Update: The Strolowitz/Adler Family, My Grandfather’s Cousins

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Amy

As I have written, in 1910, after my great-grandfather died the day before his daughter Betty arrived and before my great-grandmother and her son David arrived, Betty and her brother Isadore lived with their aunt Tillie Rosensweig Strolovitz and her seven children on East 109^th Street in New York City. Tillie had arrived with her husband Itic Yankel Srulovici and their three youngest children, Beckie, Pincus and Leah, in late December, 1907. Their four oldest children had left Iasi, Romania, before them: Isidor in 1901, Bertha and Bella in 1906, and David in January, 1907.

Leah Adler c. 1920

Although I have not yet found a ship manifest for Isidor, the oldest child, I do now have manifests for all the other members of the family, having just located David’s last night. Among the many documents I received this week were David’s naturalization papers, which provided his date of arrival and the name of the ship. Although his first name was partially torn off the paper, with a little trick of the trade I learned from Renee, I was able to obtain a copy of the ship manifest as well. David is listed as “…vid Stubowicz” on the manifest, yet another variation on the family name. He named his brother, Israel (presumably Isidor) Stubowicz, as the person paying for his ticket and meeting him in New York. Interestingly, although David’s certificate of arrival has his name as Strubewicz, his petition for naturalization was made under the name David Adler.

David Adler petition for naturalization

I had already found the manifests for Bertha and Bella and for Tillie, Jacob and the other children, and interestingly, every member of the family used some variation of Srulovici/Strubowicz/Strolovitz on the manifests, not Adler. It appears that the Adler name was not used officially by the family until after they came to the United States. Whether Isidor had already adopted it and then the others eventually followed I do not know. In 1910, we know that only David and Isidor were using Adler, but as already discussed, eventually every member of the family was using it at least part of the time.

David Adler and his wife Bertha

In addition to David’s naturalization papers, I received several other documents related to the Adler family. (For simplicity sake, I will refer to them as the Adlers, except where the Strolowitz name is relevant for a particular reason.) I had hoped to find something that would help me learn what had happened to Jacob. To recap what I already knew and did not know, I had not found any record of Itic Yankel after the ship manifest of 1907, and family lore said that he had never left Ellis Island. The ship manifest, however, indicated that he was admitted, after being briefly detained for a doctor’s examination of his eyes. There is no record of deportation. I thought perhaps that he had died shortly thereafter, and I ordered the death certificate of the only Jacob Adler I could find who might fit in terms of age and year of death. I now have that certificate, but unfortunately it was not for the correct Jacob Adler. The certificate is for a Jacob Adler from Germany who had been in the US since 1880 at the time of his death in 1910. So I still have no answers to the question of what happened to Jacob, Tillie’s husband. I am awaiting his immigration papers from the National Archives and hope that they will provide some clues.

I had requested several other documents in order to confirm what I assumed was true: that Tillie was the sister of my great-grandmother Gisella Rosensweig and that Itic Yankel Srulovici and Jacob Adler were the same person and the father of all of the seven children. Not surprisingly, they all do confirm one or both of those facts. First, Tillie’s death certificate lists her parents as David and Esther Rosenzweig (no maiden name for Esther, unfortunately), my great-great grandparents, confirming that Tillie was my great-grandmother Gisella’s sister. Her death certificate was witnessed by her son David, signing as Strulowitz, confirming that Yankel Srulovici was his father and not some other husband named Adler. (Tillie is also a Strulowitz on the certificate.)

Tillie Strulowitz death certificate

Second, Isidor’s death certificate confirms that he died young—in 1915 of liver cancer at age 31. Although he is identified as Isidor Adler, his parents’ names are given as Tillie Rosenzweig and Jacob Strulowitz. Bertha’s marriage certificate gives her parents’ names also that way, with Bertha also now using Strulowitz. On the other hand, Leah’s marriage certificate uses Adler and lists her father’s name as simply Jacob (and her mother as Tillie Rosensweig). Finally, David’s death certificate gives his father’s name as Jacob Adler (and David’s name as David Adler), and his mother’s as Tillie Rosensweig. Certainly this is enough documentation to prove that Jacob Adler and Yankel Srulovici were the same person and the father of the seven children.

Isidor Adler death certificate

Thus, many open questions were answered by these latest documents, but there remains still the question of what happened to Jacob Srulovici/Strolovitz/Strulowitz/Adler after he arrived at Ellis Island.

In addition, the marriage certificate of Bertha contains the signature of a Gustav Rosenzweig as a witness to the marriage. Could this be Tillie and Gisella’s brother? Or a nephew? Cousin? And thus begins yet another search for a possible member of the extended Goldschlager-Rosensweig family.

Bertha Strulowitz marriage certificate witnessed by Gustav Rosensweig

The Wonderful Generosity of Genealogists

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Amy

I have been working the last couple of days on the search for what happened to the husband of my great-great aunt, Tillie Rosensweig Srulovic/Strolowitz/Strulowitz/Adler. The last record I have of him is on the manifest for the ship that brought him along with Tillie and their three youngest children to the United States in December, 1907. On the manifest, as previously discussed, his name is Itic Yankel Srulovici. There are notations on the manifest that indicate that although he first was considered in good health, a later notation written over that finding indicates that he had scars on his corneas and coloboma in both irises. However, the record also indicated that he was examined by a Doctor Snider and is stamped “admitted,” though it also indicates that the family was held for several days and a bond had to be posted for their release.

ship manifest 1907

page 2 of manifest

I did some research on the history of Ellis Island, and apparently there was a contagious eye condition, trachoma, that was commonly a basis for refusing entry to an immigrant. Perhaps when the inspectors saw something strange about Itic’s eyes, they decided to hold him for further examination. Reading this the first time, however, I wasn’t sure how to interpret the “admitted”—did that mean he was admitted after the exam? Was it possible they had deported him? And if he stayed, when did he become Jacob Adler, and when did he die?

