emanuel and family 1910 census

But then Isaac suffered another terrible loss.  On March 3, 1914, his son Isaac Wilbert Cohen died from lobar pneumonia.  According to the death certificate, Isaac Wilbert had suffered from myocarditis, another family member succumbing to heart problems.  He was only 34 and had been married only five years when he died.  He had no children.

Isaac Wilbert Cohen death certificate

Isaac Wilbert Cohen death certificate

Isaac Cohen, my great-grandfather’s brother, himself died just a few months later on September 15, 1914, from acute peritonitis secondary to pancreatic cancer.

Isaac Cohen death certificate

Isaac Cohen death certificate

He was 64 years old and had lost his wife 21 years before and his only child just six months before.  It seems like he endured far too many losses far too soon.  I hope that he found comfort living with my great-grandparents and my grandfather and great-uncles.  I wish that I knew more about his life and his story.

Like his wife, Isaac was buried at West Laurel Hill cemetery along with his son Isaac Wilbert.

 

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Mystery Solved—I think

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As I wrote yesterday, I was somewhat befuddled by the existence of two men named Hart Cohen, born around the same time (1850-1851), both married to women named Henrietta whose birth names started with B.  Although one Hart was born in Philadelphia and the other in Maryland, at first I (along with many other ancestry.com members) thought they were the same person and had their families intertwined on my family tree.  After spending much time sifting through census reports and other documents, I was finally convinced that there were in fact two Hart Cohens married to two different Henriettas, one living in the Washington, DC, area his whole life and the other living in Philadelphia his whole life except at the very end of his life.  Philadelphia Hart died in Washington, DC, in 1911, thus making the situation even more confusing.  But there were in fact two separate men, not one man living a double life.

But was this more than coincidence? Was there any connection between them aside from all those coincidences?  I went to sleep last night unsure about the answer to that question, but the last document I found before my post was a death record for DC Hart which revealed his parents’ names: Moses Cohen and Adeline Himmel.  Further research revealed that Moses was born in England, Adeline in Germany, and that they had had a son born in Germany named Moses before emigrating to Maryland and having DC Hart.

Hart Cohen DC death record 1926

Hart Cohen DC death record 1926

I woke up this morning, determined to find some link between Moses Cohen, DC Hart’s father, and Jacob Cohen, my great-great grandfather and the father of Philadelphia Hart.  After some searching, I first found Adeline’s death record and saw that she had died in 1895, already a widow, in Washington, DC, and was buried in Washington.  I then tried to figure out when Moses, her husband, had died, and found a number of  Washington, DC. city directory listings in which Adeline Cohen was described as the widow of Moses.  The earliest one I found was dated 1867, meaning that Moses had already died by that time.

1867 Washington DC city directory Adeline Cohen as widow of Moses

1867 Washington DC city directory Adeline Cohen as widow of Moses

In fact, in 1870, Adeline was living with DC Hart and her other children in Washington.

Adeline living with her children 1870 US census

Adeline living with her children 1870 US census

 

That gave me an outer limit for when Moses, Sr., had died, and by placing a date limit on his death, I was able to uncover this record on ancestry.com:

Moses Cohen death record 1860

Moses Cohen death record 1860

Notice his father’s Hebrew name: Naftali ha Cohen.  This rang a bell, and I went back to my earlier research and found that on my great-great grandfather Jacob Cohen’s marriage record his father’s Hebrew name was recorded as Naftali Hirts ha Cohen.

Jacob and Sarah Cohen's marriage record

Jacob and Sarah Cohen’s marriage record

This was one coincidence too many and enough for me to conclude that Moses, Sr. and Jacob were in fact brothers, that Moses had not stayed in England as I had concluded early on in my Cohen research, but had come to America just as all his other siblings had.  I now also think that it is possible that the “Mordecia” [sic] listed as living with Jacob on the 1850 US census was probably his brother Moses, who had also emigrated in 1848 from England.

Jacob Cohen and family 1850 US census

Jacob Cohen and family 1850 US census

His wife Adeline and son Moses, Jr., must have arrived sometime later, though I have not yet located a record revealing when they came.  I will need to track down a few more documents to be sure—death certificates for Moses and Jacob and also photographs of their headstones.

