Women are Difficult, Part Two: Rebecca Rosenzweig

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Amy

I am continuing to search for my grandfather’s first cousins, and I am struggling to find the daughters of Gustave Rosenzweig. I have tracked Lillian up to 1910 and Sarah up through 1940. My next target was Rebecca, the second oldest daughter. This is what I have found so far, although I need documentation to confirm some of my conclusions.

Rebecca was born May 27, 1893, in New York (birth certificate on order, but I am quite certain I have found the correct one based on the report on FamilySearch, which includes her parents’ names), and she was living with her family until at least 1910, according to the 1900, 1905,and 1910 census reports. That is all that I can be certain about at this point. She is not living with her family in 1915 or thereafter.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1910 census

When I did a search for a Rebecca Rosenzweig on the NYC marriage index for the years between 1910 and 1915, there was only one potential person, a woman who married a man named Frank R. Elkin on March 22, 1914. I have not yet received the certificate for this marriage, but I am fairly certain that this is the correct Rebecca. She and Frank appear on the 1915 census, living at 1985 Pacific Street in Brooklyn.

Frank and Rebecca Elkin 1915 at 1985 Pacific Street

On the same census one page earlier are the Rosenzweig family, living 1918 Pacific Street.

Rosenzweigs 1915

In 1915, Frank was employed as a tinsmith.

(Also listed on the same page as Rebecca and Frank Elkin is my grandmother Gussie Brotman, living at 1991 Pacific Street with her sister Tillie Ressler and her family; perhaps Rebecca was the cousin who introduced my grandfather, her cousin, to my grandmother, her neighbor?)

Gussie living with TIllie 1915

In 1917 Frank Robert Elkin was employed doing sheet metal and had a wife and child, according to his World War I draft registration form.

Frank Elkin World War I draft registration

(Interestingly, the registrar of his draft board was someone named J. Rosenzweig.) They were living at 1875 Bergen Street. Frank gave his birth date as May 4, 1891 and his birth place as New York, New York. I could not search for a child born after 1914 since the NYC birth index to which I have access only goes up to 1902.

When I searched for Frank and Rebecca Elkin on the 1920 census, a number of things confused me.

Elkin Family 1920 census

First, the birth place for Rebecca’s parents is given as Minsk, Russia, not Romania. I would not be troubled by this since there are often errors on the census, but this one is so specific in identifying not just the country, but the city, which I had not seen on a census report before. Could I have the wrong Rebecca? Only the marriage certificate will tell me for sure, but I still think that I have the right one. Rebecca and Frank were now living at 1892 Bergen Street, and the Rosenzweig family was also now living on Bergen Street at Number 1918. Could it just be coincidence that both the Elkins and the Rosenzweigs had moved from Pacific Street to Bergen Street?

Rosenzweigs 1920 census

Frank was now working as a steam fitter in a shipyard, according to this report. Perhaps this was his war time employment, working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The second puzzling thing about the 1920 census report is that although it does list a child living with Frank and Rebecca, a boy named Irving, he was only 8 months old at the time of the census, or born in May, 1919. (The census was dated January 7, 1920.) Obviously, Irving was not alive when Frank filled out his draft registration in 1917, so who was the child he referred to on his registration back then?

I searched the death index (which runs to 1948, unlike the birth index) and found an entry for a one year old child named Daniel Elkin who died on December 16, 1917. I will have to obtain that record to be sure, but I fear that the child Frank referred to on his draft registration in 1917 died later that same year.

After the 1920 census I could not find any record for Rebecca Elkin. There were two Frank Elkins on the 1930 census—one living in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. After some confusion based on the fact that both Franks seemed to have sons named Irving, I was finally able to sort through the facts for both, looking backward to see where each had come from before 1930, and concluded that the Brooklyn Frank Elkin was the same one who had been married to Rebecca.

Frank Elkin with his parents 1930 census

That Frank was living with his parents and siblings on Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn that year, working as a salesman at an electrical supply company. His father Louis was listed as the head of household, and living with Louis in addition to Frank was Louis’ wife Ida, his two other sons Matthew and Edward and a daughter Celia and a daughter-in-law Fannie as well as two grandsons, Irwin, age 11, and Stanley, age 4. I cannot tell from the census who was Fannie’s husband—Frank, Matthew or Edward—or who were the parents of Irwin and Stanley. They could be cousins or brothers; they are only identified as Louis’ grandsons.

My hunch is that Irwin is the same child as Irving, Rebecca and Frank’s son born in 1919. He would have been eleven in 1920 when the census was taken. My other hunch is that Rebecca had either died or was institutionalized; I cannot find her on the 1930 census at all, nor can I find a death record for her. I don’t know whether Stanley was her son or her nephew. Unfortunately, I also could not find either Frank or Rebecca on the 1925 census, nor can I find Frank or Irving/Irwin on the 1940 census. There are a number of Irving Elkins born around the right time, but I have not yet had a chance to narrow down those possibilities.

So pending receipt of the marriage certificate for Rebecca and Frank Elkin and the death certificate for Daniel Elkin, I am putting on hold further research about Frank and Irving. I want to be certain that I have the right Rebecca before I go further into the lives of the men I assume to have been her husband and son.

And on that note, let me leave you all in suspense. I will be out of town for the next week and unable to do much research. I will, however, try to post some tidbits and photos I’ve been saving up.

A Celebrity Connection: Louis Gossett, Junior

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Amy

Actor Louis Gossett, Jr. at the 16th Annual MovieGuide Faith and Values Awards Gala (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes when doing genealogy research, the world seems very small. Six degrees of separation becomes more than a Kevin Bacon game, but a reality. Little did I know that I was six degrees of separation from living with Oscar Award winner Louis Gossett, Junior.