And why is there no record of him after leaving Ellis Island? In my emails with Itic’s great-granddaughter Jean, she said that family lore is that her great-grandfather never left Ellis Island. Did that mean he had died on Ellis Island? Had he been deported? I could not determine how to figure this out.

Immigrants just arrived from Foreign Countries–Immigrant Building, Ellis Island, New York Harbor. (Half of a stereo card) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And that’s where the generosity of genealogists comes in. I posted an inquiry on the JewishGen discussion list, asking for opinions and help in figuring out what had happened to Itic/Jacob. And within less than an hour, I started receiving responses and continue to receive very helpful responses. I have said this before, but I continue to be amazed and touched by how helpful, supportive and generous with their time and energies these experienced genealogists are. Renee Steinig continues be an incredible source of support—with ideas, suggestions, and documents that she finds for me on her own time. Others also have gone out of their way, including Bette (whose last name I don’t even know but who has helped me before on other questions), Phyllis Kramer, Marian Smith, Don Solomon, Sally Bruckheimer, David Crook, Diane Jacobs, Adelle Gloger, and several more.

And so what have I Iearned? Well, most of these people advised me that it is very unlikely that he was deported. If the document is marked “admitted,” then he was admitted. There would be some notation in the file if he had been deported. Several people gave me websites and search engines to use to see if I could find a death record or gravesite where Itic/Jacob appeared. So far I have not found any record other than the the death certificate for a Jacob Adler who died in 1910, but I can’t find a gravesite for that person. I hope to have the death certificate by the end of next week, so perhaps if it identifies him as Tillie’s husband, we will have an answer.

I also was advised to request a document from the National Archives and was even provided with the document identification information by someone who was looked it up on an index I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to access. I called the National Archives, and I am now waiting for them to call me back. So I am hoping that by the end of next week I will have some documentation that may fill out the story and tell us what happened to Tillie’s husband, Gisella’s brother-in-law.

I could never have gotten as far on this journey without all this help. Thank you again to every person who has provided me with help. I look forward to paying it forward to another new genealogy researcher some day soon. I can never pay all of you back for what you have given me.

Who was Tillie Srulowitz? Another mystery solved?

First Cousins: The Grandchildren of David and Esther Rosensweig

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Amy

Immigrants just arrived from Foreign Countries–Immigrant Building, Ellis Island, New York Harbor. (Half of a stereo card) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Genealogy research can be both very frustrating and very exhilarating. Sometimes you feel like you have hit a wall and can get no further. Every stone you turn leads nowhere. People don’t respond to requests for information, documents have been lost or destroyed, and you feel like you will never find anything new. Then there are the times that are exhilarating. You find a document that tells a story and reveals a relative you never knew about. You contact a long lost cousin and make a new friend. You put together pieces of a puzzle and see a picture of your family that touches you in ways you never anticipated.

Yesterday was one of those exhilarating days. I had found an email address for someone I thought could be one of Leah Adler’s grandsons and had taken a chance that it was the right person and that he would respond. It was a long shot—we are fairly distant cousins—third cousins—and it was very unlikely that my name and background would mean much to him. Well, I hit the jackpot! He forwarded my email to his sister Jean, who is herself someone with 30 years of experience in genealogy. Jean wrote to me right away, and we have since exchanged several emails and lots of information. Through this contact, I have been able to learn a lot more about my great-grandmother’s sister Tillie and her family.

Some might wonder why I care so much about these individuals and their lives. Well, these were my grandfather’s first cousins. He and his brother David were close in age to Isidor, Bertha, Bella, David, Pincus and Becky, and his sister Betty would have been close in age to Leah. These could have been their playmates as children in Iasi. They all had the same grandparents, David and Esther Rosensweig. Tillie and Ghitla both named sons for their father David.

Moreover, Tillie took in my grandfather and his sister in 1910 when she herself was a single mother already caring for her seven children. My grandfather and his sister must have been mourning their father, who had died in April, 1910, and awaiting their mother, who arrived in November. (One mystery: I cannot find David Goldschlager on any 1910 census, though he shows up living with his mother and siblings in 1915.)

So what have I learned from Jean about my grandfather’s aunt and her children? For one thing, it now seems quite clear that Itic Yankel Srulivici and Jacob Adler were one and the same person. Jean said that family lore in her family is that Jacob never left Ellis Island. The ship manifest does indicate that he was admitted in 1907, but perhaps something happened after that to block his ability to leave Ellis Island. The ship manifest does indicate that he was examined by a doctor and had scars on his corneas and coloboma of both irises. Could that have been enough to block his entry and have him deported? I have ordered a death certificate for a Jacob Adler who died in 1910, and I have asked my Romanian researcher to look for a record for Itic in Romania.

Jean was also able to confirm much of the information that I had found in public documents: that Bertha had been briefly married, that David died in the 1930s, and that her mother Teddy had married Abner Cohen. She also told me that Bertha had been killed in an accident in the 1960s, that Bella had married Baer Rothschild and had had no children, and that Beckie, who became Ray as an adult, had married Ben Seamon and had four children, including a daughter Thelma with whom Jean had corresponded in the late 1970s and who had filled Jean in on many of these details. Sadly, Thelma was also killed in a freak accident in 2000.

