I have been spending many hours recently researching the children, grandchildren and other descendants of the siblings of my three-times great-grandparents. Sometimes I find myself thinking, “Why am I researching these people? They are my third cousins twice removed or my fifth cousins or my second cousins four times removed…or whatever.” Although I’ve had moments of wondering this before, it’s been especially true for the Nusbaum clan, who for the most part flew under the radar and did not have lots of juicy or interesting stories to tell—they were mostly law abiding merchants; they lived their lives quietly and out of the public eye. They were not politicians or inventors or criminals or performers. They did not change history. Sometimes when I learn that a particular relative had no children, I am relieved. One more line has been completed.
So why do this? Does anybody really care about such distant relatives? Do I even care? Is it just my general compulsive need for a sense of completion? For being thorough? Or is there something pushing me forward, person by person, line by line?
Some of it is definitely my neurotic need to finish things. Until recently I would finish any book I started even if I hated it. Then finally I realized, “Hey, I hate this book. I do not need to finish it.” It was tough, but I started realizing no one was grading me if I put the book away. And it is not just books. When we moved into our new home five years ago, I stayed up past 3 am just to put away every last dish, fork, pot, and coffee mug in the kitchen. Craziness.
But I do think that something else impels me to keep researching and writing about all these distant cousins. First, it gives me the big picture about the lives of my ancestors. I start to see trends and patterns. For example, I would not have seen how important the liquor trade became in the family and the country if I had not followed all those Simon and Nusbaum relatives who started selling liquor in the 1870s. I would not have understood how important the peddler trade was to early German Jewish immigrants if I did not study all the Nusbaum siblings. I would not have sensed the broad impact of the 1870s depression by studying just my direct ancestors. And as I move into the 20th century, I would perhaps not have seen how suddenly education became a much bigger factor in the lives of these families as both sons and daughters started getting a college education.
So in order to appreciate the larger society in which our ancestors lived, it is important to research not just your direct line but those collateral to it. But there is more there. Because I could do all that research and not blog about these people. I am no fool; I know that it doesn’t make for sexy reading to follow the life of someone who was born, grew up, sold hats, got married, had children, and died. So why even bother posting on the blog about that ordinary person? Partly because we all live ordinary lives. Most people are never in the paper for anything “interesting.” Most of us are not politicians or entertainers or criminals. Most of us are born, grow up, go to work, have families, and die. Don’t we matter? Won’t our grandchildren want to be able to tell their grandchildren something about their ancestors? I hope so.
And then there is this other thing. It hasn’t happened a lot, but it’s happened to me enough that I know it can happen. Someone googles their great-grandfather’s name, say Simon Nusbaum, for example. They land on my blog, and they learn something about their great-grandfather that they never knew—for example, that he was Jewish or that he was the son of a once successful merchant in Philadelphia. And they leave a comment on the blog, and I now have a new cousin with whom I share a family history and some smidgeon of DNA.
Isn’t that worth it? Right now I am searching for the living descendants of my three-times great-grandparents and their many siblings, and I have found a number of them. They are mostly my fifth cousins with a few fourth cousins mixed in. Some I have already emailed, others I will today. I have not heard back from those I emailed, as is often the case. Maybe they think I am a crazy person. Maybe they have no interest today. But maybe in a month or a year they will wonder about their ancestors and find my blog or find me.
And even if just one of them responds to me, it is worth it. Maybe they will have a picture of John Nusbaum and Jeanette Dreyfuss or one of their children. Even if they don’t, I will have helped them learn about their family’s history, and that will make all of this worthwhile.
In my last post, I covered four of the five children of Paula Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon. The remaining child was their fourth child, Flora, born in 1868. Flora Simon married Charles Mayer in 1889. Charles was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1857, the son of Jacob Mayer and Mathilde Shoyer. The family had moved to Philadelphia by the time Charles was three. His father was a merchant on the 1860 census and in the wholesale liquor business on the 1870 census, but by 1880 and thereafter, he listed his occupation as a dentist. He was a man with eleven children, and that made me wonder how he became a dentist while raising such a large family.
Most early “dentists” were actually barbers, blacksmiths, or apothecaries. Sometimes physicians would do extractions. Infection control was minimal, as was anesthesia. According to the American Dental Association website, the first dental school in the world was established in 1841 in Baltimore. Alabama enacted the first law to regulate the practice of dentistry also in 1841, but it was never enforced. The American Dental Association was founded in 1857. Pennsylvania had three dental schools by 1880, the newest being that established by the University of Pennsylvania.
Perhaps Jacob Mayer attended one of these, although I do not know when he would have had the time. The earliest reference I could find to a Pennsylvania law regulating the practice of dentistry was this April, 16, 1879 article from the Harrisburg Telegraph, describing a bill being considered by the state legislature.
Harrisburg Telegraph April 16, 1879 p.1
The bill was passed on a second reading, according to a May 16, 1879, article in the same paper (p.1). Here is a description of that bill as reported the next day:
Harrisburg Telegraph May 17, 1879, p. 4
Thus, by the time Jacob Mayer was practicing dentistry, there was some state regulation of the practice.
At any rate, his son Charles did not follow him in to this practice. By 1875 when he was eighteen, Charles was working as a salesman, though still living at home. In the 1879 Philadelphia directory, he is listed as a bookkeeper, and on the 1880 census, he is a clerk, but in the 1880 directory, his occupation is salesman. He was still living at home with his parents at this time.
After marrying Flora Simon in 1889, Charles and Flora remained in Philadelphia for a few more years and Charles continued to work as a salesman. Their first child Jerome was born in 1890, and their second child Madeline was born in 1892. A third child, Evelyn, was born in October, 1895 according to the 1900 census (although her headstone says 1894), but I am not sure whether she was born in Philadelphia or in Lancaster because by 1896, the family had relocated to Lancaster, where Charles had been born almost forty years earlier. He is listed in the 1896 Lancaster directory as the proprietor of the Parisian Cloak and Suit Company. The family remained in Lancaster until at least 1901, when Charles is still listed as the proprietor of the same company.
By 1904, however, the family had returned to Philadelphia, and Charles is listed as affiliated with the A.J.S. Bowers Company, also known as the Philadelphia Cloak and Suit Company. He listed his occupation on the 1910 census as a clothing manufacturer and continued to be associated with A.J.S. Bowers. By 1914, however, he had started his own business, Charles S. Mayer & Co, and on the 1920 census described his business as a manufacturer of ladies’ dresses.
The three children of Flora and Charles Mayer, all now in their twenties, were still living at home with their parents in 1920. Jerome was working as a salesman of ladies’ dresses, presumably in his father’s business. Madeline was a primary school teacher, and so was her sister Evelyn.
Madeline married Gustave Winelander in 1925. Gustave was a 1914 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Chemistry. He served in the US military forces during World War I and then was working as a chemist in 1918 according to the 1918 Philadelphia directory. The 1920 census records that he and his father Max had their own extract business, and from later census and directory listings I determined that he was selling flavoring extracts used in baking. Gustave and Madeline would have one daughter, Joan.