The story is really about Sarah Rosenzweig, Gustave and Gussie’s second daughter. Sarah was born in New York City around 1888, according to several census reports. (I’ve yet to locate her actual birth record.) She appears on the 1900, 1905, and 1910 census reports living with her parents and siblings. In 1900, she was in school; in 1905 she was doing housework; and in 1910 she was a “saleslady” in a department store.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1910 census

On March 26, 1911, Sarah married Samuel Kurtz, born in Brooklyn to Lena and Solomon Kurtz.

Sarah Rosenzweig and Samuel Kurtz marriage certificate

Sarah and Sam settled in Brooklyn, and in 1915 Sam was working as a clerk in a department store while Sarah was home. Their first child, Solomon, named for Sam’s father, was born in 1918, and in 1920 Sam and Sarah were living on Howard Avenue in Brooklyn. Sam was employed as a driver for a laundry business. Their second child, Benjamin, was born later that year. In 1924, Sam and Sarah’s daughter Rebecca was born.

Kurtz family 1920

Although I have not found the Kurtz family on the 1925 census, I did find them on the 1930 census, living on Neptune Avenue with the three children and two lodgers, Victor Oleson, a 64 year old Swedish-born house painter (like Sarah’s father) and Louis Gossett, an eighteen year old born in South Carolina, working as a newsboy. As soon as I saw the name, I thought, “Could this be Louis Gossett, Junior’s father?” I checked the box for race on the census, where it was reported that Louis Gossett was “neg” or Negro. I began to think this could be more than coincidental.

kurtz family 1930

So I googled Louis Gossett, Jr., and I saw that he was born in Brooklyn in 1936, making it quite possible that his father had been living in Brooklyn six years before.

I then found a blog describing an episode of Who Do You Think You Are, the television show that was a part of what had inspired me to start researching my family history. One of the episodes had traced the family history of Louis Gossett, Jr. I had seen this episode, but forgotten the specific details. The blog post retraces Gossett’s family history all the way back to the mid-1800s including his father’s birth in South Carolina and includes a snip from the 1930 census when Louis Gossett, Sr. was living with my grandfather’s cousin, Sarah Rosenzweig Kurtz.

So I think that’s within six degrees, right? Louis Gossett, Jr—Louis Gossett, Sr—Sarah Rosenzweig—Gustave Rosenzweig—Ghitla Rosenzweig—Isadore Goldschlager—Florence Cohen—me. Okay, seven degrees. But really, who’s counting?

As for Sam and Sarah Kurtz, by 1940 their two sons and their lodgers were no longer living with them, but their daughter Rebecca was still living with them on Dean Street in Brooklyn, where they also resided in 1942 when Sam registered for the draft. That is the last record I have of either of them so far. I have not found any death records yet. I am also still in the process of researching the lives of their three children, Solomon, Benjamin, and Rebecca.

Sam and Sarah Kurtz 1940 census

Sam Kurtz World War II draft registration

But what I learned from researching Sarah’s life up through 1942 is that you never know what surprises you may uncover while doing family research. You never know who crossed paths with your ancestors or what stories may lie beneath the cold hard data you can find on the records. It is endlessly fascinating.

Louis Gossett Jr to play Halle Berry’s dad

Women are Difficult…to Find and Track, Part I: Lillian Rosenzweig

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Amy

One thing that has been clear to me for a long time is that women are much harder to track in vital records than men, largely because they traditionally changed their names when they married. The Rosenzweig daughters are a case in point.

I have now located and tracked from birth to death the five sons of Gustave and Gussie: Abraham, David, Jacob, Harry and Joe. For those who survived to adulthood, I know who they married, where they lived, and what they did for a living and their military service. I still need to trace the children of Abraham and Jack, but I wanted to see what I could find about the five daughters of Gustave and Gussie first. I’ve been looking all along, but kept hitting walls and so decided to focus on one daughter at a time. Here’s what I know about Lillian.

The oldest child and the only one born in Romania was Lillie or Lillian. According to the 1900 census, she was born in July, 1884, in Romania, but since that was only a month after Gustave and Gussie’s marriage, it seems likely that this was an error and that Lilly was probably born during 1885. The census also says that Lillie arrived in 1884, but her father’s naturalization papers say that he arrived in 1887. In 1900 when she was only fifteen years old, Lillie was working as a typist while her younger siblings were all in school.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

In 1905 the family had moved to Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and Lillian, now 21 according to the census, was doing housework as her employment. In addition to the siblings listed on the 1900 census, there were now two additions, Rachel, who was four, and William, who was three. William is described as a son of the head of the household, which led me to believe that he was another child of Gustave and Gussie. I was unable, however, to locate William on the birth index as William Rosenzweig, nor did he reappear on the 1905 or 1910 census with the family.

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

Once again I searched the death index for a child of Gustave and Gussie, but could not find a death record for William Rosenzweig either. If he was not living with his “parents” and siblings in 1905, where could he be? I searched on ancestry.com for William Rosenzweig and found him living at the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphanage in 1906. I knew it was the right boy by his age (four years old), the address from where he was taken (1021 Fulton Street, Brooklyn), and his mother’s name—Lillian nee Rosenzweig.

William Rosenzweig at the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphanage in 1906

Brooklyn Hebrew Orphanage

William was not Gustave and Gussie’s son, but Lillian’s son. His father is only identified as “Frank (dead),” with no surname. For the other children listed, their father’s first name is also all that is supplied, but that’s because the child presumably has that surname. For William, his surname is the same as his mother’s—Rosenzweig, and no surname is given for his father. I could not find any marriage record for a Lillie or Lillian Rosenzweig between 1900 and 1902 to a Frank, so had Lillian had William out of wedlock? Who was Frank? Was he really dead?

I did find a Frank Cramer who died between 1902 and 1906 and a William Cramer born on March 2, 1902, the birth date provided for William on the orphanage records. I sent for the birth certificate for William Cramer, but unfortunately that William’s parents were not named Frank and Lillian.