It seems no one knows what happened to Isidor, and I have sent for one death certificate that might be his from 1915. If it is in fact his death certificate, it would mean he died very young, as did his brother Pincus. The Adler family had more than their fair share of tragedies—losing Jacob, Isidor, Pincus and David at such young ages and losing Bertha and Thelma to freak accidents. As with my grandfather as well as his brother David Goldschlager, it seems that Leah and her siblings also did not like discussing their past or their childhood family. Perhaps the hardships of leaving Iasi where they had lived as children, coming to America as immigrants, and fighting to survive the poverty and the language and cultural differences left them all with scars that made it too painful to recall the past.

I don’t know anything about what their childhoods were like in Iasi. I’ve read enough to know that there was terrible anti-Semitism in Romania during those years and also terrible poverty. But children often are immune to those external factors in many ways because they know nothing else. I’d like to think that the Goldschlager-Rosensweig-Srulivici children as young children had some joyfulness in their lives. I’d like to imagine that Isadore, David and Betty Goldschlager and Isidor, Bertha, Bella, David, Beckie, Pincus and Leah Srulivic/Adler were all young cousins who played together and grew up together in Iasi, just as I was fortunate enough to grow up with my first cousins Jeff and Jody, who lived less than 20 minutes away from us during my childhood. All my first cousins—Jeff, Jody, Beth, Suzie, Robin and Jamie (Jim)– added so much laughter and joy to my life as a child, and I would hope that the same was true for my grandfather, his siblings and his first cousins.

Isadore and Gussie’s nine grandchildren

Jeff and Jim 1971

jody julie and ira 1963

Beth 1954

Julie, Robin, Amy, Suzie, and Ira 1962

Amy and Jeff (with Elaine) 1953

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The Adler Strolowitz family continued

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Amy

Although I still don’t have answers to all the questions about the Strolowitz/Adler family, I have made a lot of progress finding the descendants of Tillie Strolowitz Adler and her children, with a lot of assistance from Renee Steinig, who continues to teach me and to amaze me with her ability to find people through various search methods. So here’s a summary and a description of the process used to find most of these people, including several living descendants who I am now trying to contact.

I’ve not had any success finding Tillie’s son Isidor yet aside from the entry in the 1910 census. There are numerous Isidor Adlers listed in the NYC marriage index and many also in the US and NY census reports, but I cannot with any degree of certainty identify the right one. Some are too old or were married and had children before 1910, when the right Isidor was still single and living with his mother. Some are not from Romania or born in the United States. I am beginning to think that Isidor either died young or maybe even returned to Romania. I have found one death record for an Isidor Adler who died April 23, 1915, and the age looks right, so I will send for that death certificate.

I’ve had better luck locating the second son, David Adler. After a careful process of elimination, I believe that Tilllie’s son David married a woman named Bertha (maiden name not yet found). Since David also had a sister named Bertha, this created some confusion for me. David and Bertha had a daughter Tessie, born in 1927 (possibly named for Tillie, who had died in 1925). Renee found a memorial written about Tessie Adler on the Findagrave.com site, and the date of birth corroborated that this is the correct Tessie. Tessie and her husband Harry had two sons, David, possibly named for his grandfather David Adler, and Ira. I am now in touch with Ira, who confirmed that he is Tessie’s son and that she was David’s daughter and Tillie’s granddaughter.

The Strolowitz daughters were much trickier to find, as women tend to be. Once they get married, they are much harder to find, unless I can find a marriage record which gives me their husband’s name. I first focused on Bertha, figuring that it was a less common name than Beckie, Bella or Lizzie. I found a marriage record for Bertha Strulovitz to Benny Bloom in May, 1914. I then did a census search and found a Bertha and Bernard Bloom living on East 109^th Street in 1915. The “Bernard” threw me, as did the fact that Bertha was 27, meaning she would have been born in 1888, not 1885, as reported on the 1910 census. But while scanning the page to look for their entry, I saw a listing in the same building for a Tillie Stralowitch and her children, David, Bella, Beckie, Peter (Pincus?) and Lizzie. This was obviously Tillie Strolowitz, living in the same building as in 1910, with her married daughter Bertha and her new husband Bernard or Ben in their own apartment. So far, so good. It also made sense that Bertha was born in 1888, not before David, who was 28 in the 1915 census and thus older than Bertha. That could explain why David and Isidor were Adlers, while the rest of the children were Strolowitz. Perhaps Mr. Adler died right after David was born, Tillie remarried to Strolowitz and within a year had Bertha? Phew! They acted fast back then! (Remember Harry Coopersmith…)

But after that, I could not find any references for Bertha Bloom at all. I was stumped. I couldn’t find any more references for Tillie Strolowitz either, no matter how I spelled it. Finally, I decided to look for Tillie Adler, and there she was in the 1920 census, listed as Tillie Adler, living with her three daughters, Bertha, Bella and Leah (Lizzie?) on East 107^th Street. The ages and names matched, but why were they now using Adler? So much for my earlier hypothesis. Maybe Mr. Adler was the father of all these children? Maybe Mr. Adler and Mr. Strolovitz were the same person? And what happened to Bertha’s husband? Why was she living with her mother? She is listed as married, not single, on the 1920 census, but not living with Bloom.