Flora and Charles Mayer’s youngest child, Evelyn, married Irving Frank sometime in or before 1922, as their son Irving was born in York, Pennsylvania, in January, 1922. Irving, Senior, was born in New York City in 1893, but by 1903 he and his parents and siblings had relocated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where his younger sister Mildred was born. In 1910, his father was a milliner, like Flora’s uncle, Joseph Simon. Since York was only 26 miles from Lancaster, perhaps the two hat merchants knew each other.
Irving attended Lehigh University in 1912 and 1913, as a civil engineering major. On his World War I draft registration, he listed his occupation as a manager at M. Frank in Lancaster, but by 1920 he was living in York with his aunt and uncle, working as a clerk in a department store. Maybe he met Evelyn while working there when she was visiting her aunt and uncle, Joseph and Emilie Simon. After marrying sometime thereafter, Irving and Evelyn settled in York, as Irving is listed a buyer there in the 1925 York directory. By 1927, however, he was the proprietor of the Fashion Millinery in Lancaster, joining the same trade as his father and Evelyn’s uncle Joseph Simon.
Jerome, Madeline, and Evelyn’s mother Flora Simon Mayer died August 20, 1927, and was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia. She died of bronchial pneumonia. She was only 59 years old.
After Flora died, her husband Charles and her son Jerome continued to live together and work together in the women’s clothing business at least until 1930. Sometime between 1930 and 1940, Jerome married Mabel Bamberger Sichel, who had a daughter Marion from an earlier marriage. On the 1940 census, Jerome, Mabel, and Marion are living in the same house on Diamond Street that Jerome had lived in with his parents and sisters, and his father Charles and Mabel’s mother Rose Bamberger were living with them as well. Jerome was working in the cheese business.
Irving Frank remained a milliner in Lancaster for many years, at least until the early 1940s. He died November 14, 1946, and was residing in York at that time. He was only 53 years old. He was buried at Prospect Hill cemetery in York where Joseph, Emilie, and Moses Joseph Simon were buried.
Charles Mayer outlived his wife Flora by almost thirty years, dying at the age of 98 on July 7, 1955. He was buried with her at Mt. Sinai cemetery. His son Jerome died in December 1966 and is also buried at Mt. Sinai with his wife Mabel, who died in 1973. Jerome’s sister Madeline died in 1968; her husband Gustave lived until 1989 when he was 95 years old; they also are buried at Mt. Sinai in Philadelphia.
For longevity, however, the prize goes to Evelyn Mayer Frank, who died in 2002 at the age of 107. She is buried with her husband Irving in the Prospect Hill cemetery in York, Pennsylvania. Imagine the changes she saw in her world between her birth in 1894 and her death in 2002. I hope that her descendants and her siblings’ descendants had many opportunities to learn from her experiences and to hear her stories.
My three-times-great-grandfather John Nusbaum had one sister who settled in the US (or at least she is the only one I’ve found): Mathilde Nusbaum, who married Isaac Dinkelspiel in Germany and immigrated with him to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. As I have already discussed, Mathilde died in 1878, and her husband Isaac Dinkelspiel died in 1889. Their son Adolph died in 1896, and he had no children who survived him. That left Mathilde and Isaac’s two daughters, Paulina and Sophia, to continue the family line, although not the Dinkelspiel name. Sadly, Adolph Dinkelspiel was the last member of my family to have this rather unique and interesting name.
This post will focus on the family of Paulina Dinkelspiel. Paulina had married one of the three Simon brothers, Moses, and in 1880 they were living in Baltimore with their children: Joseph, Francis, Leon, Flora, and Nellie, ranging in age from eighteen down to eight years old. Moses was in the retail liquor business. Moses remained in the liquor business throughout the 1880s and 1890s until he died on February 12, 1899, at age 64. His wife Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon died five years later on March 29, 1904. She was 63.
Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon death certificate
The terms of Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon’s will were disclosed in a news story in the April 16, 1904, edition of the Baltimore Sun, page 8. She left her house and its contents to her daughter Nellie. Her granddaughter Madeline Mayer (daughter of Flora Simon Mayer, to be discussed in my next post) was given $500, and the rest of the estate was divided evenly among her five surviving children, Joseph, Francis, Leon, Flora, and Nellie. It is interesting that she singled out one child and one grandchild over the others.
Baltimore Sun April 16, 1904, p 8
Paulina was buried at Oheb Shalom cemetery in Baltimore along with her husband Moses, her parents Isaac and Mathilde (Nusbaum) Dinkelspiel, and the two children who predeceased her and Moses, Albert and Miriam.
Paulina and Moses Simon’s oldest child Joseph Simon had married Emilie Baernstein in July, 1889, in Baltimore, where she was born and raised. By 1902, Joseph and Emilie had moved to York, Pennsylvania, where Joseph purchased a millinery shop.
York Daily, January 13, 1902.
Joseph and Emilie had a son Moses Joseph Simon, born in 1902, who died in May, 1908. Unfortunately, I could not locate a death certificate for Moses, so I do not know the cause of death. All I could locate was this notice of his funeral in the York Daily newspaper and his headstone.
York Daily May 4, 1908 p. 5
Joseph and Emilie did not have any other children. They were members of the Hebrew Reformed Congregation in York and supporters of the local symphony orchestra. Joseph worked as a milliner in York for many years until his death in April 1928. Emilie lived another twelve years. After Joseph died, she relocated to Baltimore, where she died in 1940. They were buried with their son Moses at the Prospect Hill Cemetery in York, Pennsylvania.
(Emilie’s official name appears to have been Amelia.)
(All headstone images found at http://usgwarchives.net/pa/york/1picts/cemeteries/prospect-hill-york-city/main/prospect-hill-s.htm )
Joseph’s younger brother Francis Simon, known as Frank, was working as a clerk in 1895, and in 1900 he was living with his mother and younger sister Nellie, still listing his occupation as a clerk. Like his brother Joseph, Frank married a woman born and raised in Baltimore, Bertha May. According to the 1930 census, Frank married Bertha when he was 40 years old and she was 34, or in 1904. They did not have any children. In 1910, Frank and Bertha were living with Bertha’s father and her sister Tillie and brother-in-law Joseph Wurtzburger and their children. Frank was working as the treasurer of a mercantile business. In 1920 Frank and Bertha were living on their own, and neither was employed. Frank was 54, and Bertha was 50. In the 1922 Baltimore directory, however, Frank is listed as being in the soft drinks business. The 1930 census again lists them without occupations.
Frank died January 31, 1932, and is buried at the Baltimore Hebrew cemetery; Bertha was living with her widowed sister, Tillie Wurtzburger, at the time of the 1940 census. Her sister Tillie died in 1945, and Bertha died in June, 1951, at the age of 81.
The third child of Paulina Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon was Leon Simon, born in 1866, two years after Frank. By 1895 Leon had his own company, L. Simon and Co., listed in the Baltimore directory as a cloak manufacturing company. He married Helen Wolf the following year in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Helen was born in Harrisburg, and her father William was a real estate agent there, according to the 1880 census. Perhaps Frank’s mother Paulina had known the Wolf family when she was growing up in Harrisburg.