Then last night I went back once again to the marriage index and looked again for a marriage record for Lillian Rosenzweig, but this time I did not limit my search to grooms named Frank. I restricted the dates to 1900 to 1902, based on the fact that Lillie was single in the 1900 census and that William was born in March, 1902. I found one marriage of a Lillie Rosenzweig in July, 1901, to a Toscano Bartolini. Could Frank have been his more American nickname? I turned to the death index and searched for a death record, and there it was—Toscano Bartolini had died on April 27, 1904, at 27 years old. Finally I looked for a birth record for a William Bartolini and found one—born March 9, 1902, a mere eight months after Lillie’s wedding to Toscano in July, 1901. It was all starting to come together. I obviously have to send away for all these records to be sure that Lillie is Gustave’s daughter and that William is Lillie’s son, but it certainly seems likely that the records will back up my hunches here. In fact, I checked today on FamilySearch for Toscano Bartolini and found a more thorough description of the marriage record, including a reference to the bride’s parents’ names, Gustav and Gussie. I will still order a copy of the certificate, but I am now certain that Lillie married Toscano, who died just a few years later, leaving her with a two year old son named William.

UPDATE: All these facts were confirmed by the documents. See my more recent post with images of the documents.

After finding all this, I remembered something that Joe’s grandson Ron had told me—that one of Gustave’s daughters had married someone who wasn’t Jewish, and Ariela had said she thought one of the sisters had married someone with an Italian name. Ron had told me that the family was not happy about this, and that for a long time there was some estrangement. Despite whatever they felt, however, in 1905 after Frank/Toscano died, Gustave and Gussie took both Lillian and her son into their home.

It also occurred to me that perhaps the reason Lillie used the name Rosenzweig for William and not Bartolini was based on the fact that he was being taken to a Jewish institution. Obviously Rosenzweig would seem more clearly Jewish than Bartolini.

But why he was taken from the home in 1906 is not explained by the records. The orphanage record indicates that William was discharged to his mother on September 3, 1906, and reports that her address was then 307 East 120th Street in Manhattan, so perhaps there was a falling out with the family. But in 1910, Lillian was living again with her parents and siblings in Brooklyn, and William was not living with her. Lillian’s occupation was listed as a trained nurse at a hospital, and she was listed as single, not widowed. But where was William?

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1910 census

I had not been able to find him as William Rosenzweig in the 1910 census, but now I searched for William Bartolini and found him, living at a residential facility, St. John’s Home in Brooklyn.

William Bartolini 1910 at St John’s Home, Brooklyn

Maybe Lillie placed him there so that she could get training to be a nurse. Perhaps she just could not take care of him. Perhaps I can find some records from St John’s Home.

I also was able to find where William was in 1915: another home for children, this one the New York Catholic Protectory, in the Bronx. (Interestingly, this facility was located where Parkchester is today; Parkchester is an apartment building complex developed by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the Bronx and is where my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my parents once lived; I lived there also until I was four and half years old.)

William Bartolini 1915 Catholic Protection Bronx

William Bartolini 1915 Catholic Protecory Bronx

It seems that in both 1910 and 1915 William had been placed in Catholic institutions after being at a Jewish orphanage briefly in 1906. Had Lillie given up her parental rights? Was neither set of grandparents interested or able to take care of the boy? Was William troubled or disabled in some way that made caring for him at home a problem for everyone? I don’t know the answers, but will try to find out what happened to William after 1915. Apparently you can order microfilm from the Family History Library and see the actual records for the children who resided there, which I plan to do.

And I cannot find Lillie in 1910 or thereafter. She was not living with her mother and siblings in 1915 or in 1920. I cannot find her as Lillie Rosenzweig or as Lillie Bartolini. Perhaps she remarried and changed her name, but I have not yet found a marriage record. But now I know that I just have to keep looking. I almost gave up after Frank Cramer did not pan out. And then last night I looked a different way and found Toscano Bartolini. I hope I can eventually uncover what happened to Lillie and to William.

Another Sad Story: Harry Rosenzweig

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Amy

I have already told the story of Gustave and Gussie’s son David who died shortly after his first birthday. I’ve also talked about the records that indicate that Gustave and Gussie suffered the loss of many infants—perhaps as many as nine babies who did not survive. But I have not yet told the story of their son Harry Rosenzweig.

Harry was born in July 1897, two years after Jacob and a year before Joseph. He appeared on the census reports with the family in 1900, 1905, and 1910, but then he disappeared from the records. He is not on the 1915 census or any later census report. Since he would have been eighteen in 1915, I thought perhaps he was serving in the military like his brothers Abraham and Jack, but I could not find any military record or draft registration with his name. Where could he have been?

Fearing the worst, I checked the death index for NYC and sadly saw that indeed a Harry Rosenzweig had died on July 9, 1913. He would only have been sixteen years old—could this be the same Harry? If so, why did he die so young? I sent for the death certificate, which I received the other day.

Harry Rosenzweig death certificate

As you can see, it is in fact the death certificate for Harry, the son of Gustave Rosenzweig and Gussie Sachs. His cause of death is given as drowning.

I then searched for and found this brief news article from the Brooklyn Standard Union of July 8, 1913, p. 6, which explains some of the circumstances surrounding Harry’s death.

Brooklyn Standard Union July 8, 1913 page 6

Can you imagine what his father must have felt, going to the police station and seeing his son’s clothing? Why was Harry off by himself, swimming alone and away from the others in his gray flannel bathing suit? The article almost seems to imply that there was something suspicious about his behavior. Was his drowning other than accidental? The police obviously did locate his body the next day, as indicated on the death certificate, but the rest of the story remains a mystery.

The other question that lingers for me is whether or not Harry’s death occurred before or after Gustave and Gussie had separated. By the time of the 1915 census, Gussie and Gustave were apparently separated, as Gustave is not listed as living at 1914 Pacific Street with Gussie, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Lizzie and Ray. I have yet to find Gustave anywhere on the 1915 census. I searched the address given in the news report on Harry’s drowning in 1913, 1166 Nostrand Avenue, and Gustave is not listed as living at that address in 1915. In 1910 the family was living at 677 Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn and in 1905 they were living on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Had they moved to Nostrand Avenue between 1910 and 1913 and then moved again between 1913 and 1915 to Pacific Street? Or had Gustave already left the home by 1913 and thus was living by himself on Nostrand Avenue? Where was he then in 1915? I will have to keep searching. By 1920 he seemed to be living in upper Manhattan as a boarder, and by 1920 he was remarried.