In 1925 Tillie, Bertha and Bella were all still living together on East 107^th Street under the surname Adler. There was no question about marital status on this form, but apparently Bertha was still legally married because in 1926 she applied for citizenship. On the naturalization form she signed as “Bertha Adler known as Bertha Strulovici and Bertha Bloom,” and listed her spouse as Benjamin Bloom. Her brother David Adler signed as a witness for her.

By 1930, Tillie had died, and Bertha and Bella had moved in with David Adler and his wife Bertha and daughter Tessie. Imagine—two Bertha Adlers living in one household. The census taker must have been confused because he listed Bertha, David’s sister, as his mother. On this census, Bertha (the sister) is now listed as divorced, finally.

In 1940, Bertha was no longer living with David, but now was living with her sister Leah on Grant Avenue in the Bronx. Leah was married to Benjamin Schwartz, an optometrist, and had two children, Ira and Theodora. Renee helped me locate Theodora, who is now living in Atlanta where her parents eventually moved and died.

No further luck finding out what happened to Bella or Bertha after 1940, but at least we know what happened to Tillie, David, and Leah, and have located the next generation of third cousins, the great-great grandchildren of David and Esther Rosensweig.

More discoveries in the next post, including some of the most interesting ones of all. But for now, back to the research.

Passenger Ship Manifests and The Heartrending Stories They Tell

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Amy

English: Ellis Island’s Immigrant Landing Station, February 24, 1905. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of my favorite documents to locate is a ship manifest listing one of our ancestors as a passenger, bringing them from Europe to America. I have read and seen enough about these ships and the hardships that the passengers endured to know that these were not pleasant cruises across the Atlantic Ocean. People suffered from disease, malnutrition, terrible hygienic conditions, and frequently even death. Yet I tend to romanticize these journeys, despite the facts. I imagine how frightened but also how excited these travelers must have been, thrown together with other people from all different countries and of all different backgrounds, all of whom were dreaming of a better life in the United States. The stories told by ship manifests I’ve found do much to break down that romantic ideal.

I was only able to find two ship manifests for the Brotman immigrants. The first exciting find was the manifest for the Obdam, the ship that brought Bessie, Hyman and Tillie to New York in January, 1891. Their names were listed as Pessel, Chaim and Temy Brodmann. One column lists how many pieces of luggage each passenger brought, and for Bessie, Hyman and Tillie, they brought only two pieces of luggage. Imagine fitting the clothing of three people plus any other possessions you wanted to keep with you into just two pieces of luggage. When we go away for a weekend, we often need more than that for just two of us. Hyman was only 8, Tillie 6, and somehow they endured this long voyage at sea with their mother. When I fast-forward to how American they became as adults, I find it remarkable.

The Obdam 1891

The only other ship manifest I located for the Brotman family is one I believe is for Max, but cannot tell for sure. It lists a Moshe (?) Brodmann as a ten year old boy, traveling with one bag, on a ship called the City of Chicago in 1890. This very well could be Max, but there is no other Brodmann or anyone else with a similar name traveling with him. If I have a hard time imagining Hyman and Tillie coming with their mother, it is really unfathomable to imagine a ten year old boy traveling alone across the ocean. None of the names above or on the page following his sound like possible relatives, friends or even neighbors since for the most part they are listed as coming from Russia, not Austria. If that is in fact our Max, I imagine that this must have been an incredible experience—frightening, even horrifying, and lonely. Perhaps an experience like that explains how these children then endured the working and living conditions they found in the United States. They had already survived much worse.

I’ve had no luck yet locating a manifest that includes Joseph or Abraham Brotman, but I will keep looking.

On the Goldschlager side, I’ve had more success. I have found a ship manifest for Moritz, Gisella, David and Betty, each of whom came separately, but nothing for my grandfather Isadore. These manifests also tell interesting and some heart-breaking stories. David came in 1904 on the Patricia, which departed out of Hamburg. (Perhaps like his brother, David also walked out of Romania to get to Hamburg.) This manifest contains far more information than the two above. First, it asks for information about who paid for the ticket and the name, address and relationship of any relative or friend the passenger was joining at their destination. David said his uncle paid his passage and that he was going to join that uncle in New York. From what I can decipher, it looks like the uncle’s name was Moishe Minz.

David Goldschlager ship manifest

I have searched many times and ways to figure out who this person was and how he was an uncle to David. Was he a brother-in-law of Moritz or of Gisella/Gittel/Gussie? Since his last name is neither Goldschlager or Rosensweig (Gisella’s maiden name), I assume he is not a brother. Or perhaps he is a half-brother. Whoever he was, I cannot find him yet. I also find it puzzling that David listed this uncle and not his brother Isadore. Perhaps because Isadore himself was still just a minor, he would not have been a satisfactory person to list as the connection for David in the United States. The other interesting bit of information gleaned from this manifest is the amount of money David was carrying with him: six dollars. He was 16 years old, traveling alone, with six dollars to his name.

The next to arrive was Isadore and David’s father, Moritz. He arrived in August 1909 on the ship La Touraine out of Havre. His occupation is listed as a tailor, and his age as 46 years old. This manifest did not ask who you were meeting in the United States, but instead who you were leaving behind in your old place of residence. Moritz listed his wife, Gisella Goldschlager. So by August 1909, the three males in the family had emigrated from Iasi, and Gisella and her daughter Betty were left behind. This seems consistent with the pattern in the Brotman family: Joseph came first, then his two sons from his first marriage, and then his wife and younger children.