But assuming my hunches are correct, Philadelphia Hart and DC Hart were first cousins, sharing a name, sharing an occupation (pawnbroker/jewelry store owner), having wives with the same first name, and sharing a grandfather for whom they were both named, my three-times great-grandfather, Hart Levy Cohen.  The only real coincidence was that they both had wives named Henrietta.

I just love when the pieces come together.  It is what makes this so much fun.  Digging around in the muck, being totally confused and overwhelmed, and then that AHA! moment when suddenly it all makes sense.

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Did My Great-Grandfather’s First Cousin Live Two Separate Lives?

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I have started tracking down the lives of the children of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, my great-great-grandparents, and all was going pretty well until I started to research their son Hart.  It seems he might have been living two lives, one in Philadelphia, one in Washington, DC.   Or perhaps not.  Here’s what I have found; see if you have any ideas on how to resolve this one.

The first mention of Hart, obviously named for his grandfather Hart Levy Cohen who was still alive when he was born, is on the 1860 US census, listing little Hart as nine years old, so born in 1850 or 1851, depending on whether his birthday was before or after June 7th, the date in 1860 when the census was taken.  Since he was not listed on the 1850 census taken on July 25, 1850, he was obviously born sometime between July 25, 1850 and June 7, 1851 if he was actually nine on June 7, 1860.

Jacob and Sarah Cohen and family 1860 US census

Jacob and Sarah Cohen and family 1860 US census

Things start getting weird in 1870.  I found two census reports for Jacob and Sarah and their children for 1870, one taken in June, one in November.  The second one is labeled “Second Enum” for second enumeration so for some reason the census taker went to the neighborhood twice.  What’s odd is that Hart is listed as 20 on the June version and 19 on the November version.  I’ve seen age mistakes so often that this did not faze me in the least, but it does not help pin down Hart’s precise birth date.

It is the 1880 census, however, that really threw me.  In 1880 there are also two census reports for Hart Cohen born in 1850 or 1851.  One is clearly the right Hart:  He was living in Philadelphia, working as a storekeeper, and was born in Pennsylvania of parents born in England. He is 30 years old, giving him a birth year of 1850 or 1851.  This Hart was married to a woman named Henreta or probably Henrietta and had three children, Jacob (6), Sarah (5), and Julia (4).  If Hart and Henrietta had a six year old child, then presumably they would have been married no later than 1873, and in fact I was able to find a record of a marriage of Hart Cohen to a Henrietta Brunswick in Philadelphia on February 12, 1873 in the Pennsylvania marriage index.

Hart Cohen and family Philadelphia 1880 US census

Hart Cohen and family Philadelphia 1880 US census

All seemed to be making sense until I found another 1880 census report for a Hart and Henrietta Cohen residing in Washington, DC. This Hart was also 30 years old.  I was ready to dismiss this as just as bizarre coincidence since this Hart was listed as having parents who were born in Germany.  His own birthplace was given as Washington, DC.  This seemed like it had to be a different person.  The DC Hart and Henrietta had one child, a daughter named Fanny who was only a year old.

Hart Cohen and family Washington, DC 1880 US census

Hart Cohen and family Washington, DC 1880 US census

I have a city directory for Philadelphia listing Hart Cohen as a pawnbroker in 1886, so I was convinced that the DC Hart was just a fluky coincidence of someone with the same name and age as my Hart marrying a woman also named Henrietta.  The 1890 census was destroyed by fire, so I had to skip ahead to 1900 to see if I could follow up on the two Hart and Henrietta Cohens.

I could not find the Philadelphia Hart and Henrietta on either the 1900 or the 1910 census, but I did find the DC Hart and Henrietta on both.  The 1900 census for the DC Hart provided a more specific birthdate—September, 1851—and had his birth place as Maryland, but this census listed his parents’ birthplace as England, not Germany as on the 1880 census. DC Hart was working in a jewelry store, a retail business not unlike those of my ancestors, so that seemed strange as well. Hart and Henrietta now had four children, Frances, Munroe, Isador and Jacob.  But this Jacob was only 14 in 1900 so could not be the same Jacob who was 6 in 1880 and thus born in 1874.  Once again I felt pretty certain that this was still not the same Hart Cohen who was Jacob and Sarah’s son.  Despite the fact that his parents were now reported to be English-born, that he was a jeweler, that he married a woman named Henrietta and that he was also 30 years old, I again said that this was just a coincidence.