If Harry died before Gustave and Gussie separated, one has to wonder whether his death precipitated the end of their marriage. And if he died after they separated, one has to wonder whether the end of their marriage was in any way a factor in his swimming alone, away from everyone else on the beach.

Of course, his death could have been an accident, or he might have been swimming alone for any number of possible reasons. Whichever version of the story is true, the death of Harry Rosenzweig as a young teenager must have been a terrible tragedy for his family, a family which had already suffered the deaths of so many of their children.

Which makes it even more remarkable that at least some of his surviving siblings grew up to be such loving, warm and fun-loving adults, as my post tomorrow will discuss.

Abraham Rosenzweig: Update

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Amy

A week ago I wrote about my search for Gustave Rosenzweig’s son Abraham and the process I used to narrow it down from the thirteen possible Abraham Rosenzweigs who were born in New York between 1885 and 1895 to the one who seemed to be the most likely possibility. That one was the Abraham who married a woman named Rebecca, had two sons named Max and Irving, and who worked for a bakery company. But I needed some specific evidence proving that that Abraham was the son of Gustave Rosenzweig.

I searched the New York marriage record index over and over and finally decided that Abraham and Rebecca had not been married in New York City, but in Pennsylvania where Rebecca was born. Abraham, Gustave’s son, had been stationed in Pennsylvania while in the Navy, and I assume that that was when they met. I looked for a Pennsylvania marriage record, but have not found it.

I was, however, able to find a death notice for that Abraham in the New York Times dated May 14, 1961. It named his wife Rebecca, his two sons Max and Irving, and his four grandchildren.

Abraham Rosenzweig death certificate May 14, 1961 NYTimes

From this death notice and the date of death I was able to find where he was buried, Mt Lebanon Cemetery in Queens. I called the cemetery and asked whether there was any record of his father’s name. The woman there said that they did not keep that kind of record; however, they would take a photograph of the headstone for a fee and email it. I gave her my credit card number and ordered the photograph.

While waiting for that photograph, I hoped that it would in fact have his full Hebrew name with his father’s name. If it only had his English name, I’d be back to square one. It would be hard to obtain a death certificate since he had only died in 1961, barely 50 years ago. It would mean waiting a few months to get the answer.

But fortunately the headstone does have his full Hebrew name as you can see below:

Abraham Rosenzweig headstone Mt Lebanon Cemetery

Avraham ben Gedalia ha Levi. Abraham son of Gedalia the Levite. Remember that Gustave’s birth name was Ghitale. Ghitale is the Romanian equivalent of Gedalia, Hebrew for God is great. Abraham Rosenzweig, the son of Gustave Rosenzweig, married Rebecca from Pennsylvania, worked for a bakery, and had two sons and four grandchildren. Now I will try to find them.

Joseph Rosenzweig: The Process of Elimination

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Amy

The other day I wrote about the steps I took to narrow down the thirteen possible Abraham Rosenzweigs in the 1915 NYS census to the one who I am reasonably certain was the Abraham who was the son of Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig and thus my grandfather’s first cousin. Over the last two days I have been engaged in the same process to determine which of the many Joseph Rosenzweigs I found in the US and NYS census reports was the younger brother of Abraham and also Gustave’s son. I am once again reasonably certain that I have found the right Joseph, but I want to record the process I used to get there, both for my own record-keeping and to invite others to question my reasoning and my conclusions.

In many ways the search for the right Joseph was easier than the search for Abraham. For one thing, there were far fewer Joseph Rosenzweigs than there were Abraham Rosenzweigs. For another, Joseph was born in 1898 and thus was almost ten years younger than Abraham. That meant that I had five census reports in which Joseph was living with his parents and siblings: 1900, when he was two years old, 1905 (seven years old), 1910 (twelve years old), 1915 (seventeen years old) and 1920 (22 years old). I also found what is definitely Joseph’s draft registration and World War I service record; I know these are for the same Joseph because his address on these two forms, 1882 Bergen Street in Brooklyn, is the same address where the family was living in 1920 according to the 1920 US census.

From these documents I learned a fair amount about Joseph’s early adult life. In 1915 he was employed as a driver’s helper, according to the 1915 census.

Rosenzweigs 1915

In 1917 when he registered for the draft he was working for the BRT, or the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, which eventually merged into the BMT or Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company. It is difficult to decipher the handwriting, but it looks like he was a guard for the BRT, perhaps the same as being a driver’s helper as he had reported in 1915.

Joseph Rosenzweig draft registration World War I

His draft registration also indicated that Joseph was the sole supporter of his mother at this time. By this time Gustave and Gussie had separated or divorced, and on the 1915 census two years before Gussie had been living not only with Joseph, but also with Abraham and Jacob, both already in the US Navy, and Lizzie and Rachel, both still in school and young teenagers. Apparently by 1917, only Joseph was providing support for his mother and presumably his two younger sisters. According to the 1918 abstract of Joseph’s military service during World War I, he served as a Seaman, Second Class, in the US Navy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard from February 8, 1918 until November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, the end of World War I.

Joseph Rosenzweig military service

After the war, according to the 1920 US census, Joseph was still living with his mother and Jacob (Jack), Lizzie and Rachel (Ray) at 1882 Bergen Street and working as an operator in a millinery shop; in other words he was a hat maker. It is this occupation that became critical to my analysis as I moved past the 1920 census to the 1925 NYS census and the 1930 and 1940 US census reports.