Moritz Goldschlager ship manifest

Betty’s arrival story is more complicated and very sad. On the ship manifest filed at Ellis Island, Betty had listed her father as the person she was joining in New York. Betty arrived in April 4, 1910, on the ship Kaiserin Auguste Victoria. However, she was detained at Ellis Island for a short time. On a document titled “Record of Detained Aliens,” the cause given for detention simply says “to father.”

Betty Goldschlager Detention of Aliens

According to his headstone, her father Moritz died on April 3, 1910, the day before Betty arrived on the Kaiserin August Victoria. It is hard to believe that her father died the day before she arrived, but if the records and headstone are accurate, that is what happened.

Moritz Goldschlager headstone

Betty must have been kept at Ellis Island until another person could meet her. On that form for detained aliens, she listed an aunt, Tillie Srulowitz, under “Disposition,” which I interpret to mean that Betty was released to her aunt on April 4 at 3 pm. (More about Tillie Srulowitz in my next post.)

This story breaks my heart. Moritz had only been in the United States since August, just eight months, when he died. He did not live to see his daughter or his wife again. He was only fifty years old. I don’t have his death certificate yet, but will see if I can obtain it and learn why he died. Imagine how Isadore and David must have felt—waiting four to five years to see their father, only to lose him eight months later. And imagine how Betty must have felt—coming to America, taking that awful voyage, only to be greeted with the news that her father had died just before she arrived.

And finally, think about his wife Gisella. She arrived in NYC in November, 1910, seven months after her husband had died. Did she know what was awaiting her? She sailed on the ship Pennsylvania out of Hamburg; the ship manifest does not list who was waiting for her, only the name of someone who resided in her old home, a friend named Max Fischler.

Gisella Goldschlager ship manifest

But the record from Ellis Island indicates that she had expected to join her husband Morris Goldschlager, but was instead released to her son Isadore. I have no idea how immigrants communicated with their relatives back in Europe in those days or how quickly news could travel from place to place, but since the ship manifest indicates that the ship sailed from Hamburg on October 23, 1910, over six months after Moritz had died, Gisella must not have known that he had died, or why would she have listed him as the person receiving her in New York when she got to Ellis Island? It appears that Gisella did not know until she arrived in New York that her husband had died the previous April. It is heart-breaking to imagine what her reunion with her sons and daughter must have been like under those circumstances.

EDITED: Some of the facts in this post have been updated with subsequent research. See my post of January 22, 2014, entitled “Update: My Grandfather’s Arrival.” Also, this one.

English: Immigrants entering the United States through Ellis Island, the main immigrant entry facility of the United States from 1892 to 1954. Español: Inmigrantes entran a los Estados Unidos a traves de la Isla Ellis, el mayor lugar de entrada a los Estados Unidos entre 1892 y 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Playing detective: Searching for Gold(schlagers)

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Amy

My first genealogical search efforts about a year and half ago related to my grandfather’s family, the Goldschlagers. I started there because I figured (somewhat incorrectly) that Goldschlager was an uncommon name and thus would be an easier family to research, unlike Cohen, Brotman, Schoenthal, Seligman—my other family lines. I also was very curious about my grandfather’s life because I had always heard about how he had walked out of Romania. It also helped that we knew where he had lived in Romania, the city of Iasi (sometimes spelled Jassy, sometimes Yassy) and that we knew the names of his parents and siblings.

I started by focusing on finding other descendants of the Goldschlager clan. We knew that Isadore had a brother David and a sister Betty. My brother had already found some of the relevant records from Ellis Island. We also knew that David had had two sons, Murray and Sidney, and that Betty had had two daughters, Frieda and Estelle. I figured that I would start with Murray and Sidney since I assumed (again incorrectly) that since they were men, their names would be Goldschlager and they would be easy to find.

I was not very experienced in my research techniques back then and did not get very far. Since the US Census records are only available up through the 1940 census, I could not get too far using ancestry.com at that point. I was lucky, however, to find Sidney Goldschlager’s obituary by googling his name. From that obituary, I learned that his brother Murray had changed his last name to Leonard and was living with his wife Edna in Tucson, Arizona. (Murray and Edna were listed as survivors of Sidney along with his wife Nora; there were no others mentioned, so I assumed (this time correctly) that Sidney and Nora had not had children.)

Once I knew that Murray was using the name Murray Leonard, I searched for him online by googling his name and Tucson and found a news article about the closing of a chain of women’s clothing stores called Vicky Wayne in the Tuscon area owned by Murray and Edna Leonard. After that, however, I hit a wall. Although I could find a telephone listing for Murray Leonard, I was not comfortable making a telephone call blindly. At that point I gave up and turned to searching for Frieda and Estelle, but because I had no idea what their married names were, that ended up as a dead end also. That was, as I said, about a year and half ago. I figured I had done all I could do to find the Goldschlagers.

Then this past summer I got an email from a man who was also searching for Goldschlagers. He had seen my family tree on ancestry.com and was interested in sharing information. Although we were not able to find any connection between our trees, he did inspire me to start looking again. He gave me the name of a researcher he had found in Iasi, Romania, and I contacted him to look for records for my Goldschlager ancestors. As I wrote in my prior post about the Goldschlagers, he was able to obtain several records about my grandfather, about my great-grandparents, and about David, my great-uncle.

Those findings were what really lit a fire for me and inspired me to start my research again. Although I did not get any further with finding Goldschlagers, it was at that point that I turned to the Brotman line and became fully immersed in learning how to do genealogical research.

