John Nusbaum 1814-1889: The Family Patriarch

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Amy

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 20^th 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 11^th 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 11^th 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.

One More Chapter in the 1870s: Ernst Nusbaum and Family

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Amy

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 6^th 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:

Bankrptcy of Adler Nusbaum Dec 5 1870 phil inq p 3

The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 5, 1870, p. 3

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 6^th 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.

jacob hano bankruptcy cleveland plain dealer may 15 1878 p 4

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 15, 1878, p. 4

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.

Description: Postcard of Youngstown Sheet & Tube (early 20th century) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2105-Green-St-APT-1F-Philadelphia-PA-19130/2111706977_zpid/

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.

This is NOT a test even if it looks and sounds like one!

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Amy

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!

Brotman Update! The Trials and Tribulations of DNA Testing

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Amy

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 20^th 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)

Who is the little boy?

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Amy

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:

Eva M. Cohen, center, 1932 (Arthur Seligman, right)

It looks like my great-grandmother was wearing the same or a similar hat and outfit to those she was wearing in the first photograph.

I am anxious to hear what Lou learns from Marjorie when he sees her.

2014 in review: Thanks and Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Amy

As 2014 draws to a close, I look back with gratitude for all the wonderful things I have experienced this year.

First and foremost, on June 5, 2014, my grandson Remy Brandon Fischer was born. He is now almost seven months old, sitting up, playing with toys, and enchanting all of us with his calm nature and sweet disposition. Remy and Nate continue to be constant sources of joy in my life.

My family has grown in other ways as well. Not only have there been new babies across my family lines, I have found more and more new cousins. This was a year when in April, we had an amazing reunion of the Brotman cousins in New York City. I got to meet several of my second cousins for the first time as well as their significant others and some of their children. It was definitely a major highlight of 2014 for me. I am hoping we can do it again soon, and I am also beginning to think about a reunion for the Rosenzweig/Goldschlager cousins also.

Ten of Joseph and Bessie's great-grandchildren on the Lower East Side

Ten of the great-grandchildren of Joseph and Bessie Brotman having lunch on the Lower East Side

On the Rosenzweig/Goldschlager side, I had a great time having lunch with my cousin Linda and her husband Harvey in Boston.

I have also been blessed with many other new cousins whom I have yet to meet in person, but with whom I have skyped, talked on the phone, or emailed. My cousin Pete has been a wonderful friend and colleague as we shared the adventures of learning about our Seligman ancestors. Gracias, mi primo, for it all. Talking to my cousin Marjorie was a special treat, as was skyping with my cousin Richard in Australia, talking to my cousin Jean in Georgia, my cousin Barry in Florida, my cousin Lois and her brother Paul, my Selinger cousins,my Kohl cousins, my Cole cousins, my Bacharach cousins, and my Cohen cousins! Thanks also to Lou for the wonderful photos of my Cohen relatives. All of these conversations and email exchanges have made this year meaningful and interesting.

In addition, I have been blessed by the help and friendship of so many genealogy researchers this year. I cannot list them all, but special thanks to my fellow bloggers Wendy, Su, Leslie (Pancho), Luanne, Alex, Stephen, Jana, Mary Anne, Charles, and all the other bloggers who have read and commented on the blog and also provided me with useful tips and research insights. And thanks to all those who have helped through JewishGen or ancestry or Facebook like Dorothee, Beate, Walter, Ralph, Ned, Renee, Matthias, and many, many others who have helped me in my search. I apologize for any names I haven’t mentioned, but the list is so long that my aging brain cells cannot retain all the names.

Thanks to all my followers and readers, whether you comment or not, whether you read once a year or every post. Although I like to think I am writing for posterity—for the future generations who cannot even read yet, it means a lot and makes doing this more fulfilling knowing that there are people out there who are reading what I write. Special thanks to my brother Ira aka my medical consultant and to Laurel aka my consultant on matters of crime and mystery and to my cousin Jody, who found my aunt’s notes on the Brotman family trees and sent me all the old family photographs from her basement.

Family Tree drawn by Elaine Goldschlager Lehbraum

And extra special thanks to my parents, who read every post, answer every question, listen to every boring detail, and support everything I do as they always have.

My daughters may not read every post, or even most posts, but I continue to hope that someday in the future they will be interested in knowing more about their family history and will have this resource to turn to for answers. My daughters are in my head and in my heart with every word I write, every document I find, and every photo I share. This is ultimately for them whether they know it or not.