Hart Cohen and family in Washington, DC 1900 US census

Hart Cohen and family in Washington, DC 1900 US census

On the 1910 census report for the DC Hart and Henrietta,  Hart still had a jewelry store and was married to Henrietta and living with Frances and Jacob, two of their children.  His birthplace was listed as Maryland, and now his parents’ birthplaces were reported as England for his father and Germany for his mother.  This also seemed to suggest that this was not the Philadelphia Hart.

Hart Cohen and family Washington, DC 1910 US Census

Hart Cohen and family Washington, DC 1910 US Census

But because I could not find the Philadelphia Hart on the 1900 or the 1910 census, I was a bit perplexed.  Could he have died? Had he moved to DC?   Even if that were the case, it would not explain the two 1880 census reports.  Was he living a double life, having two wives both named Henrietta, one in Philadelphia and one in DC, and two different sets of children?

I decided to search for a death record for any Hart Cohen born around 1850, and I found one dated January 3, 1911.  Since this   record was from the District of Columbia Selected Deaths and Burials database, I assumed that this related to the DC Hart especially since the report said that the deceased was living in DC at the time of his death, but on a closer look I saw that it said that he had been born and was buried in Philadelphia.

I then found a second record in the Philadelphia Death Certificates Index that made it quite clear that this was the Philadelphia Hart, not the DC Hart: it listed his parents’ names as Jacob Cohew (sic) and Rachel Jacobs, both of whom were born in England.

Pennsylvania Death Certificates Index

Pennsylvania Death Certificates Index

 

Further research revealed that Hart’s body had been moved from its original burial location twice by two of his children, Jesse Cohen and Sarah Cohen Jonas, ending in a move in 1944 to a location in Mt Sinai Cemetery where both his son Jacob H. Cohen and a Ralph Brunswick were also buried.  Since the Henrietta who married Jacob was born Henrietta Brunswick, this seemed (no pun intended) to be the final nail in the coffin establishing that the Jacob who died in January, 1911, was the Philadelphia Hart, son of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, my great-great grandparents.

If that conclusion is correct, then Philadelphia Hart was actually living in Washington, DC, at the time of his death in January, 1911, just nine months after the 1910 census recorded DC Hart (and no other Hart) living with his wife Henrietta and two children Frances and Jacob at 1806 4th Street.  Philadelphia Hart’s residence at his time of death was reported as 1737 N. 15th Street in Washington.  He was also a widower, and I was able to locate a death record for a Henrietta B. Cohen who was born in Lengnau, Switzerland and died in November, 1902.  Had he moved to DC after Henrietta died? If so, why? And what, if any connection, might there be to the “other” Hart and Henrietta?

The other Hart, the DC Hart, was still alive in 1920 and living with his daughter Frances in the District of Columbia.  He also was a widower at this time and retired.  The census report lists his and his parents’ birthplaces as DC, but that is clearly wrong, at least for his parents, whose birthplaces had previously been reported at various times as England and Germany.

Hart Cohen Washington, DC 1920 US Census

Hart Cohen Washington, DC 1920 US Census

My next find was a record of DC Hart’s death. He died August 10, 1926, in Washington, DC.  His parents’ names were listed on this record: Moses Cohen and Adeline Himmel.  His wife’s name was Henrietta Baer.  So not only did both Philadelphia Hart and  DC Hart marry women named Henrietta, they both married Henriettas  with a birth name that started with a B.  It is no wonder that I was confused, and there are numerous trees on ancestry.com that have mixed together the two Hart and Henrietta Cohen families.

Screenshot (3)

When I saw the name Moses Cohen as DC Hart’s father, it stopped me in my tracks.  Could this be my great-great grandfather Jacob’s brother Moses, the one I thought had stayed behind in England? So far I have not been able to find whether there is a connection.  Although I did find a ship manifest with a Moses Cohen emigrating from England to New York in 1848, the same year Jacob left England, I have no idea whether this is the right Moses Cohen.  Tracking Moses Cohen and Adeline Himmel, I know that they had a son also named Moses before Hart and that Moses the younger was born in Baden, Germany around 1839.  Adeline was born in Germany, and Moses must have gone there, married her, had Moses his son, and then moved sometime between 1839 and 1850 to the United States and settled in Maryland where DC Hart was born.