With the benefit of this new knowledge and the tools I now knew how to use, I returned to researching my Goldschlager relatives. This time I knew to dig deeper in order to find other descendants. First, I was able to find some records for Betty and her daughters. I found a census report for Betty Feuerstein living with her husband Isadore, her mother (listed as Gussie Gold), and her two daughters in Bayshore, Long Island.

Betty Feuerstein and family 1940 census

By researching the Feuerstein family, I was able to link with a descendant of that family, who sent me pictures of Frieda and of Betty. He also knew their married names; Frieda married Abe Adler, and Estelle married I. Kenner, known as Kenny. I found a listing for an Estelle Kenner in Florida, but that’s as far as I have gotten. My contact did not know whether they had had children or where Frieda had lived.

Last week I returned to the search for David’s descendants. I re-read the article about the Vicky Wayne stores and saw that the stores had been named for a niece of Murray and Edna Leonard. I googled Vicky Wayne and found many references to a mail order clothing store and then ultimately a reference to the name in an obituary for a woman named Anne Steinberg. I read the obituary and saw that Anna was survived by two sisters, Faye and Edna. I thought that perhaps Edna Leonard was Anne’s sister, and so I searched for a record on ancestry that would have listed three sisters on a census named Anne, Edna and Faye. I found one, the daughters of Ben and Sarah Kaufman living in NYC.

Kaufman family 1930 census

From there I looked at the names of Anne’s children in the obituary and googled them and searched for them on Facebook. Once I found a few of them on Facebook, I looked to see if they had any friends with the last name Leonard, figuring that Murray and Edna’s children would be cousins of Anna’s children and grandchildren. Sure enough, Anne’s daughter had a “friend” named Richard Leonard from Tucson, now living in Australia. I contacted Richard through Facebook and LinkedIn, and within an hour I’d heard back from him, confirming that he is Murray and Edna’s son, David Goldschlager’s grandson, and my second cousin. I had indeed found another Goldschlager descendant.

Richard and I spoke at length by Skype (despite a 13 hour time difference) the other night, and he filled me in on his parents and his grandparents. His father, though born in Scranton, PA, had grown up in the Bronx and is a loyal Yankee fan (sigh…), as is Richard. His parents had moved to Tucson in 1958 shortly after marrying in NYC. Edna’s sister Anna had moved there, and they all worked in the business together, eventually dividing it into two parts, the mail order business and the retail stores. Sometime in the early 1970s, Murray moved his parents, David and Rebecca Goldschlager, to Tucson as well, where they lived nearby and where Richard was able to see them often.

Richard said that his grandfather did not talk to him about his life in Romania or his family, but was more focused on the present and enjoyed spending time with Richard as he was growing up. I’ve asked Richard to see if his father, now 92, knows any more about David’s life and family, and he said that he will do so and let me know what he learns. I also asked Richard if he knew anything about our great-aunt Betty or her daughters Frieda and Estelle, but unfortunately he did not.

Once again, I am amazed by how much you can find in public sources if you are persistent and thorough enough. I will continue to look for Frieda and Estelle and their descendants, if any. Now I am expanding the search, looking for other possible relatives of the Goldschlager family. I believe I have found my great-grandmother’s sister and her family, but that’s a post for another day.

Hyman and Sophie’s marriage certificate

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Amy

Finally, after almost two months, the Family History Library is back in service. I’ve received a couple of documents that I will post about. First, I received Hyman and Sophie Brotman’s marriage certificate. Although it provides no new information, it is nevertheless an interesting document. Hyman (who was using Herman by this time on official documents) was only 22 when he was married in 1904; Sophie was only 18. Sometimes I am amazed by the fact that people who married so young were able to have such long marriages. Sophie and Hyman were married 64 years.

Herman and Sophie Brotman

What I found particularly interesting about this document is that Hyman used his father’s middle name, Jacob, on the certificate. I have never seen Joseph referred to on any document as anything other than Joseph. But, as you may recall, Hyman also referred to his mother as Fanny, her middle name, on his Social Security application, a reference no one else ever used. Here he uses Pesel Broht as his mother’s name, not Fanny. Perhaps he was being somewhat secretive, or perhaps there was some family use of those middle names. After all, Hyman was Herman and Chaim, so he had a flexible attitude towards names. (I’ve also never seen Broht spelled with an H.)

Edit: I just realized that the front of the form has the groom’s name as Haimy!

The other thing that I find interesting about the marriage certificate is the spelling of “white” as “weit” and the spelling of Manhattan as Manahten. It looks like the rabbi might have filled out the entire form since it seems to match the handwriting of his signature. I also think the rabbi filled out the form because Weiss is spelled with one S on the front of the form, but Sophie spelled it Weiss in her signature. Whoever filled out the form also did not understand the box that asks for number of marriages, as the blank area is filled with an address, not a number. I have no idea what that address refers to, as it is not the address of the bride, the groom or the rabbi. At any rate it does indicate that this was someone who was still learning English.

Also of interest is that we now have a record of Sophie’s father’s name, listed as Moses, later changed to Morris, and her mother’s maiden name. It looks like Linz or Livy Gabler? Does that sound right to any of her grandchildren? Can anyone help decipher the handwriting? Later records have her name as Lena, so Liny or Linz might make sense.

Finally, the one thing I cannot decipher at all is Hyman’s occupation. Can someone please help me read what that says? On the 1900 US Census his occupation was reported to be a button hole maker, but this looks like something different. If you can read it, please leave your response in the comments below.