There are only two Joseph Rosenzweigs listed on the 1925 NYS census born in New York around 1898. One was living with his parents, whose names were Aaron and Rose, so clearly not our Joseph. The other Joseph was married to a woman named Sadie and had a four year old daughter named Irene. They were living at 308 East 98^th Street in Brooklyn, and most importantly, Joseph’s occupation is listed as a hatter. His wife Sadie had been in the United States for 12 years and was born in Russia. Although I have yet to find a marriage record for Joseph and Sadie, it appeared that they must have gotten married in 1920 since they already had a four year old child by 1925. I will continue to search for their marriage certificate as it will provide more definite evidence that the Joseph who married Sadie was the son of Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig.

Rosenzweigs 1920 census

Joseph and Sadie 1925

Although I would like additional evidence to link this Joseph to Gustave, I am reasonably certain that it must be the right person. The age and birthplace are correct, the occupation is the same as the occupation held by Joseph when he was still living at home with his mother, and there was only one other Joseph Rosenzweig listed in this age range in the 1925 NYS census.

Thus, I moved on to the 1930 census to see if any other Joseph Rosenzweigs were included there who could match the right criteria. On the 1930 census I found two Joseph Rosenzweigs. The first Joseph was born in 1898, but he was living with a brother named David, and Gustave and Gussie did not have a son named David who survived until 1930. The second Joseph was the Joseph who married Sadie. The census reported that he was born in 1897 and had been married to Sadie for ten years, making 1920 again the likely year of their marriage. Sadie’s sister Tilda Kablanski was living with them, and they now had two daughters, Irene (nine years old) and Mildred (four years old). They were still living on East 98^th Street in Brooklyn, and Joseph was still employed as a hat maker. There was also a John Rosenzweig who had Romanian parents, which looked promising, and he was living on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn, married to Ethel Bloom. He was working as a postal clerk. Although he was born in 1890 and thus older than Gustave’s son and had the wrong name, I held him aside as a possibility.

The only information in the 1930 census for the Joseph that married Sadie that conflicts with what I know about Joseph, Gustave’s son, is that it reports that his parents were born in Russia, not Romania. I would be more troubled by this if I had not already seen so many errors on census reports: my grandmother’s name listed as Maurica when it was Gussie, my great-grandmother’s name given as Pauline when it was Bessie or Pessel, ages that are inaccurate, relationships described incorrectly, and so on. I had to remind myself not to use this inconsistency to dismiss Joseph and Sadie; genealogists often are reminded that census takers took information often from neighbors or children or anyone who was around when the occupant was not home. So given that there were only two Joseph Rosenzweigs of the right age born in NYC listed on the 1930 census, I decided that it was still more likely that the Joseph who married Sadie was Gustave’s son than the John who was almost ten years older and working as a postal clerk or the Joseph who was living with a brother named David.

Joseph and Sadie 1930 census

So I moved ahead to the 1940 census to see if I could find anything that would help to nail down the identity of the correct Joseph. There were four Josephs (plus the John who married Ethel; since his name was listed as John again, I decided that this was not a census taker’s mistake and eliminated him from my pile.) Once again, there was Joseph who married Sadie, living with their two daughters Irene and Mildred on Rockaway Parkway in Brooklyn. Joseph’s birth year was given as 1899 this time, and his occupation was still in hat-making. There was a second Joseph married to a Sadye, living in Manhattan, but he was older (born in 1894). There was a third Joseph married to a Jenny, also living in Manhattan, who was a salesman of knit goods, but he was also older, born in 1893. And finally there was a Joseph born in 1897, married to Sarah and living in the Bronx. He was a clerk in a rubber factory. Of the four Josephs, it still seemed to me that the one who was most likely Gustave’s son was the Joseph who married Sadie: he lived in Brooklyn, where our Joseph grew up; he was a hatter, which our Joseph had been in 1920; and he was the correct age, unlike two of the other three.

Joseph and Sadie 1940

Obviously I cannot be 100% sure unless and until I can find a marriage certificate for Joseph and Sadie which reveals his parents’ names or unless and until I can find a descendant of Joseph and Sadie who may know whether their great-grandfather was named Gustave and whether their great-grandmother was named Gussie. I have sent messages to a few of those descendants, and I am hoping that one of them will be able to help. In the meantime I will continue to search for more evidence linking Joseph to my great-great uncle Gustave Rosenzweig, in particular the marriage certificate or the death certificate for the Joseph who married Sadie.

It Takes A Village: Mystery Solved!

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Amy

Immigrant children, Ellis Island, New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I received a lot of exciting documents today, but I cannot write about them all at once. I want to write first about the one that resolved a longstanding mystery I had almost despaired of ever solving.

Just to refresh your recollection (or to tell you the story for the first time), my great-great aunt Tillie Strulowitz arrived at Ellis Island with her husband Jankel and three of her seven children, the older four having already emigrated. They were detained at Ellis Island because of questions about Jankel’s health, and I was able to obtain, with the help of the generous people at JewishGen, the file for the immigration hearing. From that I knew that he had been admitted to the United States and had not been deported or died before arriving in the US, as some of his descendants believed.

But I still could find no evidence of what happened to him after January, 1908, when he was admitted. He was not on the 1910 census with Tillie and the children. Tillie was listed as a widow, but I could not find a death certificate or a cemetery burial that proved he had died. I began to wonder whether Jankel had abandoned them or been institutionalized or returned to Romania.

I wrote to the JewishGen discussion group for a second time to ask for help, and I received many very helpful and creative suggestions. I pursued each one of them, but with no success. The only one that I had still not been able to put closure on was a suggestion from a man named Barry Chernick who had found a death recorded for a Jankof Israelwitch in April 1908. Barry hypothesized that this might be Jankel because Israelwitch could be an Americanization of Strulowitz or Srulovici. Since Srul is Yiddish for Israel, perhaps the family had switched their name after leaving Ellis Island. It seemed like a long shot, but I figured it was worth a try and wrote away for the death certificate.