Leon and Helen had two sons, William Wolf Simon, born in 1897, and Mervyn Moses Simon, born in 1900: the first named for Helen’s father and the second for Leon’s father, who had died the year before. Leon had no occupation listed on the 1900 census, but the 1902 Baltimore directory still listed him with L. Simon and Co. On the 1910 census, however, his occupation appears to read “General Manager Furniture Business;” in the 1914 directory, his firm name now appears as Salontz & Simon, so it would seem that his cloak business no longer existed. I found a listing in a 1904 Pittsburgh directory for the Baltimore firm of Salontz & Simon in the fur business category. The 1920 census is consistent with this, as it gives his occupation as a manufacturer of furs. In 1930 he was still in the fur business, though now his occupation is described as a fur retail merchant. The 1940 census also described him as a retail furrier.
All through these decades, Leon and Helen’s two sons lived with them, and they worked in their father’s fur business once they were old enough. Neither son ever married. Leon died on August 29, 1941, and his son Mervyn died the following year on August 27, 1942. He was only 42 years old. I have ordered a death certificate for Mervyn to determine his cause of death.
UPDATE: Here is Mervyn’s death certificate.
William Simon, the older brother, continued to live with his mother at least until 1956 when both are listed at the same address in the Baltimore directory. (No occupation was listed.) Helen Wolf Simon died November 29, 1965, and William died less than a year later on October 4, 1966. All four members of the family are buried at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.
I am going to skip the fourth child Flora for now and move on to the fifth child, Nellie Simon, the one who inherited the house from her mother Paulina Dinkelspiel Simon. I had a lot of trouble figuring out what happened to Nellie after her mother died in 1904. In 1900 she had been living with her mother and brother Frank; she was 27 years old and had no occupation listed. She is also listed in the 1902 directory at the same address at 844 North Howard Street, again with no occupation listed. Since her mother bequeathed that house to Nellie when she died in 1904, I expected to find Nellie living there in 1910. But I could not find her there, and although there was another Nellie Simon working as a hairdresser in Baltimore in the 1910s, the address was not the same.
One tree on ancestry.com listed Nellie as married to an Adolph Feldstein, but I could not find any direct sources to corroborate that marriage. I was able to find Adolph and Nellie S. Feldstein on the 1910 census as well as the 1920 and 1930 census reports living in Philadelphia. The facts about that Nellie seemed consistent with my Nellie Simon: her age, parents’ birth places, and her birth place were all right, although the latter two census reports had her place of birth as Maryland instead of Pennsylvania. I still felt uncertain until I found a bill from the funeral home in charge of Nellie’s funeral in 1958. The document listed Horace A. Stern as the person responsible for the bill. Although at first the name did not ring a bell, a quick search of my own family tree revealed that Horace Stern was married to the granddaughter of Nellie’s sister Flora. That was enough to convince me that the Nellie who had married Adolph Feldstein was in fact Nellie Simon, the youngest child of Paulina Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon and the grandchild of Mathilde Nusbaum and Isaac Dinkelspiel.
Nellie and Adolph Feldstein did not have any children. Adolph worked in his father’s business manufacturing “haircloth.” I had never heard this term before, but a quick look on the internet revealed that according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary online, it is “any of various stiff wiry fabrics especially of horsehair or camel hair used for upholstery or for stiffening in garments.” Adolph was the secretary and treasurer of the company in the 1910s, and he continued to work in the business throughout the 1920s and the 1930s until his death by suicide in 1937. As mentioned above, Nellie lived another twenty years, passing away in 1958.
Hair Cloth Loom
It’s interesting that three of these siblings were all involved in the clothing trade, although different aspects of it: hats, furs, and haircloth. (I am not really sure how Frank supported himself and his wife.) It’s also interesting that three of the five children of Paulina Dinkelspiel and Moses Simon did not have children who survived them. Joseph’s one child passed away as a little boy, and Frank and Nellie married but never had children. Leon did have two sons who grew to adulthood, but his sons never married or had children, so there were no descendants to carry on his family line. Only Flora, the remaining sibling, had grandchildren and further generations of descendants. I will discuss her and her descendants in my next post.
(Was FDR really that tall, or were all those politicos from the West really that short?)
(I just looked it up. FDR was 6′ 2″. Those guys must have been at least 8″ shorter. I am not surprised my relative was short; we are not a tall family. But all three of them together? Didn’t they feed people well out West?)
And I once thought I was the member of my family who’d gotten closest to a future US President when I shook Jimmy Carter‘s hand very early in his run for President. At the time, I’d never heard anything about him and never thought he’d end up as President. I was just being polite to a man who’d come to speak at the school I was attending. And no one took our photograph.
Thanks to my cousin Pete for sharing this. More about the photo can be found here.
John Nusbaum died in 1889, leaving behind his widow Jeanette and their six children: Adolphus in Peoria, Simon and Frances both in Santa Fe, Julius in Iowa, and Miriam and Lottie both in Philadelphia. By 1925 Jeanette and all six children were gone. This post will describe their lives in the decades between 1890 and 1925.
Jeanette and Lottie: In 1890, Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum was a widow, living in Philadelphia with her daughter Lottie. In 1900, Jeanette and Lottie were still living together in Philadelphia. According to the 1900 census, they were living as boarders in the home of another German-born widow named Jenette Oberdorf and her children. Lottie was working as a stenographer, according to two Philadelphia directories in the 1890s.
Miriam and Gustavus: In 1890, Miriam and her husband Gustavus Josephs had one surviving child, Florence, who was now ten years old. Their son Jean was born in 1893. After researching more about Gustavus, I learned that he had served in the Civil War as a musician. According to Wikipedia, “The rank of Musician was a position held by military band members, particularly during the American Civil War. The rank was just below Corporal, and just above Private. In some units it was more or less equal to the rank of Private. During the American Civil War, military leaders with the Union and Confederate Armies relied on military musicians to entertain troops, position troops in battle, and stir them on to victory — some actually performing concerts in forward positions during the fighting.”
Perhaps Gustavus is one of the musicians depicted in one of these videos:
He did not, however, pursue music as a profession after the war. On the 1880 census, he listed his occupation as an embroiderer, and on various city directories in the 1880s he had been listed as a salesman. In 1894 and 1896, he is listed as being in the curtains business, and in 1897 he is listed in business with Laurence Frank in the cotton goods business under the firm name Josephs and Frank Co. Then in 1898 he is still in the cotton goods business, but with a new partner, Louis Wertheimer.
On the 1900 census, Gustavus and Miriam were living with their two children, Florence, now nineteen, and Jean, just six years old. The 1900 census asked women how many children they had had and how many were still living. For Miriam, the census reported that she had only had two children, both of whom were still living. This was obviously not true, as Miriam and Gustavus had had two other children, Milton and Gertrude, who had died. Was this just bad information given by someone who did not know the facts? Or were Miriam and Gustavus just in denial?
Gustavus’ occupation on the 1900 census was listed as manufacturing without specifying the type of goods. The 1901 directory, however, indicates that he was in the upholstered goods business. Then in 1905 he listed his occupation on the directory as “silks.” It appears that he was still in the silk business as of the 1910 census, but I cannot quite make out the word that follows “silk.” I believe it says “silk winder.” According to the Hall Genealogy website list of old occupations, a silk winder “Wound the silk from the silkworm cocoons onto bobbins.”