And finally, for Harvey. Thank you for putting up with my obsession, for supporting it, for listening and hearing, for sharing in the journey, and for taking joy in knowing that this is something that gives me great joy and satisfaction. As with everything in our lives, I could not do this without your love and support.

Luna

The year did, of course, have its sad moments. For me, the loss of my beloved cat Luna still makes my heart ache, but those sad moments just make me that much more grateful for all the happy times that far outweigh the sad times. In addition to my genealogy adventures, I got to go to the Florida Keys twice this year and spent a great summer on the Cape. I retired from a job I loved with no regrets, and I am now able to spend my days choosing what to do and when to do it. I’ve found some meaningful volunteer activities and more time, of course, to research and blog. I’ve even started writing a novel, something I’ve always dreamed of doing.

So it’s been an amazing year in many ways, and I look forward to another productive and fascinating year ahead in 2015. Coming soon—a big breakthrough on my Brotman line! And more about the Nusbaums, and then on to my father’s maternal lines.

I close with this annual report prepared by the WordPress.com people. Thank you one and all, and happy New Year! May this be a year of happiness, health, fulfillment, and love for you all.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Back to the Real World and the 1870s…

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Amy

And I am back from vacation. We had a wonderful time, and not having reliable internet access may have been a blessing. I couldn’t do any new research or posting to the blog so my brain had a chance to clear. Always a good thing. I did, however, have one more post “in the bank” that I prepared before I left, so here it is. I was awaiting a few more documents, hoping they would answer a few questions, and I received some while away that I have just reviewed.

I wish I could post a somewhat more uplifting post for the holiday season, but I can’t deny the sad fact that some of my relatives suffered considerable sadness in their lives. On the other hand, researching and writing about the families of Leopold Nusbaum and his sister Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel only made me appreciate all my blessings. So in that sense it is perhaps appropriate. Nothing can make you appreciate all you have more than realizing how little others have.

So here is the story of two of the Nusbaum siblings, one of the brothers and one of the sisters of my three-times great-grandfather John Nusbaum.

Leopold Nusbaum had died in 1866 when he was 58 years old, leaving his widow Rosa and daughter Francis (how she apparently spelled it for most of her life) behind. Leopold and Rosa had lost a son, Adolph, who died when he was just a young boy. Francis was only 16 when her father died. After Leopold died, Rosa and Francis moved from Harrisburg to Philadelphia and were living in 1870 with Rosa’s brother-in-law, John Nusbaum.

Late in 1870, Francis Nusbaum married Henry N. Frank. Henry, the son of Nathan and Caroline Frank, was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where Leopold’s brother Maxwell Nusbaum and his family had once lived before relocating to Harrisburg. Henry’s father Nathan Frank was in the dry goods business, so the Nusbaums and Franks might have known each other from those earlier times. Nathan, Caroline, and their children had relocated to Philadelphia by 1870 and were living on Franklin Avenue right near the Simons, Wilers, and other members of the Nusbaum/Dreyfuss clan. Perhaps that is how Francis and Henry met, if not from an earlier family connection.

Not long after they were married, Henry and Francis must have moved back to Lewistown because their first child, Leopold, was born there on August 11, 1871. Leopold was obviously named for Francis’ father. A second child, Senie, was born in May 1876, and then another, Cora, was born in 1877. In 1880, Henry and Francis were living in Lewistown with their three young children as well as Francis’ mother Rosa and Henry’s father Nathan. Maybe Nathan was shuttling back and forth between Lewistown and Philadelphia because he is listed on the 1880 census in both places, once with Henry and Francis and then again with Caroline and their other children. Both Henry and his father Nathan listed their occupations as merchants.

Lewistown Town Square By KATMAAN (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

Lewistown Town Square
By KATMAAN (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Unfortunately, there is not much else I can find about Henry, Francis, or their children during the 1870s because Lewistown does not appear to have any directories on the ancestry.com city directory database. Lewistown’s population in 1880 was only a little more than three thousand people, which, while a 17% increase from its population of about 2700 in 1870, is still a fairly small town. It is about 60 miles from Harrisburg, however, and as I’ve written before, well located for trade, so the Frank family must have thought that it was still a good place to have a business even if the rest of the family had relocated to Philadelphia.

Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiels’ family is better documented. She and her husband Isaac had settled and stayed in Harrisburg, which is where they were living as the 1870s began. Isaac was working as a merchant. Both of their children were out of the house. Adolph was living in Peoria at the same address as his cousin Julius Nusbaum and working with him in John Nusbaum’s dry goods store in that city. On January 4, 1871, Adolph Dinkelspiel married Nancy Lyon in Peoria, and their daughter Eva was born a year later on January 25, 1872. Adolph and Nancy remained in Peoria, and by 1875 Adolph was listed as the “superintendent” of John Nusbaum’s store. (Julius does not appear in the 1875 directory, though he does reappear in Peoria in 1876.)

On November 28, 1879, his daughter Eva died from scarlet fever. She was not quite eight years old. Adolph and Nancy did not have other children, and this must have been a devastating loss.

In fact, shortly thereafter Adolph, who had been in Peoria for over sixteen years, and Nancy, who was born there and still had family there, left Peoria and relocated to Philadelphia. On the 1880 census, Adolph was working as a clothing salesman and Nancy as a barber. (At least that’s what I think it says. What do you think?) Perhaps Adolph and Nancy left to find better opportunities or perhaps they left to escape the painful memories. Whatever took them away from Peoria, however, was enough that they never lived there again.

Adolph and Nancy did not remain in Philadelphia for very long, however. By 1882 Adolph and Nancy had relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where Adolph worked as a bookkeeper for many years. They remained in St. Louis for the rest of their lives. Adolph died on November 25, 1896, and Nancy less than a year and a half later on March 5, 1898. Adolph was only 53, and Nancy was not even fifty years old.

My cousin-by-marriage Ned Lewison sent me a copy of Nancy’s obituary from the March 7, 1898 Peoria Evening Star. It reported the following information about Nancy and Adolph Dinkelspiel:

“She married Adolph Dinkelspiel, at that time manager of the Philadelphia store on the corner of Main and Adams Street, one of the leading dry goods houses in Peoria. When the house failed, they removed to St. Louis and lived happily together until the death of Mr. Dinkelspiel, when his widow came to this city. But she preferred St. Louis for a residence, and although she made frequent visits to Peoria, she did not take up residence here.”

I found two points of interest in this obituary. One, there is no mention of their daughter Eva. And two, it reveals that the Nusbaum store in Peoria had closed, prompting Nancy and Adolph to relocate. Thus, Adolph and Nancy not only suffered a terrible personal loss, like many others in the family and in the country, they were negatively affected by the economic conditions of the 1870s.

Nancy and Adolph are both buried, along with their daughter Eva, in Peoria. Only death, it seems, could bring them back to Peoria.

Adolph’s sisters Paulina and Sophia Dinkelspiel did not have lives quite as sad as that of their brother, but they did have their share of heartbreak. Sophia, who had married Herman Marks in 1869, and was living in Harrisburg, had a child Leon who was born on October 15, 1870. Leon died when he was just two years old on October 24, 1872. I do not know the cause of death because the only record I have for Leon at the moment is his headstone. (Ned’ s research uncovered yet another child who died young, May Marks, but I cannot find any record for her.)

Sophia and Herman did have three other children in the 1870s who did survive: Hattie, born May 30, 1873, just seven months after Leon died; Jennie, born August 24, 1876; and Edgar, born August 27, 1879. Herman worked as a clothing merchant, and during the 1870s the family lived at the same address as the store, 435 Market Street in Harrisburg.

Paulina (Dinkelspiel) and Moses Simon, meanwhile, were still in Baltimore in the 1870s. In 1870 Moses was a dealer “in all kinds of leather,” according to the 1870 census. At first I thought that Moses and Paulina had relocated to Philadelphia in 1871 because I found a Moses Simon in the Philadelphia directories for the years starting in 1871 who was living near the other family members and dealing in men’s clothing. But since Moses and Paulina Simon are listed as living in Baltimore for the 1880 census and since Moses was a liquor dealer in Baltimore on that census, I realized that I had been confused and returned to look for Moses in Baltimore directories for that decade.

Sure enough, beginning in 1871 Moses was in the liquor business, making me wonder whether the 1870 census taker had heard “liquor” as “leather.” After all, who says they deal in all kinds of leather? All kinds of liquor makes more sense. Thus, like the other members of the next generation, Adolphus and Simon Nusbaum in Peoria, Leman Simon in Pittsburgh, and Albert Nusbaum in Philadelphia, Moses Simon had become a liquor dealer.



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/114527609

Moses and Paulina had a fourth child in 1872, Nellie. The other children of Moses and Paulina were growing up in the 1870s. By the end of the decade, Joseph was eighteen, Leon was fourteen, Flora was twelve, and little Nellie was eight.