If this was in fact Moses, the son of Hart Levy Cohen, my three times great grandfather, it would explain why Moses named his son Hart.  It might also explain why Philadelphia Hart was living for some time in Washington.  Perhaps he wanted to be closer to his cousin DC Hart and his family.  On the other hand, if there is no connection, then it is just a very, very strange series of coincidences.

What do you think?

 

 

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Hart Cohen and family 1841-1851: Before the Move to America

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be

By 1851, the time of the second English census, my great-great grandfather Jacob Cohen had already moved with his family to Philadelphia.  Much of the rest of his family of origin, however, was still in London.  According to the 1851 census, Hart, my three-times great grandfather, was now a widower and 75 years old, living with two of his children, Elizabeth, now listed as 28 despite having been listed as 20 ten years earlier, and Jonas, who was 22.  Jonas was not even listed as living with the family in 1841 when he would have been only 12 years old.   All three were listed as general dealers and living at 55 Landers Buildings in Spitalfields parish in Tower Hamlets.

Hart, Elizabeth and Jonas Cohen 1851 England Census

Hart, Elizabeth and Jonas Cohen 1851 England Census

Although I thought this might indicate a move to a new neighborhood, my research revealed that Landers Buildings were on Middlesex Street, which was just one blog from New Goulston Street where the family had been living in 1841.  The English genealogy site Genuki indicates that Spitalfields was a district within the parish of Whitechapel for at least some point in London’s history.

I do not know when Rachel, my three-times great grandmother died.  My search of the BMDIndex, the English index of births, marriages and deaths that began to be registered in 1837, revealed quite a few Rachel Cohens who died between 1841 and 1851.  I have ordered one certificate on a hunch that it might be the right one, but I need to do more investigating before I know for certain when she died.

Hart’s son, Moses, now 30 years old, had married Clara Michaels in the fall of 1843, according to the BMDIndex.  I need to obtain a copy of the actual record to be sure, but on the 1851 census, Moses Cohen was married to a woman named Clara and had three daughters, Judith (6), Hannah (2), and Sophia (six months).  He was employed as a general dealer and living at 35 Cobbs Yard in the parish of Christchurch in Tower Hamlets.

UPDATE:  I now know that Moses in fact had left England with Jacob in 1848.  This is not the correct Moses.

Moses Cohen and family 1851 census

Moses Cohen and family 1851 census

This neighborhood is about three miles west of where Moses had been living with his parents in 1841. Moses must have been fairly comfortable as they also had a servant living with them, although the Charles Booth Poverty Map depicted this area as poor in 1898.

The oldest son, Lewis, has been more difficult to track.  He was not living with the family in 1841 nor was he living with his father and younger siblings in 1851.  I would not even have known that he existed except for the fact that he appears on the 1860 US census reports living with his siblings Elizabeth and Jonas and his father Hart and on the 1880 census living with Elizabeth and Jonas.  So where was he in 1841? 1851?  According to those two US census reports, he was born in 1820, so would have been Hart and Rachel’s second child after Elizabeth.  He might have been living independently in 1841, married, or perhaps just not home.  The FamilySearch website indicates that the 1841 census had many holes; if someone was not staying at a home that night, they were not included in the census for that household.  I found three Lewis Cohens on the 1841 Census, but none of them was a good fit.  One was too old, one was living with different parents, and one was not born in England.  But since the 1841 was the first true census taken in England, I assumed that perhaps Lewis was just not among those counted.

The 1851 English census did not provide any greater information on Lewis.   There were several Lewis Cohens again, but only one who was a possible fit: he was born in Middlesex County in Spitalfields, Christchurch, around 1821 and was married to a woman named Sarah.  They were living with Sarah’s mother, Ann Solomon.

Lewis Cohen 1851 census (not sure this is the correct Lewis)

Lewis Cohen 1851 census (not sure this is the correct Lewis)

I have found a marriage for this Lewis and Sarah in 1848 on the BMD Index and will write away for the record, but since Lewis was single in 1860 according to the US census, if this is the right Lewis, either Sarah had died or divorced him between 1851 and 1860.  I searched for a death record for a Sarah Cohen who died between 1851 and 1860, and there were several on the BMD Index.  I am not sure how to determine which ones might be relevant, but will order any that appear to be possibilities once I know that this was the correct Lewis.