Well, today I received the death certificate for Jankof Israelwitch, and I am certain that it is the death certificate for Jankel Srulovici. My conclusion is based on the following clues: his birth place (Romania), length of time in the US (4 months—he died in April 1908 and arrived in the US at the very end of December 1907), his father’s name (Israel—Jankel’s first born son was named Israel or Srul in Romania), his residence (East Harlem, where his family was living from 1910 and afterwards), and his age (57).

Jankel Srulovici death certificate

The death certificate also revealed on the reverse side that he was buried at Mt Zion cemetery, so I went to their website and searched for Jankof Israelwitch, and there I was now able to find that he is in fact buried there under that name. The fact that Tillie and Isidor and Pincus are also buried at Mt Zion (though not in the same sections) is further corroboration that this is the right person.

reverse side

And so now, thanks to the assistance of so many people at JewishGen and especially Renee and Barry, I can put closure on the life of Jankel Srulovici. He did not abandon his family, he was not deported, he was not institutionalized, he did not divorce Tillie. No, he died what must have been a painful death from a metastatic growth in his ribs.

Like my great-grandfather Moritz, Jankel’s brother-in-law, Jankel died soon after arriving in America. How awful it must have been for the two sisters, Tillie and Ghitla, to lose their husbands after making the brave and difficult decision to leave home and start anew in this country. Yet somehow they both continued on, they raised their children, and they made a life for themselves as widows in the United States. I continue to be amazed by the resilience of the immigrant generation.

David Rosenzweig and The Reality of Infant Mortality

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Amy

In the course of researching Abraham Rosenzweig’s life, I discovered a tenth child born to Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig. On the 1910 census there were nine children, all but one born in New York City between 1888 and 1904. (Lillian, the first child, was born in Romania around 1884.) There were four boys, Abraham, Jacob/Jack, Harry and Joseph, and five girls, Lillian, Sarah, Rebecca, Lizzie and Rachel. The NYC birth index covers those years, so I started my research of Abraham by looking for a birth record. I had several records indicating that he was born sometime around 1890, but I could not (and still have not) found a record for Abraham’s birth.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

I expanded my search to look for any Rosenzweig born around 1890-1892, using FamilySearch as my tool as it allows for liberal use of wild card searching and, unlike ancestry.com or other sites, reveals the names of the parents in the search results. I still did not see any Abrahams or Abes, but in scanning the results, I noticed a child named David who was born to Gadaly and Ghitel Saak Rosentveig. Before receiving the Romanian records for Gustave and Gussie I might not have recognized that these were their Yiddish names: Ghidale Rosentvaig and Ghitla Zacu on their marriage records from Romania. I knew that this could not be a coincidence, that this baby had to be their son, born September 5, 1891. Since I still have not found Abraham on the birth index, I cannot be sure whether David was born before or after Abraham. What I did realize was that David must have been named for my great-great-grandfather, David Rosentvaig, who had been alive in 1884 when Gustave married Gussie in Iasi but who must have died sometime before the birth of this new David.

But where was the new David in 1900, only nine years later? Since he was not listed on the 1900 census, I assumed the worst, as I have gotten accustomed to doing, and checked the death index. Sure enough a one year child named David Rosenzweig had died on December 25, 1892. Although I have not yet seen the death certificate for this child, I have to assume that this was Gustave and Gussie’s son David. My great-great-grandfather’s namesake had died before his second birthday.

I have expressed in an earlier post my thoughts and feelings about the impact the deaths of babies and children must have had on their parents and their siblings. The numbers are staggering. On the 1900 census Gussie Rosenzweig reported that she had had thirteen children, only eight of whom were then living (Rachel was not yet born). In 1910, she reported eighteen births and only nine living children. Had she had five more infants die between 1900 and 1910? My great-grandmother Bessie Brotman reported in 1900 that she had given birth to nine children, only four of whom were living (Sam was not yet born). We also know that Hyman Mintz died within a month of birth and Max Coopersmith within a day of birth.

These infant deaths were not at all unusual for that time period. According to a PBS website for a program called The First Measured Century, “[p]rior to 1900, infant mortality rates of two and three hundred [per one thousand births] obtained throughout the world. The infant mortality rate would fluctuate sharply according to the weather, the harvest, war, and epidemic disease. In severe times, a majority of infants would die within one year. In good times, perhaps two hundred per thousand would die. So great was the pre-modern loss of children’s lives that anthropologists claim to have found groups that [did] not name children until they have survived a year.”

This same source reports that most of these deaths were caused by poor infant nutrition, disease and poor sanitary conditions. In the early 20^th century substantial efforts were made to deal with these causes of infant and other deaths. “Central heating meant that infants were no longer exposed to icy drafts for hours. Clean drinking water eliminated a common path of infection. More food meant healthier infants and mothers. Better hygiene eliminated another path of infection. Cheaper clothing meant better clothing on infants. More babies were born in hospitals, which were suddenly being cleaned up as the infectious nature of dirt became clear. Later in the century, antibiotics and vaccinations join the battle.” The infant mortality rate began to decline, and today it is well under ten deaths per thousand within the first year of life in the United States.

Infant mortality

But what impact did this high death rate for babies have on their parents? There have been many books written by sociologists, social historians and psychologists on the history of society’s view and treatment of children. According to this research, until the 18^th century, children were not valued highly by parents, perhaps in part because of the high infant mortality rate. The likelihood of losing a child was so great that it made it difficult for parents to become too attached. In Europe often parents did not even attend the funerals of their children and even wealthy parents had their children buried as paupers. See, e.g., Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children (1994); Linda A. Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500 to 1900 (1984). Both authors also observe that the attitude towards children changed during the 18^th and 19^th centuries as people began to be more concerned about their children’s growth and development and families started to become more child-oriented and affectionate. This change in attitudes contributed to the increased efforts to reduce infant mortality.