Ned Lewison, my more experienced colleague and Dinkelspiel cousin, found a fifth child Albert born in 1875 who died August 25, 1876 and a sixth child Miriam born in July 1877 who died October 30, 1878, both of whom are buried at Oheb Shalom cemetery in Harrisburg, where their parents would also later be buried. Thus, Paulina lost two babies in the 1870s. For her parents, Mathilde and Isaac, that meant the deaths of four grandchildren in the 1870s alone.

As for Mathilde and Isaac Dinkelspiel themselves, although they began and ended the decade in Harrisburg, my research suggests that for at least part of that decade, they had moved to Baltimore. Isaac has no listing in the 1875 and 1876 Harrisburg directories (there were no directories for Harrisburg on line for the years between 1870 and 1874), but he does show up again in the Harrisburg directories for 1877 and 1878. When I broadened the geographic scope of my search, I found an Isaac Dinkelspiel listed in the Baltimore directories for the years 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875 as a liquor dealer. This seemed like it could not be coincidental. It’s such an unusual name, and Isaac’s son-in-law Moses Simon was a liquor dealer in Baltimore. It seems that for at least four years, Isaac and Mathilde had left Harrisburg for Baltimore, leaving their other daughter Sophia and her husband Herman Marks in charge of the business at 435 Market Street in Harrisburg, where Isaac and Mathilde lived when they returned to Harrisburg in 1877.

Market Street in Harrisburg 1910
By Wrightchr at en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The extended Dinkelspiel family as well as the Nusbaum family suffered another major loss before the end of the decade. According to Ned Lewison’s research, Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel died on June 20, 1878. Another Nusbaum sibling had died, leaving only John and Ernst alive of the original six who had emigrated from Germany to America; Maxwell, Leopold, Isaac, and now Mathilde were gone. Mathilde is buried at Oheb Shalom cemetery in Harrisburg.

What happened to Isaac Dinkelspiel after his wife Mathilde died? Although Isaac appeared in the 1880 Harrisburg directory at 435 Market Street, the same address as his son-in-law Herman and daughter Sophia (Dinkelspiel) Marks, he does not appear with them on the 1880 census at that address. In fact, I cannot find him living with any of his children or anywhere else on the 1880 census, although he is again listed in the Harrisburg directory at 435 Market Street for every year between 1880 and 1889 (except 1881, which is not included in the collection on ancestry.com). I assume the omission from the census is just that—an omission, and that Isaac was in fact living with Sophia and Herman during 1880 and until he died on October 26, 1889, in Harrisburg. He is buried with his wife Mathilde at Oheb Shalom cemetery in Harrisburg.

Thus, the Dinkelspiels certainly suffered greatly in the 18070s. Five children died in the 1870s—Eva Dinkelspiel, May Marks, Leon Marks, Albert Simon, and Miriam Simon. And their grandmother, Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel, also passed away, joining her brothers Maxwell, Leopold, and Isaac, leaving only John and Ernst left of the six Nusbaum siblings who left Schopfloch beginning in the 1840s to come to America.

And so I leave you with this thought as we start looking forward to a New Year. Don’t take your children or your grandchildren for granted. Cherish every moment you get to share with them. And be grateful for modern medicine and the way it has substantially reduced the risks of children being taken from us so cruelly.

The Mystery of Fanny Wiler, Part II: Answers and Questions

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Amy

With limited internet access, I am hampered, but here is Part II.

In Part I, I presented the mystery of my cousin Fanny Wiler. Was she the Fanny Wyler who married Max Michaelis in 1774? Was that Max Michaelis the man who set the awful fire that killed not only him but his daughter Rose in 1884?

Despite hours and hours of searching, I still did not know for certain that the 1874 wedding was that of my cousin Fanny Wiler. But I was feeling pretty certain. I thought my Fanny had married Max Michaels, the one who was laborer, who had died sometime before 1890 and who had lived at 2133 East Thompson Street. I was even pretty sure that this was the Max Michaels who killed himself and little Rose in the fire. But then where were Fanny and Max in 1880? I felt I was getting close. But not close enough. After the mistakes I made in my assumptions about Milton Josephs, I knew I needed to be more certain before I could reach any conclusions.

I had to find Max on that 1880 census. I felt that if I found him with a wife named Fanny and a daughter Isabella and one more child (since Rose would not have been born yet in 1882), I’d be at least one step closer. I once again tried every trick I knew to try and find who was living at 2133 East Thompson Street on the 1880 census. And then I got smart. I turned to the genealogy village. There is a Facebook group for Philadelphia genealogy. Certainly someone there would know something about Philadelphia geography and perhaps be able to help me?