UPDATE:  I know now that Lewis had in fact emigrated from England to the US in 1846.  This is not the correct Lewis.

The other possibility is that Lewis had immigrated to the US before the 1851 census or even the 1841 census.  I cannot find him on either the 1840 or 1850 US census, but I did find some immigration records for a Lewis H. Cohen who was naturalized in Philadelphia in 1848.

Lewis H Cohen naturalization ED PA 1848

Lewis H Cohen naturalization ED PA 1848

Since Lewis is listed on the 1860 US census as Lewis H. Cohen, I am inclined to think that this is the right person.  If so, then I also may have found a passenger ship manifest for Lewis, arriving in the US in 1846, which would have made him the first Cohen to immigrate to the US, not my great-great grandfather Jacob.  I need to check further into this, but it seems quite possible that the reason Lewis is not on the 1851 census in England is that he was already in the US.  But then why can’t I find him on the 1850 US census either?

The other mystery child of Hart and Rachel Cohen is the son identified on the 1841 census as John, the youngest child on that census whose age was given as 14, giving him a birth year of 1827.  In my initial research on the family, I thought that John had become Alfred J. Cohen, who was also born in 1827.  Alfred married Mary A. Cohen and remained in England where eventually they had seven children.

In reviewing my earlier work from last year, however, I am now doubtful that this was in fact the child of Hart and Rachel. Although I will order a marriage record for Alfred to be sure, I now think that the John in the 1841 census was actually Jonas, the youngest son of Hart and Rachel and the son who was living with Hart in 1851 in London and in 1860 in Philadelphia.  My reasoning is that Jonas was not listed on the 1841 census when he would have been only twelve years old.  Where else would he have been if not living with his parents? Also, since Jacob’s age was off by a few years on the 1841 census, it seems quite possible that there was an error in “John’s” age and also his name.  Jonas is close enough to John, at least the first syllable, so a census taker might have just recorded it or heard it incorrectly.  On the US census reports, Jonas’ age jumps around, making it difficult to pinpoint a correct year of birth.  Although I am going to order whatever vital records I can for Alfred and for Jonas, right now my hunch is that Jonas and John were the same person, the youngest son of Hart and Rachel Cohen, born sometime between 1825 and 1830.

UPDATE:  It seems quite clear to me now that “John” was Jonas.

So I have a lot of unanswered questions about my Cohen ancestors between 1841 and 1851. When did Rachel, my three-times great grandmother die?  Where was Lewis in 1841? Did he marry in England?  Did he in fact immigrate to the US in 1846? If so, why isn’t he on the 1850 US census? Are John and Jonas the same person, or were there in fact two sons younger than Jacob?

It will take some time to get the records that may help to answer these questions, so while I am waiting for those documents,  I will move on to the next decade and the story of my Cohen ancestors in the United States.

 

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Hart Cohen and Family Between 1841 and 1851: My Great-Great Grandfather Jacob Cohen

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English: Liberty Bell

English: Liberty Bell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As reported previously, in 1841 Hart Cohen and his wife Rachel were living with four of their children, Elizabeth, Moses, Jacob and John, on New Goulston Street in the Whitechapel section of London, presumably part of the Chut community and living fairly comfortably with the two older sons working as china dealers.  There was also at least one other son, an older son Lewis, and possibly another younger son, Jonas, although I am now thinking that John was in fact Jonas, but more on that later.  By 1860, only Moses (and John if there was in fact a son named John) was living in England; all the rest were in Philadelphia. I will try to trace in chronological order the major events and moves made by these family members.

In order to get a complete picture of the family and their lives in England, I will need to get copies of the vital records, including their birth certificates and marriage certificates.  I am now trying to learn how to do that.  I have received some extremely helpful tips and information from another of my favorite genealogy bloggers, Alex Cleverley of the blog Root to Tip.  Alex is a very experienced English genealogist, and with the help she has given me, I will now order the records I need.  Unfortunately it appears that there is no fast and easy access to these documents so for now I will have to rely on the 1851 census, a few other secondary sources, and later census reports and infer a number of facts from those documents.  As I receive other documentation, I will report what I find.