Interestingly, by 1914 Gustavus had returned to the embroidery business, or perhaps that was what he’d been doing even in 1910 as a silk winder. He is listed as an embroiderer thereafter in subsequent directories as well, although on the 1920 census he is listed as a manufacturer in the mill industry. I am not quite sure what to make of Gustavus’ career path. Were these really all related businesses or even the same business? He certainly seemed to be involved with fabrics throughout in one way or another.
English: A man sitting cross-legged on a stoop and embroidering a piece of silk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Adolphus and Fanny: In 1890, the oldest child of John and Jeanette, Adolphus Nusbaum, was still living in Peoria with his wife Fanny, but he was no longer in business with his brother younger brother Julius. The last Peoria directory to include Julius was the one published in 1887. Adolphus is listed with only a residential address in the 1890 and 1891 Peoria directories, but beginning with the 1895 directory, he is listed as being in the feed business. He was still in the feed business as of the 1900 census and the 1900 Peoria directory.
Then on February 8, 1902, Adolphus died “20 miles from Chicago while en route to Chicago,” according to the Nusbaum family bible. I did not know what this could possibly mean, and I was even more confused when I found a Philadelphia death certificate for Adolphus, given that the last address I had for him was in Peoria.
Why did Philadelphia issue a death certificate? Why was there a Philadelphia address given as the residence? And why was there an inquest pending? I am still searching for an answer to the last two questions and some answer as to the results of the inquest, but I found some answers in this article from the February 9, 1902, Chicago Daily Tribune:
Chicago Daily Tribune, February 9, 1902, p. 4
But this article also raised more questions. As far as I know, in 1902, Adolphus did not have a brother in Philadelphia, unless Julius had relocated there at that time. Simon was still living in Santa Fe. And what had Adolphus been doing in Washington? He must have been traveling by train. Did he have a heart attack or stroke while traveling? Was his wife Fanny with him? I don’t know. It’s also interesting that despite having lived in Peoria since he was barely in his 20s and having married a woman who had been living in Indiana in 1863, Adolphus was buried at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia with the other members of the extended family, including his father John.
Frances and Bernard: In 1890, two of the children of John and Jeanette continued to live in Santa Fe, my great-great-grandmother Frances Nusbaum Seligman and her brother Simon Nusbaum. Frances was busy with her charitable and social activities in Santa Fe. Her children Eva, James, Minnie and Arthur all went off to Swarthmore in Philadelphia in the 1880s, where Minnie died at age eighteen in 1887, as I’ve written about previously. Frances herself died in July, 1905, two years after her husband Bernard. She was 59 years old. As I described when writing about Frances and Bernard, both were warmly praised and well-loved by the Santa Fe community. Both were buried, however, back in Philadelphia at Mt. Sinai cemetery.
It must have been terrible for Jeanette to lose her son Adolphus in 1902 and her daughter Frances 1905, not that many years after losing her husband John as well as so many grandchildren. Jeanette herself died on January 12, 1908, from edema of her lungs, according to the death certificate. She was 90 years old. She was buried along with her husband, her children Frances and Adolphus, and numerous grandchildren and other relatives at Mt. Sinai cemetery in Philadelphia.
Julius: As for Julius Nusbaum, who had once been Adolphus’ business partner in Peoria, as noted above he was last listed in the Peoria directory in 1887 and then disappeared from Peoria. He next surfaced in 1900 in Grinnell, Iowa, living alone as a single man and working as a tobacco merchant. Grinnell is over two hundred miles from Peoria and over a thousand miles from Philadelphia.
Restored Rock Island Line station in Grinnell, built in 1892. Now a restaurant. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What had taken him to Iowa and when had he gotten there? Had he gone into the tobacco business for the same reasons that his father John had gone into the cigar business in the mid-1880s? In 1891 Julius is listed in the Waterloo, Iowa directory as a cigar dealer, and on the 1905 Iowa State Census he is living in Grinnell. It does not thus seem like he was living in Philadelphia in 1902 when Adolphus and Fannie came to visit. Was the newspaper just wrong about that detail, or was the 1905 directory wrong? Certainly Adolphus had other family members to visit in Philadelphia, including his mother Jeanette, his sister Lottie, and his sister Miriam and her family.
Julius is not listed in either the 1904 or the 1906 Waterloo, Iowa business directory, and I cannot find him on the 1910 census anywhere, so I do not know whether he was still living in Iowa at that point. But by 1920 he had returned to Philadelphia, listing his occupation on the 1920 census as a retired cigar merchant and living as a boarder. Living in the same residence with him in 1920 also as a boarder was a 62 year old widow named Fannie Nusbaum who had been born in Germany; this was obviously Adolphus’ widow, Julius’ sister-in-law.
I could create all kind of romantic stories about Julius and Fannie, but they would be speculative for sure. Julius had lived with Adolphus and Fannie in Peoria and had been in business with his brother. Suddenly after working together for over twenty years, Julius left Peoria and moved to Iowa, where he presumably knew no one and where he started an entirely new business selling cigars. Then Adolphus died in 1902, and I can’t find Julius or Fannie anywhere on the 1910 US census or in city directories. Ten years later, Julius and Fannie ended up living together in Philadelphia. Where were they both in 1910? Of course, it could be completely innocent: a devoted brother taking care of the widow of his older brother. And it probably was. I’ve likely read too many novels and seen too many movies. I have no evidence of any such scandalous events. I am sure the story is far less interesting than all that.
Simon: Meanwhile, back in Santa Fe, the other Nusbaum brother, Simon, had settled in as part of the community by 1890. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported in September 1889 that he had returned from a month’s vacation and “looked like a new man,” having gained twenty pounds. There was no further explanation for the comment, but perhaps Simon had had a rough time after losing his father in January of 1889. After that, his life seems to have taken a positive turn. Having served first as a clerk and then as assistant postmaster in Santa Fe, Simon was appointed by President McKinley to be the postmaster there in May, 1898.
His appointment was enthusiastically approved by the press and the people of Santa Fe. On May 5, 1898, the Santa Fe New Mexican opined on page 2, “As good a piece of news as Santa Fe has received for some time was that of the appointment of Simon Nusbaum to be postmaster of this city. This appointment was one that had been strongly recommended by the best and leading citizens of this city and indeed by all those desiring a competent official and a honest and proper man in that important office. Mr. Nusbaum’s political support was also very powerful….He is a skilled accountant and book-keeper, in fact one of the best in the southwest. He … had held several positions of trust and importance in big business establishments, in this territory and in eastern cities.”
The Santa Fe newspaper also quoted from the Peoria Evening Star, which said, “Years ago Nusbaum & Co. were the great dry goods firm of this city. One of the members was Simon Nusbaum. He was a smart, active, pushing man….” Santa Fe New Mexican, May 19, 1898, p. 2.
Simon was still a single man at that point. In 1899 he reportedly bought a fruit farm near Tesuque, New Mexico, apparently for a very good price.
Santa Fe New Mexican, September 28, 1899, p. 4
He later began breeding high bred Belgian hares in partnership with one of his clerks at the post office.