You see, East Thompson Street is a very, very long street that runs many miles through Philadelphia. There were probably a hundred EDs that included some portion of East Thompson Street. Steve Morse’s site had given me about ten that were supposed to include the address of 2133, and I’d spent hours reading through those and never saw one address close to 2133. Maybe someone in the Facebook group could help?

Sure enough, within ten minutes of posting my question, Ann, a member of that group had an answer. And it wasn’t simply an answer to the geography question. She had located the family living at 2133 East Thompson Street on the 1880 census. And their names? Mex Mcles is how it was indexed on ancestry.com. Mex?? Mcles?? Sigh. No wonder I hadn’t found it.

Max, Fanny, Isabella and Charles Michaels 1880 census Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1184; Family History Film: 1255184; Page: 52A; Enumeration District: 521; Image: 0106

Anyway, I was elated. I had the family. Max worked in a glue factory and was 36 years old, thus born in 1844, so a bit younger than the Max on the marriage record and the Max who set the fire in 1884, but given the address, this was the same Max from the directories. His wife was Fannie, aged 32, so born in 1848. Close enough to my Fanny. Isabella was five, so born in 1874-1875. And there was the other child. Charles was three years old, so born in 1876 or 1877. This was the family of the man who set the fire. I was pretty certain of that. The only curveball? The census said both Max and Fannie were born in Germany. My Fanny was born in Pennsylvania. The Fanny on the marriage record was born in Switzerland, not Germany.

My elation was soon tempered with that feeling of uncertainty. OK, this was the Max Michaels who lived on East Thompson, who married a woman named Fanny, who had a daughter named Isabella. This was the same Fanny and Isabella who lived at 918 Hutchinson Street when Isabella died in 1890. But was this my Fanny? Was this the Max who died in the 1884 fire? Did I yet have enough proof?

No. But I had a new person to search. Charles Michaels. The son. The child who was three in 1880. And that opened up some new doors. But they did not give me the answers. Or at least not the answers I wanted.

Searching for Charles Michaels led me to an entry on the 1900 census. In New York City. Not Philadelphia. The Charles Michaels on that census was born in July, 1877, in Pennsylvania. That certainly was a possible match. The listing has Charles living with his mother Fanny Michaels, born November 1846. That certainly could be my Fanny. But born in Switzerland. Hmmm. Like the Fanny Wyler on the marriage record, but not like my Fanny. The Fanny on the 1900 census reported that she had had three children, but only one was alive. That made sense. Rosa had died in the fire, Isabella had died in 1890. Only Charles was alive. I was pretty certain that this was the Fanny Michaels who had lived in Philadelphia and whose husband Max had killed himself and their daughter Rose in a fire.

Except for one problem.

Also listed living with Fanny and Charles in 1900 in New York City? Max Michaels. Born in Germany in 1841. A laborer. That sure sounds like the Max who married Fanny Wyler in 1874 and who lived at 2133 East Thompson Street. But he was supposed to be dead! Fanny had listed herself as a widow on those directories in Philadelphia. I had a death certificate for a Max Michaels who burned himself to death. How could Max be alive? Would the census taker have included Fanny’s long dead husband? By 1900 he had been dead at least ten years, according to the Philadelphia directories, or 16 years if he was the Max who killed himself in the fire. I was mystified. Confused.

Max, Fanny and Charles Michaels on 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1085; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0098; FHL microfilm: 1241085

But I continued on. And I found Fanny Michaels on the 1910 census in NYC. A widow. Living as a boarder with someone named Nettie Rutlinger, also a widow. Both listed their place of birth as Switzerland. Fanny’s age lined up with my Fanny, more or less. It said she was 60, meaning born in 1850. In between the age of my Fanny and the age of the Fanny Wyler on the marriage record. And now Max was dead. If he wasn’t already dead before. I didn’t find a Max Michaels in the NYC death records between 1900 and 1910 or in the Pennsylvania death records for that period. I think the 1900 census taker had just made an error. Perhaps Fanny was asked for her husband’s information and provided it without saying he was dead. I don’t know, but I am 99% sure that the 1900 Fanny is the same Fanny whose husband and daughter died in the fire in 1884.