I will start with Hart and Rachel’s son Jacob because he is my direct ancestor, my great-great grandfather, and thus the one I have the greatest interest in tracking.  According to the 1841 census, Jacob was 15 that year, giving him a birth year of 1826.

Hart Cohen and family 1841 English census

Hart Cohen and family 1841 English census

This appears, however, to be inaccurate based on later census reports from the United States and from a passenger manifest, all of which indicate a birth year of 1824 or 1825.  That would have made Jacob 16 or 17 in 1841.

This also seems more consistent with the fact that Jacob may have married his wife Rachel Jacobs (possibly a relative of his mother, whose birth name was also Jacobs) on October 24, 1844.  Without an actual marriage certificate I cannot be completely sure, but I found a marriage record on SynagogueScribes for Jacob Cohen, son of Naphtali Hirts HaCohen, to Sarah Jacobs, at the Great Synagogue of London on that date.  The Hebrew name is not identical to what I had earlier found for Hart, Jacob’s father, but it is very close.  I know that Sarah’s maiden name was Jacobs based on the death certificates of two of their children, Isaac and Frances.  Thus, I feel fairly confident that this is in fact their marriage record as transcribed by SynagogueScribes.

COHEN
Forenames Jacob
Hebrew Name Jacob
Event Marriage
Date 1844 [29 Oct]
Occupation
Address
Father
Father’s Hebrew Name Naphtali Hirts HaCohen
Mother’s Family Name
Mother’s Forename
Mother’s Hebrew Name
Spouse JACOBS Sarah

Frances, or Fanny, was Jacob and Sarah’s first child, born around 1847, as inferred from later US census reports.   Within a year of Fanny’s birth, Jacob and Sarah left London and moved to Philadelphia.  On July 7, 1848, Jacob, Sarah and Fanny, an infant, arrived in New York aboard the ship New York Packing.  Jacob’s age was given as 24, consistent with a birth year of 1824, and Sarah was 20, giving her a birth year of 1828.  Jacob’s occupation was given as “General dealer,” as were many other men on the manifest.

Jacob and Sarah Cohen ship manifest 1848

Jacob and Sarah Cohen ship manifest 1848

Jacob was the first of Hart and Rachel’s children to leave London and move to the US.  His siblings and eventually his father began arriving several years later.  I found this interesting, given that Jacob was not the oldest son, but the fourth child and third son.  Why did he go first?  What drew him away from his family and to America with his young wife and baby?  I also found it revealing about my direct line that both Hart and Jacob were the sons who left their families behind and moved to a foreign country.  As far as I can tell, Hart arrived alone and without his family when he immigrated to England, just as his son Jacob did fifty years later when he left England and moved to the US.  I can’t say I inherited this willingness to take risks and move far from home, having never lived more than four hours from where I was born, but I like the idea that my ancestors were such risk-takers and so independent.

I don’t know whether Jacob and his family stayed very long in New York after arrival, but by 1850, Jacob and Sarah were living in Philadelphia.  It was not easy finding Jacob and Sarah on the 1850 US census.  I tried searching for all Jacob Cohens, Sarah Cohens, Fanny Cohens, and variations on each name and wild card searches on each name, but came up empty for a family that fit my relatives.  Then I decided to search just by first names for a Jacob with a wife named Sarah and a daughter Fanny and found them listed as “Coyle,” not “Cohen,” another instance of a mistaken name on a census report.  I am quite certain that these are my relatives despite the Irish surname because all the other facts fit closely enough—names, ages, places of birth for Jacob, Sarah and Francis.  Jacob’s occupation is described as “Dealer in 2d HG,” which I interpret to mean a dealer in second hand goods.  The only inconsistency is that Francis is listed as male, not female, but later census reports correct that mistake and list her as female.

 

Jacob Cohen and family 1850 US census

Jacob Cohen and family 1850 US census

By 1850, Jacob and Sarah had two additional children born in Pennsylvania.  Joseph was two years old, so presumably born shortly after Jacob and Sarah had arrived in the US in 1848, meaning Sarah was pregnant when they left England.  Isaac was six months old, so presumably born in January, 1850, since the 1850 census was dated July 25, 1850.