Edited: The prize goes to my brother Ira, who deciphered the occupation to be a phonetic spelling of “operator.” Often those who worked in the sweatshops on the Lower East Side were referred to as operators (i.e., machine operators). Since Hyman had been working as a button hole maker, it makes sense that this was what he was doing when he married Sophie in 1904. It also makes sense that someone who spelled white “weit” and Manhattan as Manahten would spell operator phonetically as well.

Hyman and Sophie’s marriage certificate 1904

reverse

Looking forward: Skiing on the Blue Trails

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Amy

Having looked back to see what I have learned, I have also gained some insight into to what I still want to learn and what I need to do to get there.

There are a number of unresolved questions. For me, the most important issue remains determining where our family lived in Galicia. I am currently assuming that our family came from Dzikow Tarnobrzeg, but it’s only based on two forms completed by Hyman, one referring to Jeekief as his birthplace, the other referring to Giga as his birthplace. Hyman’s forms had so many inconsistencies in terms of birth date and other facts that I do not want to rely too heavily on it being Dzikow Tarnobrzeg since, as my last post said, forms are not necessarily reliable. Plus I am speculating that Jeekief/Giga is a phonetic spelling of Dzikow. Plus there was another Dzikow in Galicia. But I have to start somewhere, so that’s my current focus.

I am just starting to work with the sources available for documents from Galicia, and I need to devote a lot more time to learning how to search and how to interpret those forms. I am networking with some other researchers who are also searching in that region or who are also searching for the surname Brotman. So far nothing relevant has turned up. I plan to take an online course in May that may help me become a better researcher with respect to these resources and documents.

The second goal I have for my research is trying to locate any other children or siblings of Joseph and/or Bessie. My brother recalls that my aunt thought that Joseph had four older children in the United States—that is, four who were older than the five children he had with Bessie. We have found two of those four—Abraham and Max. There is another Brotman family from Passaic, New Jersey, that I am trying to learn more about. From what I can tell, it seems there were two brothers, Jacob and Benjamin, who could possibly be sons of Joseph, born after Abraham but before Max. I have been in touch with relatives of theirs, but as with the Brotmanville Brotmans, I can’t seem to find anything that links their family to ours. I need to learn the name of the Passaic brothers’ parents before I can begin to determine if there is a connection. I have the same goal with Brotmanville Brotmans, but without more research of European records for Moses Brotman, I cannot get any further.

So those are my two research goals: go further back in time to learn more about Joseph and Bessie’s families and to find links to other possible families in the United States or elsewhere.

I think that this process has a learning curve similar to learning many other new skills. It reminds me of learning to ski. At first it goes very slowly; you don’t know what you are doing and figure that you never will. You find yourself on the ground as much as you are moving on the skis. It seems like you will never make progress. Then suddenly you figure it out—you know how to get down a novice trail pretty easily. You even start to look like you are skiing, and you think, “Wow, I am actually making progress. I am skiing.”

But then you decide to try a steeper trail, a blue trail. If you are a skier like I was, you suddenly find you are stuck somewhere on that trail, staring down and thinking, “Whoa! That’s really scary. I can’t do that!” And you feel like a beginner all over again. You start falling, your turns get more awkward, and you look like a klutz compared to everyone else. You start to think that maybe you will never get off those easy green trails.[1]

That’s what I feel like now. I am standing at the top of a steeper trail, knowing that getting to the bottom will take a lot longer than it did with the green trail. I don’t expect to find as many pieces of evidence as quickly as I did while looking for US documents. But I have to start down this trail—I can’t just stay at the top or return to the green trails. I need to jump off and start the next part of the adventure. The rewards may not come as quickly, but when they do, I will once again have that feeling of accomplishment.

I hope you will follow me as I go. I am not sure what I will find or whether I will find anything, but I am ready to try.

[1][1] I have to admit that as a skier, I never actually made much progress getting off the green trails. I am hoping that I can get further in my genealogy skills than I ever got with skiing. At least I won’t have to worry about breaking any bones.

The Illusion of Accuracy: Hyman Brotman’s Story (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)
The Brotmanville Brotmans (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)

Looking back on the first six months: Seven lessons learned by doing genealogy

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Amy

As my semester has drawn to an end, as the year draws to an end, I want to take some time to reflect on what I have learned in the last six months or so since I began this project in earnest and what I still want to learn and to accomplish as we start a new year.

So first, what have I learned?

1. I’ve learned that I had two great-uncles whom I’d never known about. For at least two months of my research, I was sure that Joseph and Bessie had only had five children: Hyman, Tillie, Gussie, Frieda and Sam. When I kept running into a Max Brotman married to Sophie with children named Rosalie and Renee, I just figured Hyman had changed his name to Max. My mother didn’t know about her cousins Joseph, Saul and Manny, but she had met Rosalie and Renee, and I was sure they were Hyman’s daughters. My mother knew that Hyman’s wife’s name was Sophie. So instead of looking harder, I just assumed Max was Hyman and that the other Hyman Brotman married to a Sophie was not my relative. Only when I was able to find Max’s granddaughter Judy and Hyman’s grandson Bruce did I learn that Max and Hyman were BOTH my great-uncles, that both had married women named Sophie, and that Rosalie and Renee were the daughters of Max, not Hyman. That was a HUGE turning point for me and a big lesson. Lesson learned? Don’t trust memory alone, and don’t assume that documents are wrong just because family memories conflict with those documents.