It’s so difficult for me to imagine that these parents were indifferent or unaffected by the deaths of so many of their babies. I know I live in another era, an era when parenting has become not just a part of life, but in some ways an obsession. I plead guilty to being a helicopter parent, to being probably too involved in my children’s lives as they were growing up. We live in a time of thousands of books on parenting, dealing with every issue imaginable. There are experts to help you before a baby is born and experts to help you deal with every imaginable childrearing issue that can arise after they are born: doulas, lactation consultants, sleep consultants, life coaches, tutors, college admissions consultants, and probably some I don’t even know about. So many of us center our lives on our children. Losing a child is often said to be the worst thing anyone can experience.

Could it really have been so different back then? Were children really seen as disposable and replaceable? Is that why people had so many children—in order to ensure that at least some would survive to adulthood? Or was it simply the absence of effective birth control, not the desire for so many children, that led to these huge families? Did those huge families make it easier to accept the loss of so many babies? Were even those who survived devalued and distanced as a defense mechanism against their possible death? It seems unlikely they were as doted upon and cherished as children of today, given both the cultural attitudes and the economic and environmental conditions of the time.

Maybe that made those children stronger and more self-reliant, less indulged and less entitled. But it also had to have left its scars. Maybe it is why so many of them did not want to talk about their families, their childhoods, their feelings.

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Amy

English: Bromo-Seltzer advertisement for headache medicine. Lottie Collins sings Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-de-ay! after being healed by the medicine and this effect makes her to dance and sing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of weeks ago I started trying to trace Gustave Rosenzweig’s story and the story of his children by searching for census reports and other documents on ancestry.com and familysearch and other websites. Gustave and Gussie had ten children, and they all had names that were apparently very common back then: Lillian, Sarah, David, Abraham, Rebecca, Jacob, Joseph, Lizzie, Rachel and Harry (not necessarily in that order). When I came down with the flu around the same time that I started trying to sort all those children out, I decided that I needed to wait until I felt better. Names, numbers, census reports, and vital records were all floating before my fevered eyes, and I was unable to focus at all.

So yesterday and last night, finally back to full strength, I decided to try again. No fever, no chills, but nevertheless names, numbers, census reports, and vital records were still circling around and making me dizzy. I decided to take one child at a time and not get distracted by the other children. I had previously accumulated a fair amount of information about Abraham and thought I would start there. I thought I had found a census report for Abraham for almost every year that there was one: 1900, 1905, 1910, 1925, 1930 and 1940. I was only missing 1920. I also thought I had found Abraham’s wife and children and ordered his marriage certificate a few weeks back. But given that I had accumulated a lot of this without yet going through it very thoroughly, I knew I needed to go back and be more careful.

The 1900 and 1905 census reports were easy. Abraham was living with his parents and his siblings, making it easy to be sure I had the correct reports. Both indicated that he was born in 1890. So far so good. As I turned to the 1910 census, things became a little less clear as there was no census that had Abraham living with Gustave, Gussie and his siblings. There were two possibilities. One Abraham was living with his mother Gussie, who had been born in Romania, so that looked promising. But this Abraham had only two siblings, Joseph and Isaac, and this Abraham was born in 1894 and was younger than his two brothers. His mother owned a candy store in Brooklyn. It certainly could be that the census had errors; that happens all the time. But I wasn’t sure. The other Abraham on the 1910 census who was a possibility was the right age and also had Romanian parents, but he was in the Navy, so I had no way of knowing his parents’ names. I saved both census reports as possibilities.

I turned to 1915. There were THIRTEEN Abraham Rosenzweigs listed on this New York State census. I checked every single one of them, listing the facts, dates, occupations, places of birth, relatives’ names, and then narrowed it down to two real possibilities, the same two. The younger Abraham, born in 1894, was living alone with his mother Gussie and working as a grocery clerk; the older Abraham was living with his mother Gussie and all the correct siblings and was a sailor. It seemed obvious that the older Abraham, the sailor, was the correct one, meaning the correct Abraham in 1910 had been the one in the Navy, not the one living with Gussie. Although that was very time-consuming, I felt like I had confirmed that the data I had previously collected was correct.

I moved on to 1920. Now there were only (!) nine Abraham Rosenzweigs who fit within the appropriate age range and were born in New York City. Again, I sifted through each census report and started finding some repeating Abrahams—the one working as a naval clerk, married to Lena but of Russian background, the railway mail clerk married to Tessie, but of Austrian background, a few who were too young, one who was in prison but had American born parents, one who was a motion picture operator, and two who lived too far away and were too young. The one who seemed most likely was born in 1890, of Romanian parentage, and was married to a Rebecca and had two sons, Maxwell (3) and Irving (1). They lived in Brooklyn, where he worked as a bread salesman. But I had no way of linking him to Gustave and the right Gussie. I searched for a certificate for a marriage between an Abraham Rosenzweig and a Rebecca, but could not find one. I moved on to 1925.

Now there were eleven Abraham Rosenzweigs. I was starting to get a bit punchy, but labored on, wanting to do this before I lost track of my findings and my thoughts. Once again I saw some familiar faces—Lena and Abraham the naval clerk, Tessie and Abraham the railway mail clerk—and some new faces that did not fit. After another long stretch staring at each census report, I narrowed it down again to two: the Abraham living with his mother Gussie and the Abraham married to Rebecca, living in Brooklyn with their two children and employed as a driver. I then did the same thing with the six Abrahams listed in 1930 and in 1940.

In my earlier search I had somehow assumed that the Abraham living with his mother Gussie in 1925, 1930 and 1940 was the right Abraham because I had not seen that there were two Gussie Rosenzweigs with sons named Abraham. Thus, I had added information to my tree for the wrong Abraham, including what I now believe were the wrong wife and children since this Abraham had married in 1932 a woman named Lee and had two daughters. I had been confused at the time also by the conflicting World War I draft registration forms I’d found. I had thought Abraham was still single in 1917 since I’d thought he hadn’t married until 1932, and so I had eliminated any draft registration for a married man. As a result I had selected an Abraham who also had had no prior military service. Although I knew that conflicted with the 1910 and 1915 census reports that showed that my Abraham had been in the Navy, I could not then figure out where I had gone wrong. Yesterday I realized my mistake, found what I think is the correct draft registration, and have to go back and correct my tree and look for records that will reveal if the Abraham who married Rebecca is in fact the right Abraham.