There were also two other men living in the household, both twenty years old: Mordecia (Mordecai?) Coyle (Cohen?) and Alexander Kelly.  Unfortunately, the1850 census did not identify the relationship of each individual to the head of household as later census reports did, so I do not know who these two men were.  Mordecai might very well have been a relative since he shared the same surname with the family.  But how might he have been related? None of Jacob’s siblings were old enough to have had a twenty year old son, and Jacob did not have a younger brother named Mordecai.  Also, the census indicates that Mordecai was born in Pennsylvania, meaning that his parents would have been in the US in 1830.  Perhaps Hart had a brother who had emigrated from Holland or Amsterdam or England that early? Or was Mordecai not even related to Jacob?  I have done some preliminary searching for other records for Mordecai, but so far have not had any success.

Thus, by 1850 my great-great grandfather was settled in Philadelphia, a young man with a young wife and three little children, working as a dealer in second hand goods.  His parents and his siblings were all still back in London, but between 1850 and 1860, that would change, and Jacob’s family both in his household and in Philadelphia would expandd many times over.

My next post will describe what the rest of Hart’s family was doing between 1841 and 1860, by which time most of the Cohens had arrived in Philadelphia.

 

 

 

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My Ancestor was a Chut: More on Dutch and English Jews

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The Chuts” Synagogue Sandy’s Row London

After I wrote my last post saying I was going to put aside for now any attempt to find my four times great-grandfather’s family in Holland, I decided to look more generally into the question of why a Dutch Jew would have emigrated from Holland to England in the late 18th century.  After all, life seemed to be pretty good for the Jews in Amsterdam at that point.  They had acquired full legal rights as citizens, many were comfortable both socially and economically, and England was in fact still forty years away from giving Jews the same legal rights as Christian residents.  Why would someone have left Amsterdam to move to London?

Su Leslie of Shaking the Tree mentioned in a comment that she had seen some episodes of the British version of Who Do You Think You Are involving famous British Jews and recalled that there had been discussion of an immigration of Jews from Holland to England in the late 18th century.  I decided to search on line for more information and learned that there was in fact a whole community of Dutch Jews who settled in London during that time.  My research led me to several websites discussing this community, including the Bishopsgate Institute website describing a recent oral history project about this community being sponsored by the Institute and created under the direction of Rachel Lichtenstein, a well-known writer and artist.  According to this site:

The oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in London, Sandys Row in Spitalfields, was established by Dutch Jewish immigrants in 1854, who began arriving in the city from the 1840s onwards. They came in search of a better life, rather than fleeing persecution like the thousands of Ashkenazi Jews who came after them in the 1880s from the Pale of Settlements.  Mostly from Amsterdam, many settled in a small quarter of narrow streets in Spitalfields known as the Tenterground. Here they continued to practise the trades they had bought with them from Holland, which were predominately cigar making, diamond cutting and polishing, and slipper and cap making. Many small workshops were established in the area and businesses were passed on within generations of families.

With their own practises and customs, many of which were different from other Ashkenazi Jewish groups, they became a distinctive, tight knit community of about a thousand people. To the frustration of the more established Anglo-Jewish population living in the area at the time, ‘the Chuts’ (as they were known locally) refused to join any of the existing synagogues…

Sandys Row Synagogue

Sandys Row Synagogue (Photo credit: FarzanaL)

So my four times great grandfather Hart Levy Cohen was a Chut—a term I’d never heard before and a community I’d never known about before.  Other sites confirmed this information and also provided some other details.  Wikipedia provided this explanation for the name “Chuts.”

The origin of the name Chuts is uncertain. A popular assumption is that it derives from the Dutch word goed (meaning “good”) and is imitative of the foreign-language chatter that others heard. It is also Hebrew חוץ for “outside” or “in the street” and may have been applied to the Dutch Jews of London either because they were socially isolated or because many were street vendors. Another possibility is that the Hebrew word would have appeared increasingly in Amsterdam synagogue records as more and more emigrated to London, and others who followed would have “gone chuts” (i.e., emigrated).