Santa Fe New Mexican, December 6, 1900, p.4
Although Simon was still single as of the 1900 census, he married Dora Rutledge in 1903. It was the first marriage for Simon, who was 57 years old. Dora was only forty. She had a daughter from an earlier marriage, Nellie Rogers, who was born in 1897. Simon and Dora’s son John Bernard Nusbaum, was born on May 15, 1904. On the 1910 census, Simon was now the assistant New Mexico Territorial Treasurer, and he and Dora and the children must have been living in a boarding house because they had seven lodgers living with them. In fact, the 1920 census reveals that Simon and Dora were the owners of that boarding house, which was being managed by Dora. Simon was now 76 years old and Dora was 49.
1916-1925: Years of Loss
When Jeanette Nusbaum died in 1908 at age 90, she had outlived two of her children, Adolphus and Frances, and many of her grandchildren, as well as her husband John. Four of her children had survived her: Simon, Julius, Miriam and Lottie. By 1925, all of those children would be gone. On February 13, 1916, Miriam died of heart disease. She was 57 years old and survived by her husband Gustavus and two children, Florence, who was 36, and Jean, who was 23. Gustavus died eight year later at age 75 of pectoris angina.
Simon Nusbaum died on February 25, 1921. He was 76. Unlike his siblings, he was not buried at Mt Sinai in Philadelphia, but in Santa Fe, where he had lived the last forty or so years of his life. He was survived by his wife Dora, stepdaughter Nellie, and son John, who was only 16 years old. Thanks to my cousin Pete, I have a copy of Simon’s obituary. It reports that Simon had had a stroke in September, 1920 and had not been himself since, but that prior to the stroke, he had been “able to walk around as briskly as he had for decades, and he was a familiar figure in the plaza and sitting on the swing in front of his apartment house on Washington Avenue.” Here is the full obituary:
(Santa Fe New Mexican, February 25, 1921)
I winced at the references to “bad Indians” and “red chiefs,” trying to keep in mind that this was 1921. I was intrigued by the references to Simon’s time living in Missouri and South Dakota, as I have seen no documentation of his time in either place. He was still in Philadelphia in 1860 when he was 17, and he was in Peoria starting in 1863 until 1877. By 1880 he was in Santa Fe. So perhaps he had spent those years in between in Missouri and South Dakota.
The image of Simon as the postmaster sorting the mail in his nightgown at midnight is wonderful.
Just two years later, Simon’s brother Julius Nusbaum died in Philadelphia on January 3, 1923. He was 74 years old and died from “Dil of heart, superinduced by acute indigestion.” I googled this phrase and found that it was often used as description of a cause of death in the early 20th century, but I could not find any medical dictionary that explained what this meant. Dilation of the heart refers to an enlarged heart that cannot adequately pump blood, what we might refer to today as heart failure. But I have no idea what “superinduced by acute indigestion” means or whether that is today considered even medically accurate. Perhaps my medical consultant will fill me in.
Finally, the last of the children of John and Jeanette Nusbaum, Lottie died on December 23, 1925, of nephritis and diabetes. She was 64 years old. Both Julius and Lottie did not have any children.
Thus, as of 1925, all six children of John and Jeanette were gone. Three of them had no children to survive them, Adolphus, Julius, and Lottie. The other three siblings had together six surviving children: the three surviving children of Frances Nusbaum and Bernard Seligman, Eva, James, and Arthur; the two surviving children of Miriam Nusbaum and Gustavus Josephs, Florence and Jean; and the son of Simon Nusbaum and Dora Rutledge, John Bernard Nusbaum. If I include Simon’s stepdaughter Nellie, who was after all referred to as his daughter in his obituary, that would make seven surviving children. And there were the four grandchildren who had died as children, Florence and Minnie Seligman and Milton and Gertrude Josephs.
I have already written about the surviving Seligman children, my great-grandmother Eva and her brothers James and Arthur. In a later post, I will follow up on the other surviving grandchildren of Jeanette Dreyfuss and John Nusbaum, Florence and Jean Josephs and Nellie and John Nusbaum and their families.
By 1880, my three-times great-grandparents, Jeanette (Dreyfuss) and John Nusbaum, and their extended families had not only grown in size but spread across a wider swath of the northeastern United States. Some were still in Harrisburg or Philadelphia, but others were in Peoria, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. Although many were still dry goods merchants, the younger generations were also involved in various aspects of the liquor trade. The family had endured the economic crisis of the 1870s, seeing some bankruptcies and the closings of several stores and businesses. A number of young children had died, and by 1880, of the siblings of John and Jeanette Dreyfuss, only Ernst and John were still alive on the Nusbaum side, while Jeanette’s two sisters Caroline and Mathilde were both still living.
The next two decades brought with it more changes, more weddings, more new children, and sadly more deaths. In my next series of Nusbaum/Dreyfuss posts I will try to bring the various branches up to the 20th century, focusing first on my direct ancestors, John and Jeanette and their children and grandchildren.
As I’ve written, in 1880 John and Jeanette were listed on the census in two different locations, living thousands of miles apart. John was living with their daughter Frances and her husband Bernard Seligman (my great-great-grandparents) in Santa Fe along with his son Simon. Jeanette, on the other hand, was living in Philadelphia with their daughter Miriam and her husband Gustavus Josephs along with Lottie Nusbaum, the youngest child of John and Jeanette, and Milton Josephs, the young son of Miriam and Gustavus who would die from bronchial pneumonia just a few months after the 1880 census was taken. These must have been very hard times for my ancestors, and I will never know whether John moved to Santa Fe for financial reasons or because of marital problems. I will never know whether he was there for a month or a year.
English: A Areal map of Santa Fe, New Mexico during the Railroad era in 1882. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But I do know that John is listed in the 1881 Philadelphia directory as residing at 1129 Master Street, the same address where the Josephs family and Jeanette and Lottie were living on the 1880 census. Whether John was actually back or not is hard to say for sure, but he does not appear again on any Philadelphia directory until 1886, when he is listed as being in the “segar” business and living at 524 North 11th Street, the same address given for his daughter Lottie. Although Gustavus and his family are not listed in the 1881 directory, they show up in the 1884 directory still living on Master Street, so it would seem that sometime between 1881 and 1886, John and Lottie and presumably Jeanette had moved to their own home on North 11th Street.
I found it puzzling that John, after over forty years in the dry goods business, had entered the cigar business. But his store had gone bankrupt, and perhaps this seemed to be a good way to make a fresh start in the 1880s. John was already in his 70s by 1886, so it is even more surprising that he was starting in a new trade instead of just retiring. I did some reading about the tobacco industry and learned that the John Bonsack invented the cigarette rolling machine in 1881, leading to a widespread increase in cigarette smoking (previously, tobacco was either chewed, smoked in a pipe, or hand rolled into a cigar or cigarette). I don’t know whether this technological development had any effect on John’s decision to sell cigars, and I don’t know whether he sold only cigars or also cigarettes, but the timing does seem to be enough for me to think this was not just coincidental. In 1887, John again is listed at the same residence and as being in the “segar” business.
English: Trade card of a cigar dealer after a photograph of Napoleon Sarony, using Oscar Wilde’s popularity during his American trip of 1882 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Meanwhile, the children of John and Jeanette were also finding their way in the 1880s. Adolphus and Julius were still in Peoria, working in the dry goods business, now called Nusbaum Bros. Since Julius had been one of his father’s creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings, perhaps the business was now owned by the brothers instead of their father. Julius was living with his brother Adolphus and sister-in-law Fannie, who had no children.