I could not find Fanny on the 1920 census, so I searched for a death record through the IGG site and found this:

298

Michaels

Fanny

67 y

Jan

1913

502 (1913)

Kings

1845 – 1846

1324260

That sounded like it could be the right Fanny, the wife of Max, mother of Isabella, Charles, and maybe Rosa. I decided to search for a death notice and found this one through the Fulton History website, a collection of old newspapers, mostly from NYC:

Fanny Michaels death notice Brooklyn Eagle 1913

Fanny Michaels death notice Brooklyn Standard Union January 6, 1913 p. 3

So this seemed pretty conclusive. The Fanny who died in 1913 was born in Switzerland. Nettie was her sister, also born in Switzerland. This was NOT my Fanny. It, however, does seem that this Fanny was the one who married Max Michaels in Philadelphia in 1874. She had only come to America a year before. She had been the mother of Isabella and Charles. And maybe Rose. I still don’t know. I still don’t know whether that Fanny was married to the Max Michaels who killed himself and his daughter Rose. But I think so. Except for the fact that he seemed to be alive in 1900.

But I need not look any further because I am now convinced that whoever she was, that Fanny Michaels was not my cousin. She was Fanny Wyler, born in Switzerland, not in Pennsylvania. She, not my Fanny, married Max Michaelis, who was perhaps the same Max Michaels who killed himself and his daughter Rose in a fire.

What do you think?

And meanwhile, where is MY Fanny Wiler? Was she the one working as a servant in 1880? Where was she in 1870 when the rest of her family was living together in Philadelphia?

I have no idea.

For all that work, I am back where I started. I have no idea what happened to my cousin Fanny Wiler. But at least it was an intriguing and challenging ride while it lasted.

But how can I find the real Fanny Wiler? HELP!

The Mystery of Fanny Wiler: A Two Part Saga

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Amy

Here’s a mystery for you to ponder while I take a short break. This is Part I, and I will post Part II within a week. But meanwhile, see if you can solve the mystery.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I was having trouble filling the holes in the story of Fanny Wiler, the daughter of Moses and Caroline (Dreyfuss) Wiler. I still am. Let me tell you what I know and what I think I know, and see if you can add your insights.

What I know for sure: My cousin Fanny Wiler was born in Pennsylvania, probably Harrisburg, in either 1845 or 1846. She is listed as four years old on the 1850 census, living with her parents in Harrisburg, and as fourteen on the 1860 census, living with her parents in Philadelphia.

That is all I know for certain.

Fanny does not appear on the 1870 census with the rest of her family. Her siblings Simon and Clara are listed (Eliza was married by this time), but Fanny is not. Fanny would have been 24 in 1870 and thus possibly married, but I have yet to find a marriage record for her between 1860 and 1870.

I did find a marriage record for a Fanny WYLER to Max Michaelis, dated 1874. I was not sure that this was the same Fanny, not only because the name was spelled differently, but also the record says Fanny was born in Switzerland and that her age was 22. My Fanny was born in Pennsylvania. If Fanny was in fact born in 1846, she would have been 28 in 1874, not 22. But I thought Fanny might have lied about her age; I have seen that many times on marriage records. And I thought maybe she put her father’s birthplace, which was Switzerland, by mistake. So I decided to assume tentatively that this was my Fanny and chase down what I could find about Fanny and Max Michaelis.

Fanny Wyler marriage to Max Michaelis July 12 1874
Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records; Reel: 792

But I could not find Fanny and Max on the 1880 census anywhere. What I did find was a census entry for a Fanny Wiler (correct spelling), aged 24, whose parents were born in Switzerland and Germany. This certainly matches my Fanny except for the age, which is off by ten years. But this Fanny was working as a servant in someone’s home. Could this really be my Fanny? I was not sure.

Fanny Wiler 1880 census
Source Citation
Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1169; Family History Film: 1255169; Page: 243B; Enumeration District: 090; Image: 0495

So I started to search for Max Michaelis. The first thing that came up was a second Philadelphia marriage record for a man with that name to a woman named Donice Coyne in 1876. This was a church record, and it was not at all legible to me. Could Max and Fanny have divorced already, thus explaining Fanny’s return to her birth name? Did women do that back then? It seemed possible. But I could not find any other documentation of Max Michaelis with a Donice Coyne or with anyone with a name even close to resembling Donice. So I put that aside.