Herman and Sophie with sons 1920

2. The second new great-uncle was Abraham, and finding him was also somewhat of a lucky break. I ran across many Brotmans in my research, but most I assumed were not our relatives because I could not find any document linking them to our relatives and because no one in our family had ever heard of them. I can’t even remember all the details, but I recall that it was my brother Ira who found Abraham’s naturalization papers—I think (I am sure he will remember and correct me if I am wrong) it was in the course of looking into the Brotmanville Brotmans. When I saw Max’s name on those papers, I did not assume it was the same Max. (There were many Max Brotmans living in NYC at that time.) Once I checked the address for the Max on Abraham’s card against the address I had for Max on the census form from that same time period, I knew it was in fact “our” Max. That led me on the search that brought me to Abraham’s headstone and death certificate, indicating that his father was also Joseph Jacob Brotman. Lesson learned? Don’t dismiss any clue. You never know where one document may lead you, even if in a direction you never expected.

Naturalization of Abraham Brotman
Max as Witness

3. Contrary to Lesson #1 and Lesson #2, I have also learned that often you cannot trust documents. Documents lie. People lie. People give bad information, and bureaucrats transcribe information inaccurately. People who transcribe handwritten documents for indexing purposes make errors. In particular, our relatives were entirely inconsistent when it came to birth dates and birth places. I now know why one relative found it so easy to lie about her age. It was family tradition. So lesson #3: Don’t assume that because it is written on some “official document” that it is reliable in any way.

Sam's Birth Certificate Joseph was NOT 42!

Sam’s Birth Certificate
Joseph was NOT 46!

4. One of my most rewarding accomplishments was finding out what happened to Frieda Brotman. Now we know who she married and how she died and even the name of her infant son Max, who only lived one day. We even know what happened to her husband Harry Coopersmith after she died. I never thought I’d be able to track down her story. That experience is what will keep me going as I continue to look for the answers to more questions. Lesson #4: Do not give up. Do not give up. Do NOT give up!

5. There are more helpful and supportive people in the world than there are mean or evil people. I know we hear all the time about all the evil in the world, and there is far too much of it. And even if not evil, there are also many people who are rude, incompetent and unhelpful. We all know that. But we often forget that there are also many, many more people who are kind, helpful and competent. In my six months of doing this research, I have gotten help from many strangers—government employees who patiently helped me find a document, FHL volunteers who helped me track down a document request I had made, JewishGen and GesherGalicia members and other genealogists who have gone far out of their way to teach me how to find documents and how to connect with other researchers, who have photographed gravestones and given me directions to gravestones, who have translated documents for me, who have helped me find a clue when I was sure I had hit a brick wall. I cannot tell you how much these people have touched me and changed my views on human nature.

I want to express special thanks and deep appreciation to Renee Steinig, who contacted me many months ago in response to my cry for help on GesherGalicia and who has truly been my teacher and is now my friend as I have gone from being a total newbie to a fairly competent novice with her guidance. She is the one who found the obituary of Renee that led to me finding Judy. She is the one who suggested I post an inquiry on a bulletin board that led me to Bruce. When I look back, in fact, I know it was Renee who got me to where I am today. Thank you, Renee, for everything.

Lesson #5: If you ask for help, there will be generous and kind people who will reach out and help you. Don’t do this alone.

6. I have also learned that I have many second cousins and second cousins once and twice removed—people I would never have discovered if I had not started down this path. This has been probably the biggest gift of all from doing this research. What a wonderful and interesting group of people I have gotten to know—by email, by phone, by pictures and stories. When I look at the pictures and see the distinctive Brotman cheekbones shared by so many of you and your parents and your children, it gives me such a great sense of connection. This may be the best lesson I’ve learned: everyone is looking for connections, everyone is looking to find their place in time and in the world. I am so glad to have made these connections with so many of you, people who never even knew my name until this fall but whom I now consider not just cousins, but friends.

7. Finally, and in some ways the point of this whole adventure, I have really learned more than I ever could have hoped about my great-grandparents and their children and how they lived in the United States. Joseph and Bessie were nothing but names to me six months ago; now they are flesh and blood people, my flesh and blood. Their drive and courage is an inspiration to me, as it must have been to their own children. After all, Abraham, Hyman and Tillie all named a son for their father Joseph, and perhaps some of the great-grandchildren were named for him as well. I was so blessed to have been named for Bessie, as were some of you. Bessie and Joseph—they are the real heroes of this story. That’s the real lesson.

Joseph’s headstone

Bessie Brotman

Next post: Looking forward to the next six months

The Brotmanville Brotmans (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)
The American Immigrant Experience: The Brotman Story (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)
One Uncle Sam mystery solved (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)
The Illusion of Accuracy: Hyman Brotman’s Story (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)
Tillie’s Death Certificate (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)
Max Brotman: Who was his mother? (brotmanblog.wordpress.com)

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Category Archives: Genealogy

Update: The Strolowitz/Adler Family, My Grandfather’s Cousins

The Wonderful Generosity of Genealogists

First Cousins: The Grandchildren of David and Esther Rosensweig

More answers about the Adler Strolovitz family

The Adler Strolowitz family continued

Passenger Ship Manifests and The Heartrending Stories They Tell

Playing detective: Searching for Gold(schlagers)

Hyman and Sophie’s marriage certificate

Looking forward: Skiing on the Blue Trails

Looking back on the first six months: Seven lessons learned by doing genealogy

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