Simon, meanwhile, had remained in Santa Fe and was still unmarried and living with his sister, my great-great-grandmother Frances Nusbaum Seligman, and her family in 1885 according to the New Mexico Territorial Census of that year. In 1887 Simon was appointed to be a clerk in the US post office in Santa Fe, a position he continued to hold for many years, being promoted to assistant postmaster by 1889 and ultimately to postmaster in 1898.
Miriam and Lottie, the remaining two children of John and Jeanette, were living in Philadelphia. Miriam and her husband Gustavus had a third child in 1882, Gertrude, after losing Milton in 1880. Their second child Florence was then two years old. On November 28, 1888, Gertrude died from diphtheria (croupus form, according to the death certificate). She had just celebrated her sixth birthday less than a month before. Eight year old Florence was once again an only child. The family had lost yet another young child. For Miriam and Gustavus to lose two young children in the space of eight years must have been completely devastating.
As for Lottie, John and Jeanette’s youngest child, she was just seventeen in 1880 and still living at home, as she did throughout the decade.
The decade drew near a close on another sad note for the family when my three-times great-grandfather John Nusbaum died on January 24, 1889. He was 74 years old. According to his death certificate, he died from lobular heart disease, chronic cystitis, and diabetes. Notice also that the residential address on both Gertrude Josephs’ and John Nusbaum’s death certificates is the same: 1617 North 13th Street.
John Nusbaum was born in Schopfloch, Germany, in 1814, the sixth child of Amson Nusbaum and Voegele Welsch. He had been one of the pioneers in the family, coming to Pennsylvania in the 1840s, probably starting as a peddler and then establishing himself as a merchant first in Harrisburg and then in Philadelphia. He had seen much success and some failure in his business; he had helped out his siblings and their widows when his brothers Maxwell and Leopold died. He and Jeanette had been the common link that brought together many connections between the Nusbaum, Dreyfuss, Dinkelspiel, Wiler, and Simon families. I imagine that it must have been very hard for the family to lose him. Sadly, I cannot find one obituary or death notice for him.
John Nusbaum’s name lived on in other ways, however. Four years after he died, his daughter Miriam and her husband Gustavus had one last child on July 26, 1893, five years after they had lost Gertrude and eleven years since Miriam had last given birth. They named their son Jean, I assume in honor of Miriam’s father.
Two years later in 1895, John Nusbaum’s granddaughter Eva Seligman Cohen had a fourth son whom she and her husband Emanuel Cohen named John Nusbaum Cohen. He was my grandfather, named for his great-grandfather. Eva must have known her grandfather John Nusbaum very well, not only when she was a young child living in Philadelphia and not only when he had lived with her family for some period of time in Santa Fe, but also because she had moved to Philadelphia for college and then settled there after marrying my great-grandfather in 1886. She must have seen a great deal of him in those last few years of his life.
John Nusbaum Cohen c. 1895
When Simon Nusbaum married at a late age, he and his wife also named a son for Simon’s father. John Bernard Nusbaum was born on May 15, 1904, in Santa Fe. (I assume that the Bernard was for Simon’s brother-in-law Bernard Seligman, who had died the year before.)
And, of course, John Nusbaum’s name lives on today through my father, John Nusbaum Cohen, Jr. It’s a legacy that my three-times great-grandfather well deserved. We may not have a photograph to remember his face, but we will always remember his name.
The 1870s were a pretty tough decade for my Nusbaum relatives. There were business and financial troubles as well as numerous deaths of children and others. So I admit that it is not with great enthusiasm that I return to the 1870s, but at least this is the last branch of the family to cover during that decade. I’ve covered my three-times great-grandparents, John Nusbaum and Jeannette Dreyfuss, and their children, as well as the families of Jeanette’s two sisters, Mathilde and Caroline, and also those of John’s sister Mathilde and the surviving families of John’s brothers Maxwell and Leopold. That leaves only the 1870s story of John’s brother Ernst and his wife Clarissa and their children.
Ernst was the closest sibling in age to John, just two years younger, and he was apparently the only sibling who settled in Philadelphia perhaps as early as 1851 and stayed there for the rest of his life. He had married Clarissa Arnold, a Pennsylvania native born in 1830 who was fourteen years younger than Ernst. Ernst and Clarissa seemed to have been quite comfortable in the 1850s and 1860s. By 1861, they had six children. Ernst was in the men’s clothing business in a firm called Arnold, Nusbaum, and Nirdlinger. (I assume the Arnold was one of his wife’s relatives.) By 1870, Ernst and Clarissa’s children were almost all teenagers or almost teenagers: Arthur was 19, Myer 18, Fannie 14, Edgar 12, Henrietta 10, and Frank was nine years old. They were still living at 625 North 6th Street, the same home they had been in since at least 1861. They also still had two servants living with them.
But in 1870, Ernst’s firm went bankrupt, as seen in this December 5, 1870, article from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Three years later Ernst is listed in the notions business at 518 Arch Street in the 1873 directory. Interestingly, his son Arthur and his wife Clarissa seem to have had a ladies’ furnishings business at the same address called Clares & Arthurs. Arthur was still living at home, and the family had moved to 1000 North 6th Street by 1873. Was this a move necessitated by the economic downturn? Did Clarissa want to start working out of the house because they needed more money or was it just that her youngest child was twelve years old and the others well into their teens or twenties so she had the time and interest in doing so?
I do not know, but the following year, it appears that Clares & Arthurs no longer existed. Ernst is listed without a business address, Clarissa has no listing, and Arthur is listed as a clerk. The next year, 1875, has Ernst living at 2103 Green Street without any occupation listed and Arthur listed as residing at the same address and working as a salesman at 730 Chestnut Street. His younger brother Myer is also listed at the 2103 Green Street residential address. In 1876, Myer is listed as working as a bookkeeper, but Arthur and Ernst simply have the residential address. Same in 1877 and 1878 for Ernst and Myer, but Arthur is not listed at all. So had Ernst retired? Or had he simply stopped working due to the recession? And where was Arthur?
Well, in 1879, when the recession was starting to end, Ernst is once again listed with an occupation—in the cloaks business. Myer is still listed as a bookkeeper, and now Edgar, his younger brother, is listed as a salesman. All three are still listed as residing at 2103 Green Street in the 1879 Philadelphia directory.
And where was Arthur? I cannot find him in the directory listings for 1877 through 1879. He had married Henrietta Hilbronner in 1876, and they had had a daughter Florence born in 1877 and a son Sydney born in 1879. According to the 1880 census, they were all living with Henrietta’s parents on North Seventh Street. Henrietta’s father Morris was a clothing merchant with his own business, and Arthur was working as a clothing cutter, presumably for his father-in-law.
The other children of Ernst and Clarissa were also getting married in the late 1870s. Fannie Nusbaum married Jacob L. Hano on February 28, 1877, and they also had two children born by 1880: Louis F. Hano, born in Youngstown, Ohio, on November 30, 1877, and Ernst Nusbaum Hano, born May 16, 1880, also in Youngstown, Ohio. Jacob Hano was born in Philadelphia in 1850 and had lived his whole life there. In 1874 he’d been working as a salesman in Philadelphia, residing at 2026 Green Street, right across the street from Fannie and her family. He had attended Crittenden’s Philadelphia Commercial College. Perhaps he moved Fannie to Youngstown after they married because he believed that there were better business opportunities there. Unfortunately, however, like others in the family and the country, he faced financial problems and declared bankruptcy in May, 1878.