When I could not find Max on the 1880, 1900, 1910, etc., census reports in Philadelphia, I started to wonder if he had died. And so I looked for death certificates. And I found this one:

Max Michael death certificate 1884

I was horrified. Could this be the Max who married my cousin? I looked for news articles to learn more and found this one:

A Madman’s Act. How Max Michael Killed His Child and Committed Suicide
Date: Thursday, May 1, 1884 Paper: Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, NJ) Volume: II Issue: 70 Page: 5

Although there were many hits for news articles about this horrific event, they all were essentially the same article. The story was picked up by Associated Press and published in many papers. But none gave more than these bare facts: Max Michael was 40 years old, so the same age as the Max who married Fanny Wyler in 1874. He had been a patient at Norristown State Hospital for the Insane (as it was called then). His wife and three children were living at 945 Leithgow Street in Philadelphia, and one child, Rose, a sixteen month old girl, was killed in the fire. But not one of the articles revealed the name of the wife of Max Michaels or the names of the other two children.

How could I find out if this was the Max who married Fanny Wyler in 1874? I searched for information about the child who died. It did not take long to find the death certificate for the child, Rose. It was heartbreaking to read this certificate. And it did not provide me with the information I needed. There was no indication of the mother’s name, not even her first name, let alone her birth name.

Rose Michael death certificate 1884 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JKQJ-T8Z : accessed 17 December 2014), Rose Michael, 27 Apr 1884; citing , Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 2,069,561.

I then searched for a birth record for Rose. I found a Rosa Michaels, born December 21, 1882, in Philadelphia. This had to be the right child. Right name or close anyway, right age. Father’s name: Max Michaels. Mother’s name: Farmer. Farmer?? I did not have the actual document, just the information listed on FamilySearch. The image itself is not available online, so I ordered the microfilm. It meant a long wait.

You see, the Family History Library has discontinued its free photoduplication service. In fact, there is now no photoduplication service even for a fee. You have to order the microfilm and have it sent to your closest Family History Center. The one closest to me is in Bloomfield, Connecticut. It took me an hour to get there the one time I went (yes, I got lost, and yes, I did not take the highway, but it would still take 45 minutes even if I went the fastest way). And it is only open limited hours during the week. So I ordered the microfilm, but then received a notification that another user had it and it was not available. Arggh. It will get there eventually. But I am not a patient person. How long would it take until I knew whether Farmer was really Fanny? Or was it the mother’s birth surname?

My next step was to use the address where the fire occurred, 945 Leithgow Street, and see if I could find out who lived there at the time of the 1880 census. Although I had had no luck finding Max on that census, maybe if I searched by the address, I would find him with some mangled spelling of his name. I went to stevemorse.org and used his Enumeration District tool, and after many hours of scanning numerous EDs, I finally found 945 Leithgow Street. No luck. Someone else was living there in 1880. Not Max or Fanny or anyone with a name anything like Michael.

Now what? I turned to the Philadelphia city directories. Perhaps I could track Max through the years by looking at every Philadelphia city directory available online. Since only a few listings came up by searching under the name “Max Michael” and since I know these directories are indexed by use of an OCR scanner, I knew that the index might not be completely accurate. So I went year by year, looking through the directories for any listing for a name like Max Michael. Here’s what I found:

1875: Maximilian Michaelis, 140 Noble Street

1876: Maximilian Michaelis, hairworker, on Green Street

1877: no listing found

1878: Max Michaels, laborer, at 2133 East Thompson Street

1879: Same as 1878

1880: Max Michel, peddler, at 1072 Leithgow Stret

1881: Max Michaels, laborer, 2133 East Thompson Street

1882: same

1883: same

1884 through 1889: no listing found

At first I thought that the Max Michel at 1072 Leithgow might be the right Max, but after searching further, I found that there were two different men with similar names, but the Max Michel who lived at 1072 Leithgow was much older and had a wife named Caroline and several children born in the 1860s. So despite the fact that he was living on Leithgow, I eliminated him from consideration.

That left Max Michaels of 2133 East Thompson Street. So I started searching for that address through stevemorse.org. I searched about ten EDs, but not one of them had house numbers even close to 2133. I was stuck.

I decided to try another approach. The 1884 news articles said that Max and his wife had three children. Who were the other two children? Since I had no census reports that included Max for 1880, I had no idea. I decided to search for all people named Michaels born in the 1870s and 1880s in Philadelphia. Ancestry revealed that there was an Isabella Michaels who died in 1890, whose father’s name was Max, mother’s name was Fannie. Bingo! I thought all my problems were solved. I went to Familysearch.org to get the image of that death certificate and was frustrated to see that Fannie’s maiden name was not included. (I also realized that I was so eager to solve this mystery that I was losing sight of the fact that a sixteen year girl had died.)