Sandys Row Synagogue, London

Sandys Row Synagogue, London (Photo credit: nicksarebi)

The About Jewishness website revealed where in London the Chuts lived:

They settled mostly in a small system of streets in Spitalfields known as the Tenterground, formerly an enclosed area where Flemish weavers stretched and dried cloth on machines called tenters (hence the expression “on tenterhooks”). By the 19th century, the site had been built upon with housing, but remained an enclave where the Dutch immigrants lived as a close-knit and generally separate community. Demolished and rebuilt during the twentieth century, the area is now bounded by White’s Row, Wentworth Street, Bell Lane and Toynbee Street (formerly Shepherd Street).

I looked up these streets on the map of London and was not surprised that this area is very close to New Goulston Street where my ancestors were living in 1841.

The About Jewishness site also provided some insight into what happened to this community and perhaps why my ancestors left London and moved to the US.  According to this site, “the successful introduction of machinery for the mass-production of cigarettes ultimately led to the collapse of the cigar-making economy on which the Chuts community depended. Many Chuts returned to improved conditions in Amsterdam, some emigrated further afield to places such as Australia and the USA, some assimilated into other Jewish families, and some eventually lost their Jewish identity altogether.”

In addition, the huge influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the late 19th century caused tensions between the older established Chuts community and the newer immigrants, most of whom were poor, not as well skilled, and not used to living in a big city.  Interestingly, the Chuts community had traditions and practices that made them different both from the older Sephardic community and from the newer Eastern European Ashkenazi community.  Again, from the About Jewishness site:

[T]he Chuts were treated with suspicion by other Jews because the former had developed specific customs and practices, many of their families having lived in Amsterdam since the first synagogues were established there in the early years of the 17th century. Uniquely in Amsterdam, Ashkenazim (so-called “German Jews”) and Sephardim (so-called “Spanish Jews”) lived in close proximity for centuries, resulting in a cultural blend not found elsewhere. Most remarkably, the Dutch Jews were well accustomed to the sea, and ate seafoods considered not kosher by other Jewish communities.

From this information, it seems reasonable to infer a couple of things.  First, it seems that despite the fact that the Amsterdam Jewish community was fairly well-established, there must have been those, my ancestor Hart among them, who believed that there was greater opportunity for financial success in London.  These Dutch Jews decided to emigrate in order to achieve greater economic security.  Secondly, it seems that at some point many of those Dutch Jews either left or assimilated into the greater Jewish or non-Jewish society.  Some may have left because economic conditions were not as good as they had hoped; others may have left because as a “Chut,” they were not well integrated into the world of London’s Jews.  With different traditions, different practices, different synagogues, they may have felt isolated and disrespected.  I don’t know specifically what motivated my ancestors first to leave Amsterdam and then to leave London, but I’d imagine it was a combination of these factors.

Once again I am finding out new things about my own history and about Jewish history by doing genealogy.  I never knew about the Chuts, and I certainly never knew I was descended from one.  I have written to Rachel Lichtenstein to learn more about her project and will report back with whatever else I learn.

Also, in researching more about the Dutch Jews in general, I came across a genealogy blog I’d not seen before written by Kerry Farmer called Family History Research.  Kerry had a post from two years ago about searching for a Dutch Jewish ancestor using information she was able to obtain from a book compiling information about marriages performed at the Great Synagogue in London, Harold and Miriam Lewin’s Marriage Records of the Great Synagogue- London 1791-1885.  I was very excited when I read this post and contacted Kerry, who generously looked up Hart Levy Cohen and Rachel Jacobs’ wedding for me in the Lewin book.  She was able to provide me with the information she found there:

(Groom) Cohen Hart Levy

(Groom’s father) Leib Katz

(Groom’s patronymic) Hertz b. Leib Katz

(Groom’s address) Not listed

(Bride) Jacobs Rachel

(Bride’s father) Yaakov

(Bride’s patronymic) Rechel b. Yaakov

She also suggested that I contact the owners of the Akevoth site to see if this additional information would help in locating the records of my ancestors, and I have done that.  Now I will wait to see if they can provide any further assistance.

So yesterday I was ready to put aside the search for my Dutch ancestors, and then, with the help of Su Leslie and Kerry Farmer, I was able to make some progress in understanding who they were and why they left Amsterdam and why they left London.  Once again I am humbled by and grateful for the generosity of the genealogy community.  Su and Kerry are from New Zealand and Australia, respectively, and they have helped me in my search to find a Dutch Jew who lived in England and moved to America.  What a small world it is when you find such wonderful, helpful and knowledgeable people.

 

 

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