He and the family remained in Youngstown, however, and he is listed on the 1880 census living there with Fannie, their two young sons, and his brother Benjamin as well as a servant. He listed his occupation as a clothier, and his brother was working as a clerk in a department store. Thus, Jacob must have rebounded from his bankruptcy and started a new business. They did not remain long in Youngstown, however, as we shall see.
Myer Nusbaum, Ernst and Clarissa’s third child, also married and had two children in the 1870s. He married Rosalie Aub, and their first child Corinne was born on May 19, 1878. Her brother Jacob was born the next year on June 24, 1879. As noted above, Myer was working as a bookkeeper throughout the 1870s and was still employed as a bookkeeper in 1880 according to the census of that year.
Although the 1900 census indicates that Edgar Nusbaum married Viola Baritt in 1879 when he was 21 and she was eighteen, on the 1880 census he is still listed as living at home with his parents at 2105 Green Street and single. My guess is that they did not marry until 1880, and their first and only child Selina was born a year later on November 16, 1881. As noted above, Edgar was listed as a salesman in the 1879 directory, and the same occupation is given in the 1880 Philadelphia directory, although the 1880 US census lists his occupation as a clerk.
Ernst and Clarissa’s youngest two children, Henrietta and Frank, were also still at home in 1880 at 2103 Green Street, depicted below. Henrietta was 20 and Frank 19. Frank was working as a clerk like his brother Edgar. Their father Ernst listed his occupation as a manufacturer. So perhaps the slowdown of the 1870s had eased, and Ernst and his sons were all then once again gainfully employed.
And now we can move on to the next decade. The 1880s may not have presented the same economic challenges as the 1870s, but as we will see, it presented other challenges and other changes for the extended Nusbaum family.
As promised, here is a chart to illustrate one possible way that my mother Florence, Elaine and Frieda are all connected.
There are a LOT of unknowns and assumptions here.
First, we are assuming that Joseph Brotman and Bessie Brot were first cousins, as family lore says. If so, then one of Joseph’s parents was a sibling to one of Bessie’s parents. On this chart, I am assuming that Joseph’s father Abraham was a sibling to Bessie’s mother Gittel Brot because I don’t think Abraham would have named a son Joseph if he had a living brother named Joseph.
Second, we are assuming based on DNA results that Joseph Brotman and Moses Brotman were brothers, making their children first cousins and their grandchildren, here Florence and Elaine, second cousins. The DNA results seem to support that assumption.
Third, we are assuming that Florence and Frieda are also second cousins based on the DNA results, meaning that Gussie Brotman and Sabina Brod were first cousins, meaning that one of Gussie’s parents and one of Sabina’s parents were siblings. Here, I am making the assumption that Bessie Brot, Gussie’s mother, was the sister of Sabina’s mother, but it could be that Bessie was Sabina’s father’s sister. I don’t know whether Brod was a name Sabina got from her mother or her father because in Galicia in those times, the state often treated Jewish children as illegitimate if their parents had only a Jewish marriage ceremony and thus assigned the mother’s name to the children instead of the father’s. So either is possible here.
So what does this all mean? Well, hold on because this is where it gets a bit slippery. Taking the above chart as true (which is still very speculative), it means that Elaine, Florence, and Frieda are all third cousins since they all have the same great-great-grandparents, i.e., whoever were the parents of Abraham Brotman and Gittel Brot. (I don’t know whether Brotman and Brot were two versions of the same name or two completely different names in the family; both exist as surnames so they could be as unrelated as someone named Rosen is to someone named Rosenberg, for example.)
BUT Elaine and Florence are also second cousins (as well as third cousins) since they are the children of first cousins (Louis and Gussie) and the grandchildren of siblings (Moses and Joseph Brotman). AND the same is true for Florence and Frieda: they are second cousins because they are the children of first cousins (Gussie and Sabina) and the grandchildren of siblings (Bessie and the parent of Sabina).
So my mother is a second cousin to both Elaine and Frieda (since her grandparents were first cousins), BUT Elaine and Frieda are not second cousins, only third cousins. Their grandparents (Moses Brotman and Sabina’s parent) were not first cousins, just second cousins.
That is consistent with the DNA results which showed my mother as a second cousin to Elaine and also to Frieda but showed Elaine and Frieda as likely third to fifth cousins.
I have no idea whether that is a help or not. In fact, I think I am more confused now than before. Please tell me if that makes no sense. Ask me questions. Test my thinking. Please.
And a big THANK YOU to my new cousin Phyllis for helping me sort through all of this!
Animation of the structure of a section of DNA. The bases lie horizontally between the two spiraling strands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am now delving into a part of genealogy research that is the hardest thing I’ve yet done in this project: DNA testing. I am not and never was a science or math person. My head starts spinning when I see too many numbers and/or scientific terms. Reading about DNA results is like reading Russian or Chinese for me. The words are not at all familiar, and the numbers have no meaning in the world in which I am used to operating. Terms like SNP, centimorgan, autosomal, and others I can’t even keep in my head at all mean little or nothing to me, even after reading several articles and websites defining the terms.
I say all this by way of disclaimer. Everything I am writing about today is foreign to me, and I am still trying to get help to be able to comprehend these test results more fully and to figure out what I can learn from them.
Having said all that, here’s the story. Those who have followed this blog for a long time know that one of my brick walls was trying to find out whether my Brotman great-grandparents, Joseph and Bessie, were related to the Brotmans who settled in southern New Jersey in the 1890s and founded the town that is called Brotmanville. My Aunt Elaine had told my cousin Jody and her husband Joel that Joseph had had a brother who moved to New Jersey where the town was named after him. Through my research and contacts with members of the Brotmanville Brotman family, I learned that Moses Brotman, a contemporary of Joseph Brotman, also had a father named Abraham and also was from Galicia, as was Joseph. The Brotmanville Brotmans believed that Moses was from Przemyl, which is about 100 miles from Tarnobrzeg. But none of us had any documentation of the family in Galicia or anything more than anecdotal evidence of a connection or birthplace.
My aunt’s story about Brotmanville
So last spring I decided to try DNA testing to see if I could break through this brick wall. My first thought was to do a Y-DNA test on a male descendant of Moses and a male descendant of Joseph. It had to be a father-son-grandson-great-grandson connection to get a reliable Y chain as Y DNA is only passed from fathers to sons. I found one great-grandson of Moses Brotman who qualified and also asked one of my second cousins who was a direct male descendant of Joseph. We had the tests done by Family Tree DNA or FTDNA. It took about three months for both test results to return, and it showed that my Moses descendant Larry and my Joseph descendant Bruce shared 34 of 37 markers on their Y-DNA.
English: A DNA microarray. Français : Une puce à ADN. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had no clue what that meant. According to a woman who works for FTDNA, it meant that there is a high likelihood of “some genetic connection,” especially since the two lines share the same surname, Brotman. By “some genetic connection,” she meant that at some point in time the NY Brotmans had a common ancestor with the Brotmanville Brotmans. It might have been as recently as Abraham Brotman, the father of Joseph and perhaps the father of Moses, or it might have been centuries ago. The fact that Bruce and Larry have 34 out of 37 markers that were identical indicates that there is some family tie—but those three different markers suggest that there were mutations. Those mutations might have occurred between Bruce and his father or his father and his grandfather or even earlier. Or they might have been on Larry’s side. There was no way to know from the Y DNA results alone.