Isabella Michael death certificate 1890
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12389-23257-67?cc=1320976 : accessed 10 December 2014), 004009728 > image 968 of 1766; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

So was this MY Fanny? It certainly seemed like it was the Max and Fanny who married in 1874, since Isabella was born in 1874. But was that Fanny Wyler the same as my Fanny Wiler? I still didn’t know.

But now I had another clue. Isabella’s residence at her time of death was 918 Hutchinson Street in Philadelphia. But the 1890 US census was destroyed in a fire, so I would not be able to use a census to learn who was living at 918 Hutchinson in 1890 when Isabella died. My best bet was to use the directory database again. Max Michaels had disappeared from those directories in 1884 (the year of that terrible fire that killed a man named Max Michaels). I had been assuming that the Max who had been a laborer and lived as 2133 East Thompson was the one killed in the fire so had stopped searching for him after 1889.

So I started with the 1890 directory this time, and I found a Fannie Michaels, widow of Max, living at 934 Poplar Street (with a separate listing under Max Michaels as a laborer, living at that address, even though he was dead, presumably). But in 1891 there is a Fannie Michels, widow of Max, living at 918 Hutchinson Street, the address where Isabella Michaels had been living when she died in 1890. There was the same listing for 1892. Certainly this was the same Fannie and Max whose daughter Isabella died in 1890. And Max was dead. I thought I was getting closer. Didn’t it all add up? Fannie Michaels had a husband named Max who had died sometime before 1890, and they’d had a daughter Isabella. That much seemed fairly certain.

But was this MY Fanny? I still wasn’t sure because I had no document that included Fanny’s birth name other than the 1874 marriage record for the Fanny Wyler born in Switzerland. But I was getting more and more convinced that Fanny Wyler was my Fanny Wiler, despite the discrepancies. Wouldn’t you have been?

To be continued…

Question mark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lightness in the Dark

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Amy

It’s that time of year again. It’s so cold out, and the roads can be slippery, sometimes with hard-to-see black ice. I tend to stay safely inside, enjoying the warmth and comforts of my home. But the dark and cold can be oppressive, and so I am glad that there are occasions to bring light and joy into our lives during this time of year. It doesn’t help that my last three posts have been rather depressing, no pun intended. Reading and writing about the travails of the Nusbaum clan in the 1870s has not been uplifting, to say the least, though it has been interesting.

So I am grateful that Hanukah is starting tonight and that we get to light candles and bring more light into our homes. The candles kindle memories of my children lighting the menorah over the years, and now they enhance the images of my grandsons’ faces as we light the candles. The songs, the dreidels, the latkes—all signify joyfulness to me on a personal level and also triumph over all kinds of darkness on a historical and universal level.



Embed from Getty Images

And I am grateful also for the Christmas lights. Yes, the Christmas lights. It may not be my holiday, but the lights and trees and wreaths and music are uplifting as well. They also brighten these cold and dark days. I may not have Santa Claus coming to my house, but I can still share the excitement that so many children (and their parents) feel about his upcoming visit down their chimneys.

English: Christmas lights Nederlands: Kerstverlichting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



I am also grateful that I will be getting a break from the ice and cold (though not the darkness) when we head out of town later this week.  The thought of a break from scarves, gloves, hats, and heavy coats is indeed enough to make me smile.

So the blog may be quiet for a bit as I enjoy a short escape from the New England winter. I have one more post about the 1870s that I will finish before the end of the week, and perhaps I will have a few thoughts to post while away, but the research will have to wait.

Let me take this chance then to wish you all a wonderful holiday season—whether you celebrate Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, something else, or no holiday at all. Enjoy any and all of the lights that diminish the darkness of these short winter days. And may 2015 bring us all good health, happiness, and peace. I still believe that peace is possible, despite all the darkness of all kinds that surrounds us all.

Empire State Building exhibiting decorative lights for both Chanukah and Christmas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

John Nusbaum 1814-1889: The Family Patriarch

One More Chapter in the 1870s: Ernst Nusbaum and Family

This is NOT a test even if it looks and sounds like one!

Brotman Update! The Trials and Tribulations of DNA Testing

Who is the little boy?

2014 in review: Thanks and Happy New Year!

Back to the Real World and the 1870s…

The Mystery of Fanny Wiler, Part II: Answers and Questions

The Mystery of Fanny Wiler: A Two Part Saga

Lightness in the Dark

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