As usual, there remain more questions. If our Abraham was not living with his mother Gussie in 1925, 1930 and 1940, where was she? Had she died? Where was Gustave in 1915? The children were living only with Gussie, and I cannot find another census that includes Gustave. There also remains the question of why the 1920 census shows the other children living with Gustave, not Gussie, and yet there is another Gustave who is a painter from Romania listed elsewhere living as a boarder in 1920. I can’t find a marriage certificate for Gustave for his second marriage.

And I’ve only done one of the ten children. There are also multiple Josephs, Jacobs, Sarahs, Rachels, Lillians, and so on. It will take a while to resolve all this, but in the end, perhaps I will have a fuller picture of Gustave’s family and his life and even more cousins with whom to share the story of our family.

This is not Gustave’s family, but it gives a sense of what ten children in a family looks like.

A family of ten children

Vital Records—American versus Romanian

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Amy

Romanian flag (Photo credit: Tudor Girba)

American flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other Romanian records I received last week from Marius Chelcu are the birth and marriage records of Gustave Rosenzweig, my great-great uncle, the man who stood up for and posted a bond of Jankel Srulovici, the man who met his nephew Isidor or Srul Srulovici at Ellis Island, and the man who signed as a witness for his niece Bertha at her wedding in 1915. Although I’ve not yet found any record linking him directly to my grandfather or his siblings, I have to believe that he also helped out my grandfather when he first arrived and probably also helped when my great-grandfather died in 1910 right before his wife and other children arrived.

So I have a great feeling of fondness for Uncle Gustave, and I was very happy that Marius was able to find these records. There were six pages of documents: a birth record, a record to prove that Gustave and his wife were not related under the Romanian Civil Code, and four pages of marriage records. Marius explained that these last four are essentially the same, as marriage laws required that there be three announcements of the marriage. (I am not sure what the fourth represents.) Marius only provided one translation of these four pages, however, so they need to be reviewed more carefully. I wish I knew Romanian, but looking over these documents I can pick out many words because of their similarity to English, French or Italian. But it is still hard to compare them, given the handwriting as well as the unfamiliar words.

The birth record is not like the records I posted about yesterday, which were actual birth records for David and Rebecca Srulovici, filed at the time of their birth. Gustave’s record was created at the time of his wedding in June, 1884, to substitute for a missing birth record. On this document, four witnesses, including his father David Rosenzweig and his father-in-law to be, Itzic Zacu, attest to the fact of Gustave’s birth as Ghidale on June 10, 1856. This document was important to me for several reasons: it provides not only information about Gustave’s birth date but also the birth year of my great-great grandfather David Rosenzweig. The record gives David’s age as 60 in 1884, meaning he was born around 1824. Also, it appears that Itzic Zacu knew Ghidale from birth or at least was willing to attest to that fact, perhaps indicating a close relationship between the Rosenzweig and Zacu families.

Gustave Rosenzweig birth record

translation of birth record

The second document is entitled “Testimony,” according to the translation provided by Marius. The translation simply reports that Ihiel Fisler, a witness to the wedding, attested to the fact that Ghidale and his bride Ghitla Zacu were not related under the Civil Code. The actual document, however, has four signatures, two written in Yiddish or Hebrew, two in the Latin alphabet. I have tried to decipher the ones written in the Hebrew alphabet, but would love some help if anyone knows Hebrew script better than I do.

testimony for Gustave and Gussie

translation of testimony

The remaining pages are the four pages of the marriage record itself, each one repeating what the other said, that is, that Ghidale Rosenzweig, 28 years old, son of David and Esther Rosenzweig, a painter by occupation, wanted to marry Ghitla Zacu, 20 years old, daughter of Itzic and Mirel Zacu, on June 1, 1884. Unfortunately, the translation Marius provided contains an error; it had the date as September 2, 1887, even though I could see the date was June (Iunie) 1, 1884 myself. I may ask him to provide a translation of each document separately, as it seems to me that there are some differences. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig marriage record

translation of marriage record

When I reviewed these dates against the other records I have for the birthdates of Gustave and Gussie and their children, I was somewhat puzzled. According to the 1900 census, Lillie, their first born, was born in July, 1884, a month after the wedding. I realize that women did get pregnant before marriage even back then, but Gussie would have been eight months pregnant in June, 1884; why would they have waited so long? But then again the same census has Gustave’s birth year as 1861 and Gussie’s as 1862, not 1856 and 1864, as the Romanian records suggest. And it says Lillie arrived in the US in 1884, whereas Gustave’s naturalization papers clearly indicate that they arrived in 1887.

Does it seem likely that Lillie was born a month after her parents’ wedding? I went back to look at the 1905 census, and there Lillie or Lillian is listed as 21, giving her a birth year of 1884 as well. On the other hand, on the 1910 census, she is listed as 24 years old, making her birth year 1886, which makes more sense. Unfortunately, I’ve not yet found any other record for Lillie either after 1910 or before 1900, so I have no further evidence to corroborate either date. Perhaps Marius will find her Romanian birth record or perhaps I will find more American records. But which should I trust? What do you think?

UPDATE: This story on the blog Genealogy Tip of the Day relates to my question.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Genealogy

Women are Difficult, Part Two: Rebecca Rosenzweig

A Celebrity Connection: Louis Gossett, Junior

Women are Difficult…to Find and Track, Part I: Lillian Rosenzweig

Another Sad Story: Harry Rosenzweig

Abraham Rosenzweig: Update

Joseph Rosenzweig: The Process of Elimination

It Takes A Village: Mystery Solved!

David Rosenzweig and The Reality of Infant Mortality

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Vital Records—American versus Romanian

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