So my contact at FTDNA suggested that the next step would be to try a different DNA test called an autosomal DNA test, which is better at predicting the degree of connection—i.e., would better tell us whether Joseph and Moses were brothers, both sons of the same Abraham Brotman. My contact at FTDNA said that if we could get two of the grandchildren of Joseph and Moses to take the autosomal test, it would tell us if they are likely second cousins.
As I understand it (and remember the disclaimer above), autosomal DNA is DNA we inherit from both of our parents. We got an X from our mothers and either a Y or an X from our fathers to determine our sex. The other 22 pairs of chromosomes are also made up of genetic material we get from both parents, and those 22 pairs are our autosomal DNA. But it is not obvious which half of each pair came from which parent. This is where I start getting that deer in headlights look and feel.
But what I’ve been told and what I’ve read indicates that autosomal DNA testing is quite useful in figuring out the degree of relationship between two people. So I asked Elaine, Moses’ granddaughter, and my mother, Joseph’s granddaughter, if they would take the autosomal DNA test through FTDNA, called the Family Finder test. If the test showed that they were second cousins, we would have fairly strong evidence that their grandfathers, Moses and Joseph, were brothers. My mother and Elaine agreed to take the test, and once again we waited for results.
English: The structure of DNA showing with detail showing the structure of the four bases, adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, and the location of the major and minor groove. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Those results came in about a week ago. First, I got Elaine’s results, and then a few days later, I received my mother’s results. And they matched! FTDNA predicts their relationship to be second cousins! Of course, this is not definitive proof. DNA testing is just a prediction, but at this degree of closeness, it is considered quite strong evidence, especially with the anecdotal evidence behind it, that is, the shared surnames, the shared father’s name, my aunt’s story, etc. Elaine and my mother share 334 centimorgans. That seems to suggest close cousins.
And then there was more. Although Elaine and my mother were each other’s closest matches, my mother had a second very close match to a woman named Frieda. She shared 292 centimorgans with Frieda, and Frieda was another predicted second cousin. But Elaine was not a close match to Frieda, although she was listed as a possible third to fifth cousin. So who was this Frieda? The FTDNA page listed Brod as one of her ancestral names and one of her ancestral towns as Radomysl nad Sanem, which is about 20 miles from Tarnobrzeg, where I believe Joseph and Bessie lived.
I emailed the person in charge of Frieda’s results, her niece Phyllis, and we have now started trying to figure out how Frieda is related to my mother. Since Frieda is listed as a likely second cousin, she could have shared a great-grandparent with my mother. But since Frieda is not as close a match to Elaine, they did not share a great-grandparent. That could mean that Frieda and my mother are both the great-granddaughters of the parents of Bessie Brot/Brotman whereas my mother and Elaine are both the great-granddaughters of the parents of Joseph Brotman and Moses Brotman.
And since Bessie was Joseph’s first cousin, that could explain why Elaine is a more distant cousin than my mother is to Frieda but still related to both. Elaine is not directly descended from Bessie’s line, but is directly descended from Moses Brotman, who would also have been Bessie’s first cousin if Moses and my great-grandfather Joseph were brothers. Elaine would have some of the same genetic material as Frieda as a third cousin, but not as much as she has with my mother, her presumed second cousin.
A screenshot of the chromosome browser showing where on my mother’s chromosomes Elaine and Frieda match her DNA
Have I lost you yet? I am trying to create a chart and will post it once I am sure I have it right.
This was incredible news for me. First, finding the connection between Elaine and my mother was corroborating evidence of our tie to the Brotmanville Brotmans. Second, finding Frieda gives me an opening to find out more about Bessie and Joseph and where they lived.
But I am once again at a stumbling block. Phyllis knows only that her great-grandmother, Frieda’s grandmother, was named Sabina Brod and was from Radomysl nad Sanem. She does not know anything more about Sabina’s family—who her parents were or who her siblings were. Sabina moved to Germany with her husband in the early 20th century and died there in the 1930s. As far as Phyllis knew, Sabina had no relatives who were in the US. Neither Phyllis nor I have found any definite records of our Brod or Brodman or Brotman relatives in Galicia.
So for now all we have is the DNA results. And I am struggling to understand them and to learn more from them. And it is a struggle for me. If there is anyone out there reading this who is comfortable with this type of data, I’d love an advisor who can assist me.
But for now it feels like I have found another opening into the mystery of my Brotman ancestors. I feel one step closer to knowing where they lived and who their families were.
English: DNA replication or DNA synthesis is the process of copying a double-stranded DNA molecule. This process is paramount to all life as we know it. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
For my first 2015 post, I have some wonderful new photos from my cousin Lou. These are photos he scanned from our mutual cousin Marjorie’s photo collection, but we don’t yet know who some of the people are in these photos. We are hoping Marjorie will be able to tell us. Some of these are quite intriguing as I am hoping that they will be photographs of family members I’ve never seen before.
For example, here is a photograph of my great-grandmother, Eva Seligman Cohen, wife of Emanuel Cohen, daughter of Bernard Seligman and Frances Nusbaum. But who is the man to her right? And who is the little boy to her left? Or is the little boy a little girl? Possibly Marjorie?
I showed my father the photograph, and he could not identify either person. Could the man be Emanuel Cohen, my great-grandfather? That would be the first photograph I’ve ever seen of him. The little boy might be one of my father’s first cousins, Maurice Cohen, Junior, or Emanuel “Buddy” Cohen. If the older man is Emanuel, the photograph had to be taken in 1926 or before, as he died in February, 1927, and this is a photograph taken in the summertime. Junior was born in 1917, Buddy in 1922, so it is possible that this is my great-grandparents standing with one of their grandsons. I hope Marjorie can help us.
Here is another photograph of that little boy. The man to his left is Stanley Cohen, my great-uncle, Marjorie’s father.
But who is the man to his right? Could it be my other great-uncle, Maurice Cohen, Senior? I’ve never seen a picture of him nor have I seen a picture of either of his two sons, Junior and Buddy. Maurice died in 1931; if this was taken in 1926 or so, this certainly could be him. Maurice would have been 38 in 1926, Stanley would have been 37.
Finally, there is this photograph of the little boy.
Who is that man? It’s not the same man standing with my great-uncle Stanley in the prior photograph. He seems to be a fair amount younger than both that other man and Stanley.
All those photographs seem to have been taken on the same day in Atlantic City, maybe around the same time as this photograph taken in 1932:
![y Sg647112c (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/256px-table_of_consanguinity_showing_degrees_of_relationship.png)
![By Citynoise (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/coefficient_of_relatedness.png)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/flora-simon-mayer-death-cert.jpg)
![By Doug Coldwell (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/furs_inside_fur_stores.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/jeanette-dreyfuss-nusbaum-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/miriam-nusbaum-death-cert.jpg)
![Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1963 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://brotmanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/julius-nusbaum-death-certificate.jpg)
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 
